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Tonight’s episode of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars had a theme — contestants were asked to describe their most memorable year, and then turn that story into a dance, or something.
Anyway, during the week, Leah had revealed that this year was her most memorable, and we can imagine why — it’s been a big year for us, too, ever since we broke the news in July that Leah was ditching the Church of Scientology. “You can’t let anybody dictate to you how you should live,” Leah said in tonight’s preview, and so we prepared for another unloading on Tom Cruise’s weird church. Continue reading Leah Remini Takes Another [Muffled] Shot At Scientology On DWTS (AND SURVIVES!)
 Bert Leahy We’ve told you Bert Leahy’s story before. He was the Texas freelance videographer who worked briefly for Scientology’s “Squirrel Busters” caper, helping to snoop on Marty and Monique Rathbun in 2011, before his conscience got the better of him. Bert soon realized that working for “Dave Statter” wasn’t really the documentary project he thought he was working on — he and his fellow Squirrel Busters were obviously just stalking the Rathbuns, and had been told, in Statter’s words, to “Make Marty’s life a living hell.” Leahy quit after a couple of days, and then felt so lousy about taking part in something so nefarious, he contacted Rathbun to apologize. That’s when, after talking to Rathbun, the two of them realized that “Statter” was really Scientology private investigator Dave Lubow. Continue reading Scientology Payback: Revenge of the Videographers
 The last couple of weeks have been very intense here at the Underground Bunker — culminating in Friday’s devastating release of Laura DeCrescenzo’s “pc files” and the picture of Sea Org slavery that they portray.
On Sundays, we like to relax a bit by enjoying the wacky Scientology mailers that our tipsters have forwarded during the week. This time, however, we have something a little different for you. We asked Observer, our shoop expert, to put together an image that came to us recently as the comments section here at the Bunker went through a few days with more agita than usual. We are very fortunate to have such an intelligent discussion happening here, with many great regulars. But like any Internet forum, things can get a bit wild and woolly. For some reason, as things got heated, an image came into focus of the folks who might be keeping a close watch on the news we break here at the Bunker, as well as the many great contributions by our readers. And here’s what we asked Observer to create for us.
Continue reading Sunday Special: Remembering Some People Who Mattered
—————-In anticipation of her biggest day in court yet, Laura DeCrescenzo and her attorneys hit the Church of Scientology with 928 pages of new filings —————- Details from 18,000 pages of evidence show how Scientology manipulated a child to keep her working under slave-like conditions —————- A key document describing DeCrescenzo’s unwillingness to have her coerced abortion is missing from the evidence Scientology was ordered to produce Advertisement
 Laura DeCrescenzo in the Sea Org the year of her abortion, 1996
By Tony Ortega Wednesday afternoon, Laura DeCrescenzo filed explosive new information in her four-year legal odyssey against the Church of Scientology, submitting 928 pages of new declarations and exhibits in anticipation of a crucial October 23 hearing in her lawsuit against the church which alleges abuse, including allegations that she was forced to have an abortion at only 17 years of age. Continue reading HOW SCIENTOLOGY COERCED A CHILD TO HAVE AN ABORTION: THE LAURA DECRESCENZO FILES
 File this under the WTF? department: You may remember a story we published in May about a Miami Chiropractor named Dennis Nobbe (right). His practice, Dynamic Medical Services, Inc., was sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over the complaints of four named employees who said that Dynamic forced them to take Scientology courses as part of their jobs.
In fact, Nobbe ran his own Scientology academy, and we heard from past employees who said that for many years, taking courses at the academy was a big part of working at the chiropractic business. We were told by an EEOC attorney that it was unusual for a lawsuit to be filed, an indication that settlement talks had been fruitless. And now, we’ve learned that settlement discussions have broken down again — but it’s those lunatics in Congress that are at fault this time! Continue reading OOPS: Government Shutdown Stalls EEOC Lawsuit Against Miami Scientology Chiropractor
 We’ve been meaning to come back to the subject of Scientology and Craigslist since our story of September 22 seemed to kick off some interesting and frenetic activity in that sector.
Since 2009, folks at Project Chanology, the Anonymous collective that watches Scientology like a hawk, have been making efforts to curb the church’s use of deceptive ads at Craigslist. This “Clear Craig” program was coordinated at WhyWeProtest.net, but had slowed down in recent months, as one would expect after several years of effort. Then, a reader sent us a previously secret manual that Scientology was using to train its “cyber dissemination” people to post ads on Craigslist from locations around the country. And that’s when things got interesting. Continue reading Anonymous and Craigslist: Proof that Scientology Knows It’s Under Attack
 Leah Remini and Tommy Davis will give depositions in Monique Rathbun’s harassment lawsuit against the Church of Scientology after Monique’s attorney, Ray Jeffrey, successfully convinced Comal County Judge Dib Waldrip this afternoon to allow their testimony.
Jeffrey had subpoenaed Tommy Davis more than a week ago, and had also announced his intention to depose Remini in this initial part of the lawsuit, which has to do with jurisdiction over Scientology leader David Miscavige. Scientology had moved quickly to quash both subpoenas (Remini’s has not even been served), but Judge Waldrip, in a court appearance today, worked out a new schedule in the lawsuit that will allow Jeffrey time to subpoena and depose both the King of Queens actress and the former Scientology spokesman. Continue reading LEAH REMINI AND TOMMY DAVIS WILL BE DEPOSED IN SCIENTOLOGY LAWSUIT
 We recently reached out to David Wills, author of a book on William S. Burroughs titled Scientologist!, telling him that we hadn’t noticed when it first hit bookshelves earlier this year, but it sounded like the kind of thing our readers might find fascinating.
He said he was interested in what we thought of the book, and after we read it, we had a conversation, which we’ve included below. In Scientologist!, Wills is very clear about his mission. Burroughs (1914-1997) is best known for his involvement in Scientology because of his denunciation of it in the early 1970s. By then, he was fed up with L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology’s layers of control. But Wills says that although Burroughs’ disaffection with Scientology is well known, there’s been a real misunderstanding of just how deeply into Hubbard’s ideas Burroughs had become, and how much it was reflected in some of his best-known work. Continue reading William S. Burroughs and Scientology: Setting the Record Straight
 The U.S. Supreme Court has denied the Church of Scientology’s final appeal that would have kept Laura DeCrescenzo (pictured at right) from using evidence from her employment files in her lawsuit against the church that alleges disturbing abuse, including forcing her to have an abortion at 17.
Scientology had wanted the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of California’s clergy-penitent privilege statute, under which the church was forced to turn over 18,000 pages of documents from Laura’s files compiled during the years she worked for the church. The church’s petition was not among the small number selected by the Court from approximately 900 petitions that had been submitted for its October term. And so with the final appeal cleared away, DeCrescenzo can now make use of the evidence the church turned over earlier this year. But now she faces another daunting challenge in her four-year legal odyssey: the church’s motion for summary judgment, scheduled to be heard in Los Angeles Superior Court on October 23. Continue reading U.S. SUPREME COURT DENIES SCIENTOLOGY IN FORCED-ABORTION LAWSUIT
 We want to thank Bunker regulars Bury The Nuts and Dee “DeElizabethan” Findlay for tracking down a copy of the new “Florida Edition” of Freedom magazine for us yesterday.
We’ve been curious about the relaunched publication since it was taken over by new editor John Sugg. And it is very different than previous editions of the magazine, which had been taking such comical shots at Scientology’s perceived enemies. Now, it’s more earnest, more narrowly focused, more professionally edited, slickly art directed, and… …Oh who are we kidding. This thing would put Ambien out of business if it actually reached anyone. Continue reading Sunday Funnies: Scientology’s Shiny New Freedom Magazine!
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