SCIENTOLOGY BLACK OPS, Episode 8: The secret Paul Haggis shared with the wrong person

 
‘Betrayal,’ the eighth 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 August 31, we found that the first episode in the series had been leaked, and we embedded it along with a transcript we prepared. We also did the same for the second episode, ‘Witness X,’ on Sept 4, the third episode, ‘Taken,’ on Sept 11, the fourth episode, ‘The Star,’ on Sept 14, the fifth episode, ‘Always Attack,’ on Sep 17, the sixth episode, ‘Dirty Tricks’ on Sept 21, and the seventh episode, ‘Celebrity’ on Sept 27.

We’ve done the same for the eighth episode, in which 7NEWS reporter Bryan Seymour learns that Paul Haggis was writing a television series to portray Scientology’s history of spying and sabotage, but that he shared his secret plans with someone he shouldn’t have, former Scientology enforcer Marty Rathbun.

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: BETRAYAL

Bryan Seymour: Heroes and villains. Do you think much about that when you’re writing these characters, and do you draw from people you know, particularly people in Scientology?

Paul Haggis: I have. And I have of recent.

Seymour: Do tell.

Haggis: OK, no one knows this…

Seymour: In 2015, Paul Haggis decided to try his hand at television again. The dual Oscar winner had an idea for a streaming series.

 
Haggis: I decided to tell the true story of the Guardian’s Office and the Office of Special Affairs, starting in the 60s and 70s. And this, as you may know, I’m sure you do know, was formed by two women who desperately believed that Hubbard was about to save the world. One was his wife. And these two women did incredible things in defense of Scientology, destroying their enemies and infiltrating the US government and a lot of other governments. In fact they ran the single most effective spy operation and infiltration of the American government of all time. The Russians, the Israelis, no one’s ever got close to what they were able to do.

Seymour: You’re talking about Operation Snow White.

Haggis: Yes, yes. And that I found remarkable and decided to tell that story. So I, I didn’t tell my agents, it was too risky. I didn’t tell my producing partner, Michael. I didn’t tell anyone. Except, I told Marty. Because Marty I trusted. He’d left Scientology, he was criticizing them, he had a blog. He’d helped me personally.

Seymour: That was a critical mistake. Marty Rathbun was David Miscavige’s henchman, his top lieutenant, who had a reputation for brutally enforcing his leader’s will.

Bert Deixler: Well, would you read into the record…

Marty Rathbun: This is an internal Scientology record.

Seymour: Rathbun left Scientology in 2004 and became its fiercest ever critic, blowing the lid off the violent, abusive behavior of David Miscavige and detailing a string of explosive revelations, including the filming of Tom Cruise’s private intimate confessions, wire-tapping Nicole Kidman, and numerous operations to attack and silence critics.

Squirrel Buster John Allender: Come on, Marty. Got anything to say?

Seymour: Marty himself came under intense attack from Scientology’s goons called ‘Squirrel Busters.’

 
Allender: I’m with Squirrel Busters Productions doing an investigation on you.

Rathbun: I say get off my property, boy.

Squirrel Busters: Marty, you can’t do that. Marty!

Rathbun: I just did it.

Izzy Chait: You’ve always been important, you need to start being important again to us.

Jenny Linson: Nobody gives a fuck about you, that’s the truth. Why don’t you do something with your life? You’re an embarrassment. An embarrassment to the fact that you were ever, ever connected to us.

Seymour: But in early 2017 Rathbun stunned those who escaped Scientology by starting to appear in videos online…

Rathbun: Spineless coward.

Seymour: …supporting Scientology, and attacking those he’d previously stood with, including Leah Remini, Mike Rinder, and Tony Ortega.

 
Rathbun: Leah would act as if she were being persecuted by Scientology for disagreeing with it and for having all this scandalous quote-unquote information about it.

Leah Remini: When Marty Rathbun left and was speaking out against, you know, Scientology abusive practices, Scientology of course put a website up of Marty, went to destroy Marty, right, following the Fair Game policy. All of a sudden Marty turns, is back in good graces with Scientology, where are the attacks from Scientology?

Seymour: They’ve gone, disappeared.

Remini: Interesting.

Seyour: Coincidence?

Remini: Isn’t that crazy how that happens? I think not.

Tony Ortega: Marty Rathbun in particular is so interesting because he’s going on these new videos, but we have him on the record from before…

Seymour: Saying the opposite.

Ortega: …in court documents saying the exact opposite.

 
Seymour: Marty’s back-flip was a stunning betrayal of many, including Paul Haggis. This happened right before Paul Haggis was first accused of sexual misconduct. It could be a coincidence. Or, it could be something more. Do you remember when you approached Marty and told him about the idea you had for this show?

Haggis: Yeah, I think I sent him the email and the outline for what became the Guardian’s, the end of 2015. There’s another famous story, infamous story of a murder, well, a death in Los — in Florida, and that, and I knew two of the people who had been involved in the coverup.

Seymour: You’re talking about the Lisa McPherson case.

Haggis: Yes.

Seymour: In 1995, a Scientologist named Lisa McPherson died in Clearwater, Florida. She had been denied medical treatment for weeks. She was dehydrated and comatose until she finally died from a pulmonary embolism. The medical examiner found her death was a negligent homicide. Scientology settled a civil case with her family. It’s a dark stain on Scientology’s history. Marty Rathbun was right in the middle of it. He admitted to destroying evidence to protect Scientology.

Haggis: He went in and by his own admission destroyed evidence, covered up a case, and this is a criminal case he’s destroying evidence, and he admitted this, he’s admitted this…

Seymour: The death of a young woman.

 
Haggis: Yes.

Seymour: Denied medical treatment.

Haggis: Yes. And starved to death.

Seymour: So they had the whole outline of your show about the Guardian’s Office.

Haggis: Yes, yes. Well, the Lisa McPherson case and, it was the center of it, and how the Office of Special Affairs covered that up and covered up her death and destroyed evidence and all that, and then, yes, they had it all.

Seymour: But why did you need to tell anyone, let alone Marty Rathbun.

Haggis: Marty was part of it and I wanted it to be authentic. I didn’t want it to be sensationalistic, I wanted it to be the truth.

Seymour: Right, so you wanted him to help, with…

Haggis: Yes, consulting the project.

Seymour: …getting the story right.

 
Haggis: Absolutely. I was thinking of taking it to HBO because I’d really enjoyed my relationship with HBO, and that’s what I was going to do. So, so I told Marty and I got a very odd response from Marty. He wrote back and he said, you know you got it all wrong, you’re just being an anti-Scientologist at this point, and I went, well that’s weird. You know you told me this story.

Remini: Scientology called him a psychopath when he first left. They were right about that. So, so the psychopath is OK now, back in?

Seymour: Marty Rathbun’s re-entry into the Scientology fold, Haggis believes, means he would certainly have informed the leader, David Miscavige, about his plans to serialize the true sordid story of Scientology’s past, its founder, and first lady.

Haggis: About six months after I sent that, Marty started doing some very strange videos online. And so he’d obviously turned over all of my communication. Everything he turned over to the church, so they knew exactly what I was doing. Here I was thinking I was being so smart.

 
Title card: NEXT

Priya Chaudhry: This did not happen the way Haleigh Breest says it happened. It happened the way Paul Haggis says it happened.

Seymour: Paul, did you rape Haleigh Breest?

 
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Source Code

“We could bring people in off the streets and have them walk down the hall and stop in Office 1 where a little sign says, ‘Glasses removed here.’ We wouldn’t have any couches or anything cluttering the place up like that, and we could just walk them around the hall and at each station there would be another auditor and he would just ask standard questions. The people coming in would walk all the way around and then out on the street again. Of course, they would stop at the desk before they went out and write out a check for the equivalent amount of medical treatment, which would come to $8,687,962.05! There is some slight possibility that we may be at that stage. I don’t want to over evaluate anything, however.” — L. Ron Hubbard, October 1, 1951

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“Frankly, I don’t think ‘discussions’ about history or any other topic ever produce much of any value. Debate is vastly overrated as a way to come to realistic conclusions about anything. Discussion is fun and occasionally someone says something that makes you cognite about something. But it rarely resolves anything. Online discussions also have a value in knitting together a community. In our case, we can’t all descend on the corner bar and have beers together. Now I know of a variety of trained and reliable ‘with-LRH’ people. And hopefully more will follow. Because God knows, there are few enough of us out here as it is.”

 
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Past is Prologue

1997: Former Scientologist Robert Vaughn Young this week described attacks by Scientology on an animal sanctuary he and his wife Stacy run in Seattle, Washington. “We soon identified the attack as coming from Scientology when a private investigator, David Lee, began to call around Seattle, using the same allegations that appeared in the anonymous flyer. He also told people he was investigating us for ‘animal abuse,’. He said he was working for LA Private Investigator Eugene Ingram, widely known to work for Scientology attorney Kendrick Moxon. After no complaints to the city in two years, they were pouring into city officials on a daily basis. Calls were made to various Seattle City offices, including Animal Control, from people who asked to ‘remain anonymous.’ According to officials we spoke with, the callers said the house was filthy and our cats were diseased with ‘open sores.’ Besides calling various agencies, they also called city council members to complain that the agencies were not acting fast enough against us, urging political pressure.”

 
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Random Howdy

“The only place D.M. is taking his ass if the seat gets too hot is to Tahiti or the Russian Riviera. He’s a gangster, not a fanatic.”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Demurrer filed by Masterson, arraignment delayed to October 19.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay’s sentencing is set for October 5 in White Plains, NY, but asking for a 3-week postponement. 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 revoked Sep 14. Nobbe dead, Sep 14.

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.’ Petition for a writ of mandate filed with Cal 2nd Appellate District, Sept 10.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Oct 5 (Serving Miscavige by publication), Oct 6 (CSI/RTC demurrer against Riales, Masterson demurrer), Oct 26 (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 tax debt: Eleventh Circuit ruled on Sept 9 that Feshbachs can’t discharge IRS debt in bankruptcy. Update required in federal lawsuit on Oct 19.
— 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] SCIENTOLOGIST ARRESTED IN L.A. COURT: Narconon fraud defendants in wild scene
[TWO years ago] Dispatches from our far-flung correspondents agree: Scientology still sucks
[THREE years ago] Scientology celebrates its disaster response in Florida, but struggles in Puerto Rico and Mexico
[FOUR years ago] Atack: Scientology advocates serenity, so why are so many Scientologists angry jerks?
[FIVE years ago] Cathriona White’s Scientology ‘twin’ on grueling courses was an actor named Travis Case
[SIX years ago] Scientology’s drug rehab network hit with lawsuit number 22 by attorney Ryan Hamilton
[SEVEN years ago] RAY JEFFREY 1, SCIENTOLOGY 0: Disqualify Motion Denied in Harassment Lawsuit
[EIGHT years ago] Secrets of The Master: Elements of Scientology That Didn’t Make It into the Film
[NINE years ago] Scientology Internal E-Mails: Even More Depressing Than You Might Assume

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on October 1, 2020 at 07:00

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