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]

See the message a Scientologist sends to disconnect from a best friend, forever

Here at the Underground Bunker we’ve brought you many stories of “disconnection,” the toxic Scientology policy that rips families apart. But not every order to disconnect involves the kind of family heartbreak that we saw with Sara Goldberg, for example, in Alex Gibney’s film Going Clear.

When Scientology orders people to cut off ties, it can […]

Another wacky Scientology testimonial video — and an Underground Bunker announcement!

Scientology has sent out another frenetic video to its members, including it in a DVD that they’ve mailed out with a glossy magazine, ‘International Scientology News.’ […]

Scientology hit with another federal lawsuit over refunds — but with a twist

A new federal lawsuit was filed this week by former members of the Church of Scientology who are asking the organization to return money that they had put on account. John A. (pictured) and Mary Lou Dettmer of Avon, Indiana are suing Scientology’s Illinois branch after it refused to return $77,810 that the Dettmers had […]

Is France dropping its anti-Scientology fervor because Tom Cruise is just too délicieux?

We have another report today from our man in Paris, British journalist Jonny Jacobsen. Recently, he wrote here about a Scientologist’s 2006 suicide in France that prosecutors were trying to pin on Scientology itself. But an inability to track down three key witnesses had jeopardized the state’s investigation. Later, at his own website, Jonny summarized […]

Scientology spy caught trying to interview Paul Haggis as fake ‘Time’ magazine reporter

On April 7, film director and screenwriter Paul Haggis received an email asking for a Time magazine interview. Haggis tells us the request seemed reasonable. The writer, Mark Webber, said he was talking to a number of directors for an article about the “golden age of film.” Webber also mentioned Crash, the Oscar-winning Haggis film […]

Another leak of outtakes from 1997’s ‘Secret Lives’ — Scientology’s finance ‘dictator’

We have another leak of a lengthy interview that’s never been made available in full before. It’s a talk with Mike Goldstein, who had been a member of Scientology’s Sea Organization in the 1970s and had been L. Ron Hubbard’s financial controller.

Portions of the interview appeared in Channel 4 UK’s excellent 1997 documentary, Secret Lives […]

Announcing a new video series — The stories of young Scientologists not told in ‘Going Clear’

A year ago, we brought you the story of a family ripped apart by Scientology’s ‘disconnection’ policy. Gayle Smith had been a longtime staff member in the Philadelphia org who found herself “declared” a “suppressive person” in 2011, cutting her off from the church and everyone in it. That included her son, Aaron Smith-Levin, and […]

If you want the IRS to re-examine Scientology’s tax exempt status, it’s time to get real

Over the weekend, filmmaker Alex Gibney wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times arguing that the Church of Scientology deserves to have its tax exempt status taken away. And after the March 29 airing of his documentary about Scientology, Going Clear, a growing number of people seem to agree with him.

“It seems to me […]

How Scientology broke up Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers: The story you haven’t heard

[Mimi Rogers and Tom Cruise at the Academy Awards red carpet on March 29, 1989. Credit: Alan Light]When Alex Gibney’s film Going Clear premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, much of the subsequent news coverage focused on revelations by former Church of Scientology executive Mark “Marty” Rathbun that the church actively “drove a […]

Garcias ask for reconsideration on judge’s error: ‘We never agreed that Scientology is a religion’

On March 13, Tampa federal Judge James D. Whittemore granted the Church of Scientology’s motion to compel Luis and Rocio Garcia to submit to Scientology’s internal arbitration scheme, which essentially ended the Garcias’ lawsuit against the church. The Garcias, who live in Irvine, California, had sued the church for fraud, contending that donations they’d given […]

Search

Categories

Monthly Archives