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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Best of the Underground Bunker 1995-2023

We’ve put together a list of our favorite stories that we did in previous years. Some of the stories were scoops, others were investigative features, and some of them we just really enjoyed writing. We’ve picked out stories we covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2023), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) []

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LEAKED AUDIO — Scientology’s New Year’s event 2017: ‘Welcome to Scientology forever!’

[David Miscavige presides over the 2008 New Year’s event — now we have audio of tonight’s event]

Once again, our tipsters have come through. The Underground Bunker has obtained a secretly recorded audiotape of the New Year’s event that Scientologists around the world will be watching tonight to bring in []

The disturbing detail other media missed about TMZ’s Scientology scoop yesterday

[TMZ’s Harvey Levin and David Miscavige]

This week, Leah Remini hit the Church of Scientology with one of the biggest weapons in her arsenal: Forced []

After Steve Cannane’s big year writing about Scientology, we hit him up for a look back

 Earlier this year, London-based Australian journalist Steve Cannane published a terrific new book on Scientology titled Fair Game. We asked him for a year-end message and he sent us []

LAPD needs two more weeks to respond to Leah Remini about missing wife of Scientology leader

[LAPD Chief Charlie Beck notified Leah Remini that he needs more time]

The Los Angeles Police Department has notified Leah Remini’s attorney, Douglas Mirell, that it needs an additional two weeks to fulfill Remini’s December 12 records request regarding the whereabouts of Shelly Miscavige, wife of Scientology’s leader, David []

February made us shiver, but it was another Astounding month here in the Bunker

 We’re continuing to count down the months in our 2016 year-in-review, and today we’re looking back at the stories covered here at the Underground Bunker during February. (But we’re still continuing to cover breaking news, never []

The Underground Bunker’s 2016 Scientology year-in-review starts today!

[Illustration by Bruno Moraes]

Oh, this awful year. From the deaths of David Bowie and Prince, to the senseless violence of the Orlando shooting and the horrific Bastille Day in Nice, to a grinding presidential election that put everyone at each other’s throats, this has been a year to forget and one we’re happy to turn []

Hillary Clinton has considered David Miscavige’s appeals lawyer for the US Supreme Court

 Over the last couple of weeks, several news organizations have written about a John Podesta email published by Wikileaks which suggests that even before US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead on February 13, the Hillary Clinton campaign had considered a replacement for him, an African-American attorney named Wallace Jefferson who is a []

Louis Theroux’s movie comes to Oregon, and Jefferson Hawkins is there to talk Scientology

 Jefferson Hawkins sent us this dispatch from the great state of Oregon after he attended a screening of My Scientology Movie there. If you’ve seen the film, you know that Jefferson provides some of the most sobering words about the state of Scientology and the role its enforcers played. We’re glad to hear that Jeff []

For Scientology’s most infamous dirty trickster, retirement has a happy ending

[El Jefe welcomes you to his empire]

Once again, we want to pay tribute to our great researchers and tipsters. We simply couldn’t keep up this daily website without the invaluable help we get from unsung heroes who are constantly on the lookout for court records and business documents and so many other things.

One of our []