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Battle with Church of Scientology not over

Lulu Belle

Moonbat
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/ne...th-Church-of-Scientology-not-over-3396036.php

Battle with Church of Scientology not over


Debbie Cook is not alone.


I mean this in two ways.


First, Cook believes people are following her. As a former top official of the Church of Scientology whom the church has expelled and sued, she considers this de rigueur.


I spoke with her this week at the office of her attorney, Ray Jeffrey, in Bulverde.
“The surveillance of my office, as far as I can tell, is limited to when Debbie is here,” Jeffrey said. “They've come through the parking lot before with video cameras and videoed the license plates.”


Cook agreed.


“They know where I am,” she said, “and also who else is here.”


I glanced outside at my beat-up Toyota and decided to stay.


For nearly three decades, Cook had shunned the media, as any good Scientologist would.
She joined the Sea Org, a religious order in the church, when she was 17.


She later rose to the rank of captain of the Flag Service Organization, the church's spiritual and lucrative headquarters in Clearwater, Fla.


By 2007, she was working what she calls “extreme and insane” hours at the behest of the church's leader, David Miscavige, shuttling between Florida and California, England and islands in the Caribbean.


That's when her life began to go awry. That's when, Cook says, she was degraded, imprisoned and tortured along with other top church officials.


If I were telling her story now in a courtroom, this is where the church's legal team would object.


Although it has sued Cook, the secretive church contends that nothing that happened while she worked there is relevant to the case. It says she breached a contract she signed on Oct. 19, 2007, the day she and her husband left the church.


The sweeping nondisclosure agreement forbade the pair, among other things, from disparaging the church.


On Jan. 1, Cook sent an email to about 3,000 Scientologists questioning the church's practices. In it, she suggests the exalted position of Miscavige is a corruption of the religion itself, which she still practices.


In Jeffrey's office, she went further.


“He's a tyrant,” she told me. “He's vicious beyond belief.”


This is the second way in which Cook is not alone.


In recent years, a growing number of defectors have gone public with similar accusations, claiming Scientology, with Miscavige at the top, has become a cruel, violent cult. See “The Truth Rundown,” an investigation by the Tampa Bay Times.


Seeking an injunction last month to silence Cook, the church unleashed her own story.
Taking the stand, she testified about “The Hole,” something she says is a series of double-wide trailers at a desert base in California.


She says she was imprisoned there for weeks with other church officials, beaten and made to sleep on the floor with ants and stand for hours in a trash can while being doused with cold water.


The church denies this. Its lawyers say it wouldn't matter if it were true.


Cook and her husband spent $100,000 the church gave them when they left and moved to San Antonio. This “ratified” the agreement she signed and later breached, they say.


Cook says she was forced to sign and take the money to escape confinement.


A judge on Friday granted Jeffrey, her pugnacious attorney, more time to mount a defense. Through discovery, he's seeking evidence that Cook was imprisoned and tortured.


George Spencer, an attorney for the church, included in his arguments a notable statement.


“What's an appropriate way to discipline within the church,” he said, “such things are off-limits to the courts.”


I chased Spencer after the hearing to ask about this.


Standing with him at the elevators was a man who'd sat quietly among the church's entourage at the hearing, taking notes.


In a beige trench coat, he had mussed hair and a stealthy bearing. A few times, I had noticed him observing me.


I asked his name.


“You don't need my name,” he said, and the elevator doors closed.
 

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
What's odd about this is that I have no doubt about the truth of it.

It is per policy.

Does this mean that harassment of fairgamers is legal?

No way.

Harassment is not acceptable any where I know of, unless it comes from the state authorities that is.
 

Lulu Belle

Moonbat
What I find interesting is:

The church denies the abuse ever happened.

The church's lawyer seems to imply that it happened but it is irrelevant to the case.

So, the church is denying the abuse but their lawyer isn't.

Kind of like a defendant saying he didn't kill someone and his lawyer implying he actually did do the murder but that it's in some way inadmissible in the trial.


Although it has sued Cook, the secretive church contends that nothing that happened while she worked there is relevant to the case. It says she breached a contract she signed on Oct. 19, 2007, the day she and her husband left the church.

.......................



Seeking an injunction last month to silence Cook, the church unleashed her own story. Taking the stand, she testified about “The Hole,” something she says is a series of double-wide trailers at a desert base in California.


She says she was imprisoned there for weeks with other church officials, beaten and made to sleep on the floor with ants and stand for hours in a trash can while being doused with cold water.


The church denies this. Its lawyers say it wouldn't matter if it were true.

................


George Spencer, an attorney for the church, included in his arguments a notable statement.


“What's an appropriate way to discipline within the church,” he said, “such things are off-limits to the courts.”
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
What I find interesting is:

The church denies the abuse ever happened.

The church's lawyer seems to imply that it happened but it is irrelevant to the case.

So, the church is denying the abuse but their lawyer isn't.

Could it be that the lawyer actually has some scruples? Wouldn't that put him at a disadvantage in his profession?

Paul
 

Lulu Belle

Moonbat
Could it be that the lawyer actually has some scruples?

I'm not saying the lawyer doesn't have scruples but I don't think that's why he's taking this stand.

I think he's smart enough and realistic enough to know that going down the "are the allegations true or not" road would not only be death for the case, it would open up many new cans of worms.

All he needs is for the defense to start calling to the stand dozens of exes who can attest to what Debbie says, in addition to probably adding even more horror stories that she hasn't mentioned.

I think he has figured out by now that his client doesn't tell the truth, not only to the press and to the world but to him, and that he himself doesn't know the half of it. As someone pointed out on the VV comments, the worst nightmare for a lawyer is being blindsided in the courtroom. Having other exes attest would have to be Blindside Hell for this guy.
 

RolandRB

Rest in Peace
What's odd about this is that I have no doubt about the truth of it.

It is per policy.

Does this mean that harassment of fairgamers is legal?

No way.

Harassment is not acceptable any where I know of, unless it comes from the state authorities that is.

There is separation between the affairs of Church and State. A Church can do what it likes to other people of their own faith. They can kill them if they want to so long as it is in accordance with their religious doctrines. In the case of Debbie, she is covered by R2-45. Suppose they kill her -- it won't be murder because everybody was intending to do the right thing according to their religious doctrines so the State should back off and let "ethics" take its course, Scientology style.

Another thing -- the major established religions of the world went through hundreds of years of torturing and killing people to cement their control over the public and it is only fair and right that the Church of Scientology has an equal chance to evolve into a mainstream religion. I think it would therefore be fair and just for them to be able to torture and kill a thousand people per year with impunity to improve their position in society and give them an equal chance alongside the Great religions such as Christianity and Islam.
 
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Gadfly

Crusader
Could it be that the lawyer actually has some scruples? Wouldn't that put him at a disadvantage in his profession?

Paul

Well, at least, it sure would put him at a disadvantage when it comes to defending the nasty, manipulative and deceitful Church of Scientology.
 

Feral

Rogue male
Could it be that the lawyer actually has some scruples? Wouldn't that put him at a disadvantage in his profession?

Paul

His argument isn't based on his scruples. Basically if they argue the torture, abuse and imprisonment didn't happen then it's subsequently proven it did the CofS runs out of legs in it's fight.

But if they take the stand it's both untrue and irrelevant to the issue the church keeps another arrow in it's quiver.

Rogues basically.
 

Terril park

Sponsor
His argument isn't based on his scruples. Basically if they argue the torture, abuse and imprisonment didn't happen then it's subsequently proven it did the CofS runs out of legs in it's fight.

But if they take the stand it's both untrue and irrelevant to the issue the church keeps another arrow in it's quiver.

Rogues basically.

How did a sheep [shearer...] become so fucking good at legal stuff?

You should be payed for consultation. :)
 

Feral

Rogue male
He's not a sheep shearer and you should learn how to spell.

Did you think he was being snide? I don't think he's capable of snideness, it's just how he rolls.

Terril, I'm no legal wiz at all, I do pay attention and enjoy the battle, that's why I read it the way I did.

Legally I'm as dumb as a rock.
 
As someone pointed out on the VV comments, the worst nightmare for a lawyer is being blindsided in the courtroom. Having other exes attest would have to be Blindside Hell for this guy.
I beg to differ - what you are forgetting, all witnesses would be deposed with both counsels present long before the trial took place - the only way he would be blindsided, was for a witness to change his/her testimony in court. Mimsey
 
I think it would therefore be fair and just for them to be able to torture and kill a thousand people per year with impunity to improve their position in society and give them an equal chance alongside the Great religions such as Christianity and Islam.
Well then, lets break out the Mathisons (they got their power from the wall outlets, not batteries) and turn them up to 11!!!

Mimsey
 

Freeminds

Bitter defrocked apostate
Brian Chasnoff said:
. . .
Standing with him at the elevators was a man who'd sat quietly among the church's entourage at the hearing, taking notes.

In a beige trench coat, he had mussed hair and a stealthy bearing. A few times, I had noticed him observing me.

I asked his name.

“You don't need my name,” he said, and the elevator doors closed.

Did LRH ever say which implant is responsible for re-enacting creepy 'Cold War' spy dramas? Scientologists seem to be prone to restimulation of this particular kind. They really are hung up on it. I think I will have to label it Incident H, since it probably wouldn't have been a problem if Hubbard's own life hadn't hinged upon the Cold War period.

It's nice to have an incident that happened only a couple of generations ago. Hell, it's nice to know there was an incident that actually happened, for a change.

Next time you see a Scientology victim exercising their strange hobby-cum-compulsive-disorder by obsessively filming, stalking people, communicating in a secret code, etc., don't blame him; blame IPCRESS. (The "Induction of Psycho-neuroses by Conditioned Reflex under strESS"; and if that isn't life under the yoke of Miscavige, I don't know what is.)
 

Lulu Belle

Moonbat
I beg to differ - what you are forgetting, all witnesses would be deposed with both counsels present long before the trial took place - the only way he would be blindsided, was for a witness to change his/her testimony in court. Mimsey

Yeah, I'm definitely no legal expert.

Does this mean COS' lawyer knew what Debbie was going to say in court?
 
Did LRH ever say which implant is responsible for re-enacting creepy 'Cold War' spy dramas? Scientologists seem to be prone to restimulation of this particular kind. They really are hung up on it. I think I will have to label it Incident H, since it probably wouldn't have been a problem if Hubbard's own life hadn't hinged upon the Cold War period.

It's nice to have an incident that happened only a couple of generations ago. Hell, it's nice to know there was an incident that actually happened, for a change.

Next time you see a Scientology victim exercising their strange hobby-cum-compulsive-disorder by obsessively filming, stalking people, communicating in a secret code, etc., don't blame him; blame IPCRESS. (The "Induction of Psycho-neuroses by Conditioned Reflex under strESS"; and if that isn't life under the yoke of Miscavige, I don't know what is.)

A touch of hubbardarian hyperbole to jazz it up? That incident is 75 million court cases ago.
 
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