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Casey Kasem’s sordid family drama: Is Kerri’s involvement in Scientology relevant?

Over the years, we’ve been pretty good at staying away from family law stories. Why? Because in family court, everyone lies. The stakes are just too high. It makes reporting on such cases mostly an exercise in futility.

For that reason, we’ve been loathe to write anything about the sad custody battle over Casey Kasem, []

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Scientology Sunday Funnies: The Tom Cruise history lesson edition!

Oh, those days of thunder

Tom Cruise has a new movie out, so maybe it just comes with the territory that some media types will do their best to burnish his reputation. We’ve always had a lot of respect for Tom’s acting skills, and we never root against his movie success. But some of []

Ryan Hamilton makes it an even dozen federal lawsuits against Scientology’s rehab network

Las Vegas attorney Ryan Hamilton continues to pile on the hurt for Scientology’s drug rehab network, Narconon.

Just days after filing a lawsuit against Scientology’s rehab facility in Nevada, Hamilton filed a new federal lawsuit against Narconon’s center in Fort Collins, Colorado, which goes by the name A Life Worth []

Where is Scientology keeping Samantha Sterne?

In the fall of 2012, Mary Jane Sterne couldn’t have been any prouder. Her daughter, Samantha Paige Sterne, was beginning her first semester as a freshman at the University of Oregon. Samantha’s older sister Brittaney — Mary Jane’s daughter from a previous marriage — was on hand, and so was her ex-husband Chuck Sterne, Samantha’s []

60 years ago and today: Scientology in its heyday, and now not so much

Ah, 1954, the days of wine and word salad. Our source has come through with another “quote video” that you normally can only see inside a Scientology “org.” In this case, it’s a segment of an L. Ron Hubbard lecture from the “Phoenix Lectures” of 1954, and it’s meant to encourage members to pay $350 []

OY VEY: Scientology invokes Jewish Law to answer lawsuit by attorney Vance Woodward

In March, the Church of Scientology was sued by former member Vance Woodward, an attorney in the Los Angeles area. Readers at the Underground Bunker were familiar with Vance — he helped us do a comprehensive and fun series, reading L. Ron Hubbard’s essential text, Dianetics, cover to cover. Over his 22-year career in the []

Federal judge again declines to intervene for Ken Dandar, but leaves a door open

Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington

Once again, Federal District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington has declined to intervene on behalf of Florida attorney Ken Dandar after he was hit by a $1 million judgment in state court awarded to the Church of Scientology.

Dandar had alleged that the $1 million judgment would not only ruin []

Ryan Hamilton files lawsuit number eleven against Scientology’s drug rehab network

Ryan Hamilton

Las Vegas attorney Ryan Hamilton isn’t slowing down. He’s filed another federal fraud lawsuit against Scientology’s drug rehab facility in Nevada — Rainbow Canyon Retreat in the remote town of Caliente — bringing to eleven the suits he’s filed in recent months against similar centers in California and Colorado.

Once again, the details []

Sunday Funnies: Scientology’s latest attempts to get you amped up!

Our thanks to the night crew for live-blogging our appearance last night on Above Top Secret radio. We appreciated the kind words, and had a blast doing the show. They tell us an archived streaming copy should be posted by mid-week.

And now, it’s that time of the week when we reveal the Scientology mailers and []

Apparent suicide of witness to a mysterious Scientology drug rehab death

 This is a strange one, folks.

For a couple of years, we’ve been telling you that Scientology’s drug rehab network, Narconon, has been in real trouble, particularly after the deaths of three patients at its flagship facility in Oklahoma over a nine-month period. Gabriel Graves, Hillary Holten, and Stacy Dawn Murphy each died at Narconon Arrowhead []