Monique Yingling

The most incredible lie Scientology attorney Monique Yingling told ABC ’20/20′

Monique Yingling, Esq.

Preface: My article below originally appeared on Tony Ortega’s Underground Bunker. It is reprinted here with additional material added. I republish the article here because the Church of Scientology has used tens of millions of tax exempt dollars, or more, to pay Monique Yingling (and the law firm for which she works) for her four decades of legal services to Scientology. And yet Yingling had the shamelessness on her recent interview with ABC 20/20’s Dan Harris to criticize Leah Remini for making money to produce and appear in the A&E show Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. Monique Yingling’s hypocrisy is staggering: She is a financial beneficiary of the human suffering that occurs in Scientology, and, Yingling helps to enable that suffering by defending it as an attorney for Scientology. Yingling also made a point to ABC’s Dan Harris that she raised her children in the Catholic faith; it is unfortunate that none of the love, compassion, or mercy of the Catholic faith seems to have affected Monique Yingling in her professional work.

Following the sudden departure of Tommy Davis as the Church of Scientology’s spokesman in 2011, the organization no longer has an actual Scientologist to represent it on television or in documentaries. Seemingly by default, Scientology leader David Miscavige’s attorney Monique Yingling — a non-Scientologist – has found herself cast in the unlikely role as the international spokeswoman for the church.

During ABC 20/20’s recent episode, “Scientology: A War Without Guns,” Yingling appeared to speak on behalf of Miscavige at the last minute. Like her previous appearance in April in an episode about Ron Miscavige’s book Ruthless, Yingling was given a lot of airtime to present the church’s side of things. And this time, at one point ABC’s Dan Harris asked her a very straightforward question, and her reply was stunning:

Harris: Scientology has described psychiatry as an “industry of death.” Why is that?

Yingling: Well, I think that’s a catchphrase. But what Scientology has worked hard against are abusive practices of psychiatry. Not psychiatry in general.

Harris: You say, “not psychiatry in general,” but an “industry of death” sounds pretty general.

Yingling: Well because unfortunately there have been a lot of abuses, and psychiatry has caused a lot of deaths.

Right there on national television, this was a pretty spectacular lie.

ABC 20/20’s Dan Harris interviewing Monique Yingling

If you know much about Scientology at all, you know that founder L. Ron Hubbard considered all of psychiatry an abomination that has plagued mankind for trillions — yes trillions of years. Hubbard even claimed that the “evil psychs” were a special race, traceable to the planet “Farsec.” The goal of the psychs, according to Hubbard, is to implant, enslave, and kill humans.

From 1950 until his death in 1986, Hubbard created, expanded, and sustained Scientology’s attack upon psychiatry that continues to this day.

As part of Hubbard’s efforts to expose psychiatry, Scientology created the Citizens Commission on Human Rights in 1969 as a “mental health industry watchdog whose mission is to eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health.” But what does CCHR actually do? One thing CCHR does is work to get psychiatrists arrested, tried, and imprisoned for abuses.

CCHR’s Psychiatric Crime Database, yet another typically exaggerated and bizarre Scientology PR effort, puts the lie to Monique Yingling’s claims that “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” is merely a catchphrase:

CCHR also markets and sells the book “Psychiatrists – the Men Behind Hitler” on its website. This tawdry book blames psychiatry for the Holocaust:

In 2005, CCHR opened its “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum” in Hollywood. This was the same year Tom Cruise launched into his hostile attack against psychiatry and psychiatric drugs during his interview with Matt Lauer. And then at the 2007 New Year’s event at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles, David Miscavige infamously used animated exploding hand grenades to call for the global obliteration of Psychiatry:

I was in the audience that night and was appalled to see the way in which the gathered Scientologists jumped to their feet to scream wildly and applaud Miscavige’s violent call for the global obliteration of Psychiatry and the mass arrest and imprisonment of psychiatrists. Miscavige further bragged at this event that CCHR had a “smart bomb” that “sniffs out Psych fuel lines and blows the funding mechanism. And in that way, to put it bluntly, we booby-trapped the whole psychiatric ecosystem.”

David Miscavige’s violent 2007 rant against psychiatry was nothing new. In October 1995, Miscavige promised Scientologists that psychiatry would be destroyed in five years:

“There are a lot of opinions out there as to what is wrong with Earth, 1995. But if you really want to eliminate those problems all you have to do is work for the objectives that we, as members of the IAS, have set for the year 2000: Objective One – place Scientology at the absolute forefront of Society. Objective Two – eliminate psychiatry in all its forms. Let’s get rid of psychiatry, and let’s bring Scientology to every man, woman and child on this planet.”

Finally, and here we arrive at the crux of the matter, L. Ron Hubbard was infuriated that psychiatry had obtained what he thought was a fraudulent monopoly on mental health treatment. To Hubbard’s way of thinking, psychiatry was rigged because it required an eight-year medical degree plus a four-year psychiatric residency to become a psychiatrist. This conspiracy to require medical degrees and residencies effectively locked Hubbard and his e-meter out of the tens of billions dollars per year in government funding spent on mental health treatment.

Hubbard wanted that money. He wanted Scientology to have an exclusive global monopoly on mental health treatment and the billions of government dollars pouring into psychiatric and mental health programs. As Hubbard wrote in his confidential 1969 memo Intelligence Actions:

Our war has been forced to become to take over absolutely the field of mental healing on this planet in all forms… Our total victory will come when we run his (the enemy’s) organization, perform his functions and obtain his financing and appropriations.

Monique Yingling was prevaricating when she told Dan Harris that “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” was a catchphrase. Yingling knows that, per its own policies, Scientology will not accept anyone as a member who has been suicidal or has been treated with psychiatric drugs. In a paradoxical coda to this article, we note that these two prohibitions disqualify L. Ron Hubbard from Scientology.

In 1947, L. Ron Hubbard wrote to the US Veterans Administration complaining of suicidal ideations and moroseness, or what we would today call depression. Hubbard asked the Veterans Administration to provide him with psychiatric treatment.

And at the end of his life, in January 1986, L. Ron Hubbard suffered a stroke and was treated with the psychiatric tranquilizer Vistaril.

Hubbard’s intense hatred of psychiatry was most curiously book-ended between his request for psychiatric help in 1947 and his use of a doctor-prescribed psychiatric tranquilizer at the end of his life. I wonder how Monique Yingling would spin that?

— Jeffrey Augustine

When I was doing research for this article I thoroughly examined many CCHR websites. While it feels like internet dumpster diving, the fact is that one has to study Scientology websites in detail in order to be a good researcher. Scientology websites are a gold mine of the Cult’s paranoid mindset and CCHR has the most gruesome and weird of all Scientology websites.

As to “Industry of Death” being a catchphrase, one CCHR website has a CGI reproduction of the actual Industry of Death museum in Hollywood. I toured the museum after it opened many years ago. The decor reminded me of a Marie Calender’s restaurant, sort of a French farmhouse motif, festooned with photos of Nazis and ghastly photos of lobotomies and ECT. There are also psychiatric appliances. The net effect led me to conclude that CCHR itself is in dire need of psychiatric treatment.

On one wall there is a big sign that reads: Psychiatry. Torture & Death Sold as Miracle Cure. When I saw this, I realized Scientology was projecting what it does onto Psychiatry:

There is also a Eugenics display. Curiously, it has never occured to Scientology that its goal to create a master race of Homo Novis and to “dispose of quietly and without sorrow” all those 2.0 or below on the Tone Scale is a form of both Scientology eugenics and genocide.

The Industry of Death museum has a strange display that features a collage of images that is weird and creepy:

On a final note, one CCHR website shows a Mr. Lage Vitus correctly condemning the South African philosopher, psychologist, and Prime Minister Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd (1901-1966) as the architect of apartheid. However, Scientology then uses a non-sequitur to blame Dr. Verwoerd’s work in psychology — and by extension psychiatry — for apartheid. Mr. Vitus is incorrect for apartheid was rooted in racism, segregation, and the goal to keep Black South Africans in a perpetual state of poverty and illiteracy. Apartheid did not occur due to psychiatry.

Moreover, as the Daily Mail noted, L. Ron Hubbard wrote to Prime Minister Verwoerd to praise Verwoerd’s slum clearance projects. In doing so, Hubbard effectively praised and condoned apartheid.

In a letter written in November 1960 to Hendrik Verwoerd, a former president considered the architect of apartheid, Hubbard praises the devastating practice of forced resettlement of non-white South Africans.

‘Having viewed slum clearance projects in most major cities of the world may I state that you have conceived and created in the Johannesburg townships what is probably the most impressive and adequate resettlement activity in existence,’ says the letter, which was brought up during South Africa’s 1972 Commission of Inquiry into Scientology.

While in South Africa, Hubbard developed Scientology’s toughest test: a confessional-style list of probing questions, asked of followers while they hold the tin can electrodes of a lie detector-type device known as an ‘e-meter.’

The Wiki page on Verwoerd describes the brutal tactics he used against opponents of his apartheid policies. If one substitutes “Scientology” for “apartheid” in this quote, the parallels between L. Ron Hubbard and Verwoerd are eerie:

Verwoerd rigidly enforced Apartheid policies through further introducing oppressive laws, which diminished the rights of ordinary individuals… Verwoerd empowered the police, Secret Police and Army to extraordinary levels. During his time in office he ordered a secret all-out offensive against those opposed to apartheid policies….

L. Ron Hubbard created a fascist system of Scientology apartheid in which, if he had his way, only Scientologists would have rights. As Hubbard wrote in Science of Survival:

…any person from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale should not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind, because by abusing those rights he brings into being arduous and strenuous laws which are oppressive to those who need no such restraints.

Los Angeles Times: Private investigator for Church of Scientology alleges he was paid by Church attorney to recant statement to police

(Note: The following summary was written by Tony Ortega and is reprinted from his blog)

Kim Christensen, the L.A. Times reporter who broke the story last year about Scientology leader David Miscavige hiring private investigators Dwayne and Daniel Powell to follow his own father, Ron Miscavige, after Ron escaped from Scientology in 2012, has an important update today that is on the newspaper’s front page.

The most striking thing in Christensen’s story last year was that the Powells told West Allis, Wisconsin police that they had been told by David Miscavige personally simply to stand by and let Ron die when they observed him having what they thought was a heart attack. “If he dies, he dies,” David reportedly told them.

Dwayne Powell later submitted a declaration that he had been misquoted by the police in their report of his interview, and that he did not talk to David Miscavige. The police in Wisconsin stood by their report.

Now, today, buried fairly deep in a lengthy story about Ron’s recent memoir, “Ruthless,” Christensen drops a small bomb.

Christensen obtained pay records showing that Powell was given $16,000 in five payments after his 2013 arrest and just before his submission of the declaration, even though he was no longer following Ron Miscavige.

The pay disbursements had come from notorious Scientology lawyer Kendrick Moxon. Would Moxon pay someone to say things in a declaration that the church wanted to hear?

Christensen doesn’t say it, but we’ve already proved that Moxon would do such a thing.

Back in 1999, we showed through documents that when a man named Robert Cipriano agreed to sign a false declaration accusing attorney Graham Berry of sexual improprieties in his past, Moxon arranged for Cipriano to get a job, rented him a place to live, and leased him a car.

Moxon, naturally, denied to the Times that his payments to Powell had anything to do with Powell issuing his declaration denying that he’d talked to Miscavige.

In the spring of 2015, just weeks before Powell signed the declaration, a Scientology attorney paid him at least $16,000 for “security” services in five payments, according to check stubs obtained by The Times. The checks were written on the trust account of Kendrick Moxon, a prominent Scientology attorney in Los Angeles, the records show.

Reached by phone, Powell confirmed the payments but would not comment on them.

But he did say that he had not worked for the church after giving up his Florida private investigator’s license in 2014, when he was indicted on a federal charge of possessing an illegal silencer. It was dismissed when he entered a pretrial diversion program.

Moxon told The Times in a written response that Powell performed “security and research services” for his firm last year.

“The relationship between this firm and any investigators I retain is privileged and confidential,” he wrote. “However, I can categorically state for the record that no payments were made to Mr. Powell for the testimony in his truthful declaration.”

But Powell told the Times that he was paid to write the declaration, which was written for him and which he signed in a meeting that took ten minutes.

So what have we learned? That Dwayne Powell did tell West Allis police that David Miscavige told him to stand by and watch Ron Miscavige die. (Ron actually wasn’t having a heart attack.) And that fact becoming public freaked out Scientology so much it paid Powell $16,000 to lie and claim that he’d said no such thing.

But once again, Moxon is busted by his own documents. And congratulations to the L.A. Times!

Excerpts from the Los Angeles Times story:

For more than a year, Powell told detectives, he and his son had followed Miscavige, eavesdropped on him and spied on his emails. They were paid $10,000 a week through an intermediary, he told police, explaining that David Miscavige was the “main client.”

On one outing, Powell told police, he saw Ron Miscavige clutch his chest while loading his car and thought he was having a heart attack. He called his go-between for instructions, and minutes later a man who identified himself as David Miscavige called back and told him that “if it was Ron’s time to die, to let him die and not intervene in any way,” a police report states…

…Police in that Milwaukee suburb stand by their account: “There is no confusion in the statements that were made by Dwayne and Daniel Powell,” Chief Patrick Mitchell said in an email.

Now, in the latest twist in the saga of church-sanctioned surveillance, Powell says he was paid thousands of dollars to sign the declaration after church attorneys summoned him to a meeting last year in Atlanta.

“The whole meeting took less than 10 minutes,” he said. “They said, ‘This is what this is, and this is what it’s for. Goodbye and good luck.’ ”

John Sugg and the Internal Structural Collapse of the Church of Scientology

Was John Sugg (left) hired because he has the same “OT Charm Factor” as Scientologist Kirstie Alley?

The internal structural collapse of the Church of Scientology has occured.

The Church of Scientology no longer has anyone inside capable of speaking intelligently, or even coherently, on its behalf. The Church must therefore pay non-Scientology professionals to defend it. The journalist John Sugg is the latest non-Scientologist to take a big payday to defend the Church of Scientology. Sugg probably doesn’t realize that his employer, the Church of Scientology, embodies L. Ron Hubbard’s nightmare Master Race doctrine and Call for a Scientology Genocide against all person’s 2.0 and below on the Scientology Tone Scale.

Non-Scientologist attorney Monique Yingling recently appeared on ABC 20/20 to rebut claims made by Ron Miscavige in his New York Times bestselling book Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige and Me.

This task of talking to 20/20 should have been the duty of Cult leader David Miscavige, but he was far too busy crucifying his own father and brother on a new Scientology hate website. David Miscavige is simply too paranoid and too preoccupied with matters of money and revenge to do a television interview.

John Sugg is now the Editor of Scientology’s in-house propaganda journal Freedom magazine. One of Sugg’s main assignments is, apparently, to engage in Fair Game attacks against Tony Ortega. Sugg’s attacks are an indication of David Miscavige’s fear of Tony Ortega’s steadfast effectiveness in exposing the malicious Cult of Scientology.

Sugg posted today in the comments section of Tony Ortega’s famous Underground Bunker. Sugg’s post was your typical litany of Scientology butthurt coupled with an attack on Tony. It was mediocre work on Sugg’s part. Sugg has a long way to go in mastering the art of Scientology’s vitriolic propaganda.

This leads me to ask if Sugg will extend the same courtesy and allow Bunkerites, critics, and former Scientologists to post on Freedom Magazine and Scientology blogs?

If the answer is no, then this proves the inherent censorship and fascism of Freedom magazine and Scientology. If Sugg wants to post at the Bunker, then Bunker posters should be allowed to post at Freedom magazine and Scientology blogs. If, however, this is a “one way flow” where Sugg expects to post at the Bunker while not allowing critical views to be posted at Scientology or Freedom sites, then Sugg is an out exchange deadbeat and should be banned from the Bunker for lack of reciprocity.

Mr. Sugg, I have questions for you:

1. If you and your employer are to have any credibility whatsoever with claimed membership numbers, then Scientology’s active IAS membership numbers — i.e. Scientologists in good standing with the Church — must be published after being verified by a neutral third party CPA firm. Otherwise, we may safely assume any numbers from Scientology are false. The Church of Scientology must publish audited and truthful membership numbers or shut up and stop publishing lies. Do you agree John?

2. I have called upon Monique Yingling to make fully public Scientology’s secret 1993 agreement with the IRS public or shut up with her complaints about Alex Gibney and others concerning their criticisms of Scientology’s secret agreement with the IRS. Publish it all online Monique: The Final Closing Agreement and all 14 linear feet of supporting documents the Church submitted. Mr. Sugg: Would you please urge Monique Yingling to publish the IRS agreement and supporting documentation and be done with it?

3. To what extent is PR crisis manager Michael Sitrick involved in the daily PR operations of CSI, RTC, Freedom, and all other operations of Scientology?

4. How much money does the Church of Scientology (CST/RTC/CSI/IAS) spend weekly on lawyers and private investigators?

5. Why is the Church of Scientology not financially transparent with its own members or the public?

6. Why doesn’t David Miscavige make himself available for interviews by journalists?

Denise Miscavige Gentile Booking Photo

7. Since the Church of Scientology is so busy trashing David Miscavige’s father and brother, it might as well go for a Trifecta of Fair Game and tell the world that David Miscavige’s twin sister Denise Gentile was arrested for drunk driving, possession of marijuana, and failure to yield.

The Church can also add in the part about Denise allowing her tenant Rico Currie to pay her in marijuana instead of cash.

The Church can even mention Denise’s work in the 1990’s at Digital Lightwave. At that time her name was Denise Licciardi.

8. Why have David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology covered up child sexual molestation in the Church? Is the public to conclude that the Church of Scientology is a safe haven for pedophiles?

9. Why did the Church of Scientology choose to handle felony assault and battery internally, thus denying the victims of David Miscavige’s felonious behavior due process of law and their criminal and civil remedies? Was this done to protect David Miscavige from the law? If so, what do you think of this Mr. Sugg? Is it right for a Church to cover up crimes to protect its leader?

10. Why did the Church of Scientology publish Ron Miscavige’s confidential confessional data on its website? This heinous act on the part of the Church of Scientology proves, once and for all, that the Church engages uses the private confessions of Scientologists against them — and this in direct violation of Scientology’s own Auditor’s Code:

I promise never to use the secrets of a preclear divulged in session for punishment or personal gain.

The Church of Scientology’s main website reiterates the sanctity of auditing:

CRF.5

Given the Church’s publication of Ron Miscavige’s priest-penitent communication, it would seem that the Church of Scientology lied to the California Supreme Court in the DeCrescenzo case when it sought an emergency stay, “seeking to prevent the production of clergy-penitent privileged documents.” Ron Miscavige’s O/W write up is certainly a clergy-penitent privileged document.

Scientology attorneys Bert Deixler and Eric Lieberman emphatically represented to the California Supreme Court that Scientology parishioner information was secret and confidential:

All clergy authorized by the Scientology Scripture to see the auditing folders must take a sacred oath to maintain the secrecy of all auditing communications. Pre-Clears and other parishioners are assured by the Church that their auditing communications and records will be maintained as strictly confidential.

Scientology places great religious emphasis on the confidentiality of a parishioner’s auditing folders. Such folders cannot be disclosed without violating the fundamental religious tenets of the Church of Scientology.

The unauthorized disclosure of someone’s PC folder is one of the most serious ecclesiastical crimes within the Church, known as a Suppressive Act and can lead to expulsion from the Church. Turning over the pre-clear folders of the parishioner’s auditing, even to the parishioner, is forbidden. The Church and its ministers have an absolute responsibility to maintain the secrecy of auditing files.

If the Church of Scientology is to remain true to what its attorneys Lieberman and Deixler told the California Supreme Court — The unauthorized disclosure of someone’s PC folder is one of the most serious ecclesiastical crimes within the Church, known as a Suppressive Act and can lead to expulsion from the Church – then everyone responsible for publishing Ron Miscavige Sr.’s confessional data is surely guilty of one of the most serious ecclesiastical crimes in Scientology and must be punished accordingly.

Will the guilty be punished? Or is the Church of Scientology and its attorneys simply engaging in more prevarications? What is your opinion of the matter Mr. Sugg? Do you want to do some honest reporting here?

Monique Rathbun Discharges Her Legal Team Without Cause

As is her right, Monique Rathbun has discharged her legal team without cause. We post the court filing here as part of our goal to compile all relevant publicly available legal and financial documents.

Karen and I wish Mark and Monique all the best.

Scientlology Money Project Chart # 11

so.11

The structure of Scientology Inc. is rife with self-serving conflicts of interest by David Miscavige and his enablers both in OSA and private practice.

Scientologists must confront this fact: Their “Church” has gone criminal and is in an out exchange condition. This is a rip off per Mr. Hubbard:

“First consider a group which takes in money but does not deliver anything in exchange. This is called rip-off. It is the ‘exchange’ condition of robbers, tax men, governments and other criminal elements.” – L. Ron Hubbard, HCO PL 10 Sep 82 – Exchange, Org Income and Staff Pay.

Scientologists are encouraged to do their own Doubt Formula to find out what is true for them. The data found here on the Scientology Money Project is from publicly-available IRS records, court records, and other public documents. I found virtually everything on this blog by using Google. Knowledge is power.

2016 will bring increasing challenges to Scientology Inc. as ever-increasing exposure is brought to bear on this criminal organization masquerading as a religion. Particular scrutiny will be on Kingpin David Miscavige and his enablers.

Leah Remini and the Church of Scientology

The Church of Scientology has gone on another of its rabid mad dog attacks. This time, the Church’s target is Leah Remini and ABC News.

In a series of letters, the Church has bitterly complained to ABC executives about the network’s coverage of actress and former Scientologist Leah Remini and her new book Troublemaker.

On its website, the Church reprinted nine letters it sent to ABC concerning Leah Remini and what it perceives to be ABC’s unfair treatment of Scientology. One problem with the Church of Scientology’s letters is that they are awash in vague generalities and unverifiable claims about the Church’s alleged expansion and its “social betterment” activities. None of its claims are proven by actual data.

Worse, and to the Church’s own damnation, Scientology uses these letters to make extremely vile personal attacks on Leah Remini. This is hardly surprising as the Church of Scientology has a history of making perverted and obscene attacks on women. For example, in the 1970’s Church of Scientology members scrawled Paulette Cooper’s name and private phone number with lurid messages on the walls of men’s public restrooms in New York. This filthy program of revenge against Cooper resulted in strange men calling her at all hours of the night and day seeking sex.

The Church humiliated Debbie Cook when she was still in the Church by making her stand in a trash can for eight hours with a sign around her neck that read “I am a Lesbo.” Water was repeatedly thrown on Cook during this ordeal. She was screamed at to publicly confess that she was a lesbian. Cook is not a lesbian and has been married for decades. Nevertheless, Church leader David Miscavige and his OSA hate machine have always been obsessed with making sleazy sexual slurs and attacks against people within and without the Church. When Cook described her humiliation in a public court hearing, David Miscavige quickly wrote a big check to settle with her in order to escape any further exposure of his depraved behavior.

The Church of Scientology is now viciously attacking Leah Remini in an attempt to demonize her. Leah’s “crime” was the same as that of the heroic Paulette Cooper: Leah dared to write a brave book exposing the Church of Scientology.

What I found to be particularly hypocritical about the Church’s attacks on Leah Remini was its characterization of her as a “no case gain.” This is one of the worst things a Scientologist can be called. This aspersion by the Church begs the question: If Leah spent 30 years in Scientology only to be a “no case gain” then what does this say about Scientology’s oft-repeated claim that “the Tech works.” Apparently, the Tech is not that good if a person can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for auditing and donate millions to the IAS only to be a no case gain.

Scientology can’t have it both ways: If the Tech works and Flag can crack any case, then Leah should have gotten case gain in thirty years. Otherwise, the Tech does not not work and David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology are lying about the efficacy of the Tech.

Moreover, if Leah Remini is a “no case gain” then the Church of Scientology should give her back every penny she ever donated to the Church just to prove its point that it does not need her or her money. But instead of having integrity and the decency to return her money, the Church has kept Leah’s millions of dollars in IAS donations and is now attacking her on a personal level. This vindictive, greedy, and petty behavior by Church leader David Miscavige is so very typical of Scientology. This behavior also goes to proving the argument that Scientology is a sleazy dirtbag cult that rips people off and gives nothing in return

As L. Ron Hubbard wrote:

“First consider a group which takes in money but does not deliver anything in exchange. This is called rip-off. It is the ‘exchange’ condition of robbers, tax men, governments and other criminal elements.” – L. Ron Hubbard, HCO PL 10 Sep 82 – Exchange, Org Income and Staff Pay.

On a related note, we recently completed an article here at the Scientology Money Project for Scientologists who are seeking repayments of monies on account with the Church.

Despite its letter writing and unwarranted personal attacks on Leah Remini, the Church of Scientology strategically fails to address the actual and glaring reasons for the mounting criticism and odium it incurs daily within Western Culture:

Disconnection
Breaking Up families by Disconnection
Fair game, stalking, and spying on former members and critics
The daily and weekly financial rape of its parishioners by nonstop fundraising
The brutality of the RPF
The lies and brutality of David Miscavige; how was this man allowed to become an unchallenged Dictator in a Church that told the IRS it had a system of internal checks and balances? Did the Church lie to the IRS in its bid for tax exemption? It certainly appears that way.
The Church’s refusal to make public all of the details of its secret agreement with the IRS
The system of vicious contracts it uses to strip its members of their civil and legal rights
The continual lies its spouts in its PR releases; why does the Church lie even when it does not need to lie?

If the Church of Scientology is truly committed to setting the record straight with ABC and Western Culture altogether, it needs address the real issues. The Church further needs to publish real numbers. Specifically, the Church needs to publish these actual numbers:

Current and active IAS membership numbers
Number of current Scientologists active on OT VII
Number of active Scientologists by country
Number of Sea Org members and their average weekly stipend for 2005-2015.
Liquid cash balances in all accounts: CSI, IAS, CSRT, etc.
2014 Balance sheets for CSI, Flag, AOLA, and all other major Orgs.
Actual numbers of new public members who have joined the Church in 2010-2014.
Membership loss and retention numbers since 2005.
Verifiable evidence to support its claims that Scientology has grown more in the past ten years than in the previous 50 years. What does this claim even mean? Is Scientology referring to real estate or members? The meaningful growth would be members and not buildings. I say this because any group with money can buy buildings. Scientology’s growing real estate portfolio does not mean that Scientology is growing; it simply means the Church has assets to purchase financially nonperforming real estate sufficient to satisfy the IRS requirement to spend money in the public benefit, in this case the purchase of buildings to use as Orgs.
Monies spent by the Church and the IAS on lawyers since 2005.
Refunds and repayments given since 2005.
Number of WDAH every year since 2005.
Number of auditors made since 2005.
Number of people declared SP’s since 2005.
Number of Sea Org members blown or routed out since 2005 versus the number of new Sea Org members since 2005.

These numbers need to be audited and validated by an independent third party hired by the Church. Having published Scientology’s 990-T’s, I am interested in the real data. I would like to see and inspect the numbers.

In my view, absent actual evidence the Church of Scientology is essentially publishing meaningless propaganda and self-indicting vitriol that serves to prove the viciousness of the Church of Scientology. The Church is doing this to itself; it sewed the wind and is now reaping the whirlwind.

Until Scientology publishes its real numbers and honestly addresses the intrinsic and systemic problems its own internal polices continually create, the Church will continue on its present trajectory of self-destruction. I have always written that Scientology is inherently self-destructive. From my perspective what is certain is this: The Church of Scientology is being broken upon the wheel of history and is doing everything it can to hasten its own destruction.

Scientology: Refunds and Repayments of Monies on Account

1992: In its third series of responses to the IRS in support of its 1023 application for 501 (c)3 tax exemption, the Church of Scientology complained to the IRS that is was misunderstood, vilified, and not being treated fairly. In the paragraph below, the Church complains to the IRS that refund requests from its members are actually a spiritual cross-check that Dianetics and Scientology have not been properly applied:

Here we see Hubbardian logic at work: Scientology can do no wrong; only a misapplication of Dianetics and Scientology would cause a person to ask for a refund. This mindset is crucial in understanding the Church of Scientology and money.

The RTC logo embodies the term “Standard Tech” to reinforce the notion that RTC’s job is to ensure the standard delivery and ecclesiastical purity of Scientology.

By Scientology logic, then, a Scientologist asking for a refund or repayment indicates an “Out Tech” or “Out Ethics” situation.

In other words, the Church of Scientology believes that some terrible mistake has occurred, perhaps an auditor made a mistake, or something else caused a Scientologist to ask for a refund. Alternately, after talking to a person requesting a refund, the Church may elect to take the view that the person has overts or withholds or some hidden crime against the Church. From Scientology’s perspective, a refund or repayment request is a deadly serious matter. And to be blunt, the Church simply does not want to give refunds.

Given the Church of Scientology’s prejudicial view of people who ask for their money back, here is exactly what the Church of Scientology told the IRS in 1992 about its refund policy:

The Church made it sound so simple: The “unhappy few” would be given refunds or repayments and permanently expelled from the Church so that the “very happy” could continue on in Scientology without being enturbulated by the unhappy few.

In this essay we are concerned with repayments, i.e. the return of monies on account that have not been used. One would think these unused monies should be given back to the person who paid them; nevertheless the Church of Scientology makes every effort possible to keep these unused monies.

The Church has always solicited and encouraged its members to make advanced payments for future services. The Church pitches this as a way for its members to “open a flow” and make payments for its super-expensive services. These advanced payments are called “money on account.” However, the term “money on account” is so extraordinarily misleading as to be essentially meaningless. The moment any Scientologist puts “money on account” that money is treated as a donation and becomes Church property.

Let us create a hypothetical Scientologist named Linda who wants to do the L’s. The three L’s cost about $100,000. Linda, who is a chiropractor, works with her FSM and decides to “put $5000 on account” at Flag each month towards her L’s. After one year and eight months, Linda has $100,000 on account. She can now go to Flag and get her L’s.

But let us suppose that Linda has become disaffected during that one year and eight months. She no longer wants to be a Scientologist. She has read the internet; been ordered to disconnect from a few family members and friends who were declared SP’s; has lost income because she was ordered to not have SP’s as patients; and has been treated harshly in an Ethics cycle. Linda decides she no longer wants to be in the Church and asks for a repayment of her $100,000 money on account.

What happens next with Linda?

What the Church told the IRS: The Church told the IRS that it has an internal refund process in place. Among other things, the Church told the IRS about its CVB (Claims Verification Board) account:

The Church told the IRS that it handles refunds on an “abandoned or met” basis. The goal of the Church, therefore, is to get Scientologist to legally abandon, in writing, their repayment claim.

I can make this statement based upon the Church’s consistent track record of refusing to make repayments. This has been discussed and documented online for years by countless Scientologists. Some repayments do get made, but these often happen only after the person seeking a refund hires a lawyer.

Moreover, for the Church to say that the CVB must pass on the “validity” of a claim for a repayment is disturbing. What Sea Org members on the Claims Verification Board are going to breezily approve any repayment? Compounding this matter is Scientology’s byzantine finance policy in which the lion’s share of the money collected by the Orgs each week “moves uplines” immediately. This leaves the Orgs with very little money. According to the former Sea Org members I have interviewed, most Orgs simply do not have the cash reserves to make a big repayment — and in bad weeks some Orgs don’t even have enough money to pay Sea Org.

In order to get a repayment, then, Linda must complete the Claims Verification Board (CVB) routing form. This unnecessarily complicated form requires Linda to have personal meetings with various Church functionaries in order to get them to sign off on the routing form. The job of these Church functionaries is to get Linda to abandon, in writing, her request for a repayment.

One strategy the Church uses is to convince Linda, and others asking for repayments, to donate for expensive sec checking or other auditing procedures to “handle” their upsets with the Church. These cycles can easily eat up $25,000 – $50,000 or more of “money on account.”

Scientology is quick and eager to grab money from people. However,when it comes to refunds the Church becomes an obnoxious, bureaucratic, sandbagging, fine print deadbeat. Some people who want refunds have to get an attorney after the Church denies their refund request. The Church of Scientology was simply not designed to give refunds with any shred of dignity or grace.

What happens if Linda, our Scientologist seeking a repayment, gets declared a Suppressive Person?

What happens is that it gets much worse for her.

Once a Scientologist has been declared an SP, they are not allowed to step foot onto Church premises to complete the CVB routing form. Hence, the ultimate Catch-22: You must physically go into a Scientology Org to complete your CVB form as a condition of the Church even considering your request to get your “money on account” repaid to you.

However, if you are an SP then you are not allowed to physically step foot onto Church property to complete your CVB routing form.

Game over.

The Church has been making this dishonest Catch-22 quite clear in written responses to Scientologists asking for repayments; this as we saw in a recent letter from HCO Flag that was posted online:

This Catch-22 that a declared SP cannot take the required steps to get their money back is, according to L. Ron Hubbard’s own words, “out exchange” and “ripoff.” Mr. Hubbard himself defined a criminal as a person who wants something for nothing:

“First consider a group which takes in money but does not deliver anything in exchange. This is called rip-off. It is the ‘exchange’ condition of robbers, tax men, governments and other criminal elements.” – L. Ron Hubbard, HCO PL 10 Sep 82 – Exchange, Org Income and Staff Pay.

Hence, in refusing to make repayments of unused monies to declared SP’s, the Church of Scientology is in the “’exchange’ condition of robbers, tax men, governments and other criminal elements.”

The Church itself has become a suppressive group whose purpose is to ripoff, or steal, monies it has not earned. The Church of Scientology has displayed its hostility, contempt, and naked greed in the boilerplate language it routinely uses in letters it sends to parishioners denying repayment requests:

This is what the Church is saying in 2015: We don’t have a duty or obligation to return any contribution. There is no law in America requiring us to do so.

This is what the Church told the IRS in 1992:

In addition to violating its own doctrine of exchange, the Church of Scientology is lying; it told the IRS about that its refund policy was “exceedingly fair” when it is quite clear to see that the Church’s refund policy is dishonest, misleading, cumbersome, and perhaps even illegal.

In the leaked Final Draft Closing Agreement between the IRS and the Church of Scientology, the IRS stated that the Church’s tax exemption could be reopened in the event of fraud, malfeasance, or misrepresentation of material fact:

Certainly this is one area where former Scientologists and critics can address with the IRS and members of the US Congress. If you are seeking a repayment from the Church for “monies on account” and are being ignored or denied – and it seems to be standard Church practice to impede, refuse, and generally delay in hopes people will abandon their repayment requests – then complain to the IRS in writing. The complaint process was covered here at the Scientology Money Project. The IRS wants to hear it:

Finally, one important fact to know: David Miscavige’s attorney Monique Yingling is a Church of Spiritual Technology (CST) Special Director. As a CST Special Director, Yingling’s “prime directive” as a tax attorney is to ensure that the Church of Scientology International (CSI) does not act in any way whatsoever to risk its tax exemption.

Arguably the chief architect of Scientology’s tax exemption, Yingling wrote, or caused to be written, most of the 1023 application to the IRS in support of the Church’s bid for tax exemption. Yingling knows there is a contradiction between what the Church represented to the IRS in 1992 and what it is now practicing.

Therefore, Scientologists seeking repayments would do well to write to Monique Yingling in her capacity as a CST Special Director to express your concerns that CSI is risking its tax exemption by refusing repayments. David Miscavige should be copied as well as he licenses Scientology’s technology to CSI. The addresses:

Church of Spiritual Technology
Attn: Special Director Monique Yingling
419 Larchmont, No. 162
Los Angeles, CA 90004

Religious Technology Center International
Attn: COB RTC David Miscavige
1710 Ivar Avenue Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90028