In August Valerie Haney told the Church of Scientology that if she could not have Elisabeth Moss as an arbitrator in her dispute with the church, then she was nominating Tom Cruise, with Shelly Miscavige as a backup.
Once again, after the church demanded that Valerie turn in a nomination in short order, it has taken much longer for Scientology to respond.
It turns out that Tom Cruise and Shelly Miscavige are also not available, Scientology says. And the reason why? Well, that’s the interesting part.
Valerie, a former Sea Org officer who escaped from Scientology’s secretive “Int Base” in 2016 by hiding in the trunk of a car, filed her lawsuit against the church in June 2019, alleging that she had been held against her will as an employee at the base, and also that she had endured years of intimidation, harassment, and libel once she decided to speak out about her experiences.
After her escape, Valerie went to work for actress and former Scientologist Leah Remini as her assistant, and she was featured as the surprise subject to kick off the third and final season of Remini’s A&E series, Scientology and the Aftermath.
Scientology successfully derailed Valerie’s lawsuit when it convinced Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Burdge in 2020 that while Valerie was an employee she had signed contracts which obliged her not to sue Scientology in a civil court, but instead to take any grievance to Scientology’s own internal brand of “religious arbitration.”
She spent a couple of years trying to overturn Burdge’s order, but a new judge in the case, Judge Gail Killefer, found that Valerie needed to begin the arbitration process or risk having her lawsuit tossed altogether.
So on July 1 she submitted a letter to Scientology formally asking the arbitration process to begin. The first step in that process is to select a panel of three arbitrators, who must all be Scientologists in good standing. Valerie is allowed to propose an arbitrator, Scientology selects the second, and then those two arbitrators choose a third. All of this is overseen not by the court but by Scientology’s “International Justice Chief,” a man named Mike Ellis.
In that July 1 letter, Valerie, who has made it clear she objects to the entire process, selected as her proposed arbitrator Scientologist actress Elisabeth Moss.
In August, Ellis responded by telling her in a letter that “the arbitrator you designated to hear and resolve your claims in Scientology religious arbitration declined the nomination to serve as an arbitrator.”
In other words, Ellis was claiming that Moss was actually informed of Valerie’s choice, but turned it down. And Ellis added that Valerie had 15 days to reply with another nomination.
In her reply, written with her attorney Bobby Thompson, Valerie nominated actor Tom Cruise, and if he was busy, Shelly Miscavige, the wife of church leader David Miscavige who vanished in 2005 and has been seen in public only one confirmed time later, at the funeral of her father in 2007.
Nearly two months later, Ellis finally sent a response.
It starts out by complaining that Valerie’s letter was an insert in a cover letter from her attorney. Ellis chastises her for this, reminding her that according to “Scientology Ethics and Justice procedures,” she’s supposed to be communicating with him directly and without an attorney’s help.
After that whine, Ellis gets to the point:
Through the attorney letter, you provided the names of two prominent Scientologists to serve as your arbitrators. You (or your agents) provided that letter to the media, causing lurid coverage by tabloids and an anti-Scientology blogger.
Lurid coverage on the fringes of the Internet! The outrage!
After some more carping about how Scientology’s precious ethics procedures have been violated, Ellis once again gets around to the reason we’re all here:
Neither your second nor third choice of arbitrator are available, and given your penchant for leaking to the media I am not providing you with the reasons.
Oh, snap!
And just to put a fine point on it, Ellis pouts…
Nobody will be willing to sit as an arbitrator if he or she will be the subject of your publicity machinations.
Well, that’s just a shame, isn’t it?
We can hardly wait to see who Valerie nominates next. Who do you think it should be, gang?
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Mark Bunker on David Miscavige’s lack of spine
In case you didn’t see it, Mark Bunker posted video of the message he gave the rest of the Clearwater City Council yesterday about David Miscavige’s inability to face him.
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Technology Cocktail
“A very basic resolution of the lack of space of an individual is to locate those people and those objects which you’ve been using as anchor points, such as father, mother and so forth, and putting them into matched terminal brackets with this: ‘There is father’ ‘There is no father,’ ‘There is grandfather’ ‘There is no grandfather.’ In the compulsive line this can be changed to ‘There must be no father’ ‘There must be a father.’ One takes all the allies of an individual and runs them in this fashion.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1953
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THE PROSECUTION OF DANNY MASTERSON
We first broke the news of the LAPD’s investigation of Scientology celebrity Danny Masterson on rape allegations in 2017, and we’ve been covering the story every step of the way since then. At this page we’ve collected our most important links as Danny faces a potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison. NOW WITH TRIAL INDEX.
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THE PODCAST: How many have you heard?
— The Underground Bunker Podcast
[1] Marc Headley [2] Claire Headley [3] Jeffrey Augustine [4] Bruce Hines [5] Sunny Pereira [6] Pete Griffiths [7] Geoff Levin [8] Patty Moher [9] Marc Headley [10] Jefferson Hawkins [11] Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan [12] Paulette Cooper [13] Jesse Prince [14] Mark Bunker [15] Jon Atack [16] Mirriam Francis [17] Bruce Hines on MSH
— SPECIAL: The best TV show on Scientology you never got to see
[1] Phil Jones [2] Derek Bloch [3] Carol Nyburg [4] Katrina Reyes [5] Jamie DeWolf
— SPECIAL: Your Proprietor’s updates on the Danny Masterson trial
[1] Sep 21 [2] Sep 28 [3] Oct 4 [4] Oct 10 [5] Oct 11: Day One [6] Oct 12: Day Two [7] Oct 13: Day Three [8] Oct 17: Day Four [9] Oct 18: Day Five [10] Oct 19: Day Six [11] Special interview with Chris Shelton, Oct 19 [12] Oct 20: Day Seven [13] Oct 21: Day Eight [14] First week in review, with Jeffrey Augustine [15] Oct 24: Day Nine [16] Oct 25: Day Ten [17] Oct 27: Day Eleven [18] Oct 28: Day Twelve [19] Second week in review, with Jeffrey Augustine [20] Halloween special [21] Nov 2: Day Thirteen [22] Nov 3: Day Fourteen [23] Nov 4: Day Fifteen [24] Third week in review [25] Nov 5, Saturday special [26] Nov 6, Sunday special [27] Nov 7, Day Sixteen [28] Lisa Marie Presley breaking news [29] Nov 8, Day Seventeen [30] Nov 9, Day Eighteen [31] Nov 10, Day Nineteen
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Jon Atack and Mike Rinder
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“In the final run of it, he gets up to a fairly comprehensive idea of what he’s been and done….He gets himself one Godawful amount of time blocked out. Oh, some terrific amount of time blocked out. He gets up to trillions to the eighth power. Time, you know. Oh man, time, you see. First he gets horrified, you see, at the idea of twelve trillion years ago or something like that. He gets finally, up to a point where trillions to the eighth power take him back to some of the earliest implants. And he’s perfectly happy at this level that there’s an awful lot of track….Now, his track goes sizzling back to trillions to the 200th power. Well that’s, of course, one of these ridiculous figures. That’s trillion written two hundred times. Or one with two hundred times you write all the ciphers of a trillion. That gets to be quite a few ciphers and every one of those things is a year. You’re getting into the sweep of time by this time. Well, I myself have had, I just thought I was doing fine when I was doing some research this last summer. I said, ‘Gee, you know we’re getting clear back here.’ Trillions four, you know. Whew, you know? Dizzying. Concepts of time. Trying to date one of these confounded things, you know. Trying to handle these fantastic periods of time with arithmetic, and trying to dream up other methods of going into all this. Rough! Because it just took the auditor too tall, too long to say anything so you got crude rough approximations like, trillions 4.5, see?” — L. Ron Hubbard, December 3, 1963
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“PORT: All is cool. They didn’t even come aboard to clear us in. Customs and police just wrote us down as cleared in. We are now popular here after the attempted attack and our then asserting PRO Area Control. They are honestly glad to see us. We will be here about six days. It has rained so hard here they couldn’t unload ships and the storm drove even more ships in because it made crews nearly 100 percent seasick on other ships. Trust you had a good liberty.” — The Commodore, December 3, 1969
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“For some weeks late in 1982 I remained conscious, even when my body slept. I found that four hours of that kind of sleep was equal to eight of the usual, unconscious sleep, in terms of resting the body. Anyway, one night I was up late, standing nightwatch at Van Org, working on the word ‘postulate.’ When I figured I had it cleared I thought, ‘I want twenty bucks.’ I walked outside onto the street, walked about half a block, and there on the sidewalk were two ten-dollar bills, neatly folded. I picked up the twenty bucks, went back inside and signed off on the word ‘postulate.’ I’m past-life Clear and don’t know what-all I might have had run on me after going Clear way back then, but it was the early ’50s and research was raging ahead. I’m finally getting my Grades now and intend to complete the Bridge, eventually to regain that mastery over unconsciousness that I attained for a short while in the early ’80s. It’ll come in handy next time I want to leave a body for a new one.”
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1999: Bob Minton posted to a.r.s this week a Mission Statement and Statement of Objectives for the newly formed Lisa McPherson Trust. “To carry out the final wishes of Lisa McPherson’s mother, Fannie, which were to expose the abusive and deceptive practices of Scientology and to help those who have been victimized by it. We will expose Scientology’s abuses of the human, civil and privacy rights of its members and critics. We will reveal its deceptive advertising practices that border on consumer fraud. We will disclose its ‘religious practices’ and conduct that violate civil and criminal law. We will assist former Scientologists to recover from their unique personal experience with the abusive and deceptive practices of Scientology. We
will offer counsel to current Scientologists who choose to learn the truth about how Scientology uses deceptive mind control techniques to capture their hearts and minds. Our dedicated staff of counselors will provide the information, compassion and support to current Scientologists that will enable them to release the bonds of cult mind control. Finally, all of the people involved in the Lisa McPherson Trust will respect the dignity and innate human goodness of all current, former and recovering Scientologists.”
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“The really scary thing to me about Carla Moxon is that there are literally millions of others like her in this world that are seriously mentally deluded due to magical thinking and they are among us doing jobs that could cause the rest of us harm if they just go off a tad too much at the wrong time. Anybody keeping track of all the problems going on with members of the ICBM defense system? And that’s not even due to magical thinking.”
Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker
Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Trial began October 11 in Los Angeles.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Grand jury indictments include charges from an assault while in custody. Arraigned on August 29.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff scheduled to be sentenced on Oct 28.
— Rizza Islam, Medi-Cal fraud: Trial scheduled for March 1 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for September 19.
— Yanti Mike Greene, Scientology private eye accused of contempt of court: Found guilty of criminal and civil contempt.
Civil litigation:
— Baxter, Baxter, and Paris v. Scientology, alleging labor trafficking: Complaint filed April 28 in Tampa federal court, Scientology moving to compel arbitration. Plaintiffs filed amended complaint on August 2. Hearing scheduled November 17 to argue the arbitration motions.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Selection of arbitrators underway. Next court hearing: February 2, 2023.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Stay in place at least through December 13.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Case settled ahead of scheduled Dec 6 trial.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: New trial ordered after appeals court overturned prior ruling.
— Chiropractors Steve Peyroux and Brent Detelich, stem cell fraud: Lawsuit filed by the FTC and state of Georgia in August, now in discovery phase.
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After the success of their double-Emmy-winning, three-season A&E series ‘Scientology and the Aftermath,’ Leah Remini and Mike Rinder continue the conversation on their podcast, ‘Scientology: Fair Game.’ We’ve created a landing page where you can hear all of the episodes so far.
LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH
An episode-by-episode guide to Leah Remini’s three-season, double-Emmy winning series that changed everything for Scientology watching. Originally aired from 2016 to 2019 on the A&E network, and now on Netflix.
SCIENTOLOGY’S CELEBRITIES, from A to Z
Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!
Other links: SCIENTOLOGY BLACK OPS: Tom Cruise and dirty tricks. Scientology’s Ideal Orgs, from one end of the planet to the other. 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 a weekly series. How many have you read?
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THE WHOLE TRACK
[ONE year ago] Scientology wouldn’t pull its ‘Chase Wave’ scam on military veterans, would it?
[TWO years ago] More Scientology orgs and missions got Covid bailouts than we knew: The detailed breakdown
[THREE years ago] Scientologist says the church is telling Clearwater members not to vote for Mark Bunker
[FOUR years ago] Thar she blows: The ‘whales’ who are keeping Scientology afloat in 2018
[FIVE years ago] Scientology loses another outlet for attracting young acting talent in Hollywood
[SIX years ago] In Scientology, dancing in a conga line might end up costing you thousands
[SEVEN years ago] Augustine: How Scientology changes its story to fit what it’s trying to get away with
[EIGHT years ago] About that Tom Cruise Scientology ‘co-leader’ nonsense spreading in the media
[NINE years ago] Our Experts Prepare Us for the Wall of Fire — Scientology’s Operating Thetan Level Three!
[ELEVEN years ago] Scientology Capsize: Commenters of the Week!
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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 2,867 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,372 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,922 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,912 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,803 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 5,108 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,978 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 2,083 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,556 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,872 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,438 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,357 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,525 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 4,105 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,367 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,403 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 3,118 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,683 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 998 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 2,173 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,724 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,855 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 4,193 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 9,048 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 4,167 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,523 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,826 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,932 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,330 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 3,206 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,789 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,284 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,538 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,647 days.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on December 3, 2022 at 07:00
E-mail tips to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We also post updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.
Our new book with Paulette Cooper, Battlefield Scientology: Exposing L. Ron Hubbard’s dangerous ‘religion’ is now on sale at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. Our book about Paulette, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.
The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2021 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2021), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)
Other links: BLOGGING DIANETICS: Reading Scientology’s founding text cover to cover | UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists | GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice | SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts | Shelly Miscavige, 15 years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ
Watch our short videos that explain Scientology’s controversies in three minutes or less…
Check your whale level at our dedicated page for status updates, or join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.
Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news | Battling Babe-Hounds: Ross Jeffries v. R. Don Steele
Tony Ortega at The Daily Beast
