SCIENTOLOGY PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR UNDER OATH: Quizzed about following Leah Remini

 
It’s not every day that we get a Scientology private investigator under oath, and so we’re grateful to David Smith and Susanne Gold-Smith that they deposed former NYPD detective Yanti Michael Greene this week, and then we got ahold of some of the footage

Yanti, who has legally changed his name to “Michael Moretti Ford Cruz” since he was sued by the Smiths, is someone we’ve been watching for quite a while.

Back in December 2017, a source we have never identified happened to come across Greene as he was staking out Leah Remini in Manhattan, and asked him what he was doing.

Following Leah Remini, he said. He told our source that he was working for the Church of Scientology, and his assignment was to watch Remini for twelve hours a day, Monday to Friday, for two weeks.

So we then called up Greene, who denied that he’d ever said any such thing to anyone.

At the time, Greene was working for a company called International Investigative Group (IIG), and later IIG and Greene got in a lot of hot water when they were hired to follow a woman (Susanne Gold-Smith) that Greene and other IIG private eyes befriended and even had unwanted sex with. The subsequent lawsuits over that have gone on for years, and in that process Greene’s phone texts were acquired, showing him talking about stalking Remini for Scientology.

This week, Greene was deposed for several hours in the Smith lawsuit, and for a few minutes Smith’s attorney Daniel Szalkiewicz asked him about stalking Remini, and about talking to us. We thought you’d find it interesting. How often, after all, do we ever get this opportunity?

 
Yanti Michael Greene/Michael Moretti Ford Cruz: Other cases include, let’s see who was it. Again, you know her name, a celebrity, Leah something. We were tasked with conducting surveillance on her. And someone else. I forget who the other person was.

Szalkiewicz: And in these other cases you reference, did you ever interact or communicate with any subject you surveilled?

Yanti: No.

Szalkiewicz: With these other cases, did your employer ever direct you to communicate with the subject that you were surveilling?

Yanti: No.

Szalkiewicz: And specifically relating to Leah Remini, I believe you said, what were you tasked to do with her?

Yanti: Just conduct surveillance.

Szalkiewicz: What sort of surveillance?

Yanti: Covert surveillance.

Szalkiewicz: What does that mean?

Yanti: We were just surveilling her, you know taking pictures, video, of her whereabouts, which was very different from this case [referring to the Smith lawsuit]. In this case the surveillance we conducted was overt and not covert. So just a very big difference between the two.

Szalkiewicz: What was the purpose that you were surveilling Ms. Remini for?

Yanti: I don’t recall. And I’m not sure if we were told.

Szalkiewicz: During this surveillance, do you recall whether you ever acquired her production schedule?

Yanti: I don’t recall.

Szalkiewicz: Do you recall if you ever received any information from third parties regarding her schedule?

Yanti: I don’t recall.

Szalkiewicz: As part of your surveillance of her did you ever trail her vehicle?

Yanti: Yes.

Szalkiewicz: Do you know for approximately how many days you were trailing her?

Yanti: I don’t recall.

Szalkiewicz: Do you know whether IIG was hired by the Church of Scientology to follow her?

Yanti: Yeah, I heard that. Did I confirm it or seek to confirm it? No. But I heard that, yes.

Szalkiewicz: And who did you hear that from?

Yanti: I don’t recall.

Szalkiewicz: Did you have any communications with any reporters, such as Tony Ortega while you were following Ms. Remini?

Yanti: So Tony Ortega, I wouldn’t really call him a reporter. More of a blogger. But, you guys have hired him to write some stuff about me. But I believe he contacted me, and I believe we had one conversation on the phone, I believe.

Szalkiewicz: This would have been in 2017 or 2018?

Yanti: Somewhere in that time frame.

Szalkiewicz: Do you know, if you were conducting covert surveillance, how he knew to contact you?

Yanti: No.

Szalkiewicz: Did he tell you why he was contacting you?

Yanti: Yes.

Szalkiewicz: And what purpose was he contacting you for?

Yanti: Because unbeknownst to me, he’s pretty fixated in the Scientology world. I know he’s a former disgraced editor from the Village Voice, and he just seems to be engulfed and embedded in the Scientology world and what’s going on with Scientology. He just wanted related information from me.

Szalkiewicz: When you were trailing Ms. Remini, was she alone or was she with anybody else?

Yanti: It was more than one day, so I forget if on any given day she was alone or not.

Szalkiewicz: Did you ever follow her when she was with her children?

Yanti: I don’t recall. I don’t even know if she has kids, but I don’t recall, no.

Szalkiewicz: And, going again how this person contacted you when you were performing covert surveillance, would that lead you to believe that someone had identified you as following her at the time?

Yanti: Oh, at some point we were aware that yeah, they had become aware. Yeah.

Szalkiewicz: And how did you become aware of that?

Yanti: I mean, at least on one occasion we saw them, like, looking at us. They spotted us.

Szalkiewicz: By we, do you know if there were any other investigators from IIG that were trailing her?

Yanti: Yes.

Szalkiewicz: And who were those investigators?

Yanti: I don’t know if there were more, but one was definitely Saul Roth.

Szalkiewicz: When they became aware that you were following them, the subjects I guess spotted you, were you removed from the case?

Yanti: I don’t recall.

Szalkiewicz: Were you penalized in any fashion by IIG?

Yanti: Not that I’m aware of. You don’t really get penalized if people, you know, spot you. You try not to be spotted, but that happens to the best of investigators.

Szalkiewicz: When you were spotted, did you have any communications with the subjects at that time? I’m talking about this case, by the way, not this case but the Ms. Remini case that we’re discussing.

Yanti: Oh, Remini case. Can you repeat the question?

Szalkiewicz: So you said that they had become aware at some point that you were, that they were being followed. Right?

Yanti: Yes.

Szalkiewicz: Did you have any communications with them at that point?

Yanti: I believe no.

Szalkiewicz: Do you recall whether or not she was with Jennifer Lopez as well at the time?

Yanti: I believe maybe on one occasion, if my memory is right.

That’s some good stuff. If you remember, in our previous reporting on these lawsuits, Greene was found to be in criminal contempt of court to the tune of $300,000 when a judge ruled that he had tried to keep from the court video evidence of his sexual assault of Susanne Gold-Smith. He had video recorded himself assaulting her, but then had turned in a small, misleading amount of footage trying to convince the court that she had assaulted him.

The court didn’t buy it, but still, no law enforcement agency in Nassau County has filed any charges against Greene for not only sexually assaulting a woman, but recording himself doing it and then covering it up from a court of law.

And for the record: We have never been hired by the Smiths or anyone else to write about Yanti Michael Greene/Michael Moretti Ford Cruz. We have covered him as part of our work here at the Bunker, and we were paid by The Daily Beast for a story we wrote about him after the fact.

 
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Technology Cocktail

“All bad auditing is done by auditors who have no reality on the track, and the then-ness of pictures. These are seeking to escape and thus pull the pc into escaping, whereas clearing lies in confronting. Auditors whose pictures flick in and out and who never linger are “out of valence” on the track or are otherwise seeking to escape. The remedy is to make such, as pcs, run pictures with unknown when found, not escape from them. Several lectures cover this.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1961

 
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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 [39] Fredrick Brennan [40] Clarissa Adams [41] Louise Shekter [42] John Sweeney [43] Tory Christman [44] Kate Bornstein [45] Christian Stolte [46] Mark Bunker [47] Jon Atack [48] Luke Y. Thompson [49] Mark Ebner [50] Bruce Hines [51] Spanky Taylor and Karen Pressley [51] Geoff and Robbie Levin [52] Sands Hall [53] Jonny Jacobsen [54] Sandy Holeman

 
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Source Code

“Now, we are not in conflict with the customs and philosophy of the planet or the universe. Quite the contrary. It’s not a case of everybody is out of step but Jim. It’s a case of others want people badly out of step. And they’re getting them pretty badly out of step. But if you can talk to and communicate with anybody on the subject of Scientology, he agrees with what you’d say. He agrees very rapidly with what you say, unless he misses a word. If he misses a word then he won’t agree with what you’ve said, but you are actually talking to him about things which have been with him as customs, far, far, far longer than any Johnny-come-lately psychology or mental science that has been foisted off on him in recent times.” — L. Ron Hubbard, September 15, 1964

 
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Avast, Ye Mateys

“With a lot of fireworks of all kinds the Great Word Clearing Festival got off to a start. There was a small amount of excitement when two lions escaped and rushed to the galley. But instead of eating the cook, he put them to work washing dishes. That’s why you had paw prints on your plates this morning.” — The Commodore, September 15, 1971

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Overheard in the FreeZone

“People of Jewish race are the almost sole promoters of 1.1 stuff like Feminism, Gay Agenda, Communism, Freemasonry, and others, though the real creators of that are a small number of Illuminati, Illuminati create them, Jews promote them.”

 
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Past is Prologue

1999: Keith Henson protested in San Jose this week. “I picketed the San Jose org from 6:16 pm to 7 pm. There were 33 cars when I started. Because so many left, I counted again at the end and there were only 18. No interesting confrontation, though ‘blue shirt’ (wearing an polo shirt today) did stop on his way out and yell at me for being crazy. Hey, I replied to him, *I* am not the one who thinks he is infested with murdered space aliens.”

 
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Random Howdy

“Jeez, does everybody around here have a sock except me?”

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Found guilty on two counts on May 31, remanded to custody. Sentencing on Sep 7.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Grand jury indictments include charges from an assault while in custody. Trial scheduled for August 15.
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud.

Civil litigation:
— Leah Remini v. Scientology, alleging ‘Fair Game’ harassment and defamation: Complaint filed August 2, first hearing set for Dec 4.
— Baxter, Baxter, and Paris v. Scientology, alleging labor trafficking: Forced to arbitration. Plaintiffs allowed interlocutory appeal to Eleventh Circuit.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’
— 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 sentencing of Masterson on Sep 7. Next hearing set for Sept 26.
— Jane Doe 1 v. Scientology, David Miscavige, and Gavin Potter: Case unsealed and second amended complaint filed. Next hearing Nov 6.
— Chiropractors Steve Peyroux and Brent Detelich, stem cell fraud: Ordered to mediation.

 
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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] Paul Haggis opposes motion to keep Scientology out of next month’s trial
[TWO years ago] Would you purchase a Scientology E-meter from this man?
[THREE years ago] Scientologist chiro Nobbe: There’s an innocent explanation, judge. Prosecutors: No there isn’t.
[FOUR years ago] Scientology reels in politicians and gets photo ops out of Hurricane Dorian
[FIVE years ago] Sharp new memoir digs into Scientology’s toxic cruelty experienced by those who grow up in it
[SIX years ago] Scientology’s newest infiltration — Rebecca Minkoff and Meghan Fialkoff at Nasdaq!
[SEVEN years ago] SCIENTOLOGY DENIED: California Supreme Court rejects appeal in forced-abortion lawsuit
[EIGHT years ago] Back where it all started: Hoping to see you in Phoenix to talk Scientology then and now
[NINE years ago] Scientology’s secret plans for world domination — even better than the last time!
[TEN years ago] Scientology Sunday Funnies: Texas Memories, Valley Whales, and Top Secret Plans!
[TWELVE years ago] Hugh Urban: An Interview With the Professor Who Took on Scientology

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on September 15, 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, 1995-2022 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2022), 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

 

Tony Ortega at Rolling Stone