J. Swift
Patron with Honors
Although the story of Joanne Wheaton has been told before, it bears repeating as a cautionary tale of how the Cult of Scientology treats widows and orphans.
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The Apostle James said of true religion:
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ref: http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=846408
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The Apostle James said of true religion:
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. -- James 1:27. HCSB
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Volume 70, Number 281 :
FRIDAY, February 10, 1984
Widow donated workers' comp benefits to sect
From Sun reports
The widow of an Air Florida pilot whose jet plunged into the Potomac got
$300,000 in workers' compensation benefits for her husband's death—and the
next day donated nearly half the money to the Church of Scientology.
Joanne Wheaton also invested much of the remaining payment in a firm operated by a Scientologist.
Larry Wheaton's plane crashed Jan. 13, 1982, onto a crowded bridge in Wash-
ington, D.C., and then into the Potomac River. Only five of the 79 people aboard
survived.
Wheaton and his wife were ardent Scientologists and had made sizable contributions to the sect before the crash.
Wheaton, 34, who was earning $72,000 a year as an Air Florida pilot, left no will.
His wife inherited their house in southwest Miami and a $142,000 life insurance
policy.
The life insurance money was Joanne Wheaton's to spend as she saw fit. But
not so with the workers' compensation benefits, a probate judge says.
"I was flabbergasted," Dade Probate Judge Francis Christie said of learning
that the workers' compensation money had been spent.
Christie told The Miami Herald in a story published Thursday that the money
was supposed to go into Wheaton's estate to pay off any debts and at least part
was supposed to be safeguarded until the couple's two sons, Eli, 2, and Joshua, 8,
turn 18.
Court records show Mrs. Wheaton got $300,000 on June 8, 1982, and the next day
spent $299,400 this way:
- $80,000 went to the Church of Scientology for church expansion. .
- $42,000 to the sect's Library Donation Service, which places books about
Scientology in public libraries.
- $8,000 to the building fund of the Learning Academy, a Scientology school
in Miami.
- $5,000 in gifts to Church of Scientology ministers.
- $150,000 invested with MSR Inc., a Dade County firm owned by a Scientologist named Robert Almblad.
- $10,000 in a certificate of deposit
- $4,000 for credit card debts left by
her husband.
Joanne Wheaton said in an interview with The Herald that her lawyers never
told her the workers' compensation money wasn't hers to spend.
"The funds I donated to the church were not supposed to have been donated," she said. "It was a little flub on the part of one of the attorneys. I had not been advised that by law, it had to go into the estate."
Former Florida Attorney General Robert Shevin, appointed by the probate
judge, filed suit Wednesday on behalf of Mrs. Wheaton and her two sons seeking
return of the $150,000 invested in MSR and punitive damages.
The various entities of the Church of Scientology are not named. Shevin wrote
them a letter threatening to sue, and $145,400 was returned.
The sect also excommunicated Almblad and another Scientologist, Kenneth
McFarland, who was the sect's deputy commander of international expansion at
the time. Shevin says in the suit that both men coerced Mrs. Wheaton to give
away the money.
Mrs. Wheaton also gave the sect at least $75,000 of her husband's insurance
policy. But since the policy was not a probatable asset, she was entitled to give
that away.
Five months after the crash, Mrs. Wheaton and her two sons moved to Bel-
leair. She remains a devoted Scientologist.
Contacted at her Belleair home Thursday evening, Mrs. Wheaton had no further comment....
ref: http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=846408
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