‘Witness X,’ the second episode of ‘Scientology Black Ops,’ a special 7NEWS Australia investigation that was cancelled by the network in July, has been leaked to the Internet.
Ten episodes were scheduled to be published to the 7NEWS website on July 14 when the network changed its mind, cancelled the program, and also pulled down a trailer it had made for the series. On Monday, we found that the first episode in the series had been leaked, and we embedded it along with a transcript we prepared.
We’ve done the same for this episode, in which 7NEWS reporter Bryan Seymour reports on Scientology’s ‘Fair Game’ retaliation campaign against director Paul Haggis, who left the church in 2009 and was the subject of a 2011 New Yorker article and a 2015 HBO documentary.
In 2010, at the same time that he was visiting the US and was being shown around Scientology facilities, Seymour has learned that spokesman Tommy Davis was also trying to dig up dirt on Haggis and was pressuring a former Screen Actors Guild employee to access Haggis’s private file. Seymour refers to the SAG employee as Witness X, and describes how she reached out to Paul’s ex-wife, actress Deborah Rennard, after the news of Haleigh Breest’s rape allegations against Haggis surfaced in 2018.
Here’s the video, and then the transcript. (For those confused by the length of these short “episodes,” please keep in mind that this was a nightly news investigation and these segments were created to run during a news broadcast, not as longer shows on their own.)
[UPDATE: After a request from attorneys representing Seven News, we have removed the embed links to the leaked ‘Scientology Black Ops’ episodes. See our reasons why in this story.]
Episode title: WITNESS X
Scientology video narrator: Haleigh Breest, a young publicist…Came forward, with explosive allegations against him, of assault and rape.
Bryan Seymour: In early 2018, a story appeared claiming Paul Haggis is a rapist and a predator, immediately compared to Harvey Weinstein, the poster boy for all that’s evil in the #MeToo movement.
CBC News: She was petrified and felt terrified, the lawsuit says, as he became sexually aggressive. She repeatedly told him, no. Haggis quickly denied the allegation. He filed his own lawsuit, accusing the woman of extortion.
Deborah Rennard: I’m Deborah Rennard. I was an actress for many years, now I’m a playwright and a singer, and I was in Scientology for over 40 years.
J.R. Ewing: What’s Beaumont doing on the door, I thought I told you to take it off.
Rennard: Yes, sir. The workmen are coming tomorrow.
Seymour: Deborah Rennard found fame as the secretary to J.R. Ewing on the hit television series ‘Dallas.’ She was in a relationship with Paul Haggis for nearly 20 years, and is still close to her ex-husband. [To Rennard] Paul said he expected, and he predicted in that New Yorker article, ‘in a few years you’ll see some scandal about me that won’t appear to have anything to do with Scientology.’
Rennard: Yeah.
Seymour: He says he knew it was coming. Did you know it was coming?
Rennard: Well, I didn’t know but I was afraid. Pretty quickly I thought, oh my God, this is probably the church, you know. I mean, this is exactly what they do, and you know he went after them in a big way, and they don’t take kindly to that. And they do not stop until they destroy their enemies.
Seymour: We can reveal that before any of these appalling #MeToo-style allegations emerged, Scientology was busy executing its plan to destroy the career and reputation of Paul Haggis by unearthing embarrassing personal information. They looked far and wide. [Image of the SAG-AFTRA building.] It is the biggest and most powerful entertainment union in the world, the Screen Actors Guild. Today, SAG-AFTRA has 160,000 members, among them some of Scientology’s celebrities and creatives. Every member has a file, a unique record of their experience in the industry. But its value depends on the confidentiality and the security of the information it contains. Any attack on that confidence is an attack not just on an individual, but on the establishment trusted with protecting those in front of and behind the camera of the shows and productions loved by billions around the world. Soon after the first accusation against Paul Haggis surfaced in 2018, a person we’ll call Witness X wrote this letter to his ex-wife Deborah, who still works closely with him.
Witness X: Around the time of Paul Haggis’s departure from Scientology I received a call from Scientology senior executive and spokesperson Tommy Davis. I was still in the church. Tom knew that I had worked at Screen Actors Guild years before. He told me he needed me to go to Paul’s SAG production files and find any claims or complaints regarding him being aggressive, screaming or violent behavior — namely with women. He asked I provided him with copies. The idea was so outrageous to me, I told him flat out no. I would never do that. Those files are highly confidential.
Rennard: Tommy Davis had called a Scientologist who was working for a union, Screen Actors Guild, who was a friend of ours, and asked her to see if there was anything in Paul’s file, to see if there was basically any dirt that they could use on Paul.
Witness X: He continued to push the subject and asked whom at SAG I could get to do it or if my former boss [redacted] (fellow Scientologist at the time) would know anything. Again, I flatly refused. When it was clear to him that was a dead end, he asked if I had heard any rumors or any dirt at all on Paul. I told him ‘no.’ He made a couple of additional attempts to follow up which I avoided and he eventually stopped. I feared that refusing to cooperate would have ramifications. In fact, I was so terrified to speak about it again, I’d only do so in the privacy of a locked car.
Rennard: You know it’s so hard, you know, when you’re a Scientologist. Even having left, you know, and the stories that you hear, you still think, really? They really do those things? And you certainly don’t think it would happen to you, or to someone close to you. But yeah, when you hear that you go ‘Oh my God, these people really are as ruthless as you’ve heard.’
[Footage of outburst between Tommy Davis and BBC reporter John Sweeney who famously screams, “You were not there at the beginning of that interview! You were not there!”]
Seymour: Tommy grew up in Scientology, the son of a wealthy financier and the actress Anne Archer, here being interviewed by me on top of Scientology’s Celebrity Centre as Tommy stands watchfully nearby. He rose through the ranks of the church to become a close confidant of the leader, David Miscavige, who appointed him global spokesman for Scientology in around 2006. [In 2010: “And there’s Tommy, good-day, all right.”] I met Tommy and his mother when Scientology invited me inside their most secret facilities in Los Angeles and Florida in 2010 in an attempt to win me over to their way of thinking. [With E-meter. “This is quite a privilege, actually having you handle the machine while I’m holding the cans. A lot of Scientologists would kill for this opportunity.” Tommy: “I wouldn’t get too excited about it, Bryan.”] For more than a week I was led on a personal tour by Tommy through Scientology’s inner sanctum. [In elevator: “How do you reckon it would all go if the elevator, we were trapped here for two days in the elevator. How do you reckon we’d…” Jessica Feshbach: “I’d probably kill myself.” Bryan: “You’d probably kill yourself?” Jessica: “I’m just kidding.”]
Davis in 2010: What the meter does is it passes a very light current through the body. You can’t feel it, it’s less than a watch battery. Then thought actually has weight or mass to it, and so when somebody thinks of something that has, potentially, some significance…
Seymour: Thought has a weight or a mass to it.
Davis: Yeah.
Seymour: That’s a theory though isn’t it.
Davis: Well, that’s how we operate…
Seymour: That’s a belief. That’s a belief, isn’t it. That’s not been proven in science, has it. Thought doesn’t have weight or mass in science.
Davis: This is a religion, it’s not a science.
Seymour: No, that’s what I mean.
Davis: Yeah. So it passes a current through the body and then when somebody thinks of something, it puts resistance on that current, and that’s what registers here on the meter.
Seymour: So in fact if…supposing that thought doesn’t have weight or a mass, then that would render this machine useless.
Davis: Uh, yeah, OK. What’s the point?
Seymour: No, I’m just, that is the point, I’m just making that point.
Davis: OK, good.
Seymour: OK.
Davis: Yeah.
Seymour in 2020: In one sense it’s possible to feel sorry for Tommy. He was raised and groomed in Scientology. Now I realize that while I was spending all this time with Tommy, and he was espousing Scientology’s virtues, criticizing those he claimed acted immorally, Tommy was right in the middle of trying to access information about Paul Haggis as part of an operation to destroy his reputation. This was clearly asking someone to…
Haggis: To break the law.
Seymour: To break the law.
Haggis: Yes, and I don’t think it was asking. I don’t think there was any asking involved. I think it was, it was as coercive as you can get.
Seymour: For the purpose of attacking you.
Haggis: Yeah. Yeah.
Seymour: With regard to women.
Haggis: Yes. And violence. Yes.
Seymour: What went off in your head when you heard that?
Haggis: I mean, of course they would do that. Of course they would. They’ve done it to others before.
Tony Ortega: Scientology has decades of a track record of doing this kind of operation. Breaking into files. I am Tony Ortega, I’m editor of The Underground Bunker. I’m the former editor in chief of The Village Voice. I have been writing about Scientology since 1995. In the case of Paulette Cooper they literally broke into her psychiatrist’s office to steal her files in order to get dirt on her. That was in 1975, OK? That was 40 years ago.
Seymour: Scientology says those were the bad old days and there were a few bad seeds, that couldn’t and doesn’t happen now.
Ortega: Right. They always say that but it’s just not true. I mean, they cannot change what L. Ron Hubbard told them to do, he’s dead. He laid out all these policies between 1955 and 1967, and they’re still following them to the letter today.
L. Ron Hubbard: It was like I started an avalanche.
Seymour: We are not suggesting Tommy Davis has done anything illegal. And he has not been investigated or charged with any crime. He denies any involvement in an alleged plot against Paul Haggis. You can read his full statement on our website. Next: Kidnapped in broad daylight.
Tristan Silverman: They were all like around me, and there was people everywhere, you know.
Seymour: A former Scientologist reveals for the first time how she was drawn into the operation to destroy Paul Haggis.
——————–
Hearing postponed in the Danny Masterson civil lawsuit
For a few weeks, we’ve been watching competing motions get filed in anticipation of a crucial early test of the lawsuit that Danny Masterson’s accusers have filed against him. Masterson responded with a “demurrer” that was scheduled to be heard today, but last night we got news that the hearing has been postponed by Judge Steven Kleified to near the end of the month.
That may actually be advantageous to the women suing Masterson and Scientology: Before the hearing comes up again, Masterson would have faced his arraignment in the criminal case against him, which is scheduled for September 18. Our understanding is that as the criminal case moves forward, it will dislodge information that may help the prospects of the civil lawsuit as well.
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“I found out very early I could bully people into having sonic, visio, and everything else. I don’t know what I was doing. I guess I was handling their engrams for them and I guess cutting down their self determinism; maybe turning them back into GEs. I swear, I look back on it, I might occasionally have turned off a thetan, put him sound asleep and turned the GE full on and the fellow was happy as a clam thereafter.” — L. Ron Hubbard, September 4, 1952
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“Just a note to say that I fully support the ban of Justin Craig’s pseudo-Scientology. LRH was quite clear in stating that after OT8 come actual OT levels, not more chasing of negative gain cosmologies. I suggested earlier that Craig could possibly be a BT from LRH’s left testicle.”
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“You should watch me play Jeopardy when I’m properly medicated.”
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker
Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Arraignment scheduled for September 18.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay’s sentencing is set for October 5 in White Plains, NY. Jeffrey’s is set for October 24.
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Next pretrial conference set for Jan 12 in Los Angeles
— Dennis Nobbe, Medicare fraud, PPP loan fraud: Charged July 29, bond raised to $350,000 on Aug 27.
Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Oral arguments were heard on July 30 at the Eleventh Circuit
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Motion for reconsideration denied on August 11
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Sept 4 (CSI/RTC demurrer against Riales, Masterson demurrer), Oct 7-19 (motions to compel arbitration)
— Jane Doe v. Scientology (in Miami): Jane Doe dismissed the lawsuit on May 15 after the Clearwater Police dropped their criminal investigation of her allegations.
— Matt and Kathy Feschbach bankruptcy appeal: Oral arguments were heard on March 11 in Jacksonville
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Second amended complaint filed, trial set for Nov 9, 2021.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, awaiting verdict.
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Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!
We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.
Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!
Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!
Scientology’s sneaky front groups, spreading the good news about L. Ron Hubbard while pretending to benefit society!
Scientology Lit: Books reviewed or excerpted in our weekly series. How many have you read?
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THE WHOLE TRACK
[ONE year ago] Scientology’s biggest donors of 2019, so far: The whales giving millions to Miscavige
[TWO years ago] Two years after Scientology rehabbed an Australian acoustics lab, the silence is deafening
[THREE years ago] Tomorrow on ‘Leah Remini’: You’re going to learn what it’s like on Scientology’s ‘Bridge’
[FOUR years ago] Florida AG Pam Bondi hosting human rights event at human rights abuser Scientology’s HQ
[FIVE years ago] Actress Erika Christensen in unearthed video meant only for her fellow Scientologists
[SIX years ago] LIVE REPORTS FROM TAMPA: Scientology tests its religious freedom defense in fraud lawsuit
[SEVEN years ago] Our Man in Paris, Jonny Jacobsen, on the Scientology Appeal in France’s Highest Court
[NINE years ago] Scientology Never Forgets: A Telemarketing Holiday Miracle
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Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,050 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 2,554 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,074 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,094 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 985 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,292 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,160 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 2,934 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 3,738 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,054 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 11,620 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 7,539 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 3,707 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,288 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 3,549 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 2,587 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,300 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 1,825 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,355 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 5,915 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,055 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 3,375 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,230 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,349 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 1,705 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,008 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,114 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 2,516 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 2,388 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 1,971 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 2,466 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 2,720 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 13,829 days.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on September 4, 2020 at 07:00
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