The last time we checked in on the federal fraud lawsuit against the Church of Scientology filed by Luis and Rocio Garcia of Irvine, California, we told you that Judge James D. Whittemore had given Scientology a pretty good challenge.
Scientology wants Judge Whittemore to dismiss the lawsuit in favor of the Garcias being compelled to take their grievances to the church’s internal system of arbitration. The Garcias object to that notion, and say that not only are their allegations of fraud not an internal matter, but Scientology’s supposed arbitration system is a sham anyway.
The Garcias have produced declarations by former church officials who say Scientology’s rules of arbitration are illusory. Scientology fired back with a 1963 policy written by L. Ron Hubbard outlining the church’s internal justice system, which is built on hearings known as “committees of evidence” or “comm evs.”
Ted Babbitt, the attorney for the Garcias, pointed out that comm evs are for handing out punishment, not evaluating financial disputes. And Judge Whittemore seemed to agree, giving Scientology a few days to come up with an explanation of how its comm ev rules relate to arbitration.
So now, Scientology has submitted an answer to that, and we found it rather interesting. It’s a declaration by Mike Ellis, who is Scientology’s “International Justice Chief.”
If you talk to former Scientologists for any length of time, you hear about the “IJC” a lot. He’s the person who, if you’ve been “declared” a “suppressive person” — Scientology’s version of excommunication — is the only person in all of Scientology that you can talk to in order to get yourself back into the good graces of the organization. In Scientology lingo, the IJC is your only “terminal” once you’ve been “declared.”
But the IJC himself is rarely heard from. We were surprised to see a declaration from Ellis, and his statement only brought up more questions for us. First, here’s his sworn declaration…
Garcia v. Scientology: Ellis Affidavit
We’ll let the legal experts tell us if they think this was an effective answer to the judge’s question. Our own amateur reading is that this comes off like “comm evs relate to arbitration because I say so,” and it’s not very convincing.
But it’s something else about Mike Ellis that we wanted to point out, and that we wish Judge Whittemore had a chance to hear about.
We said that it’s rare to hear anything from Ellis, but this isn’t the first time he’s been featured here at the Underground Bunker. In fact, back in November of 2012, we published a letter written by Ellis which was one of the more outrageous things that we’ve seen put out by the church.
In that story, we told you about a South African man, Robert Berrington, who had been declared a suppressive person. One of the things he shared with us was a letter he received from Ellis after he asked about getting a refund of the money he still had on account for classes he was no longer going to take as an excommunicated member.
Here’s the letter Ellis sent him:
You’ll notice that Ellis didn’t suggest arbitration. Instead, he informed Berrington that in order to get his money back he would need to fill out a particular form. But that form is only available inside Scientology “orgs” (their word for churches), and as a “suppressive person” Berrington wasn’t allowed inside Scientology buildings. So therefore, he was out of luck.
“Due to the fact that you decided to leave the Church and your subsequent excommunication as a result of violation of Church policies, you are not eligible to go into the org to do the routing form,” Ellis wrote.
Isn’t that a neat trick? And this is the guy Scientology had write a declaration in federal court this week swearing to the legitimacy of Scientology’s internal justice procedures.
The audacity is pure Scientology. But why should they ever stop with this kind of behavior? They get away with this kind of thing again and again in a system of justice that is forever blind, and not in a good way.
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Karen de la Carriere has a theory about PAC base
Recently, we told you about some of the startling changes that have been made at Scientology’s Los Angeles headquarters, PAC base. Karen de la Carriere suggests that part of the reason is about information control, and not just a reaction to failing orgs…
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Posted by Tony Ortega on October 11, 2014 at 07:00
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BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49
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