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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Jesse Prince talks about the grieving after L. Ron Hubbard’s death — and the partying

[Jesse Prince at the 2015 Toronto conference]

You’ve seen the excerpt and read our review of Jesse Prince’s book, The Expert Witness. Now it’s Jeffrey Augustine’s turn to get in on the fun, with his podcast interview with Jesse. []

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Clear body, wiped mind: Another woman comes forward about forced abortion in Scientology

[Heather Ruggeri at 22]

In April, Heather Ruggeri celebrated ten years free of Scientology. But a decade isn’t enough to erase the things that she went through as a child growing up in Scientology and working in the Sea Org. She’s put portions of her story on the Internet before, but this is her first attempt []

Dispatches from our far-flung correspondents agree: Scientology still sucks

[The Birmingham Ideal Org]

We were super fortunate to have reports come in this weekend from two of our great correspondents. In England, Graham updated us on the Birmingham org, and in California, Erin Hodges Plumb had another of her upstart adventures. We hope you enjoy them []

Scientology going ‘Ideal’ with drug rehabs too, and will replace an ailing clinic

[Narconon Holland]

For a couple of years we’ve been keeping an eye on the ailing Narconon rehab in the Netherlands, which has served only three patients in two years. Rod Keller tells us that Scientology has plans for a new clinic []

Inside Jesse Prince’s book about Scientology: Doing L. Ron Hubbard’s dirty work

 We told you a couple of weeks ago how much we enjoyed Jesse Prince’s book The Expert Witness: My Life At The Top Of Scientology, and now it’s your turn to get a glimpse of it for yourself. Our thanks to Jesse for allowing us to reproduce this excerpt. It takes place a couple of []

US Government ‘adopts’ Russian Scientologist in religious rights protest

[Ivan Matsitsky and Kristina Arriaga]

On June 5, 2017, agents of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) made one of numerous raids it has carried out on Scientology facilities. This one took place at the St. Petersburg org, and it resulted in the arrest of five Scientologists who were working there. []

What a train wreck: The ignominious fate of Scientology’s original flagship, the ‘Apollo’

 Before continuing on with the history of Scientology’s current vessel, the Freewinds, Jeffrey Augustine has an interesting aside about its []

A conversation with Nathan Rich about the unique Scientology hellscape he survived

 You’ve seen a portion of his book, Scythe Tleppo, now enjoy a conversation with Nathan Rich as he fills in Jeffrey Augustine about his experience in Scientology and []

Scientology rewards the celeb who bolted when her co-star went rogue

 Our thanks to Nottrue for sending us the latest Celebrity magazine, which features Scientologist soap opera actress Michelle Stafford on the []

A Scientology enforcer dies, and one of his former victims is the only one to eulogize him

[Lajos Fritzlauf, 1963-2018]

Our man in Hungary, Péter Bonyai, has a special piece for us today that, sadly, fits in with a history of similar remembrances here at the Underground Bunker, where we memorialize Church of Scientology figures that the church itself never []