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Joel Sappell Finds Marty Rathbun To Be a Reluctant Whistleblower

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http://tonyortega.org/2012/12/18/jo...rcer-marty-rathbun-a-reluctant-whistleblower/

Joel Sappell Finds Former Scientology Enforcer Marty Rathbun To Be a Reluctant Whistleblower

Another excellent article from Tony Ortega, including this comment:

Richard Behar • 2 days ago

Nice piece, Tony. I tip my hat to Joel and Bob. Their great series was such an extraordinary public service, and they paid dearly for it when the church struck back. I can appreciate Joel's mixed feelings after his visit to Texas. I had a similar reaction after a few conversations with Marty and Mike Rinder during the past few years. While I applaud them for leaving the church, and for having the courage of denouncing and regretting what they did in its name, I also came away with a sense that they weren't as forthcoming with me about the details -- as perhaps they could have been. Marty told me that -- between the church's lawyers and private eyes -- they spent an estimated $25 million against me and Time magazine in the 1990s. (That's about $35-40 million in today's money.) Exactly WHAT that loot purchased is something I'd like to know someday.
 

Type4_PTS

Diamond Invictus SP
Very good article by Tony O! :thumbsup:

I'm glad to hear that he's getting more traffic on his blog than he was at the Village Voice. :)

Here's an excerpt from the article I found very interesting:

At times during their conversation, Rathbun admits to things like getting copies of Sappell’s phone records — but only second- or third-hand, through the actions of operatives he had no involvement with. At other times, he says he would never have approved operations like the CHP stop of Welkos, but that it could have been done by underlings he had no control over. Rathbun seems to alternate between taking the blame for years of heinous activity, and wanting to be seen as blameless for it.

“Sometimes he seems to be having a dialogue between the new Marty and the old,” Sappell writes.

There was no question, Rathbun told him, that Miscavige had a special hatred for Sappell and Welkos, and held brainstorming sessions to come up with ways to derail their series.

But Sappell keeps pushing for more specific answers.

Like, did Scientology poison his dog or not?

Rathbun tells him that pets were off limits and there was no way that he would have had anything to do with harming Swearinger’s dog or Sappell’s. But once again, he hedges, saying that it could have been “third parties” that wanted the church to look bad — maybe even agents of the IRS.

Sappell finds that doubtful. And then Rathbun admits that he keeps a close watch on his own dog Chiquita with so much Scientology surveillance going on. “I don’t put it past the sons of bitches, you know what I mean?” Rathbun tells him.

Read Full Article Here: http://tonyortega.org/2012/12/18/jo...rcer-marty-rathbun-a-reluctant-whistleblower/
 

Veda

Sponsor
Just for laughs, compare the CofS PRs from 1980 - just after the federal court ordered exposure of a chunk of nasty Hubbard Fair Game tech - with Marty&Mike's responses these days.

Keep in mind that these were official CofS representatives, and that - at the time - the Guardians Office still existed. (It's name hadn't yet been changed and Mary Sue hadn't yet been removed, although she was headed for prison.)

Note the 1980 CofS responses at 1:56 - 3:53 of the below video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuOBGZyfw3o&feature=related

Now take it a step further, and imagine the same two outside the CofS, at "war" with David Miscavige - who is presented as the ultimate anti-Scientologist and purveyor of "Reverse Scientology" - in other words, imagine them presented as two who are "attacking, and being attacked by, a popularly considered evil," that "popularly considered evil" being the Church of Scientology as run by David Miscavige.
 
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