Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He's written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology's harassment of Paulette Cooper titled 'The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.' He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world from an undisclosed location in an underground bunker he shares with four cats and one of them wrinkly Shar Pei dogs. Despite his super-secret security protections, you can still reach him pretty easily by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you'd like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.) [Header image courtesy John Rickard]
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Our story last week about Narconon deaths kicked up a fuss — and news of two more deaths

 Rod Keller’s story last week about former staff members of Scientology drug rehabs dying produced some fascinating results. Here he is to follow []

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Scientology officials panicked about overdose death of star Narconon pupil: Boyfriend

 In November, we told you about the death of Tabatha Lynn Fauteux, a 26-year-old New Hampshire woman who was found dead in a Los Angeles apartment, apparently of a drug overdose. She had been staying at the apartment with a boyfriend for several weeks while the two of them underwent training in the Church of []

Narconon Georgia Facing Closure: It Shouldn’t Have Taken a Death

Patrick Desmond

By now you’ve probably seen our update on today’s year-in-review piece, or perhaps you’ve heard the news another way: Atlanta’s local media is reporting that state regulators are beginning a process to revoke the license of Scientology’s drug rehab program there, the Narconon Georgia facility which is at the center of a []

Celebrity endorsements for Scientology’s Narconon drug rehab are back!

 TODAY AT SUBSTACK: If you’ve signed up for free emails at Substack, you will receive today’s feature story at your inbox: How long has it been since we’ve seen a Scientology celebrity endorsement of Narconon? And not just any celebrity, but a skateboard hero who doesn’t normally do much promotional work for the church or []

Scientology’s top-down control of its Narconon rehabs? I was part of it.

[Scientology’s biggest Narconon (inset) was once located on an Indian reservation]

TODAY AT SUBSTACK: If you’ve signed up for free emails at Substack, you will receive today’s feature story at your inbox: At the Underground Bunker we’ve provided mountains of evidence that Narconon rehabs are a branch of Scientology, even if Narconon reps say otherwise to []

Scientology suicide: How Quentin Hubbard’s death was covered in the press

 TODAY AT SUBSTACK: If you’ve signed up for free emails at Substack, you will receive today’s feature story at your inbox: After we posted the most recent version of our ‘Not Forgotten’ memorial, which included Quentin Hubbard, the troubled son of #Scientology’s founder, we received this touching tribute from Val Ross, looking back at the []

The Guardian’s expose of Narconon is great — except for this puzzling issue

[Narconon Ojai and ABLE’s ED]

We want to thank all of the readers who sent us messages about this weekend’s terrific expose of the Narconon drug program in the Guardian*, which involved a nine-month investigation and publication on the newspaper’s front []

Yes, Narconon IS Scientology, and we have video that settles the matter

 We’re continuing to mine some material that a former Scientology large donor sent our way, including some videos from what we call “peak Scientology,” the era when leader David Miscavige obviously felt pretty []

Irish courts issued 14,000 words on Narconon rehab: Not a single one was ‘Scientology’

 An appellate court in Ireland recently upheld a zoning decision that will allow Scientology’s Narconon network to open a new clinic it has spent millions on, rehabbing an old nursing home in the Meath County village of Ballivor. []

NARCONON SHRINKAGE: Scientology lists only five US locations as ‘Fresh Start’ is removed

[The Warner Springs Narconon Fresh Start, yesterday]

In 2015 we reported that the entire Northern California Narconon rehab network had cut ties with Scientology, and some longtime Narconon critics were skeptical. But then we watched as Per Wickstrom’s Midwest centers also pulled out of Scientology’s []