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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Report: LAPD covered up that Shelly Miscavige’s fingerprints didn’t match in 2013

[Shelly Miscavige in the 1990s, and her 2010 driver’s license photo]

Journalist Yashar Ali posted a bombshell investigation to his Substack last night. After six years of reporting, he found that when the LAPD met with Church of Scientology executive Shelly Miscavige in 2013 after Leah Remini had filed a missing person report, the fingerprints that []

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THE WITNESS: Damian Perkins opens up about how the case against Danny Masterson began

 On March 19, 2015 at 9:44 in the morning, actor and dancer Damian Perkins received a text message on his phone from someone he had known only peripherally at the Church of Scientology’s Hollywood Celebrity []

What’s up, Dave? Scientology still looks no closer to opening Austin and Chicago

At his New Year’s event, Scientology leader David Miscavige claimed that his “Ideal Org” program was coming back online after the pandemic, and that four new gleaming cathedrals would open just in the first quarter of []

OH JOY: Scientology has a fundraising survey for you, space pilgrims!

 At Scientology the fundraising never stops. However, you can imagine that the marks get a little wary after a while when they keep getting invited down for the same speakers and topics before they have to open up their []

Deborah Rennard fends off ugly accusations by Haleigh Breest in new affidavit

 In March we told you that Deborah Rennard not only had to guard against an unhinged Tommy Davis, who accosted her in the street during the Paul Haggis-Haleigh Breest trial, but also that Breest had made accusations that Rennard was helping her ex-husband Haggis hide []

Opening statement a big improvement for prosecution at Danny Masterson retrial

[Another great shot by Meghann Cuniff: L to r, Philip Cohen, Danny Masterson, Shawn Holley, Mackenzie Phillips, Bijou Phillips]

After opening statements yesterday at the Danny Masterson retrial, the journalists we talked to were pretty unanimous: They said that Deputy DA Reinhold Mueller had done a much better job presenting the government’s case this time than []

Scientology issues pics of LRH Birthday event, when David Miscavige was dodging service

 On March 18 Scientology held its annual birthday party for founder L. Ron Hubbard, who was born on March 13, []

PODCAST: Karen Pressley on Scientology’s radicalizing of Tom Cruise

[Karen Pressley on ‘Aftermath’]

Karen Pressley spent almost 20 years in Scientology, and then turned her experience into a terrific book, Escaping Scientology: My Journey with the Cult of Celebrity Spirituality, Greed & []

Who takes over Scientology after Dave? Surprising answers from our experts

[John Goodwin and Emily Jones, and Shelly Miscavige (circa 1990)]

Well, we did it once again this week.

We got into some newsy stuff on our new podcast that we created for our subscribers, which we call Group []

A video that answers, what’s it like in Scientology with business so down these days?

 From numerous sources, we’ve received various reports that Scientology’s vaunted “Ideal Orgs” are []