Scientology tells court: Two arbitrators have agreed to serve in Valerie Haney case

 
Last week we told you that attorney Graham Berry had taken charge of Valerie Haney’s case in a big way, submitting filings which included new names for possible arbiters in her lawsuit against Scientology, which has been forced into “religious arbitration.”

Previously, Scientology had said that the people Valerie nominated, including Elisabeth Moss, Tom Cruise, and Shelly Miscavige, were unavailable. This time, Valerie submitted 15 names, including such Scientology figures as Jenna Elfman, Giovanni Ribisi, John Coale, and Rebecca Minkoff.

Now, Scientology has informed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gail Killefer that one of those 15 people has in fact agreed to serve as an arbitrator. Also, Scientology is revealing that it nominated an arbitrator of its own in July of last year who agreed to serve.

“In short, Defendants and Plaintiff each have an arbitrator to hear this dispute,” Scientology says.

Those two arbitrators will now select a third person, and the arbitrating panel will be ready to serve. (All three must be members of the Church of Scientology in good standing.)

In the court papers submitted Wednesday, Scientology did not name either of the two arbitrators who have agreed to serve, redacting the name of the person nominated by Scientology last July because, they said, “Plaintiff and her agents have been targeting designated arbitrators with unwanted publicity and intimidation by providing their names to the tabloid press.”

Besides keeping the names under wraps, Scientology also is objecting fiercely to Berry’s recent filings, blasting him for submitting affidavits the church says are “improper, unreliable, or inadmissible.” In particular, the church is objecting to affidavits from Mike Rinder and Luis Garcia, as well as the stunning January 2022 appellate ruling that restored the civil lawsuit filed by Danny Masterson’s accusers, but which, Scientology points out, was a ruling that was “unpublished.”

In a footnote, Scientology attorney William Forman indicated just how put out the church is…

Defendants this day have served a motion for sanctions directed to Plaintiff and her counsel for the extraordinary amount of false, misleading, and impermissible material in Plaintiff’s Response to the Order to Show Cause and accompanying exhibits and declarations. As pointed out in the motion for sanctions, Mr. Berry has been cited before by a judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court for being a vexatious litigant. The motion for sanctions shows that he continues to burden the judicial system with false and frivolous submissions.

Berry has long been a thorn in the church’s side, handling cases against Scientology since the early 1990s, when he famously had process servers target several of Scientology’s celebrities at a Winter Wonderland event.

Valerie filed her lawsuit against Scientology in June 2019, alleging that she had been held against her will as a Sea Org employee at Scientology’s secretive “Int Base” east of Los Angeles, and that she had escaped from the base in 2016 by hiding in the trunk of a car. She then went to work for Leah Remini as her assistant for several years, and during that time she alleges that she was harassed, stalked, and libeled by Scientology. (Valerie continues her work in the entertainment industry, but she’s now working for another producer.)

Scientology derailed Valerie’s lawsuit when it filed a successful motion arguing that a contract Valerie signed when she formally left the church obliged her to take any grievances to Scientology’s own brand of “religious arbitration” and not to a court of law. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Burdge granted Scientology’s motion in January 2020, denying Valerie a right to trial. A contract is a contract, he ruled, and Valerie would have to take her case to Scientology’s own brand of internal justice.

Valerie filed numerous motions and petitions trying to get Burdge’s order overturned, to no avail. And under a new judge, Judge Gail Killefer, Valerie was under pressure to get the arbitration process going or risk having the lawsuit dismissed outright.

It’s very important to understand that Scientology’s “arbitration” is nothing like the kind of independent arbitration that you might have gone through if you ever had to settle a claim with a doctor or a roofer or an employer. In that sort of arbitration, a retired judge or other person is selected by both sides to be the arbitrator, and that person listens to evidence on both sides and renders a verdict from a neutral position. Handling things this way saves the court system a lot of time and money, and that’s why judges can be anxious to divert cases to arbitration in order to lighten their caseload.

Scientology’s arbitration is completely different. Founder L. Ron Hubbard never described rules for arbitration, and Scientology is built on the premise that everything must come from Hubbard, who is known as “Source.” So under Hubbard’s successor, David Miscavige, a jackleg set of procedures has been cobbled together from the rules for Scientology “committees of evidence,” which is something like a court martial. (Hubbard was a Navy man in WW2.) Adapting those “CommEv” rules, Scientology arbitration takes place with a panel of three arbitrators, who must all be members in good standing.

This has been one of the chief objections raised by former Scientologists suing the church. They know that simply by filing a lawsuit they will be declared “Suppressive Persons,” which is Scientology’s way of labeling someone an enemy of the church. There’s no way, these former members say, that a panel of three Scientologists in good standing would ever hear a case fairly that involves an “SP.”

The only previous time a court-ordered arbitration was held, plaintiffs Luis and Rocio Garcia say they were denied an attorney, they couldn’t bring smartphones, they were denied a transcript of the proceedings, and the “International Justice Chief” didn’t allow 90 percent of the evidence they had brought.

And now, with her arbitrating panel nearly set, Valerie Haney may soon experience a similar “court” with all the rules set by Scientology.

 
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Technology Cocktail

“We can today train an auditor. We can train him very very well. We have the processes which make an auditor able to audit. And this will accrue into our attaining dominance in the field of the human mind rather easily. All psychiatry and psychology need to do is to fight us a little harder, to advertise themselves a little more strongly, and the public and the government will see to it that they collapse.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1957

 
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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?

[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

— The first Danny Masterson trial and beyond

[18] Trial special with Chris Shelton [19] Trial week one [20] Marc Headley on the spy in the hallway [21] Trial week two [22] Trial week three [23] Trial week four [24] Leah Remini on LAPD Corruption [25] Mike Rinder 2022 Thanksgiving Special [26] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part One [27] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part Two [28] Claire Headley on the trial [29] Tory Christman [30] Bruce Hines on spying [31] Karen de la Carriere [32] Ron Miscavige on Shelly Miscavige [33] Karen de la Carriere on the L’s [34] Mark Bunker on Miscavige hiding [35] Mark Plummer [36] Mark Ebner [37] Karen Pressley [38] Steve Cannane

 
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Source Code

“Way back here at origin, you get the first separation from theta. And that actually would be Incident One…It’s very patterned, and you can run it without much trouble. It simply consists of this: The race, with its bodies and so forth, inhabiting a place in THIS universe, a planet in this universe, was hit by, infiltrated by, an incoming race…This invader race came in and says – with a lot of electronics and said, ‘Boys, all you’ve got to do is take this little jim-dandy whizzer, and you know, you will be twice as thetesque as before.’ They sold you all a bill of goods…They knocked us off with a very simple apparatus, and that simple apparatus consisted of something that went around your head and across the top of your head and under your chin — under your throat — and back of your head. And everything pointed at the pineal. They turned on the juice…and your mystic powers more or less went by the boards…Long time later, maybe even a million years later, you eventually wound up before another crew. And this other crew said, ‘We don’t want you around anymore, and we’re going to send you to jail.’ And so they packaged you up and shipped you off, and that is an incident we call Before Earth — B.E….But there’s a race existing right now out in outer space, and this race is not very interested in you, not very interested. And some of you, by the way, without much trouble, can do a contact across, because some of your theta line stayed out there….I’m sorry if it stretches your credulity. I do hope, however, that it doesn’t stretch it to the point where you won’t operate on it.” — L. Ron Hubbard, March 10, 1952

 
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Avast, Ye Mateys

“Margo Clarke is to work 48 hours in the Income Dept preparing statements to become familiar with the rundown. INCOME IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN DISBURSEMENT. Liz Ausley is to act as Temporary Purser, check out on the new P/L on org boards and do a proper org board for Div III FAO. The WHY of any FAO disorganization or slow forming has been traced to lack of knowledge on how to post an org bd as covered by the new P/L.” — The Commodore, March 10, 1971

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“What we see in the world today is the deliberate and knowing application of Reverse Scientology, the compromise, inversion and reversal of truth. KUCDEIOF (know, unknow, curious, desire, enforce, inhibit, none of it, false) is applied downscale by firstly persuading the person to unknow what they actually know to be true. KUCDEIOF is applied in reverse to implant false and substituted stable data. Reverse KUCDEIOF is pyramid sales, WorldBook Encyclopedia for example. The point is one handles all this stuff by applying Scientology upscale. It’s an interesting avenue of approach when we consider that LRH indicates the undercut to the GPMs is increasing perimeters of awareness and increasing awareness levels or responsibility levels within those increasing perimeters of responsibility. Gradients apply.”

 
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Past is Prologue

1999: Protests were held at Scientology orgs this week to commemorate L. Ron Hubbard’s birthday. From John Ritson, on a protest at Saint Hill: “About ten suppressives arrived at Saint Hill, the UK headquarters of Scientology, and the ‘superior beings’ of Scientology showed how little their expensive ‘Communications Tech’ was worth by going into hiding. Just before 1:00 the ‘Saint Hill Manor Information Centre and Bookshop’ in the centre of neighbouring East Grinstead was open for business. We went to Saint Hill, picketed from 1:00 to 2:00 with none of the usual opposition. Every so often a Scientologist would emerge to photograph us, and at one stage a woman went to the house next door in an unsuccessful attempt to get a neighbour to complain to the police, half-a-dozen of whom stood outside the gates and were treated to the Xenu Rap, and extracts from L. Ron Hubbard’s rantings in honour of Dead Ron’s birthday, as were the Scientologists including a minibus of youngsters, who went in and out of Saint Hill. On returning to East Grinstead, we found the bookshop had pulled down the shutters and stuck up a notice saying ‘CLOSED ALL DAY FOR L. RON HUBBARD’S BIRTHDAY’.”

 
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Random Howdy

“I think right now Katie’s main goal is to get Suri acclimated to the real world and to not give Tom and Bert any ammo for a new custody suit. Can you imagine if Katie got caught smoking pot or something else fairly innocuous to most sane people?”

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Mistrial declared November 30. Retrial scheduled, jury selection begins March 29. Next pretrial hearing: Feb 16.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Grand jury indictments include charges from an assault while in custody. Next pretrial hearing Feb 13.
— Rizza Islam, Medi-Cal fraud: Trial scheduled for March 1 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next status conference Feb 13.

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 November 17 to argue the arbitration motions, awaiting ruling.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Selection of arbitrators underway. Next court hearing: March 15, 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 February 7.
— 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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SCIENTOLOGY: FAIR GAME

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] Paulette Cooper writes her own story: Her struggle against Scientology and so much more
[TWO years ago] If Danny Masterson’s accusers take lawsuit to Calif. supreme court, they will have issues
[THREE years ago] Scientology mail contract worth $5 million a year says firm suing a former employee
[FOUR years ago] A new drug shows promise for depression, so naturally Scientology is fighting it
[FIVE years ago] Mike Rinder answers questions about the new ‘Aftermath Foundation’
[SIX years ago] Louis Farrakhan, Leah Remini, and a document that helps explain the Scientology-NOI pact
[SEVEN years ago] Reporter’s notebook: Scientology’s latest intimidation attempt is sadly familiar
[EIGHT years ago] Scenes from a ‘Going Clear’ screening — Alex Gibney at the True/False Festival
[NINE years ago] Scientology fliers can chase away any case of the Mondays
[TEN years ago] Hurry, Scientology Needs Your PR Help!
[ELEVEN years ago] Scientology Intervention: Commenters of the Week!

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on March 10, 2023 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