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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Marty Rathbun defends Scientology leader David Miscavige as he trashes tell-all memoir ‘Ruthless’

 Late last night, Marty Rathbun posted at his blog a lengthy broadside criticizing Ron Miscavige’s memoir, Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and []

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Vance Woodward’s appeal fails as Scientology has the L.A. attorney on the hook for $90,000

 Vance Woodward is one of our favorites here at the Underground Bunker. We greatly enjoyed the book he wrote about his time in Scientology (now no longer for sale), and he helped us write one of our favorite series, as we blogged L. Ron Hubbard’s 1950 classic Dianetics from cover to []

Scientology petitions California Supreme Court over disqualified judge in forced-abortion case

 When we came out of the courtroom in Los Angeles in April, we talked to Laura DeCrescenzo’s attorney, John Blumberg, about the motion for summary judgment that the Church of Scientology had filed in Laura’s forced-abortion lawsuit that has been dragging on for seven years []

A Scientologist on the ballot: OC candidate keeping mum about his anti-psych work

 The city of Garden Grove, which is in Orange County, California and is home to one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the country, is changing the way it elects its city council this year. It’s moving from an at-large system — which has each city councilmember elected by everyone in the city — to []

How Scientology’s anti-psychiatry front turns a real controversy into fake outrage

[The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California]

Rod Keller keeps an eye on Scientology social media for us, and this week he spotted something he decided to dive into in more depth. Take it away, []

Scientology wastes no time taking over Florida sign after ‘disconnection’ billboard expires

[Photo by Mark Bunker]

When Phil and Willie Jones took their idea to Florida for a billboard about Scientology’s toxic ‘disconnection’ policy — an idea that had garnered them a huge amount of press in Los Angeles — they were able to crowdfund enough money to post their sign just off E Bay Drive in Largo, []

Is the Enquirer’s ‘exclusive’ on Scientology’s ‘hooker orgy’ a David Miscavige backfire?

 The National Enquirer announced this week that it had a “blockbuster world exclusive” involving some FBI documents that describe, in the Enquirer’s words, “Scientology Leaders’ HOOKER []

Steven Mango, who appears in Theroux film, calls police to Scientology facility over assault

[L to R: Andrew Perez, Steven Mango, and BBC presenter Louis Theroux]

Steven Mango makes an appearance in Louis Theroux’s My Scientology Movie, which opens in Australia in less than two weeks and in the US in January. But last night, Mango got more than he bargained for when he tried to warn some Hollywood tourists []

Ken Dandar’s courtroom nightmare is finally over (unless Scientology starts it over from scratch)

Finally, Ken Dandar’s bizarre Florida court tug-of-war, which at one point had him facing a $1 million dollar judgment awarded to the Church of Scientology, has finally come to an []

Maybe the worst thing about Scientology: It turns you into L. Ron Hubbard

We’ve been on the road for more than a week, and it was sure good to get home yesterday. Once again, our contributors and tipsters really came through for us so we could keep the blog going uninterrupted. And we want to thank Jon Atack, who knew we were traveling and was thoughtful enough to []