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]

He was Scientology’s most famous spy, then he turned witness and vanished. Now, here he is.

[L. Ron Hubbard and his wife Mary Sue — undone by Snow White]

In 2014, while we were working on our book about Paulette Cooper, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, we got a fascinating […]

Defeated in court, L. Ron Hubbard’s son boasted about spreading lies in new FBI document

[Ron DeWolf and his grandson, Jamie]

Journalist Emma Best, at the Muckrock website, has convinced the FBI to cough up even more documents about the Church of Scientology, and in the latest batch there’s a pretty interesting 15-page letter written by Ron DeWolf to the IRS in […]

For the first time: The FBI file of Gabe Cazares, the Clearwater mayor targeted by Scientology

[Gabe Cazares in 1997]

On August 3, 1976, Gabe Cazares, the Texas-born mayor of Clearwater, Florida, contacted the FBI with a complaint about a letter that had been mailed to several Florida Democratic Party […]

DOX: An inside look at how Scientology gets what it wants at ‘Ideal Org’ events

[David Miscavige in San Diego]

On November 19, 2016, Scientology held the grand opening for its San Diego “Ideal Org” after years of missteps and miscalculations on where to build its new gleaming cathedral there. […]

A close up look at how human rights abuser Scientology is touting human rights as a front

Rod Keller gives us a detailed look at how one Scientology front is having its sneaky ways exposed by a determined […]

DID BOB BLOW? Evidence that Scientology may have lost its biggest donor of all time

[Bob Duggan, illustration by Chad Essley]

In case you didn’t notice it, we were actually pretty gobsmacked by a photo that we showed you last week. That photo provided the first hard evidence of something we’d been hearing for quite some time — that the richest Scientologists in the world, Bob and Trish Duggan, were splitting […]

A grim anniversary that should remind us Scientology has no business ‘testing’ anyone

[Vitkovic, mid-massacre]

On December 8, 1987 — 30 years ago today — a 22-year-old man named Frank Vitkovic went looking for a former friend he wanted to kill. […]

KID CORPS: When Scientology’s Sea Org parents were told to stop wasting time on their kids

Like anything else in Scientology, how children are treated is governed by a huge number of policies and reports, and in this series we’re looking at documents that show how children were treated under the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard. We’re fortunate that one man has done so much to collect huge numbers of such […]

Why is it so hard for governments to crack down on the Church of Scientology?

[Scientology mobilizing against a 1986 court case in Los Angeles]

Yesterday, historian Chris Owen reminded us of a government raid on Scientology that has largely been forgotten. Today, he discusses the lessons to be learned when, after that raid, Scientology once again beat the rap. (Also, make sure you didn’t miss our second story yesterday, about […]

Danny Masterson fired from minor TV show, still no word from glacial D.A.’s office about rapes

Yashar Ali’s excellent reporting at the Huffington Post bore fruit today when it emerged that Netflix will be writing actor Danny Masterson’s character out of The Ranch, a comedy series he has starred in along with former That ’70s Show co-star Ashton […]

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