Tony Ortega | The Underground Bunker

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]

Foreign ‘expansion,’ thanks to US Scientologists forking over the millions

Rod Keller keeps us up on the latest news about Scientology’s plans for […]

Park rangers nice enough to retrieve rhino poacher’s skull for his grieving family

Family is family, and even if your family member is the lowest form of life on earth — a rhino poacher — relatives are going to want his remains, even after he was crushed by an elephant and eaten by […]

Judge grants Keith Raniere’s wish, Nxivm leader will get personal info on jurors

[Judge Nicholas Garaufis and Keith Raniere]

Now this is an interesting development. Yesterday we told you that Nxivm leader Keith Raniere had submitted an objection to Judge Nicholas Garaufis, saying that keeping the jury anonymous in the upcoming Nxivm trial not only to the public and press but also to the parties involved would harm his […]

Paulette Cooper’s ‘Scandal of Scientology’: The book that made Miss Lovely a target

This week we’re looking back at ‘The Scandal of Scientology,’ a book that drove L. Ron Hubbard to distraction. It was written by a New York magazine writer named Paulette Cooper, who was only 28 when it came out on June 1, 1971. Even before its publication, Paulette became an obsession with Hubbard as he […]

NXIVM: Keith Raniere to judge — jury anonymous to public, but not to Vanguard!

Keith Raniere’s attorney Marc Agnifilo filed an interesting objection to Judge Nicholas Garaufis today, asking him to change his mind about the anonymity of the jury that the court will begin selecting on […]

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s father worked for Nxivm: What is it with Dem dads?

[Kirsten Gillibrand and Tulsi Gabbard]

There’s a fun report at Big League Politics today thanks to Frank Parlato, who gave the politics site a document proving that New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s father, attorney Douglas Rutnik, was paid a $100,000 retainer by Nxivm, the group whose leaders are now facing sex slavery charges in a federal […]

Scientology gets away with abuses because it has friends like author Orson Scott Card

Once again, the L. Ron Hubbard Writers and Illustrators of the Future awards ceremony is upon us, and once again it provides a clear example of how Scientology manages to go year after year without a reckoning for its […]

Can sandwich maker Jimmy John Liautaud shake off his big game past?

You probably know the backstory: Sandwich maker Jimmy John Liautaud, proprietor of the Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches chain, got a ton of heat when some photos from a 2010 African safari turned up online, showing the Chicago businessman celebrating over the carcasses of a couple of elephants, a rhino, and a […]

A Jehovah’s Witnesses official responds (unofficially) to ‘Bottlegate’

We’re still buzzing over a video that Lloyd Evans posted of Jehovah’s Witnesses Governing Body member Anthony Morris III buying a cartload of expensive hooch. […]

Scientology’s bogus ‘arbitration’: The Garcia appeal brief is here, and it’s a beauty

[The Garcias and their appellate attorney, Philip M. Burlington]

We love a good appeal brief. If you read a lot of legal documents like we do, you get used to a lot of turgid stuff that, while highly important to a case, is a slog to get through. […]

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