How much has Bob Duggan given the Church of Scientology? At one point, Forbes magazine said he told them it was more than $300 million. But that was years ago. Bob and his wife Trish split in 2015, their divorce was final in 2017, and between the two of them the Duggans may be nearing [...]]]>

 
How much has Bob Duggan given the Church of Scientology? At one point, Forbes magazine said he told them it was more than $300 million. But that was years ago. Bob and his wife Trish split in 2015, their divorce was final in 2017, and between the two of them the Duggans may be nearing half a billion in cash gifts to the church.

But apparently Bob is still pretty flush, because a sports collectors’ website reports that a few days ago, Bob beat out other bidders and snatched up Kobe Bryant’s rookie Lakers jersey for a whopping $3.69 million, the most ever paid for a sports jersey.

Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020. The accident in Calabasas, California also claimed the life of his daughter Gianna and seven others.

In a statement, Bob said he was happy to be in the bidding along with his young son Shaun Zanganeh and Shaun’s mother, Bob’s partner Maky Zanganeh.

You may remember that in 2017 we broke the news here at the Bunker that Bob not only had split with Trish but had taken up with Maky, who had worked with Bob while he was running Pharmacyclics, the cancer drug maker that provided the breakthrough cash that made him a billionaire.

 
Kobe’s jersey will no doubt find a place on Bob’s wall at one of his homes in Florida or California. And we think the chances are low that he’d include it in a swap for some South African Scientology buildings, like he allegedly did with his own kids.

 
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And now a message from the Chicago ED

Dave Parker, Chicago ED, fills you in.

 
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Bonus items from our tipsters

Whee! We wrote a big check!

 
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Source Code

“GUARDIAN OFFICE WIN: The D/GUS Office got a great big win and a commendation from the state for pulling off a coup for them. Got us off their bad hat list. And how. There is however no truth in the rumour that the FBI was presented to us to run. What would J. Edgar do for personal publicity? ” — L. Ron Hubbard, May 27, 1970

 
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Avast, Ye Mateys

“WW has orders to heavily recruit Scn org personnel and handle posting and other personnel functions Last Feb PL. They have acked it. If EC WW will do this function well, the Scn network will increase. We are engaged heavily in keeping this network of orgs going. The circular action is for public to enter the Franchise and lower org network and move up to the higher orgs. Thus they get to SO orgs. And we have wherewithal to handle things. When that cycle breaks down, it’s grim.” — The Commodore, May 27, 1970

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“Jiminii states he was ‘created’ (assuming an identity in MEST) 900 years in the future, and came here in 1950 into a body. Quite a new thetan or assumed point of view. LRH seems to have been here some centillion years. On the other hand, very big beings are here and their invalidative vibrations probably affect us. And don’t forget the entities that attach to the thetan here.”

 
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Past is Prologue

1997: Grady Ward, Keith Henson and attorneys for Dennis Erlich deposed Scientology head David Miscavige this week. Scientology fabricated the story of a bomb threat to upset Grady and Keith’s schedule, delaying their deposition until the next day. The deposition was held at a secret location to allow Scientology to keep high security around Miscavige. Keith Henson described his time spent near Palm Springs. “About 7:30 I went down to join Grady. Not knowing what to expect after the various confused rumors of the previous evening, Grady and I headed for the Palm Springs airport. About 8:40 Mike Rinder and an older cult zombie showed up. Rinder handed us the following court order: ‘On May 19, 1997, at approximately 4:20 p.m., counsel for Plaintiff RTC made an emergency ex parte application by telephone for a protective order respecting the deposition of David Miscavige, scheduled to commence May 20, 1997 at 9:00 a.m. RTC further requested that Defendants Ward and Henson be excluded from the portion of the deposition conducted by Defendant Erlich’s counsel due to concerns regarding the safety of Mr. Miscavige. RTC requested that the deposition resume on May 21, 1997, for separate deposition by Defendants Ward and Henson. RTC’s concern for the safety of Mr. Miscavige arises from certain recent Internet postings by Defendant Henson perceived by RTC as threats against Mr. Miscavige, and alleged conversations between Defendants Henson and Ward overheard by an employee of Southwest Airlines at the San Jose Airport at approximately 1:00 p.m. today.'”

 
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Random Howdy

“A Scientologist is a person who keeps buying bunk drugs that do nothing and he goes back to the dealer and tells him he didn’t feel anything and the dealer tells him everybody else says the stuff is the bomb and he must have done something wrong, so the dude buys some more and does it again and again and again. He’s a chump.”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Held to answer for trial, next arraignment set for June 7.

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Oral arguments were heard on July 30 at the Eleventh Circuit
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Petition for writ of mandate denied Oct 22 by Cal 2nd Appellate District. Petition for review by state supreme court denied Dec 11.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Dec 30, Judge Kleifield granted Scientology’s motions to compel arbitration. June 7: Status conference.
— Matt and Kathy Feschbach tax debt: Eleventh Circuit ruled on Sept 9 that Feshbachs can’t discharge IRS debt in bankruptcy. Dec 17: Feshbachs sign court judgment obliging them to pay entire $3.674 million tax debt, plus interest from Nov 19.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Second amended complaint filed, trial set for Nov 9, 2021.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Case appealed on Dec 24.

Concluded litigation:
— Dennis Nobbe, Medicare fraud, PPP loan fraud: Charged July 29. Bond revoked Sep 14. Nobbe dead, Sep 14.
— Jane Doe v. Scientology (in Miami): Jane Doe dismissed the lawsuit on May 15 after the Clearwater Police dropped their criminal investigation of her allegations.

 
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THE PROSECUTION OF DANNY MASTERSON

We first broke the news of the LAPD’s investigation of Scientology celebrity Danny Masterson on rape allegations in 2017, and we’ve been covering the story every step of the way since then. At this page we’ve collected our most important links, including our four days in Los Angeles covering the preliminary hearing and its ruling, which has Danny facing trial and the potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison.

SCIENTOLOGY: FAIR GAME

After the success of their double-Emmy-winning, three-season A&E series ‘Scientology and the Aftermath,’ Leah Remini and Mike Rinder continue the conversation on their podcast, ‘Scientology: Fair Game.’ We’ve created a landing page where you can hear all of the episodes so far.

LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH

An episode-by-episode guide to Leah Remini’s three-season, double-Emmy winning series that changed everything for Scientology watching. Originally aired from 2016 to 2019 on the A&E network, and now on Netflix.

SCIENTOLOGY’S CELEBRITIES, from A to Z

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

 
Other links: SCIENTOLOGY BLACK OPS: Tom Cruise and dirty tricks. Scientology’s Ideal Orgs, from one end of the planet to the other. Scientology’s sneaky front groups, spreading the good news about L. Ron Hubbard while pretending to benefit society. Scientology Lit: Books reviewed or excerpted in a weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Miscavige scores: Ohio Gov. DeWine to send out thousands of Scientology pamphlets
[TWO years ago] On Memorial Day, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s stolen valor really rankles
[THREE years ago] PRAISE XENU: We have more Scientology hip-hop, and even better – IT’S AUSSIE-FLAVORED
[FOUR years ago] ‘Source’ magazine offers a glimpse into what goes on at Scientology’s Florida ‘mecca’
[FIVE years ago] Is Scientology using Tommy Davis to get Aussie billionaire James Packer back in the fold?
[SIX years ago] John Coale, Greta Van Susteren, and the miracle of Scientology drug technology: A meditation
[SEVEN years ago] Life after Scientology: The post-Sea Org baby boom
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology’s Drug Rehab Network Goes On the Offensive
[NINE years ago] How You Can Help a Film About Kate Bornstein Happen
[THIRTEEN years ago] Jason Beghe Turned Away at NY Scientology Building

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on May 27, 2021 at 07:00

E-mail tips to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We also post updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our new book with Paulette Cooper, Battlefield Scientology: Exposing L. Ron Hubbard’s dangerous ‘religion’ is now on sale at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. Our book about Paulette, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2020 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2020), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Other links: BLOGGING DIANETICS: Reading Scientology’s founding text cover to cover | UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists | GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice | SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts | Shelly Miscavige, 15 years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Watch our short videos that explain Scientology’s controversies in three minutes or less…

Check your whale level at our dedicated page for status updates, or join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news | Battling Babe-Hounds: Ross Jeffries v. R. Don Steele

Two years ago, we told you that before splitting up, Scientology’s richest couple Bob and Trish Duggan set aside $59 million in stock from the pharmaceutical giant AbbVie, maker of Humira, the most profitable drug in the world, so that it would generate about $2.9 [...]]]>

Two years ago, we told you that before splitting up, Scientology’s richest couple Bob and Trish Duggan set aside $59 million in stock from the pharmaceutical giant AbbVie, maker of Humira, the most profitable drug in the world, so that it would generate about $2.9 million in revenue each year which they planned to grant to various Scientology initiatives.

As long as AbbVie stock continued to keep its value, Scientology would have a reliable source of about $2.9 million a year in perpetuity. At least, that was the plan.

Bob and Trish set aside that AbbVie stock in a foundation they owned in the last week of 2015, too late to show any disbursements from revenue that year. And so for the last two years we’ve been waiting patiently for the foundation to reveal what it did in tax year 2016, and to show how it distributed any grants to Scientology.

This week, we finally received a copy of the foundation’s 2016 report, and it was not what we expected.

After changing its name from the “Bob & Trish Duggan Foundation” to the “Trish Joy Foundation,” the organization essentially gave away its assets, turning over $61 million directly to Scientology and its leader, David Miscavige.

Abandoned was the scheme of holding on to the stock and disbursing annual grants to Scientology from its revenue. After unloading the stock and cash to Miscavige directly, the foundation was left only with an art collection it says is worth $4.3 million.

“Miscavige wants cash now, now, now,” Jeffrey Augustine said after examining the documents with us. “He can’t stand to have money sitting in some foundation.”

The change in direction is stunning.

Bob and Trish Duggan were Scientology’s richest couple, personally worth about $4 billion, when they broke up at the end of 2015. A longtime entrepreneur, Bob Duggan had become a billionaire after investing in a small company called Pharmacyclics that enjoyed a bonanza over a promising new cancer drug. In 2015, Pharmayclics was acquired by the pharma giant AbbVie for $21 billion.

Besides Humira, AbbVie makes many other prescription drugs, including depakote, a drug used to treat bipolar disorder. (Scientology is normally opposed to all drugs used in psychiatry.)

From the sale of Pharmacyclics, which had made him a billionaire, Duggan moved 1 million shares of AbbVie stock into the couple’s foundation. At that time the stock was worth about $59 million. According to the 2015 tax filing, the Duggans expected it would generate about $2.9 million a year in income, which they would only be giving to Scientology: “The Foundation restricts its contributions to 501(C) organizations that are churches of Scientology and affiliates social betterment organizations,” the document stated.

But in 2016, they made a radical change in plans. According to the 2016 tax filing, the foundation took in about $2.2 million in new contributions ($200,000 from Bob, $200,000 from Trish, and $1.8 million from a company they owned) and generated about $1.4 million in revenue from interest. In all, the foundation took in about $5.3 million in revenue in 2016.

And then, the document details the stunning amounts the foundation handed over to David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology…

To the Flag Service Organization, which runs the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, for the “dissemination and delivery of religious services”: $2.65 million

To the Church of Scientology/Church of Scientology International for “acquisition of church property”: $5.25 million.

To the Delphian school in Oregon, for “facilities improvements”: $9 million.

And to the International Association of Scientologists for “social betterment/purchase buildings”: $44.1 million.

(The foundation also donated books — probably by L. Ron Hubbard — that they claimed were worth $94,180 to the Toys for Tots program.)

In addition, the filing indicates that $48.8 million of those contributions were in the form not of cash, but of AbbVie stock.

At the end of 2016, AbbVie stock was trading at about $62 a share. By January 2018, it had ballooned to a high of $123 a share, doubling its worth after it had been donated to Miscavige. The price of the stock eventually came back to earth, but it’s still trading at about $75 a share today.

Since those distributions were made in 2016, has Miscavige held onto that AbbVie stock, or has he sold it? If he has held onto it, the tie between AbbVie’s stock performance and the Church of Scientology’s fortunes are even more direct as Miscavige cut the middleman — the Duggans — out of the picture.

Assuming that Miscavige has held on to at least part of that stock, more than ever it’s true that Humira, the world’s bestselling drug, is helping Scientology stay afloat into the future.

 
Here’s the document…

Trish Joy Foundation 990: 2016 by Tony Ortega on Scribd

 
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Bonus items from our tipsters

Meanwhile, in Canada…

 
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Source Code

“We have learned that it does no good in America to advertise. It doesn’t do any good to advertise. We get everybody we get by word of mouth. You understand, I’m merely talking on percentiles. Something like three out of fifty or three out of twenty-five come in because of ads. That is our average for all over the country.” — L. Ron Hubbard, October 18, 1956

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“In ones own subjective universe, anything is literally possible and time does not have to go forward and many universes can occur together — as many as a mind can invent. But that is not how the Eighth Dynamic and its visible physical Universe of the 6th Dynamic works. Therefore I am wary of the science fiction and intelligence agency campaigns to mess with our minds and entice us into doubting that we are at cause and in control to some small but significant extent, of our own reality in this larger Reality.”

 
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Random Howdy

“I asked vaLLarrr the Sci troll one time if any new OT levels were released, and they didn’t include Hubbard’s handwriting on some level, would s/he consider them genuine and s/he said ‘no’.”

 
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Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

Scientology’s sneaky front groups, spreading the good news about L. Ron Hubbard while pretending to benefit society!

Scientology Lit: Books reviewed or excerpted in our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Read the ‘disconnection letter’ from a brother telling his sis — Sylvia DeWall — so long forever
[TWO years ago] Scientology slut-shames Mimi Faust after destroying her family because … it’s a church!
[THREE years ago] Trademark lawsuit against Scientology’s drug rehab network settles weeks before trial
[FOUR years ago] Countdown to Friday: ‘Scientology’s Dirty Tricks’ on the menu in Sydney
[FIVE years ago] Tom Cruise shows up with his Scientology ‘Freedom Medal of Valor’ in London
[SIX years ago] Scientology Drug Rehab: New Evidence in the Disturbing Case of Richard Teague
[SEVEN years ago] A Yoga Master’s Question For Scientology OT 8’s: Can You Show Cause Over Matter?
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology Petition Going to the Wire: Will Obama Be Forced to Say Something?

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on October 18, 2019 at 07:00

E-mail tips to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We also post updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our new book with Paulette Cooper, Battlefield Scientology: Exposing L. Ron Hubbard’s dangerous ‘religion’ is now on sale at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. Our book about Paulette, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2018 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2018), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Other links: BLOGGING DIANETICS: Reading Scientology’s founding text cover to cover | UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists | GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice | SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts | Shelly Miscavige, 14 years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Watch our short videos that explain Scientology’s controversies in three minutes or less…

Check your whale level at our dedicated page for status updates, or join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news | Battling Babe-Hounds: Ross Jeffries v. R. Don Steele

The always reliable Jeffrey Augustine has scored another fascinating document for us that we are happy to share with you today.

It’s a tax document showing that the richest Scientologist donors in the world, Bob and Trish Duggan, recently found a way to make sure that millions more [...]]]>

The always reliable Jeffrey Augustine has scored another fascinating document for us that we are happy to share with you today.

It’s a tax document showing that the richest Scientologist donors in the world, Bob and Trish Duggan, recently found a way to make sure that millions more will be going to the church each year, and with no end in sight.

That’s the conclusion we’ve come to after looking at the tax document Jeffrey found and sent to us recently. It’s a 2015 tax return for the Bob & Trish Duggan Foundation, and it has some eye-opening numbers.

We’ve written numerous times about the Duggans and their amazing largesse to Scientology. Bob is currently worth about $2.8 billion, according to Forbes. His wealth zoomed in 2015 when he cashed in by selling Pharmacyclics, a company that had multiplied in value thanks to a successful cancer drug. Each fall, the Duggans are given a huge new trophy to celebrate how much they’ve donated to the church. This past year, we estimated that they’ve now given something like $80 million just to the International Association of Scientologists, only one way that a church member can give money. Forbes claimed that Bob Duggans’s total giving to the church has reached $360 million, but they didn’t explain how they reached that figure.

And now, it appears that the Duggans have found a new way to funnel money to Scientology. After talking with Jeffrey and looking through other records of the Duggan Foundation, this is the picture we’ve been able to put together.

According to tax records, the Duggan Foundation has been around since at least 2012, but for both 2012 and 2013 it reported no assets or income at all. But in the 2015 return which Jeffrey obtained, it has a remarkable new valuation.

On December 24, 2015, the Duggans moved 1 million shares of stock from the pharmaceutical firm AbbVie into the Foundation, with a valuation of about $59 million.

AbbVie is the maker of Humira, the rheumatoid arthritis medication which in 2014 became the world’s best selling drug. In 2015, AbbVie acquired Pharmacyclics from Duggan for $21 billion.

So, on the last week of 2015, Duggan moved 1 million of his AbbVie shares, worth about $59 million, into his Foundation, and estimated conservatively that its annual investment income from that seed money would produce about $2.9 million in annual “distributable income.”

With only a week left in the tax year, the Duggans didn’t have time to distribute any of that money. But they made it clear who would be eligible to receive it in the form of charitable grants:

“The Foundation restricts its contributions to 501(C) organizations that are churches of Scientology and affiliates social betterment organizations,” the document states.

Jeffrey points out that since the Duggans socked away that AbbVie stock to generate income for the church, AbbVie stock has gone from about $59 a share in 2015 to $72 today. If that income generates only a 5 percent return, as the 2015 document conservatively estimated, that’s about $3.6 million annually for donations to Scientology initiatives. We’ll be very interested in about a year to see the Foundation’s 2016 tax return, and find out what it says about which Scientology entities receive those donations.

Let’s put that Duggan generosity in some context of what other wealthy donors are giving to the church. When you see a Scientologist like Jim Bridgeforth get a big trophy like he did this past fall for moving up to “Diamond Meritorious” status…

 
…that $5 million in donations he’s being recognized for is a cumulative total and may have taken him 20 years to achieve.

With their Foundation, the Duggans have set aside pharmaceutical stock so that it may reliably generate around $3 million every year for the church, without doing anything at all.

That’s not to say that Scientology leader David Miscavige won’t be hitting up the Duggans for even more money every year, but it allows for a steady flow of millions to the church year in and year out, and without any “regging.” (Scientology officials who hound members for donations are “registrars” or “regges” for short.) We don’t know if this new arrangement has anything to do with the 2016 death of Charmaine Roger, the registrar who was assigned personally to the Duggans. But we can imagine that it’s an arrangement that will make things easier for both sides.

The upshot? The better AbbVie does selling Humira and other drugs, the better the Church of Scientology does. That’s pretty ironic for a church that openly hates the pharmaceutical industry and pushes for a “drug-free world.” And we also can’t help wondering how the people who run AbbVie feel about it.

Here’s the document. Our thanks again to Jeffrey Augustine!

 
Bob.Trish.duggan.Foundation

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on July 11, 2017 at 07:00

E-mail tips and story ideas to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information about the book, and our 2015 book tour, can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2016 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2016), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | Scientology boasts about assistance from Google | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield

 Bob and Trish Duggan are the proud new owners of a pretty spectacular 142-acre parcel in California near Los Gatos, and we can’t wait to find out what they plan to do with it.

The Duggans are Scientology’s richest couple, and our readers are very familiar with them. In January, we wrote about the Duggans receiving [...]]]>

 
Bob and Trish Duggan are the proud new owners of a pretty spectacular 142-acre parcel in California near Los Gatos, and we can’t wait to find out what they plan to do with it.

The Duggans are Scientology’s richest couple, and our readers are very familiar with them. In January, we wrote about the Duggans receiving their latest trophy for their donations to the International Association of Scientologists. A new “status” had to be invented for them because they’ve given so much more than anyone else in church history. This time, they were dubbed “Diamond Invictus,” and we estimated that it was for donating about $70 million — and that’s not counting the millions more the couple has given for numerous Scientology building projects around the world.

But Bob and Trish can afford it. According to Forbes, Bob is worth $3.2 billion and is the 638th richest man in the world. He built that fortune largely on the spectacular stock market success of a cancer drug he helped bring to market.

And now, he’s making news in California for buying a somewhat legendary tract of land that had been on the market for a decade. Ten years ago, the Holy City parcel was put up for sale at $10 million. But the Duggans got a steal, paying about $6 million for a great spread of land just off Highway 17, the road between Santa Cruz and Los Gatos.

 
It’s land that has a storied history. In the 1920s, it was the site of a religious commune run by William E. Riker, a religious charlatan and white supremacist who fleeced his flock with the best of them.

“He bilked his people to fund his shangri-la,” said one local who was interviewed by the San Francisco CBS station about the sale.

Hey, Scientology would feel right at home!

We can’t help wondering if Duggan will end up carving out at least part of the parcel for a Scientology drug rehab, or a retreat for stashing away church wives, or maybe just a place for raising wayward boys.

Of course, the Duggans may just carve up Holy City for expensive homes and a golf course or something. But we’d love to hear your ideas for how David Miscavige and Scientology might benefit from taking over “Holy City.”

Here’s the CBS station’s report on the sale…

 
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Bonus items from our tipsters

Get yours while you can!

Today will be Day Three at the Audible studios on 7th Avenue as we turn Miss Lovely into an audiobook. Hey, this is hard work!

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on August 10, 2016 at 07:00

E-mail tips and story ideas to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information about the book, and our 2015 book tour, can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | Scientology boasts about assistance from Google | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield

While Bob Duggan and Grant Cardone continue their epic journey — Summer of ’15, the Bromance — we’re busy here in the Underground Bunker chasing down a dozen new leads that came in while we were traveling in Europe.

We have some big stories coming down the pike, including some big announcements, [...]]]>

While Bob Duggan and Grant Cardone continue their epic journey — Summer of ’15, the Bromance — we’re busy here in the Underground Bunker chasing down a dozen new leads that came in while we were traveling in Europe.

We have some big stories coming down the pike, including some big announcements, but for now we’re researching and making phone calls and sending out emails so you’ll have plenty to read in the coming weeks and months.

While we’re deep in the weeds in some very complex new Scientology documents, we learned yesterday that Bob Duggan’s summer reading fare is a bit lighter, as his bro Grant Cardone explained to a fan who sent in this question…

 
So billionaire Bob, 40 years after he first became a Scientologist, is rocking the Student Hat! Enjoy those dictionaries and clay, Bob.

And he’s also pushing Scientology’s manual of obvious platitudes, The Way to Happiness. Get ready to absorb the wisdom of the ages from Bob and his helpful ham hock in this address of TED-talk quality…

 
Please help us out with some thoughts about Bob and Grant as we continue to chase down some really good new leads.

 
UPDATE: Grant is thinking of you, dear readers, as he sets up his camera so you can see David and Bob Duggan (pictured) at his home with Elena on a Sunday morning. He even takes you into his shower. Video at this link.

 
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BOOK NOTES

We didn’t get a chance to include photos in our book, so we’ve posted them at a dedicated page. Reader Sookie put together a complete index and we’re hosting it here on the website. Copies of the paperback version of ‘The Unbreakable Miss Lovely’ are on sale at Amazon. The Kindle edition is also available, and shipping instantly.

Tony Ortega’s upcoming appearances (and check out the interactive map to our ongoing tour)…

 
August 24: Boston, Boston Skeptics in the Pub, Hong Kong restaurant (1238 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge) 7 pm (with Gregg Housh)

Sept 15: Barrett the Honors College, Arizona State University, ASU in Downtown Phoenix campus, Walter Cronkite Theater, 5:30 pm

Sept 23: Cleveland, Parma Heights Library, 7pm sponsored by Center for Inquiry – Northeast Ohio

Sept 24: Minneapolis

Sept 27: Portland

Sept 28: Seattle, Razzi’s Pizzeria, 7 pm, with Seattle Skeptics and Seattle Atheists

Sept 29: Vancouver, BC, Seven Dining Lounge, 7 pm

Oct 23: Sydney, Giant Dwarf Theatre (with Sen. Nick Xenophon)

Oct 25: Melbourne

Oct 28: Adelaide (with Sen. Nick Xenophon)

Oct 30: Perth

Past dates: Santa Barbara (5/16), Hollywood (5/17), Orange County (5/17), San Diego (5/20), San Francisco (5/22), New York (6/11), Chicago (6/20), Toronto (6/22), Clearwater (6/28), Washington DC (7/12), Hartford (7/14), Denver (7/17), Dallas (7/20), Houston (7/22), San Antonio (7/24), Austin (7/25), Paris (7/29), London (8/4)

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on August 16, 2015 at 07:00

E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of LA attorney and former church member Vance Woodward

UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer
The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill
The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield

Duggan didn’t complain directly to us, but then he must have known that the facts in the story we wrote are rock solid. We [...]]]>

Recently, we told you that California pharmaceuticals entrepreneur Bob Duggan — a man currently worth $2.3 billion — had, through an agent, complained to Google about a story we wrote about him.

Duggan didn’t complain directly to us, but then he must have known that the facts in the story we wrote are rock solid. We relied on first-hand accounts, court records, and photographic evidence to show that in 2013, at the same time that Duggan and his wife, Trish, were propping up failing Scientology facilities in South Africa with large donations, two of their six adopted children suddenly showed up in that country, and were being cared for by South African Scientology families.

It suggested a bizarre trade deal — Duggan largesse saved Scientology buildings while two of their children were taken off their hands — and yet, despite those bizarre allegations, everything about the story was nailed down tighter than John Travolta’s hairpiece.

We titled it “A perplexing tale about Bob Duggan, the richest Scientologist in the world,” and published it on October 15. It proved to be one of our most popular stories of the year, as well as probably the one that took the most work (including long Skype calls to Johannesburg).

It proved so popular, that it soon became the number one result on a Google search of Bob Duggan’s name…

 
We first noticed that our story was topping Google about the time, in April, that an eagle-eyed reader notified us about the complaint filed by Duggan’s agent, which was memorialized on the Chilling Effects website.

Duggan was clearly unhappy that the most popular online item in the world associated with his name was our story about his strange transfer of his adopted boys to South Africa. But rather than send us a threat letter he instead went straight to Google.

What he did, through his agent, Matt Archambault, was to complain to Google not about the facts in the story, but about the images that we’d used to illustrate it — only two of which he had any ownership claim over. Specifically, Duggan filed a complaint under the DMCA — a “takedown notice” — for six of the images in the story. The first was a headshot of Duggan that came from his own website. Duggan also complained about a photo of his wife Trish that came from her website; a collage of photos from Scientology’s Impact magazine which featured him and Trish accepting trophies from Scientology leader David Miscavige; a photo from Scientology’s website showing the grand opening of the Pretoria Ideal Org in 2013; a photo of Robin Hogarth from Robin’s own Facebook page; and a photo of Robin, his wife Carol, and their (formerly Bob’s) son, from Carol’s Facebook page. In each case, we had been careful to point out in our story where each image had come from, and that in each case the subjects in the photos had posted the items themselves. We wanted readers to know exactly where we had obtained them. (Another photo in the story, showing Carol Hogarth and the blurred-out boy, was taken by Carol’s sister Shelley Ashurst, who gave us the photo with her permission.)

Why did Duggan care that, for example, we’d used a generic promotional photo from the Scientology website about the opening of its Pretoria org? Well, it was pretty obvious to us what he was doing: He wanted Google to punish us for supposed copyright violations by de-indexing our story, making it more difficult for people to find.

We noticed the complaint about ten days after it had been filed. We hoped that was soon enough that our idea for a remedy might be in time — we asked Oregon cartoonist Chad Essley to create illustrations that we could use to replace the photos that Duggan was complaining about. Essley came through quickly, and we then announced our clever ploy once we had the new images in place.

Apparently, however, our effort to switch out the images didn’t happen in time, or Google just ignored it, because we noticed this week that our story has indeed been de-indexed and no longer shows up when you search on Bob’s name…

Not only is it no longer a top search result, but even if you search on the words “bob duggan perplexing,” you get an alternative URL to the story and not the original URL it was posted under. As far as we can tell, Google has done its best to bury our story.

On behalf of a billionaire. Who made his kids disappear.

And again, Google did this after we had addressed the issues listed in Bob’s complaint — we had removed the images that Duggan pretended he was concerned about.

Did Google even bother to check whether the images Duggan complained about were still in the piece? Does it matter now? Would they respond to an “appeal” of some sort? Our experts tell us trying to get through to Google and convince it to explain itself is about as quixotic a task as there is in this Internet age.

So we decided rather than go begging to Google we would write this story, and let our readers know what kind of interference the search giant is running for a billionaire like Duggan.

And, if our readers read, link to, tweet, Facebook, and share this story to as many people as they can, it might just rise up on Google’s search results, and help direct people to our original story. At least that’s the theory. We’ll see.

 
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Tampa Bay Rays the latest to help Scientology’s front groups

Hey, you have a few more days to order your Rays-Red Sox tickets to help raise money for Scientology’s front group, Foundation for a Drug-Free World…

 
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Miss Lovely on parade

Ah, the Hotel Martinique, where Paulette Cooper began her exploration into L. Ron Hubbard’s wacky cabal!

 
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Bonus photos from our tipsters

Become a trained Scientologist, and you’ll attract all the birds in London!

 
Or pass out The Way to Happiness, and attract all the chicas en Venezuela!

 
Things are awesome at the Hsian mission in Taiwan…

 
Open mic night in Stevens Creek — and stay after for the regging!

 
Why hang on to that old copy of Dianetics with all the confusing semicolons? Trade it in for the new model!

 
To celebrate the new Editora Ponte do Brasil bookstore in São Paulo, a TV interview! What a scoop! “Tell me, how many authors do you carry?” “Just the one!”

 
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BOOK NOTES

We didn’t get a chance to include photos in our book, so we’ve posted them at a dedicated page. Reader Sookie put together an index for The Unbreakable Miss Lovely and we’re hosting it here on the website. Copies of the paperback version of ‘The Unbreakable Miss Lovely’ are on sale at Amazon. The Kindle edition is also available, and shipping instantly.

Our upcoming appearances (and check out the interactive map to our ongoing tour)…

 
June 20: Chicago (with Christian Stolte) The Annoyance Theater, 5pm: This event is SOLD OUT.

June 22: Toronto (with Paulette Cooper) Toronto Public Library, 40 Orchard View Blvd, 7:30 pm, sponsored by the Centre for Inquiry-Canada

June 23: Toronto (with Paulette Cooper) The “Getting Clear” conference

June 28: Clearwater, Florida (with Paulette Cooper) Clearwater Public Library, 2 pm, sponsored by Center for Inquiry-Tampa Bay

July 12: Washington DC, Center for Inquiry (with Paulette Cooper)

July 14: Hartford, MARK TWAIN HOUSE (with Tom Tomorrow)

July 17: Denver, The Secular Hub, 7 pm (with Chris Shelton)

July 20: Dallas, Times Ten Cellar, 7 pm (with Robert Wilonsky)

July 22: Houston

July 24: San Antonio

July 25: Austin

July 29: Paris (with Jonny Jacobsen)

August 4: London (with John Sweeney)

August 24: Boston

September 16: Arizona State University

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 13, 2015 at 07:00

E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of LA attorney and former church member Vance Woodward

UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer
The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill
The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield

 The new issue of Impact magazine is out, and the publication — from the international Association of Scientologists — includes this great photograph of Bob and Trish Duggan with their newest piece of hardware from Scientology leader David Miscavige, given to them at the October IAS gala in England. They’ve reached yet another new donation [...]]]>

 
The new issue of Impact magazine is out, and the publication — from the international Association of Scientologists — includes this great photograph of Bob and Trish Duggan with their newest piece of hardware from Scientology leader David Miscavige, given to them at the October IAS gala in England. They’ve reached yet another new donation status (which had to be invented for them) — Patron Invictus! And look at that trophy shine!

For our newer readers, we’ll try to explain what’s going on in this picture. You see, Scientology has always been about money. Sure, in the old days, the amounts were more modest, but from the beginning L. Ron Hubbard held out the tantalizing prospect that if you followed his highly regimented and detailed counseling procedures, step by increasingly pricey step you’d get closer and closer to some kind of space opera godhood. In more recent years, the prices for those steps have become hugely expensive, and it can take half a million dollars just in course fees to reach the top of the “Bridge to Total Freedom.” But at least you were working toward that goal.

In the last ten years or so, current church leader David Miscavige has made a big shift when it comes to Scientology and money. He has asked members to give even more cash than ever — but rather than for their spiritual advancement, members are being asked to fork over this money simply for the sake of donating money itself.

And since Scientologists can’t do something without feeling that they’re gaining levels like in some kind of science fiction videogame RPG, the IAS has happy names for “status” levels that you unlock as you climb the donations ladder.

Bob and Trish Duggan, a super-wealthy couple we wrote about at some length in a rather bizarre story earlier, have given so much money, the IAS keeps having to come up with new status names to award them with! And what does Patron Invictus mean? Have they now reached something like $55 million in giving to the IAS? $60 million? We’ll keep working our sources to see if we can get the amount nailed down. (And this is just for donations to the IAS. The Duggans have also given to numerous Scientology building projects around the world.)

As we pointed out earlier, only the Duggans get the privilege of receiving their trophy with David Miscavige himself also in the frame of the picture. (Take that, you lesser whales!) And the occasion also called for some classic bluster from Miscavige’s speech writer, Dan Sherman…

The final presentation was another landmark moment in IAS history for not only was it the climax of the awards ceremony at the 30th IAS Anniversary Patrons Ball, it also marked the unveiling of a brand new IAS Honor Status, Patron Invictus.

Bob and Trish Duggan continue to lead the way as top contributors of the IAS, setting ever-greatest levels of support in their bid to further the purpose of the IAS and achieve the Aims of Scientology.

As Chairman of the Board RTC stated when presenting them with this award: “We come to the outer limits of this evening’s ceremony and an IAS accomplishment of entirely new dimensions.

“The status itself bears the title Invictus, which means ‘unconquerable.’ It is drawn from an LRH pronouncement that reads: ‘No man can stand entirely and completely alone — if he is still a man.’

“This status was specifically created for this night, and even more specifically, for an IAS Patron of legendary renown. And I don’t use that word ‘legendary’ lightly. As a matter of fact, this is the name that triggers a chain reaction like nothing else in our universe. Because this is who we are and what we represent — none other than Bob Duggan, Trish Duggan, and the family in totality — now and forever, the IAS!”

The photo also included three of the Duggan boys…

 
And the photo came with this caption…

Bob & Trish Duggan with their sons Daniel, Dylan and David, acknowledged by Chairman of the Board RTC with the highest Honor Status in the IAS.

 
(One of the boys we wrote about who was sent to South Africa is in this photo, the other is not.)

We’ve been asked, how does Scientology still have so much money if it’s losing members and is down to something like only 30 to 40 thousand members around the world? Well, if the Duggans have given $55 million just to the IAS, that’s the same as 11,000 less wealthy Scientologists becoming IAS lifetime members at $5,000 each. You begin to see how the whales like Duggan are propping up Miscavige as his organization lurches from one crisis to another.

But hey, there’s a new type of trophy for all those eager collectors out there! Excelsior!

 
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Richie Acunto’s ‘Platinum Meritorious’ trophy taken off eBay

 
Speaking of IAS donation trophies, the saga of Richie Acunto’s trophies, sold at auction this past Sunday on eBay, just gets stranger and stranger.

As we detailed in our long story on Acunto, the former millionaire fell so low, he apparently couldn’t pay the rent on a storage unit, which went to auction. Among his things were many of the artifacts of his long time as a high-flying member of the Church of Scientology, including some of his IAS trophies. They went up for sale on eBay, and brought in between about $1,000 and $3,500 each. Three of the most valuable were all swept up by one bidder, who then immediately put one of the trophies — for “Platinum Meritorious” donations of $2.5 million — right back up for sale.

But now, that sale has ended, and with no bidders.

Former church member Karen de la Carriere assured us that Scientology itself would not pay money to end the embarrassment of these trophies being on sale in such a public way.

But now we have some evidence that suggests that’s exactly what happened, and to the tune of about $13,500 in total.

We’re taking a harder look at the evidence we have on that, and we’ll share it if we can get more confirmation. But for now, we suspect that David Miscavige has cut a sizable check to get Richie Acunto’s trophies off the market.

 
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Karen de la Carriere on Scientology’s kangaroo courts

Another great video from Karen de la Carriere and Jeffrey Augustine, this time about Scientology’s ‘non-enterbulation order’ and committees of evidence…

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on November 28, 2014 at 07:00

E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer
The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

 Gentle readers, we have an unusual and, we must say, rather mystifying story to tell you today. It’s about a successful businessman by the name of Robert W. Duggan. This illustration of Bob, who is a robust 70 years old, is inspired by an image from his personal website, which we encourage [...]]]>

 
Gentle readers, we have an unusual and, we must say, rather mystifying story to tell you today. It’s about a successful businessman by the name of Robert W. Duggan. This illustration of Bob, who is a robust 70 years old, is inspired by an image from his personal website, which we encourage you to visit.

Bob’s website has several different pages. We learn from them that as a kid from Berkeley and San Jose, Bob was an avid sportsman. He grew up loving to surf and play tennis, and he even once ran the Palo Alto marathon in 2 hours and 49 minutes, which, if you didn’t know, is seriously fast for an amateur. (We once ran a half-marathon and it took longer than that, we’re pretty sure.)

Bob studied economics at UC Santa Barbara in the class of 1966, and also studied business management for a couple of years at UCLA, taking a degree from neither. But while he was at UCSB, he met the woman who would become his wife, Patricia J. Hagerty, better known as Trish. At her Twitter page, Trish uses a photo of herself with a cheetah. Here’s our illustration of it.

 
We’re not sure what the deal with the cheetah is, but Trish studied art at Santa Barbara and she’s known for her work in sculpture today. We encourage you to go through her online gallery, where you will find that she does hauntingly beautiful work in blue glass. We’ll take just a small snapshot of her gallery, purely for informational purposes…

 
We think it’s fun that Trish plays with space alien motifs in her art. In 1975, she and Bob got involved in Scientology, and if you’ve seen a certain 2005 episode of South Park, you know that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard had some really intriguing ideas about outer space visitors to the planet Earth.

Bob and Trish Duggan are very big fans of Mr. Hubbard, and they have been awarded repeatedly for being the most generous members of the Church of Scientology. In fact, they donate so much more to the church than anyone else, Scientology leader David Miscavige keeps making bigger and bigger trophies to recognize their gifts to the International Association of Scientologists (IAS)….

 
In the magazine’s most recent issue, reporting on an event last fall, it was announced that the Duggans had reached a new IAS level of giving that had to be invented for them, called “Diamond Maximus with Honors.” Our sources, some of whom actually worked with Scientology’s charitable giving, tell us that in order to reach that level, the Duggans have donated something in the neighborhood of $50 million, more than double what Forbes magazine estimated last year.

It’s no wonder the Duggans are the only donors Miscavige poses with in Impact magazine photos each year — he doesn’t do that for anyone else, even the church members who have given more than $10 million. (Here, see for yourself.)

Also, the Duggans give a lot more than just to the IAS. They’ve also given huge amounts for some Scientology building projects. And at their websites, Bob and Trish make it clear that they give to other causes as well, which is only fair, because they are seriously loaded.

According to Forbes magazine, Bob Duggan is the 395th richest American, and the 1,164th richest person on the planet, worth $1.5 billion.

 
How did a surfer from UC Santa Barbara end up so rich? Well, Bob’s been a risk-taking entrepreneur and savvy investor for decades, but there’s also a bittersweet and dramatic tale for how he and Trish ended up in the .001 percent of the world’s earners. In 1997, the Duggans lost a son to cancer, and five years later, Bob made an investment in a promising pharmaceutical concern called Pharmacyclics that was struggling to bring a cancer drug to market.

That drug failed, but Pharmacyclics then picked up another drug, Imbruvica, and Duggan took control of the company, becoming its CEO and placing a slate of his hand-picked directors in 2008.

“Imbruvica…turned out to be a potent treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, shrinking tumors in 58 percent of patients failed by all other drugs, and mantle cell lymphoma, a rarer disease. Johnson & Johnson inked a $975 million deal to copromote Imbruvica in 2011, beating out other Big Pharmas, and Pharmacyclics’ stock has risen fortyfold…turning [Duggan’s] stake into a $1.4 billion fortune,” wrote Forbes magazine earlier this year.

After losing a child to cancer, the Duggans now have the chance to help countless others with a great new drug — and have managed to become super wealthy in the process.

Bob and Trish Duggan have been generous in other ways as well. We’ll explain what we mean by looking at yet another of Bob’s websites, which includes this portion we’ve snipped…

 
As you can see from that list of biographical information, Bob and Trish have a very large family. In addition to a biological daughter, they have adopted six other children as their own, and gave them all names that begin with the letter “D.” Like Bob, they’re all sports fans, as explained on one of Bob’s websites…

“Since moving to Palo Alto, he and all of his six adopted children are big fans of the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, since they know that he is also adopted.”

So Bob and Trish have six adopted kids, and they live in Palo Alto and root for the 49ers. Hey, that’s great.

Except, that’s not entirely true.

Now we’re going to tell you about something that you can’t find on the websites of either Bob or Trish or Forbes magazine. And in order to tell this part of the story, we want to introduce you to a fellow named Charlie Mikich.

 
This illustration of Charlie shows him with his youngest of two daughters. Charlie is not a wealthy person. He’s been through some tough times, scraping by and living a pretty uprooted life that’s taken him all around the country.

More than a decade ago, he hooked up with another uprooted person, a young woman he met on a long Greyhound bus ride to San Francisco. They moved in together, then kept moving. They got pregnant in Texas, and they had a son in Cut Bank, Montana in August 2001.

For the purposes of this story, we’ll refer to that little boy simply as “V.”

Charlie’s restless girlfriend left for Santa Barbara and then sent for him. By the time Charlie and his infant son got there, his girlfriend was homeless and pregnant by another man. (She had the boy, and we’ll refer to him — V’s half brother — as “T.”) Charlie tried to care for V on his own, but the county stepped in and placed the boy with foster parents who ended up adopting the boy.

Some ten years later, when Charlie had his first daughter, the state, concerned about Charlie’s history, tried to take the girl away. During testimony in the ensuing court battle, Charlie was asked about his son, V. In a court transcript Charlie supplied us, you can see his daughter is referred to as “A.M.” and his son as “V.D.”…

 
Charlie won that court battle, and has custody of both of his daughters today. But a decade earlier, he didn’t have an attorney, and he says he had little choice but to agree to let a wealthy local couple, Bob and Trish Duggan, adopt his son. They also adopted V’s half-brother, T.

Charlie says it was Trish Duggan he worked with, arranging the details of the adoption. Although Charlie says he didn’t like the idea, the Duggans changed the boy’s name to begin with a “D.” They also changed the name of V’s half-brother.

Charlie says that he last had contact with V when the boy was about two years old, and the last photo he received was when the boy was three. Since having his battle over his daughters, he now says that he regrets not fighting to hang onto his son, and is still interested in being a part of his life. But he hasn’t heard anything about V in years.

So Charlie was very surprised when we told him we had photos of V at 11 and 12 years old. And in this next section we’ll tell you why we had them.

 
These folks are Shelley Ashurst, her husband Andrew Jackson, and their daughter Dominique Sundelowitz. They live in Johannesburg, South Africa, and until recently they were very active longtime Scientologists.

Shelley explained to us that in 2012, her husband Andrew was involved with a church project that was having some trouble. Andrew was a subcontractor on a project to renovate a building in Pretoria to become Scientology’s next “Ideal Org.”

The Ideal Org program is the brainchild of Scientology leader David Miscavige who, in 2002, began pushing for ordinary churches — called “orgs,” short for organizations — to be replaced by more elaborate facilities, often in renovated historic buildings. Funding for these projects is the responsibility of local church members, who often struggle to raise the millions of dollars it takes to create an Ideal Org. In various cities — Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia — Ideal Org projects are stalled as local fundraising has been inadequate to complete renovations.

Don’t take our word for it. Here’s a recent story that appeared in the Boston Globe about the difficulty Scientology has had with the Ideal Org project in that city.

In the summer of 2012, a similar situation had stalled construction in Pretoria, and Andrew says he was told by the project manager that the church was in default, short millions of dollars (US) to get the work completed.

Then, in October of that year, a man from the local area was sent to the United States in the hopes of finding a solution to the problem. That man was Robin Hogarth.

 
Robin had a website (still archived) where he described his work as a music producer. In 2007 and 2008, albums by the Soweto Gospel Choir that Robin produced won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional World Music Album. Also, Robin is married to Shelley Ashurst’s sister, Carol.

Robin made his trip to the US looking for help with Scientology’s South Africa construction projects in October 2012 and returned around the middle of November, according to notes that Carol put on Facebook. At that time, Shelley and Andrew say, Robin gave the local Scientologists a briefing.

“He said people in America love South Africa. And there was one guy who could literally write one check to pay for all of South Africa’s ideal orgs,” Andrew tells us.

As 2012 ended, however, the Pretoria project still seemed to be dead in the water. “They closed down over Christmas because they had no money,” Andrew says.

And then, suddenly, there was plenty of money. “The arrears were taken care of suddenly,” Andrew says. After the first of the year there was a mad dash to get things done. After no progress for months, now they had just weeks to prepare the place for its February 23, 2013 grand opening.

“We were working up until half an hour before the ribbon cutting,” Andrew says.

Suddenly flush with cash, the Pretoria Ideal Org got done on time. And it wasn’t just Scientology that was going through major changes. Around the same time the Pretoria Ideal Org was finished, Shelley Ashurst learned that her sister Carol and her husband Robin had a new member of their household.

“The next thing I heard was that Carol and Robin had acquired a Duggan child,” Shelley says. “Carol had never had children. She doesn’t like children. Their lifestyle was utterly unsuited for this. They’re 65 and 54 and are never home.”

Shelley and her family say that Carol and Robin had somehow become the caretaker for one of the adopted children of Bob and Trish Duggan.

Shelley first met the boy herself in March. And then in May, on Mothers Day 2013 in South Africa — which is celebrated the same day it is in the US — Shelley visited with her sister at the Johannesburg zoo for a concert in the park. Shelley took several photographs that day, which she sent us. We’ll show you one of them, which features her sister Carol and the boy, whose face we’ve obscured.

 
We sent copies of the unredacted photos to Charlie Mikich, who positively identified the child as V, his son who was born in August 2001. Charlie was stunned, telling us he had no idea that his son was in South Africa.

Shelley and Andrew and other South African Scientologists tell us that in fact, two of the boys adopted by the Duggans were sent to South African families early in 2013. (V’s half-brother, T, was not one of them. He is still with the Duggans as far as we know.)

Shelley also says that Carol needed a lot of help taking care of the boy, and Shelley’s daughter Dominique, and her daughter-in-law Kirsty Viljoen, were asked to help out. We talked to both young women, who described what it was like to care for V. Dominique says she was paid 10,000 Rand (about $1,000) a week by her aunt, which is extremely high for such work in South Africa.

But Robin and Carol seemed to have plenty of money. In May 2013, Robin went to Clearwater, Florida and finally completed OT 7, the difficult and expensive Scientology level that can take some people years to finish. Carol was thrilled and planned to take a whirlwind trip with him, as she explained on Facebook…

 
Then, just two months later in July 2013, Robin completed another expensive Scientology course, this time finishing “OT 8,” the highest level of achievement, which is delivered on the church’s private cruise ship, the Freewinds.

 
Meanwhile, in South Africa the church continues to push for new Ideal Orgs, and in a recent church flier which made its way to us, we noticed that there was no doubt who is considered the most generous of South Africa’s donors — so generous, they alone are given the status “Legend”…

 
For some reason, the Duggans have chosen to pour money into South Africa’s projects while Ideal Org renovations in their home state of California (particularly in Mountain View and the San Fernando Valley) have struggled to complete funding, along with many other locations in the United States.

While the Duggans prop up Scientology in South Africa, and while two of their adopted sons are being cared for by families there, Shelley and Andrew and their children have given up on the church. They split with Scientology, and it was one of the things that created a rift between Shelley and her sister, Carol.

And so Shelley is speaking out today, confirming that her sister is caring for the Duggan child.

At one point, Shelley says, she criticized her sister about the arrangement.

“Carol went ballistic,” Shelley says.

Soon after that, on March 16, 2014, Carol posted this on Facebook…

 
“This is an astonishing story — but there is more to be revealed which you can expect will now be forthcoming,” says former Scientology spokesman and legal affairs executive Mike Rinder, who left the organization in 2007. “The church obviously thought this wasn’t going to get out — the people they selected to participate were all ‘high on the Bridge,’ long term Scientologists with extensive familial connections. They believed this would keep them quiet, and it probably would have except some of these people started wondering what the hell was going on with the constant demands for money, got a bit uppity, and then were declared suppressive [Scientology’s version of excommunication]. I said at the time they were kicked out it would backfire on the church, and this revelation is further proof that Scientology has lost control over its South African ’empire’.”

We sent email messages to Robin and Carol Hogarth and received no replies. When we called Robin Hogarth yesterday, he acknowledged that he’d received our email but declined to talk to us. We called and emailed Pharmacyclics and gave a detailed explanation for why we wanted a statement, but received no answer. We emailed Bob and Trish Duggan directly, and heard nothing back.

This Friday night, Scientology will once again hold its annual IAS gala in East Grinstead, England, and church leader David Miscavige will give his customary two-hour presentation about all of the past year’s accomplishments by the organization’s various front groups. On another night over the weekend, the year’s big donors will be recognized.

The Duggans may be in town to receive another large trophy from Miscavige. If a British journalist manages to catch up with them, we would sure appreciate it if they would ask the Duggans about the coincidental timing of their largesse to the Scientology churches in South Africa and their adopted sons going there to stay.

We checked in with Charlie Mikich this week, to see if he had heard anything new from the Duggans. He hadn’t. But he told us that he’s started a new chapter of his life in Key West, and he’s still anxious to get more news of his son.

“I think if there’s any way I could get him back to where he belongs, I would,” he told us.

For now, Charlie’s son is living with Carol and Robin Hogarth and are home after some recent travel.

 
——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on October 15, 2014 at 07:00

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