Scientologists behaving badly: A legal rundown

 
TODAY AT SUBSTACK: If you’ve signed up for free emails at Substack, you will receive today’s feature story at your inbox: Longtime Scientologist and Cobra Kai actor Martin Kove is in the news for some very questionable behavior. And speaking of dubious behavior by Scientologists, we thought we’d update you on some of the court cases we’ve been following which have had some interesting developments. [What is this Substack thing, anyway?]

 
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Technology Cocktail

“An auditor should never solidify a pc’s bank by putting him through an incident TWICE, when by observation of the TA it is c/ear that the incident has gone more solid by the end of the FIRST run through. Checking for an earlier incident after the first run through (if the TA has risen) is the solution to this. If, after the second pass through, when you have asked the pc ‘Is the incident erasing or going more solid?’ and the pc doesn’t know or isn’t sure, ask for an earlier incident. Never ask erasing/solid in the middle of an incident.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1978

 
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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 [55] Mark Bunker [56] Trish and Liz Conley [57] Trish Conley [58] Alex Barnes-Ross [59] Alex Barnes-Ross [60] Alex Barnes-Ross [61] Alex Barnes-Ross [62] Alex Barnes-Ross [63] Alex Barnes-Ross [64] Tory Christman [65] Tammy Synovec [66] Dennis Erlich [67] Alex Barnes-Ross [68] Valerie Ross [69] Kat in Austin [70] Mark Bunker [71] Phil Jones

 
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Source Code

“The president of a law school had been employed to obtain this warrant and the Chief Federal United States Marshal, I think they have a sort of a feeling like they’re still western marshals or something. They go around with big guns hanging on them and so forth. The only trouble is they normally pick people off Skid Row to have these jobs, and it’s rather incongruous, you see. And this fellow, he was utterly mad-dogging because he was sure that I had just beaten up two of his marshals. Actually, I hadn’t beaten up a marshal. I had taken the gun away from one and told him how to use it and put it back in his holster, because I thought he would get into trouble. I explained it to him. I said, ‘You’ll get in trouble waving that about and so forth; and this is the hammer, and this is the trigger.’ And he handed it over to me, and I said, ‘These are the butt plates, and there’s the ammunition,’ and so forth, and slid the cartridges out of the chamber and told him to put them in his pocket, and put the gun back. Nobody was picking on him, and it was all all right, and he did it. You think I’m kidding you, but he did it. ” — L. Ron Hubbard, June 26, 1961

 
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Avast, Ye Mateys

“There’s lots of good work being done — it’s in the majority. For instance the great majority of sessions today were excellent. And on changing anchorage all hands, bow and stern anchors, there wasn’t a single flub. And I had a fresh lobster dinner beautifully done. And several people handled the naval visit beautifully indeed. So I can quote an old poem: A HEALTH UNTO THE HAPPY/A FIG FOR HE WHO FRETS.” — The Commodore, June 26, 1969

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“If it were to be the case that some extraterrestrial beings do in fact eat human bodies, would it be ‘better’ if those ETs audited the humans they were going to consume? Just as we eat chickens and cows and pigs. Shall we audit the chickens, cows and pigs? So as to reduce the ‘entheta’ coming in? It is a well known fact that sheep or goat meat has toxins and tastes bad if it is not well ‘processed.’ In Mexico, the ‘processing’ starts by getting the sheep or goat drunk with alcohol, so that it does not suffer from stress. And there is also the Jewish concept of Kosher food. It is intended so that the animal does not suffer unnecessarily from the killing process. ‘The ‘entheta’ generated in the crazy ‘farm factories’ (birth, rising and killing) is enormous and needs to be dealt with.”

Past is Prologue

1998: Charlotte Kates reported her experience with Scientology’s “net nanny” software, which prevents Scientologists from accessing critical materials on the Internet. “The $cientology net nanny which Scientologists agree to use is hidden on the CD they receive in their packet of information about the Scientologist On-Line program. The CD contains three choices–the first, creating your spam page using the program CSI gives on the CD, second, creating online ‘FSM selection slips’ to email to your selectees, who will take them to the Org they go to, landing the web-page-creator 15% of his purchases there, and third, installing Netscape Communicator and setting up your web page. This third choice is, as specifically mentioned in the packet, not to be chosen until after your page has received ‘Issue Authority’ from CSI. The third button installs the net nanny, hidden in the Netscape InstallShield. It is an invisible program in My Computer or Windows Explorer and cannot be viewed by pressing control+alt+delete. It is insidious, showing up on every 32-bit Internet program on a computer. When entering mIRC channel #scientology, those on-channel tested the nanny. We found that certain nicks were invisible (such as ‘alerma’ and ‘zinjifar’) and that whatever they wrote was visible in the mIRC status bar and not on-channel. Everyone else, filter-free, clearly saw their writing in the channel screen. Certain words, when typed by myself or others, would cause me to be immediately kicked from IRC, including: Xenu, xenu.net, Wollersheim, Erlich, Grady Ward, Keith Henson, freezone and several others. Many words were invisible to me when others typed them, and invisible to others when I typed them, a long, long list including most ars’ers names, and also, ARS, A.R.S., and alt.religion.scientology, and other words such as: the unbelievable deletion of the word ‘picket’, clambake, Hemet, Gilman Hot Springs, Mark Ingber, Helena Kobrin, Kendrick Moxon, really nearly every critic and/or ex-member’s name, from Roland Rashleigh-Berry to Graham Berry, and anti-cult people like Steven Hassan and Rick Ross. On the Web, sites such as xenu.net, entheta.net, lermanet.com, xs4all and csj.org (the AFF site) were completely blocked, whole domain names which also hosted critics’ sites were blocked, dejanews.com was blocked. When reaching an unblocked search engines, all disliked domains would be listed as such: ‘home.inreach.com’, became ‘ . . ‘ Just dots with no words..Other words, contained in an unblocked or new page, would cause a page to stop loading. For example, about 1/4 of a web page would load, and the filter would then hit the word, for example, Hemet, and stop loading. One of the more interesting effects was its word chopping. For example ‘NOTs’ is a blocked word. This meant also that ‘not sure’ became ‘ure’, and that ‘not surprised’ became ‘urprised.’ Any configuration of ‘not’ and ‘s’ was deleted. Also, in honor of ARSer ‘Anima’, the word ‘animal’ became, simply, ‘l’. I hope to post a far more complete list of ‘bad words’ later. To any Scientologists reading, of course, 16-bit programs or Win98 kill it.”

 
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Random Howdy

“You’re the bees knees, i-Betty. You’re the one.”

 
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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. Sentenced to 30 years to life on Sep 7, 2023. DA’s response to appeal brief due July 14.
— ‘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 July 7.

Civil litigation:

 
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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] Valeska Paris cites new Supreme Court opinion, asks court to reconsider arbitration ruling
[TWO years ago] Rizza Islam defiant as his trial on Medi-Cal fraud begins today
[THREE years ago] Scientology is uniting vastly different countries to take over the world!
[FOUR years ago] Scientology to US Supreme Court: Valerie Haney predicament is not a First Amendment case
[FIVE years ago] Derek Bloch: Why is Scientology keeping a dying mother away from her son?
[SIX years ago] Scientology destroyed her family, but this former Sea Org worker has a surprise ending
[SEVEN years ago] VIDEO: ‘Chicago Fire’ star Christian Stolte’s tribute to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology’s sneaky strategy: Suck up to police departments through ‘Drug-Free’ campaigns
[NINE years ago] David Miscavige gets ribbon-happy in Florida: It’s the Scientology social media review!
[TEN years ago] Jefferson Hawkins on how Scientology closes minds — a new podcast
[ELEVEN years ago] Scientology has a new recruitment video to get you to sign up for a billion years!
[TWELVE years ago] JUSTICE KENNEDY DENIES SCIENTOLOGY REQUEST FOR STAY IN FORCED-ABORTION CASE

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 26, 2025 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, 1995-2023 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2023), 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