The red arrow points to Scientology Operative Taryn Teutsch who attended the recent NACW 2018 conference in Los Angeles. Taryn is now using photos from the conference on Twitter to imply that NACW supports her baseless Fair Game attacks against her father Mike Rinder.
The goal of Scientology operative Teutsch is to get her father Mike Rinder fired from Leah Remini’s show. Mike was the third-highest ranking official in Scientology for three decades before he escaped and began speaking out. Mike’s expertise gained from serving in Scientology at the highest levels is a key part of what makes Leah’s show incredibly powerful, accurate, and insightful.
Taryn is attempting to get her father fired by promoting an old and thoroughly discredited narrative of domestic violence (1). Taryn shared this manufactured narrative with unwitting NACW attendees as her photographer snapped photos. Taryn then posted these photos on Twitter in a way that implies NACW endorsement:
More of Taryn’s photos with unwitting attendees were posted on Twitter to imply NACW endorsement:
TARYN TEUTSCH — REPEAT OFFENDER:
GRETCHEN CARLSON & THE YWCA OF GREATER LOS ANGELES
Scientology operative Teutsch used the exact same tactics when she attended the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles “Phenomenal Woman” award ceremony earlier this year. Teutsch had her photo taken with honorees including Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey and Gretchen Carlson. Teutsch then used these photos on her blog and on Twitter to imply that Lacey and Carlson endorsed and approved of her attacks against her father.
Scientology operative Teutsch with Gretchen Carlson:
Jen Hanson Gruber, one of our readers who is absolutely not afraid of Scientology, informed Gretchen Carlson that her name and image had been misappropriated by an operative of the Church of Scientology. Jen also sent the official police reports and other documents to show that Taryn was lying:
Gretchen Carlson texted back to ask how she could her photo taken down from Taryn’s Twitter page:
Scientology operative Teutsch also used the YWCA GLA event to have her photo taken with Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey:
We contacted the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles and they issued a statement distancing themselves from Scientology and Taryn Teutsch.
Taryn Teutsch spoke at the Leila Grace Foundation. This foundation is a, “is a non-profit organization that provides sexual assault awareness for college students across the country. It’s main focus is to provide education, which can reduce the risk of sexual assaults on college campuses.” Taryn’s eight year old “fake news” story has nothing to do with rape or sexual assault. Why did Taryn exploit the Leila Grace Foundation?
The Church of Scientology’s goal is to infiltrate women’s groups using Taryn Teutsch’s manufactured and false narrative in order to, ultimately, stop Leah Remini’s show. That Scientology would use such treacherous and underhanded means to accomplish its ends is nothing new.
While Scientology seeks to exploit women’s groups, it is instructive to note that L. Ron Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue Hubbard went to prison for crimes her husband ordered in Operation Snow White. Hubbard himself went into hiding after the FBI raid and remained an unindicted co-conspirator.
Likewise, Scientology leader David Miscavige’s wife Shelly Miscavige has been locked away for at least twelve years. The most dangerous job in Scientology is being the wife of the leader.
For more information on how Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard viewed women, please read:
Teutsch’s conduct in spinning a web of lies about her father is consistent with Scientology’s decades-long pattern of lying to destroy those people whom it deems enemies. Indeed, after the journalist Paulette Cooper wrote a book which was critical of Scientology, the Church succeeded in getting Cooper charged for making a bomb threat. When the FBI later raided Scientology facilities, the records obtained showed that Scientology had orchestrated the entire affair. The charges against Paulette Cooper were dropped and Scientology had to pay Paulette Cooper what we imagine was a substantial legal settlement.
(1) The Evidence Discrediting Taryn Teutsch’s False Narrative Against Mike Rinder:
Leah Remini’s response to Scientology’s many vitriolic attacks on her is easily summed up in this short video clip:
MIKE RINDER
Mike Rinder was born into a Scientology family. He joined the Sea Org as a teenager and worked as a messenger for L. Ron Hubbard aboard the Apollo, the vessel Hubbard called his flagship. Mike rose through the ranks and eventually became the third highest ranking official in the Church of Scientology.
When Mike escaped from Scientology and began speaking out publicly against Scientology leader David Miscavige’s culture of violence, lies, and greed he was declared a Suppressive Person and became a target of Scientology’s doctrine of Fair Game. Essentially, Scientology Fair Game is designed to utterly destroy a person. As L. Ron Hubbard wrote:
Hubbard’s call to destroy those people deemed to be enemies of Scientology explain Taryn Teutsch’s actions and conduct.
Scientology and Taryn Teutsch will cynically exploit anyone and any group in their ruthless pursuit to destroy those who speak out and expose Scientology.
Scientology’s Damage Control Team: L-R: Stacy Francis, Taryn Teutsch, Joy Villa
As season 3 of Leah Remini’s Emmy winning show Scientology and the Aftermath approaches, David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology have gone into an apoplectic foaming-at-the-mouth hysteria of rage. This rage betrays the intense fear of exposure at the core of Scientology.
In response to the upcoming third season of Leah Remini’s show, Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs has conducted an erratic and schizophrenic damage control campaign that is quite transparent.
Even as OSA wages a malicious campaign of Fair Game against Leah Remini, Mike Rinder, and the brave guests who appear on Leah’s show, OSA has also fielded Scientology operatives Joy Villa and Stacy Francis in an attempt to convince Christian Evangelicals that people can be both Christians and Scientologists.
Scientologists Joy Villa and Stacy Francis have promoted themselves as ardent Christians and Donald Trump supporters in what appears to be a desperate attempt to pander to the Trump Administration. Given that Scientology’s long-time Washington D.C. lobbyist Greg Mitchell is involved behind the scenes, we consider that OSA is orchestrating this in a frantic hope of staving off an inevitable IRS investigation into Scientology’s tax exemption.
From our perspective, Stacy Francis and Joy Villa are trying to “safepoint” Scientology in Washington D.C. However, when one contrasts this with the 1990’s and 2000’s when Scientology was able to deploy John Travolta and Tom Cruise to D.C. to influence President Clinton and the Bush 43 Administration, it becomes apparent that OSA is scraping the bottom of the barrel with Villa and Francis.
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES
One of the central contradictions with Scientologists pretending to be Christians is that Jesus commanded his followers to love their enemies. We read the words of Jesus in Luke 6:27-36:
But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Christ’s commandment that Christians are to love their enemies is directly antithetical to L. Ron Hubbard’s incredibly violent policy of Fair Game in which he calls for the literal bodily injury and destruction, or death, of Scientology’s enemies:
“ENEMY SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.”- L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 18 October 1967
Joy Villa and Stacy Francis have never publicly disavowed L. Ron Hubbard’s Fair Game doctrine. This fact alone puts the lie to their claims to be Christian.
Scientology wants to portray itself as religious even as it continues to savagely attack those it deems enemies. Scientology’s three main actors in its recent psychotic soap opera are Scientologists Stacy Francis, Taryn Teutsch, and Joy Villa.
JOY VILLA & STACY FRANCIS
Scientologist Stacy Francis singing at Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom “Road to Majority” event in June 2018. Along with her fellow Scientologist Joy Villa, Stacy Francis also passed herself off as a Trump supporter and a Christian at this event.
Joy Villa and Stacy Francis showed up last month at Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” event. We covered this in a previous article, Ralph Reed, the Faith & Freedom Coalition, and Scientology. Despite her claims to be a Christian, when Stacy Francis appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2017 she showed her true colors:
That Ralph Reed and his people were taken in by these two Scientology charlatans who claimed to be Christians is not surprising: Villa has been taking advantage of the trust of Evangelicals for the past eighteen months. Villa has falsely claimed to Evangelicals that Scientology is merely a set of self-help tools. She has also said that a person can be both a Christian and a Scientologist. However, this is demonstrably false from a biblical perspective. See our essay: Why You Can’t be a Christian and a Scientologist.
SCIENTOLOGY & THE NATION OF ISLAM
Scientology’s efforts to position itself as a Christian-friendly organization is completely exposed as a lie given Scientology’s partnership with the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam. Louis Farrakhan’s account was decertified by Twitter for his recent incendiary tweet and video in which he railed against the Jews:
Thoroughly and completely unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan.
— MINISTER FARRAKHAN (@LouisFarrakhan) June 7, 2018
We note that the Church of Scientology never publicly censured nor rebuked Mr. Farrakhan for his incendiary anti-Semitic tweet. We are therefore forced to conclude that the Church of Scientology condones Mr. Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism and that of the Nation of Islam. To this point, Stacy Francis certainly appears to have no problem with Mr. Farrakhan’s views and seems quite fond of him as can be seen in this photo taken at a Scientology event:
Scientologists Stacy Francis, Alfreddie Johnson, and Louis Farrakhan
Long-time Farrakhan supporter Congressman Danny Davis (D) of Illinois recently took the extraordinary step of publicly disavowing Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism. Congressman Davis issued a statement on his official Congressional webpage in which he unequivocally stated, “I reject, condemn and oppose Minister Farrakhan’s views and remarks regarding the Jewish people and the Jewish religion.”
That Scientology leader David Miscavige refuses to make a comparable statement shows the Scientology leader’s apparent tolerance of, or even agreement with, Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism. David Miscavige has long claimed to be a “global ecclesiastical leader” and yet shows no moral leadership whatsoever on this issue.
Joy Villa and Stacy Francis claim to be enthusiastic supporters of President Trump. However, Mr. Trump has unequivocally stated his support for Israel and the Jewish people. Given the President’s position here, it would seem incumbent upon Joy Villa and Stacy Francis to fall in line with the President’s position, and particularly as they claim to be Republicans and Evangelical Christians, and publicly condemn the anti-Semitism of Mr. Farrakhan.
TARYN TEUTSCH
Over against Scientology’s incursions into pro-Trump Evangelical Christian circles, Scientology has been engaged in an absolutely hellbent non-Christian Fair Game campaign against Mike Rinder.
As we documented, Taryn Teutsch outrageously tried to link her sleazy Fair Game campaign to the #MeToo movement. This is an utter disgrace and a deep insult to the women who are the actual victims of sexual harassment and rape.
We must point out that this attempt to link Taryn’s Fair to Game attacks to the #MeToo movement was ordered by none other than Scientology Cult boss David Miscavige — the man who has kept his own wife Shelly Miscavige locked away in a high security Scientology facility for over ten years.
Below are links to our continuing coverage of Taryn Teutsch and Scientology’s Fair Game attacks on Mike Rinder. We plan to continue our coverage of this Scientology Fair Game campaign in order to document the exact conduct of Scientology.
Scientology leader David Miscavige has panicked with the approach of Season 3 of Leah Remini’s Emmy-winning program Scientology and the Aftermath. Eager to discredit the show, Miscavige has ordered an all-out Fair Game attack against Mike Rinder. Miscavige has even resorted to calling in Kirstie Alley for help.
Spearheaded by Mike’s daughter Taryn, this Fair Game campaign has been exposed as a Scientology social media fraud held together by a tissue of lies. Of course, this latest Scientology pack of lies is paid for with tax-exempt dollars courtesy of Scientology’s IRS 501(c)3 tax exemption. Please help by signing our petition asking the IRS to open an investigation into revoking Scientology’s tax exemption for fraud, malfeasance, and material misrepresentation of facts.
CATHY BERNARDINI
In this article we examine the claims made by Mike’s ex-wife Cathy Bernardini. Specifically, Cathy claims that Mike assaulted her during an episode in a Florida parking on March 23, 2010. Cathy further claims that the assault resulted in permanent and crippling injury to her right shoulder. This is the story that “Clickfarm Taryn” Teutsch has been unsuccessfully trying to peddle with the help of fake social media followers purchased by Scientology.
THE PARAMEDICS REPORT
Scientology used its own website to place the Pinellas County Emergency Medical Services Patient Care Report on Cathy Bernardini into the public domain. As a public domain document we are free to examine and repost it here.
A paramedics report is colloquially known as the “paramedics run sheet” or just the “run sheet.” In this article we look at the paramedics run sheet to get the facts. We begin with the first page of the run sheet. We use red arrows to draw the reader’s attention to two pertinent areas we cover in this article.
In the upper right hand corner we learn that the Paramedics were called at 12:28 PM on March 23, 2010 and arrived on scene at 12:34 PM. The paramedics examined Cathy Bernardini and applied a gauze dressing to her right forearm.
The Paramedics were then available for another call at 12:58 PM. The actual time the paramedics spent on scene was 24 minutes. Over against this, Scientology claims that Cathy Bernardini was severely injured. Scientology asks us to believe that the paramedics spent only 24 minutes on scene treating a severely injured person. Read on as the Scientology saga becomes more absurd and breaks down upon examination.
RATE YOUR PAIN ON A SCALE OF 0-10
The paramedics asked Cathy to rate her pain or distress on a scale from 0-10. Cathy Bernardini told the paramedics that her pain or distress level was 2. The paramedics recorded the Pain or Distress Level on their run sheet and noted that the patient herself was the “history source” of the pain or distress level of 2:
In Cathy Bernardini’s Fair Game video on Mike she describes an excruciating and vicious attack during which she could hear bones crunching. This contradicts her telling the paramedics on scene that her pain level was 2 on a scale of 0-10. Indeed, the run sheet shows that Cathy had only a “skin tear” on her right forearm:
Nowhere in the above diagram did the paramedics note any problems with Cathy’s right shoulder. Cathy’s claim to have heard her “bones crunching” does not jibe with the paramedics reporting only a skin tear and Cathy herself reporting her pain level as 2. Moreover, Cathy did not tell the paramedics that her right shoulder had been injured.
THE GREEN ZONE
Based upon Cathy Bernardini’s own statements, the paramedics rated the severity of Cathy’s injury in the Green Zone:
In the Pinellas County Medical Operations Manual, paramedics rate a patient’s condition as follows:
If Cathy had been “severely injured” as she claimed, she would have minimally been rated in the yellow zone. But no. Cathy’s condition was Green Zone: “Non-Urgent; requiring care in a reasonable amount of time, but will likely not suffer adverse effects from a limited delay in definitive care.”
SOFT TISSUE INJURY
The paramedics run sheet shows Cathy to have a soft tissue injury on her right forearm and nothing else. There is no mention of a crippling shoulder injury nor did Cathy Bernardini report such an injury at the scene. The evidence is completely at odds with Taryn Teutsch’s and Cathy Bernardini’s manufactured tale of a crippling assault that permanently disabled Cathy’s shoulder.
To this point, paramedics are legally obligated to report all criminal assaults to the police. The paramedics at the scene made no such report to the police. This is corroborated by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department report that dismissed the matter as “incidental contact.”
It is crucial to note that Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies were at the scene. The deputies had been called after the Scientologists attempted to forcibly enter a doctor’s office in order to follow Mike Rinder into the office — this in an attempt to continue their screaming and profane-laden harassment of Mike. Mike had entered the doctor’s office to escape the mob and get to his fiance Christie Collbran who was being treated in the doctor’s office. When the doctor’s staff ordered the unruly Scientology mob leave the office — which office was private property — the mob refused and the police had to be called.
The Sheriff’s deputies arrived on scene, interviewed all parties, and examined Cathy Bernardini. The deputies conferred with the paramedics. A deputy on scene even signed Cathy’s medical release as one of the two required witnesses. The deputies concluded there was no assault and wrote in their official report that the matter was non-criminal in nature. Taryn and Cathy’s story falls apart on this point alone.
We note that Cathy Bernardini never filed a personal injury lawsuit against Mike Rinder. Cathy had five people with her in the Scientology lynch mob that day and they were all eyewitnesses. Except for Cathy and Taryn, none of the other Scientologists present that day have made videos corroborating Cathy and Taryn’s claims.
TRANSPORT TO THE NEAREST EMERGENCY ROOM
Under Pinellas County law, paramedics are required to transport all patients to the “closest appropriate hospital emergency department.” Here is the text from the manual:
The paramedics run sheet notes that Cathy Bernardini was ambulatory at the scene. After evaluating Cathy the paramedics, per policy, presumed that Cathy needed transport to closest appropriate hospital emergency department.
As we read in the run sheet, however, Cathy Bernardini twice refused transport to a hospital emergency department:
Cathy (Rinder) Bernardini also signed the run sheet section to indicate her individual refusal for ambulance transportation. Bernardini further signed the Release of Medical Assistance on the run sheet. Cathy refusal’s to be transported to an emergency room and her Release of Medical Assistance were witnessed and signed by a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) deputy and a member of the paramedics (EMS) crew:
The evidence on the paramedics run sheet and Bernardini’s signed refusal to be transported and signed Release of Medial Assistance leads us to ask two key questions: If Cathy Bernardini was the victim of vicious and crippling assault as she and her daughter Taryn so dramatically claim, then why did Cathy report a pain level of only 2 and twice refuse to be transported to the nearest hospital emergency room? Certainly an actual victim of a brutal and crippling attack would report a very high pain level and would want to be rushed to the nearest emergency room for emergency treatment. The glaring discrepancies between what Cathy Bernardini claims now in her Fair Game attacks in 2018 versus what actually happened in 2010 are extremely significant.
Taryn Teutsch was present at the scene. However, she did not insist that her own mother be transported by paramedics for examination in the nearest emergency room. In her Fair Game attacks on her father, Taryn demands justice. And yet when her own mother allegedly suffered a crippling assault and injury Taryn did nothing. Where is the justice and moral responsibility on Taryn’s part if Mom was so gravely injured? We take Taryn doing nothing to mean that nothing more needed to be done: Mom had a scrape on her arm and the paramedics applied a dressing. End of story. What likely happened next is that Taryn and Cathy left the scene and drove away — presumably to debrief OSA on the ambush.
HYSTERICAL SCIENTOLOGY MELODRAMA
Scientology’s hate website spins the same bogus story in a melodramatic video. In these next two screen shots we are told that “A team of paramedics rushed to treat his severely injured wife.” Right. Cathy was so “severely injured” that her pain level was 2 and she refused transport to an ER. This is complete and utter nonsense.
Cathy was so “severely injured” that the paramedics did not need to put Cathy in a cervical collar and place her on a backboard. Emergency transport by helicopter was not needed. An IV was not started. No pain medications were administered. All the paramedics actually did was apply dressing to the abrasion on Cathy’s forearm. Gauze and antiseptic ointment. That was the extent of the medical treatment as shown in photos of her arm Cathy Bernardini herself posted.
Taryn and Cathy are telling a fake story. Worse, the two are trying to inject their fake story into the #MeToo movement, this in an attempt to get Mike fired and discredit Leah’s show. This transparent Scientology fraud is disgusting — particularly when we consider L. Ron Hubbard’s absolutely disgusting view of women.
DR. JAMES BELL
Dr. James Bell has been dragged into this Scientology Fair Game campaign. Dr. Bell was not an eyewitness to what happened in the parking lot. Therefore, it appears he accepted Cathy Bernardini’s version of the events at face value. Having accepted Cathy’s account at face value, Dr. Bell agreed to make a video for Scientology detailing Cathy’s claimed injury:
Were Dr. Bell to be put on the stand in a court of law and asked if Cathy’s shoulder problem could have been caused by age-related degeneration, a repetitive motion injury, or a prior injury or accident related to a dislocated shoulder or a broken arm what would he say? Has Dr. Bell seen all of Cathy’s prior medical records?
Dr. Bell has no firsthand knowledge of what actually happened in the parking lot whereas the actual audio recording of the event is on YouTube. The paramedics run sheet and the Sheriff’s report are also in the public domain — and neither of these official documents corroborate Taryn Teutsch’s story. Is Cathy Bernardini withholding something?
David Miscavige toady Kirstie Alley jumped into Taryn’s Teutsch’s Fair Game campaign. By doing so, Kirstie became what Scientology calls a “malicious rumor mongerer” and a “false data spreader.”
WHY DIDN’T DIANETICS OR SCIENTOLOGY HELP CATHY BERNARDINI?
The fact that Cathy Bernardini and her doctor state that she has a permanent injury requires us to ask why the technology of Dianetics and Scientology was unable to help Cathy alleviate the pain of her injury or otherwise help her in any way. Does Cathy’s injury negate the claimed efficacy of Dianetics and Scientology since neither have apparently helped her? Cathy Bernardini has never once made a statement that she resorted to Dianetics and Scientology for help. Instead, we hear her recite her litany of medical treatment and surgery. L. Ron Hubbard derided medical doctors as “medicos” and yet Cathy needed the medicos.
Below is the paramedics run sheet. Please hover your mouse over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the page.
Even as Scientology Cult boss David Miscavige keeps his wife Shelly Miscavige locked away in a high security Scientology facility, he has been trying to hijack the #MeToo movement in order to engage in a sleazy Scientology Fair Game attack against Mike Rinder.
Taryn Teutsch having proved to be an epic failure, David Miscavige has now brought Kirstie Alley into the Fair Game attacks on Mike Rinder:
Kirstie Alley? Seriously? Kirstie Alley has tweeted about her compulsion to slug people “in the vagina or the nuts” in order to shame them:
Kirstie advocates physical violence even as Taryn Teutsch demands that physically violent people be put in a special registry just like sex offenders. To follow Taryn’s logic, then, Kirstie Alley would need to be placed in such a registry given her publicly stated desire to slug people in their genitals in order to humiliate them. This is grotesque on Kirstie Alley’s part and yet Kirstie is apparently the only Scientologist David Miscavige has available to go on the attack.
David Miscavige is clearly panicking as Leah Remini’s show gears up for season three. He has to do something and all he has right now is Kirstie Alley. Kirstie’s more memorable photos show her hostility:
What is David Miscavige thinking?
*****
As we have made clear in our previous posts, Mike Rinder was in his car making calls in a parking lot in Florida in 2010. Suddenly he was ambushed by an angry lynch mob of Scientologists that included Taryn Teutsch, Mike’s ex-wife Cathy Bernardini, and others. Mike was on the phone with John Sweeney who was then with the BBC. Sweeney recorded the debacle in which Taryn and Cathy scream and drop the F bomb. This is what Taryn is hiding. This is what Taryn is lying about:
Taryn’s uncontrolled and profane rage in this recording show what really happened in that parking lot in 2010. The Sheriff’s report said there was no injury, no victim, and only “incidental contact” as Mike made his way through the Scientology mob in order to get to his then fiance Christie Collbran.
Taryn Teutsch is trying to spin an eight year old Scientology ambush — and one in which she herself participated — into an absurd and concocted story that never happened. While Taryn has managed to con some trusting people, these people have been informed of her con job. This effort to expose Scientology’s lies and Fair Game will continue.
As the ample body of evidence in our previous posts has shown, Taryn’s campaign of lies is fraudulent:
When the stories of Harvey Weinstein perpetrating sexual assaults and rapes began to surface in 2017, Weinstein retained the services of Sitrick & Company. We cover the story of Weinstein here as Mike Sitrick and his firm have represented the Church of Scientology. Sitrick’s business of “crisis management” apparently has an Ecclesiastical Division in the company as Sitrick did work for the Los Angeles Archdiocese as it fought law enforcement and victims for decades under the leadership of the now disgraced Cardinal Roger Mahony.
Scientology’s disastrous 2013 advertorial in The Atlantic created a big PR blowback for the Church of Scientology:
While we don’t know if Sitrick was behind the advertorial; what we do know is that he took calls in response to David Miscavige’s self-aggrandizing advertorial. In these calls Sitrick stated that he had been working for the Church of Scientology for three and a half years. That would take us back to 2009 time frame. This was a crucial period in Scientology’s history. Anonymous had taken on the Church in 2008. Other than Scientology creating a laughably fake anthrax threat and accusing Anons of being the terrorists behind it, Scientology showed a complete inability to handle Anonymous.
For new Scientology watchers, a bit of history is in order to show why Anonymous choose to take on the Church of Scientology in 2008. Part of the story goes back to 2005 when South Park famously lampooned Scientology, Tom Cruise, and John Travolta.
SCIENTOLOGY, TOM CRUISE, SOUTH PARK, CAA & ANONYMOUS
Ronan Farrow, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist at the center of the Harvey Weinstein story, is represented by Creative Artists Agency. CAA is worth noting here as Tom Cruise’s agent Kevin Huvane is a managing partner at the Hollywood powerhouse CAA. Cruise’s long-time production partner Paula Wagner, who had helped Cruise launch the lucrative Mission Impossible franchise in 1993 when Cruise/Wagner Productions began, was a former CAA agent. Wagner’s husband Rick Nicita was a partner at CAA through 2008.
When South Park episode 912 “Trapped in the Closet” — an episode that satirized Scientology, Cruise, and Travolta — was set to air in November 2005, Cruise and Scientology called upon their contacts at CAA for help. A meeting was set up to see what could be done to stop the South Park episode from airing . Mike Rinder, who was then in charge of Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs, was dispatched to CAA along with other Scientology execs to ask for CAA’s help in stopping the broadcast of the South Park episode.
Jacob Siegel’s 2015 story in the Daily Beast Why Scientology’s Cone of Silence Shattered offers a revealing insight into Scientology’s attempt to stop South Park episode 912 from airing:
“When South Park did their program, I went to CAA,” said Rinder, using the abbreviation for Creative Artists Agency, a top Hollywood talent agency that represented Cruise.
Rinder said this is what happened next:
“The Tom Cruise card was played with CAA to get them to put pressure on Comedy Central and Viacom. Ultimately, it really backfired.
CAA was opposed to Scientology’s attempt at censorship. Scientology failed in getting South Park episode 912 from airing in the United States. However, South Park did not rebroadcast the episode due to pressures exerted by Scientology. Moreover, Scientology and Cruise succeeded in getting the episode stopped in England due to that country’s medieval libel laws. This Scientology act of censorship was widely reported. The young people who were avid fans of South Park took notice. Many of these young people were members of 4chan, the online bulletin board whose members called themselves Anonymous.
Scientology’s next major act of censorship was in 2008 when the Church got a leaked Tom Cruise video taken down from YouTube. This video was an internal Church of Scientology video in which a very radicalized Tom Cruise exhorts his fellow Scientologists to “go to guns” against Scientology’s enemies. It was Scientology’s takedown of this video that triggered Anonymous to launch its Project Chanology campaign against the Church of Scientology. The campaign began with a stunning video that is a masterpiece of psychological warfare:
INDEPENDENT SCIENTOLOGY
In 2009 the Independent Scientology movement followed on the heels of Anonymous and Scientology proved equally inept at handling the startling revelations of former high level Scientology executives. The Tampa Bay Times series called The Truth Rundown was devastating in its exposure of Scientology leader David Miscavige and his physical violence. The Truth Rundown chronicled the stories of former high level Scientology Sea Org executives who had lived through the hell of David Miscavige’s dystopian nightmare at the International Base located in San Jacinto, California. The seminal Truth Rundown series is now available as an e-Book for Kindle.
Bringing in Mike Sitrick at this time of crisis for Scientology would be a move David Miscavige would make. But what else could Miscavige do given that he had decimated the executive strata of Scientology? In 2009, Scientology’s remaining execs were either locked up in the SP Hole while others were secretly planning their escapes.
David Miscavige responded to the Independent Scientology movement with the Squirrel Busters. This proved to be an epic PR and legal disaster for Scientology. Miscavige also deployed the angry Tommy Davis as Scientology’s spokesman. Davis’ public behavior was an embarrassment. Accordingly he became a PR liability and was either placed on, or took, a leave of absence from the Sea Org whereupon he disappeared off the radar for some time. Other PR disasters for Scientology ensured. Scientology very publicly attacked, in no particular order, Lawrence Wright, Paul Haggis, Alex Gibney, Leah Remini, my dear wife Karen de la Carriere, Mike Rinder, CNN, Anderson Cooper, Vanity Fair, The Tampa Bay Times, and dozens of other people and media outlets that exposed this greedy, lying, and vicious cult. The world watched and saw Scientology Fair Game at work.
Due to the Church of Scientology’s own malicious behavior it had become a walking PR disaster, a self-destructive and disgusting mess.
What does a Cult with a toxic reputation and an uncontrollable need for revenge do?
Scientology did what Harvey Weinstein, Michael Vick, Cardinal Mahony, and numerous other miscreants have done and that is to call Mike Sitrick for help with a self-inflicted disaster. Mike Sitrick shamelessly boasts about the horrendous clients he’s represented. This appears on his company’s own website:
Sitrick boasting about having worked for the Los Angeles Catholic Diocese when it was engulfed in covering up child molestation is extraordinarily disturbing; the boast seems to be a very naked solicitation to do business with the worst scum of society. For an alleged PR genius to brag about helping a Church engaged in protecting pedophile priests is bizarre. One would think Mr. Sitrick would be more discreet about such matters: Halle Barry, Ron Burkle, Roy Disney, and Rush Limbaugh would certainly not like knowing they had been lumped in with pedophile priests on Sitrick & Company’s website.
SITRICK & COMPANY: THE INITIAL HARVEY WEINSTEIN DENIAL
When the call for help came in from Harvey Weinstein, Mike Sitrick’s mother had just passed away and Sitrick was in Chicago making final arrangements. Accordingly, Sitrick assigned the Weinstein case to his employee Sallie Hofmeister. She issued a completely tone deaf denial on Weinstein’s behalf:
Any allegations of nonconsensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances. Mr. Weinstein obviously can’t speak to anonymous allegations, but with respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr. Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual. Mr. Weinstein has begun counseling, has listened to the community and is pursuing a better path. Mr. Weinstein is hoping that, if he makes enough progress, he will be given a second chance.
This press release shows Sitrick & Company at its worst: The firm appears to have such contempt for Hollywood and the general public that it actually believed it could portray Weinstein as a contrite figure who “has listened to the community” and deserved a second chance. Sorry, Sitrick & Company, Harvey Weinstein is not Mel Gibson. Gibson made stupid drunken anti-Semitic comments; he did not rape women.
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Read Geoffrey Pullum’s brilliant linguistic takedown of Harvey Weinstein’s denial as written by Sallie Hofmeister: The Strange Language of Harvey Weinstein’s Denial
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PROVEABLE BULLSHIT
Two years before Harvey Weinstein was engulfed in a firestorm of his own making, Scientology leader David Miscavige was likewise caught in a maelstrom of horrendous PR of his own making. In 2015, the Los Angeles Times broke the story that Miscavige had hired a father-son team of armed private investigators to secretly follow his own father for two years, this after Ron Miscavige Sr. and his wife had escaped Scientology’s Sea Org. When Ron Miscavige Sr. appeared to be having a heart attack in the parking lot of a Wisconsin supermarket, the PI’s called and asked David Miscavige if they should intervene and call for help. David Miscavige cold-bloodedly replied, “If he dies, let him die.” Outraged by the story going viral, the Church of Scientology issued an angry denial to The Hollywood Reporter that was unique in the annals of ecclesiastical denials:
As for the purported emergency incident involving an investigator and the second-hand account of an alleged conversation containing a despicably false quote, Mr. Miscavige’s attorney, Michael Lee Hertzberg, is on record stating that Mr. Miscavige does not know the investigator, has never heard of the investigator, has never met the investigator, has never spoken to the investigator, never hired the investigator and never directed any investigations by him.
So let me be clear: No such conversation with Mr. Miscavige ever took place and any claim that one did is provable bullshit.
David Miscavige’s belligerent denial mirrors that of Harvey Weinstein. As reported by AV Club, Weinstein disrupted group sessions when he was going through the charade of sex therapy in 2017:
According to sources at the outpatient clinic—where Weinstein, committed to changing his behavior patterns, drops in after spending his nights in a luxury hotel—Weinstein has been derailing group therapy sessions with his belligerent rants about “how this is all a conspiracy against him,” insisting “he never raped or assaulted anyone, and that all the encounters were consensual.” That Weinstein continues to downplay or outright dismiss the more than 40 women who have now accused him of sexual harassment or assault isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s followed this story, or are generally familiar with sexual abusers.
What Harvey Weinstein and David Miscavige have in common is that both are sleazebags who, when cornered, angrily protest that there is a conspiracy against them and that the bad acts of which they stand accused are baseless, i.e. “proveable bullshit” in the shrill argot of Scientology.
WEINSTEIN’S BOGUS CONTRITION
One of Sitrick’s textbook plays is to paint a miscreant client as a sincerely contrite person who seeks repentance by performing good acts. Thus, in a desperate and phony gambit that reeked of trying to buy his way out of what was shaping up to be a future prison sentence, Weinstein announced that he wanted to donate $5 million dollars to USC to fund to female filmmakers. USC wanted nothing to with Weinstein’s inept pandering and sleazy attempts at damage control into which he had dragged his own mother:
As allegations of sexual harassment against embattled film mogul Harvey Weinstein continue to unfold, the USC School of Cinematic Arts said Tuesday that it is rejecting a $5-million pledge Weinstein had made to fund a program for female filmmakers.
Weinstein referenced the pledge last week in a statement to the New York Times in response to the paper’s exhaustive story detailing accusations of sexual misconduct against him going back decades. “It will be named after my mom, and I won’t disappoint her,” he wrote.
TIME TO DITCH THE CLIENT
Abby Aguirre’s recent New York Times story about Mike Sitrick is aptly entitled He Fixes the Worst P.R. Crises Imaginable. Then Comes Harvey Weinstein. In her insightful article Aguirre shows that Mike Sitrick’s vaunted grasp of a situation seems to have failed him in the case of Harvey Weinstein:
As the #MeToo dam broke, the allegations against Mr. Weinstein multiplied. So did Sitrick and Company’s rebuttals… Sitrick and Company issued what would turn out to be one of its final statements to USA Today, for an article on March 22: “Mr. Weinstein categorically denies ever engaging in any non-consensual sexual conduct with anyone.”
Two months later Mr. Weinstein was arrested. His lawyer is Benjamin Brafman, whose clients have included Martin Shkreli, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Vincent Gigante, known as “The Chin.”
Only when it became inevitable that Weinstein was headed for felony charges did Sitrick & Company drop Weinstein. The Hollywood Reporter carried the headline:
THE COLLAPSE OF THE GOOD OLD BOY’S NETWORK
Harvey Weinstein’s arrest draws attention to the ability of wealthy and powerful evildoers such as Harvey Weinstein, the Church of Scientology, Enron and other Sitrick clients to spend lavish sums of money to spin the story in an attempt to redefine, deny, and portray themselves as something other than deviant individuals and organizations.
We view Sitrick & Company as a part of the larger ecosystem of corruption where monied elites are able to use their power and wealth to distort the news by using carefully crafted spin, cover ups, fake news, lies, threats, and denials. As we see it, Mike Sitrick and his firm are quickly becoming dinosaurs in the rapidly collapsing American “Good Old Boy’s Network.”
If Harvey Weinstein had owned a crystal ball in 2016, he could have skipped paying Sitrick & Company and conserved his funds for the large and expensive criminal defense team he will need. Inasmuch as Sitrick, like Scientology, cannot guarantee any particular result, wealthy people facing serious accusations in the post Harvey Weinstein era need to ask themselves if premium-priced “crisis management” is a form of wishful thinking or denial. Indeed, can any crisis management firm head off the inevitable where criminality can be proven to exist? The lesson to be learned here is ancient: Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
SITRICK AS THE FIXER
The title of Sitrick’s new book The Fixer: Secrets for Your Reputation in the Age of Viral Media is a self-admission of how Sitrick views himself: He is a fixer. The notorious private investigator Anthony Pellicano was formerly a part of this system of high-priced “fixers” until he was taken out by the Feds and sent to prison along with attorney Terry Christensen, another pricey Hollywood fixer.
A fixer is someone who makes very ugly problems go away. Typically, a fixer works in such a way that his client has complete deniability and knows nothing about how the very ugly problem was made to go away. Fixers like Mike Sitrick work to simply spin, distort, and try to create a different perception of their clients. Fixers and the particular sort of work they do are central to the Good Old Boy’s Network. However, Fixers are no match for great journalists who see right through their machinations.
RONAN FARROW
As Weinstein’s denials were issuing forth from Sitrick & Company, NBC Today Show contributor Ronan Farrow took notice of Harvey Weinstein and put together a blockbuster story. NBC execs, however, infamously passed on the story and urged Farrow to take it elsewhere. Farrow did just that; his subsequent articles in The New Yorker earned both himself and the magazine the 2018 Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service. Farrow is an attorney and a member of the New York bar. His skills as an attorney were evident in the way he investigated Weinstein.
Kara Swisher’s interview of Ronan Farrow on Recode Decode is outstanding. Parts of it sound like Farrow is talking about Scientology Fair Game when he describes the depredations of the wealthy and powerful:
Recode Decode says of Swisher’s interview with Ronan Farrow:
On the new podcast, Farrow explained how he convinced Weinstein’s victims to talk to him for the story; he credited his sister Dylan Farrow, ex-Fox News host Gretchen Carlson and Bill Cosby’s myriad accusers with proving that women could relive the trauma, come forward with their stories and be okay in the end.
“I think the world changed,” Farrow said. “There was a progression of brave women and also, of course, eventually men — I don’t want to discount the importance of male survivors of sexual violence and how much we need to hear their voices. But at the time, it was mostly women coming forward and chipping away at the culture of silence.”
He reiterated that the focus should be on these survivors and on the ways in which the justice system and the media failed them — not on predators like Weinstein. Many of the systems that preserved the status quo of silence are “still thriving,” he said.
While Ronan Farrow astutely saw the world changing as women came forward and chipped away at the Hollywood Culture of Silence that protected Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and other sexual predators, Mike Sitrick saw a chance to make a big payday spinning for Harvey Weinstein. However, nothing Sitrick did, or could have done, would have helped Harvey Weinstein.
TheWrap noted that Sitrick & Company stayed on helping Weinstein while others were dropping Weinstein in order to prevent further damage to their reputations for having represented him the first place:
Crisis public relations firm Sitrick and Company is no longer representing disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein, the company told TheWrap on Tuesday.
Weinstein has been accused of rape, sexual assault and harassment by nearly 90 women in in various cities around the world. The producer has consistently denied any nonconsensual sex through his former Sitrick spokesperson, retained shortly after articles containing early accusations were published in the New Yorker and the New York Times last October.
Sitrick has been a surprising holdover for the past five months as Weinstein watched several key crisis players bail as the accusations piled up and the national conversation became consumed by the #MeToo movement sparked by Weinstein’s alleged misconduct.
Sitrick held on for too long in defending Harvey Weinstein. So did Los Angeles attorney Lisa Bloom who was widely criticized for both taking on Weinstein as a client and attempting to minimize his conduct by saying that he was “an old dinosaur learning new ways.” Bloom admitted to BuzzFeed News that her representation of Harvey Weinstein was “a colossal mistake.”
Another loser who got a big black eye from the Harvey Weinstein story is NBC. Many predict that there is fallout still to come for the peacock network having killed Farrow’s story. Farrow will tell his side of the story when Little, Brown and Co., releases his upcoming book Catch and Kill. A press released said of Farrow’s book, “the project will address the “conspiracy of silence around Weinstein and other men in power.”
SITRICK IN 2018
Mike Sitrick is no match for Wikileaks, the Panama Papers, and crusading journalists like Ronan Farrow, and the courage of women speaking out against their abusers. In this day and age when the US Congress and federal agencies are setting up to take on Google and Facebook’s massive invasions of privacy and selling private data, Sitrick’s skills no longer seem formidable against the vast oceans of social media, high level leakers, and even network and cable news. Indeed, the high-speed downfall of Harvey Weinstein showed the powerlessness of Sitrick & Company to fend off the inevitable by the use of old school tricks.
Weinstein’s arrest makes the case that “crisis management” is quite different than “trying to counter horrendously bad PR for high profile sleazebags who have crossed the line into criminality.” It is one thing to for Johnson & Johnson to handle the nightmarish PR issues related to Tylenol tampering in 1982; it’s quite another for Sitrick & Company to issue blanket denials on behalf of Harvey Weinstein or work in the background for the Church of Scientology even as Scientology works to destroy former members, journalists, and critics who expose its depravity.
This leads us to ask: When does “crisis management” cross the line into complicity?
SCIENTOLOGY & FAIR GAME; MIKE SITRICK & THE WHEEL OF PAIN
Abby Aguirre’s recent New York Times story on Mike Sitrick and Harvey Weinstein offers an illuminating look at what Sitrick & Company did for the disgraced Hollywood mogul. Aguirre notes that in 1998 Sitrick coauthored a book with Allan Mayer. Entitled Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage, Aguirre comments on the book:
In Chapter 4, “News Media Abhor a Vacuum,” Mr. Sitrick lays out one of his key tenets: that strategic press representatives must engage the media; “no comment” should never be a first resort. “If you won’t talk to them, they’ll simply find someone else who will,” he and Mr. Mayer write, “which is to say, if you don’t tell your story, someone else will tell it for you.”
In a press release concerning Scientology TV, David Miscavige quoted Mike Sitrick verbatim when he said:
If you don’t write your own story, someone else will. So, yes, we’re now going to be writing our story, like no other religion in history. And it’s all going to happen right here from Scientology Media Productions.”
Miscavige’s verbatim quote of Sitrick suggests that Sitrick still has Scientology as a client. If so, Scientology and Sitrick appear to think alike in terms of Fair Game; Sitrick just phrases it differently. Example: In Sitrick’s new book The Fixer: Secrets for Saving Your Reputation in the Age of Viral Media he advises his clients to “Put Your Opponent in the Wheel of Pain.”
For Mike Sitrick to advise someone like Harvey Weinstein to put his opponents “in the wheel of pain” is beyond comprehension. Are we to take Sitrick’s admonition to mean that Weinstein’s victims were to be put in the wheel of pain by Sitrick & Company? Were Weinstein’s victims to be caused pain? While a clarification from Sitrick & Company on this point seems in order, Sitrick’s advice to cause your opponent pain shows the utter cynicism at Sitrick’s core: He is not afraid to hurt people in the defense of a client.
Attorney Lisa Bloom was also apparently not afraid to attack Weinstein’s accusers as Lloyd Grove’s story in The Daily Beast made clear:
Ronan Farrow was stunned and disgusted early this year when famed feminist lawyer Lisa Bloom phoned him, in the midst of his investigation for NBC News of widespread allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein, and offered to share opposition research on one of Weinstein’s accusers.
“I don’t know if you’ve talked to Rose McGowan, but we have files on her and her… history,” Bloom told Farrow, according to knowledgeable sources inside and outside NBC.
To what extent, if any, Bloom was coordinating with Sitrick remains a mystery. Nevertheless, the question remains: When does crisis management become complicity?
The efforts of Sitrick & Company and Lisa Bloom on behalf of their client Harvey Weinstein resemble Scientology’s practice of Fair Game in certain aspects. Grove’s story in the Daily Beast details just how ugly the Hollywood Good Old Boy’s network became when Harvey Weinstein learned that Ronan Farrow was writing a story about him. Weinstein called in all his markers in Hollywood and his very powerful allies tried to kill Farrow’s story. The Good Old Boys Network in Hollywood had much to lose if Weinstein went down. Worse, some of the Good Old Boys knew they too could be dragged down with Weinstein. It was time to circle the wagons.
FOCUS ON THE FIX
Mike Sitrick advises his clients to “focus on the fix.” Scientology TV is obviously Miscavige’s attempt to focus on the fix. We know that Scientology TV is Miscavige’s attempt to “normalize Scientology.” How Miscavige thinks this is possible is quizzical: One cannot normalize that which is inherently deviant. For instance, how does one “normalize” child labor in the Sea Org or exploiting Sea Org members by paying them .10 cents per hour while inflicting sleep deprivation on them? Sleep deprivation is classed as a form of torture by the United Stations. Defined as “the intentional infliction of physical and psychological pain” sleep deprivation as torture cannot be normalized.
Mike Sitrick calls for an organization in crisis to exercise a strategy in which “strategic press representatives must engage the media.” How has David Miscavige translated this advice into action?
David Miscavige has his OSA “press representatives” engage the media in two ways. First, in terms of responding to Leah’s Remini’s A&E show Scientology and the Aftermath, Miscavige has his people in OSA Legal engage the media and the public by issuing a series of angry and unconvincing written denials. From a legal perspective, A&E prudently airs these denials so as to foreclose any Scientology protest that it was not given a chance to respond.
Miscavige apparently feels that he is telling his story by compelling A&E to broadcast Scientology’s written denials. However, Scientology’s denials carry the same moral authority as Harvey Weinstein’s denials:
David Miscavige’s second response to his critics is to have OSA create hate websites on people Scientology deems Suppressive Persons. However, Scientology’s hate websites only serve as self-indicting evidence that Scientology is as malicious as former members, critics, journalists, and documentarians have stated after having been on the receiving end of Scientology’s Fair Game campaigns.
SCIENTOLOGY TV AS THE PROPAGANDA OF A COLLAPSING REGIME
David Miscavige is so delusional that he spent $100 million on Scientology TV in order to tell Scientology’s story so that other’s won’t. However, this is pure fantasy. The media, critics, and former members have been telling Scientology’s story for decades and will continue to do so. David Miscavige and his “crisis management experts” are powerless to stop any coverage of Scientology.
I once shooped Miscavige as Ceausescu in his final hours to depict Miscavige’s utter incomprehension of what is actually happening around him:
The incomprehension of the wealthy and powerful occurs because they have gotten their own way for so long and live in a bubble of sycophants, lawyers, fixers, private investigators, paid hoodlums, crisis management firms, and other enablers. When something truly disastrous besets them, the wealthy think they can buy their way out of it, silence it with various dire threats, or stop it by enforcing nondisclosure agreements that were signed in the past. Stormy Daniels and her attorney have made a mockery of the system of payoffs and nondisclosure agreements. Ronan Farrow has made a mockery of NBC’s alleged “concerns” of not having enough evidence to run a story. The Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, and the soon to be released Appleby Papers have ripped the veil off the offshore financial chicanery of monied elites. The 1% are powerful, but not that powerful. The 1% should take notice when even the governments of China and Russia fear the internet and the free flow of information.
SCIENTOLOGY SPIN
Scientology has often tried to spin the narrative in self-serving attempts to attack its most effective critics. Taryn Teutsch’s recent attempts to hijack the #MeToo movement for use in attacking her father Mike Rinder were exposed as fraudulent and reprehensible.
Rather than acknowledging the extremely serious and enormous problems with Scientology, David Miscavige has tried to spin the overwhelming public outrage against Scientology by tossing out the bogus and unconvincing tagline, “Curious? We thought so.”
Mr. Miscavige, the only thing people are curious about concerning Scientology is why the IRS has not revoked its tax exemption.
In our series on Taryn Teutsch and her mother Cathy Bernardini, we noted that both are Scientology Sea Org members. Their current assignment from Captain David Miscavige is to conduct a sleazy Fair Game campaign to get Mike Rinder fired from his job with Leah Remini’s Emmy-winning show Scientology and the Aftermath.
While this is being done to punish Mike for his many long and courageous years of speaking out against Scientology’s many abuses, Taryn’s Fair Game campaign is also being waged to harm Leah Remini’s show because it has been so successful in exposing the depravity and sadism perpetrated upon individuals, families, and society by the Church of Scientology.
Scientology’s logic is transparent in this current Fair Game smear campaign: If Taryn can get Mike fired, then the Church of Scientology will jump in and announce that Leah Remini hired an abuser and is therefore a horrible person and her show is false. This is how idiotically simple David Miscavige thinks. However, as we have seen in Taryn’s bogus smear campaign against Mike Rinder, OSA’s execution is incredibly poor. Culture is not stupid and sees right through this dirty Scientology behavior. Scientology is deemed a cult due to the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence.
Scientology Social Media Fraud
In our previous article we exposed the social media fraud in which “Clickfarm Taryn” is engaged as part of her social media fraud. Taryn’s thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers are created in Third World sweatshops.
We also discussed the way in which Taryn Teutsch is cynically attempting to exploit the #MeToo movement by co-opting it for her fake narrative that her father Mike Rinder abused her mother Cathy Bernardini.
As the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office official report established, however, there was no crime, no assault, and no victim. What the report established is that a large group of Scientologists accosted Mike Rinder in a Florida parking lot. See our first article for details of what actually happened and what Taryn Teutsch is not telling the public.
Taryn Teutsch is not satisfied to with merely buying followers to engage in Scientology social media fraud. Indeed, “Clickfarm Taryn” went so far as to get her photo taken with Gretchen Carlson at the prestigious YWCA GLA “Phenomenal Woman Awards Luncheon” event in order to the photo use on her Facebook page. This photo could deceive the unwary into believing that both the YWCA GLA and Phenomenal Woman award winner Gretchen Carlson support Taryn:
Taryn’s photo obviously does not imply Gretchen Carlson’s endorsement of Scientology, Taryn Teutsch, or Cathy Bernardini. And yet Taryn seems to imply that she and Gretchen Carlson are in solidarity.
Scientology engaged in this same sort of misleading PR tactic to raise money in the days following 9/11. In a now infamous image, Scientology colorized its Volunteer Minister and made all of the true first repsonders at Ground Zero fade into shades of gray. In doing so the Church of Scientology was seeking to co-opt 9/11 for its own venal fundraising purposes even as Taryn Teutsch is now seeking to co-opt #MeToo for her Fair Game campaign against her father Mike Rinder. Scientology has always worked to steal potent cultural content and pervert such content to its own uses.
Scientologist Tom Cruise also appropriated 9/11 imagery in an effort to abet Scientology’s efforts to make itself look like it was there at Ground Zero:
Tom Cruise in an NYFD uniform surrounded by stage fog. Tom Cruise was seeking to imply that NYFD endorsed Scientology. The actual Scientology efforts following 9/11 were limited to running a Purification Rundown and a gigantic fundraising effort within the Cult. David Miscavige called this fundraising effort a “Wake Up Call” and thus cynically used 9/11 to further enrich himself and Scientology.
Tom Cruise further injected himself into 9/11 by opening a Purification Rundown center for first responders. Cruise did the PR photo and opened a Purif center in order to associate himself with the heroic NYFD. By attending the YWCA GLA event and getting her photo taken with Jackie Lacey and Gretchen Carlson, Taryn Teutsch is engaging in the same sort of implied endorsementwhere no endorsement actually exists.
Cathy Bernardini
Taryn’s mother Cathy Bernardini is no stranger to controversy. Bernardini can be seen in this 2010 interview with Anderson Cooper beginning at 3:33. Anderson Cooper is masterful in his questioning and takedown of these duplicitous Sea Org members:
CNN’s exposure of Scientology bears out the old French proverb, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” Scientology lied then and it is lying now. Moreover, Scientology’s 2010 prediction that Anderson Cooper and CNN were both doomed to fail miserably for having “attacked” Scientology has not come to pass. Both CNN and Mr. Cooper continue to enjoy good ratings.
Why Aren’t Taryn & Cathy Demanding that David Miscavige be Fired?
Cathy Bernardini is known for having appeared on CNN’s show “A History of Violence” in which she told Anderson Cooper that Scientology leader David Miscavige never physically assaulted her ex-husband Mike Rinder. This too is a lie. Mike Rinder has stated many times he was physically assaulted by David Miscavige — and Miscavige has never dared to respond by suing Mike for libel and slander. Miscavige knows he would lose in court in the same way he lost when Debbie Cook spent one day on the stand describing the abuses she suffered in the Sea Org at the hands of David Miscavige. Following Debbie Cook’s testimony, Miscavige folded up like a cheap lawn chair in a hurricane and settled with Debbie.
There are multiple eyewitnesses who saw David Miscavige physically assault Mike Rinder. There are also numerous former Sea Org members on record who themselves were physically attacked, beaten, hit, or punched by David Miscavige.
By Cathy Bernardini and Taryn Teutsch’s own standard, David Miscavige should be fired from Scientology as he is an abuser. Taryn and Cathy insist that abusers never be rewarded. Therefore, both should logically demand that David Miscavige be fired.
TheSupreme Abuser in Scientology — David Miscavige — is behind this entire Fair Game attack If anyone needs to be fired it is David Miscavige.
This is really the story of David Miscavige using a mother and a daughter to enact L. Ron Hubbard’s toxic policy of Fair Game. Another story that needs to be told is the horrible ways in which David Miscavige treats women. Indeed, he has locked away his own wife Shelly Miscavige for over a decade. Why isn’t Taryn Teutsch asking the real question, “Where’s Shelly?”
Taryn Teutsch and Scientology have now been caught out in the open trying to use Gretchen Carlson and the #MeToo movement for purposes of Scientology Fair Game.
Cathy Bernardini (Rinder) is a well-groomed liar who, as so well expressed by Jeffrey Augustine in his recent reports, has raised her daughter Taryn to follow in her tracks. Her capacity to lie straight to Anderson Cooper in a CNN interview in 2010 impacted me so much that I had to write about her and Jenny Linson (DeVocht) in my book, Escaping Scientology: An Insider’s True Story. In brief, for those who have not seen that interview: Cathy, Jenny, Katherine Hawkins and Anne Rathbun represented themselves as former wives of SP execs who had left the Sea Org from the Int base. They defended David Miscavige regarding Cooper’s statements that Miscavige was known to beat and victimize his staff. Cathy Rinder lied through her teeth that MIscavige had never laid a finger on Mike, never hit or beat him etc. She said she would have seen bruises or injuries on his body if that had been true. She failed to mention that Mike lived in LA while working for OSA and she lived at the Int base. So it’s not like she saw him very often and wouldn’t have been able to see any physical damage Miscavige would have inflicted on him. I’m sure she was incapable of detecting the psychological and emotional damage, because she suffered it herself so she would not have been able to see it. So in this abusive, compromised environment, Taryn finds it natural to follow in her mother’s footsteps, which is extremely sad to see. She is highly unlikely to ever break out of the trap as long as her mother remains in. Meanwhile, we can fully expect Taryn to keep doing OSA dirty work.
As Karen and I so strongly object to the Fair Game campaign in which Scientology and Taryn Teutsch are engaged, I have spent the week doing an almost real time narrative of this smear campaign at The Scientology Money Project. What I have discovered is that this sleazy attack on Mike Rinder is awash in a fake narrative and social media fraud in which Taryn Teutsch is using fake Facebook and Twitter followers. Here are the four articles I wrote should you wish to read the details on how vicious and inept this attack on Mike Rinder has become:
The Church of Scientology’s mother-daughter duo of Cathy Bernardini and Taryn Teutsch have been engaged in a classic Scientology Fair Game campaign of lies. The purpose of their duplicitous campaign is to demand that Disney fire Mike Rinder from Leah Remini’s Emmy-winning A&E show Scientology and the Aftermath.
Taryn and Cathy claim that Mike assaulted Cathy in 2010. This is an utter and complete lie. As documented in our previous article, Cathy and Taryn were part of a Scientology mob that ambushed Mike Rinder in a Florida parking lot in 2010. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office report noted that there was only “incidental contact” as Mike was trying to move away from the angry group of Scientologists. There was no assault. Cathy Bernardini received an abrasion on her arm due to incidental contact. The Sheriff’s Office report closed the case as a simple non-criminal incident.
Cathy and Taryn are Sea Org members. Along with Scientology’s dirty operators in OSA, they have knowingly created and perpetuated a false narrative about an event that happened eight years ago. In doing so they are cynically hoping to take advantage of the #MeToo movement by arguing that all abusers should be fired, and, as Mike is an abuser he too should be fired. However, inasmuch as Cathy, Taryn, and OSA are lying, the Church of Scientology has now been caught in a cynical, self-serving, and transparent attempt to exploit the victims of rape, sexual harassment, and abuse for its own malevolent purposes of Fair Game. This disgraceful conduct is yet another reason why Scientology has only itself to blame for being called a sinister cult.
Clickfarm Taryn’s Fake Friends: More Scientology Social Media Fraud
In addition to lying about what happened in 2010, Taryn Teutsch also used two fake “stock photo Scientologists” on her Facebook page to support her efforts to get Mike Rinder fired. (See our previous article on fake Scientologists). These fake Scientologist go to the pattern of Taryn’s deceit — as do her fake Twitter followers. Aaron Smith-Levin noted the following on Facebook a few hours ago:
Taryn’s Twitter page bears out what Aaron posted. Here we see that Taryn has gained 600 Twitter followers in the few hours since Aaron posted the 14,000 number. Scientology’s hired clickfarms are indeed busy:
Taryn claims to have 5,577 followers on her Facebook Page:
Clickfarm Taryn has Facebook followers from the Philippines, Indonesia, Tijuana, and India. Taryn and OSA are not even trying to make this part of their social media fraud appear credible. Below we see one of Taryn’s fake Facebook followers named Suresh Sureshdhillion. To see what “she” shares with friends send Suresh a friend request:
Clickfarm Taryn’s social media fraud reveals just how shamelessly she and Scientology will lie.
Scientology has been caught before in social media fraud.
Taryn lies about matters of substance and then lazily uses click farm friends to pretend she has support for her lies. No one is fooled by the scammy Scientology smear campaign being perpetrated by Clickfarm Taryn, her mother Cathy, and Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs.
Bottom line on Taryn Teutsch: She has a fake story that features fake stock photo Scientologists, fake Facebook followers, and fake Twitter followers. In other words, it is classic Scientology.
The 2010 Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office report is offered below for the reader’s examination; please hover your mouse over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the document:
“Alicia Selverson” is not a real person. Rather, the image is actually a stock photo the Church of Scientology purchased to create a fake Scientologist on social media.
Scientology critics exposed Scientologist “Alicia Selverson” as a fake person in 2017. Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs purchased numerous stock photos and pretended these were real Scientologists who were members of OSA’s equally fake STAND League. What OSA didn’t count on was Google reverse imaging. This allowed critics to download images of STAND members and discover these people to be stock photos.
Scientology was caught and exposed for using fake people in a social media fraud. One notable example was fake Scientologist and STAND member “Ellis Craig.” This “Scientologist” turned out to be the male model Gert Rappenecker whose image is for sale as a stock photo:
The Church of Scientology withdrew its fake stock photo Scientologists from Twitter when it was caught and exposed for fraud. However, Scientology is back to its social media fraud once again. The fraud was caught when Mike Rinder’s daughter Taryn Teutsch posted on her Facebook account about her visit to Walt Disney Studios. This was Taryn’s way of saying that she had gotten a visit at the Disney Company to lodge a bogus complaint about her father.
The fake stock photo Scientologist Alicia Selverson — and another fake Scientologist named Jason Hammond — appeared in Taryn’s comments section to congratulate her on meeting a Disney executive:
Given that Taryn Teutsch lied about her father assaulting her mother Cathy Bernardini in 2010 — and the Sheriff’s report bears this out — we must ask what else Taryn is lying about. Did she actually get a meeting with a Disney executive? We hardly think so given that Taryn and OSA used two fake stock photo Scientologists to congratulate her on the alleged meeting. If Taryn had a real meeting she could have easily had real publicly known Scientologists congratulate her. The comically inept Scientology Twitter duo of John Alex Wood and his fiancee Gemma come to mind.
Taryn Teutsch and the Church of Scientology can lie all they want — and Scientology lies as the central principle of its own existence — but the internet will most assuredly find and expose their lies. Lying is ingrained in the DNA of Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard taught his PR people to “effectively outflow false data.” For this reason, nothing Scientology says can be believed and Taryn Teutsch is proving this in the course of her Fake News Fair Game campaign of lies against her own father.
Fake Scientologist Jonas Hammond congratulated Taryn Teutsch on her meeting with a Disney exec. Here is fake Scientologist Jonas Hammond as shown on his Facebook page. Judging by his hard and fixed Scientology death stare he surely must be an OTVIII:
NB: OSA took down Jonas’ biker photo from his FB page immediately after I posted it here. OSA’s artless fuckery and use of fake identities show its incompetence in the world of social media.
Why is Scientology Sea org member Taryn Teutsch standing next to Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey at the recent YWCA GLA awards event? Lacey’s office is investigating multiple sexual assault allegations against Scientologist Danny Masterson. Taryn posted the photo on her twitter page alongside her attacks on her father Mike Rinder and Leah Remini’s show Scientology and the Aftermath.
Taryn Teutsch is a Scientology Sea Org member and the daughter of Mike Rinder. Taryn’s recent tweets suggest that she appears to be the front woman in an OSA operation designed to get her father fired from Leah Remini’s show Scientology and the Aftermath. This would not be the first time Scientology’s psycho-terrorist Office of Special Affairs tried to get Mike Rinder fired from a job. Read the story of what OSA did to Robert Almblad for giving Mike a job selling a new clean ice technology. Taryn never mentions this in her fake news.
Taryn Teutsch’s strategy is very transparent: She has recently appeared at women’s events. At one of the events she falsely portrayed her father as a man who assaulted her mother. Taryn’s mother is Sea Org member Cathy Bernardini. On her blog and tweets, Taryn asks Disney CEO Bob Iger to fire her father Mike from Leah’s show due to assaulting her mother. But that’s only part of the story. Taryn’s larger goal is to follow her boss’ David Miscavige’s orders and help get Leah Remini’s show taken off the air. Taryn’s real goal — as is that of Scientology — is censorship. Scientology’s demands its free speech while viciously attacking those who use their free speech to expose Scientology’s many evils including the use of child labor.
Taryn’s role is that of an aggrieved daughter. However, what Taryn is lying about, what she is withholding as she spins her Scientology treachery, is the actual story of an ill-conceived and poorly-executed OSA operation in 2010 that she herself participated in. Taryn hopes that people of goodwill — in many cases women who are themselves victims of rape — will take her wholly deceitful account at face value and not search online for the actual details or the police report. Taryn seems to be cynically playing on the sympathies of sexual assault and harassment victims in yet another sleazy Scientology Fair Game operation.
Here’s what really happened: Mike Rinder escaped from Scientology in 2007 with nothing but the clothes on his back and began a new life. He was publicly speaking out against the human rights abuses of the Church of Scientology and exposing Scientology brutal and sadistic leader David Miscavige. Scientology began a vicious campaign of Fair Game against Mike that has not let up for twelve years now.
In 2010, Mike Rinder took his then fiancee, and now his wife, Christie Collbran to the doctor for a nutritional consultation. Christie did these consultations on a routine basis. While Christie was inside the doctor’s office, Mike stayed in the parking lot to enjoy the beautiful Florida weather. He was standing next his SUV making phone calls. Suddenly, Mike found himself in a parking lot surrounded by a veritable lynch mob of angry Scientologists and their private investigators. The lynch mob included his ex-wife Cathy and his daughter Taryn. Mike picks up the story at his blog:
Cathy (my ex-wife); Taryn, my daughter; 4 senior church executives (Jenny Linson, Guillaume Lesevre, David Bloomberg and Sue Wilhere) — all from Los Angeles; along with my brother, Andrew who lives in Australia were despatched by David Miscavige to “confront me” in the parking lot of a doctor’s office in Clearwater, Florida.
I did not approach them or seek them out in any way.
Two PI’s followed me to the doctor’s office, along with these 7 people. They rolled in in 3 cars. To a parking lot not visible from the main road, in fact a considerable distance down a private road and at the back of a suite of doctor offices. With the 2 PI’s observing from a distance, all 7 of them descended on me as I was talking on the phone waiting for my now wife who was at the doctor. I was aimlessly walking around in the parking lot while engaged in a phone conversation.
You will note that I asked that the police be called. Not my ex-wife claiming an assault. The Pinellas Count Sheriffs interviewed the people who did not run away (the 2 PI’s, Jenny Linson, Guillaume Lesevre and Dave Bloomberg literally jumped in cars and fled the scene as soon as 911 was called and before the Sheriffs arrived) at the time of the so-called assault and they concluded these people had followed me and that the grazes on Cathy’s arm were “incidental contact” as I was trying to walk away from her and the others who had flown thousands of miles to seek me out. In fact, they issued a Trespass Warning on my ex-wife and the others as a result of this incident. But of course none of this information appears in the church “Dead Agent” material.
The Sheriff said there was “incidental contact” only as Mike was trying to get away from an angry group of people. The case was summarily closed. What we actually have is an eight year old event that Taryn Teutsch is spinning into a web of lies in a classic Scientology Fair Game campaign against her father Mike Rinder and Leah Remini’s show. This disgraceful conduct is to be expected from Scientology — but it gets worse.
In her latest Fair Game foray, Taryn ran in front of the cameras and tried to hijack Denim Day 2018 here in Los Angeles and turn the event into a propaganda attack on her father. Taryn is seen below standing behind the “Justice4Mom” banner holding her #FireMikeRinder sign.
The photo Taryn posted at her hyperventilating blog makes it appear that the entire Denim Day event was all about her. This leads us to ask what Denim Day is actually about; here is the official statement from Denim Day’s website:
For the past 19 years, Peace Over Violence has run its Denim Day campaign on a Wednesday in April in honor of Sexual Violence Awareness Month. The campaign was originally triggered by a ruling by the Italian Supreme Court where a rape conviction was overturned because the justices felt that since the victim was wearing tight jeans she must have helped her rapist remove her jeans, thereby implying consent. The following day, the women in the Italian Parliament came to work wearing jeans in solidarity with the victim. Peace Over Violence developed the Denim Day campaign in response to this case and the activism surrounding it. Since then, wearing jeans on Denim Day has become a symbol of protest against erroneous and destructive attitudes about sexual assault. In this rape prevention education campaign we ask community members, elected officials, businesses and students to make a social statement with their fashion by wearing jeans on this day as a visible means of protest against the misconceptions that surround sexual assault. — DenimDay.Org
Denim Day is a 19 year old movement whose goal is the prevention of sexual assaults against women. The Church of Scientology has absolutely nothing to do with Denim Day. However, in this year’s Denim Day event in Los Angeles, Scientology Sea Org member Taryn Teutsch injected herself and Scientology into Denim Day. Taryn disgracefully ignored the victims of sexual assault to whom Denim Day is designed to draw attention and support. Taryn turned Denim Day into another dishonest Scientology attack against those who speak out. Disgusting conduct.
This is not the first time Taryn has attacked her father. She has previously written letters to ABC 20/20 and Deadline Hollywood complaining about her father. Taryn also had made several hate videos about her father that are awash in the same lies she is still peddling. There was no domestic abuse Taryn; there was only “incidental contact” when you and your mother and fellow Scientologists ambushed your father in a parking lot. Tell the truth Taryn! And for the record: Leah Remini’s show offered to interview Cathy Bernardini, Taryn, and her brother Benjamin on camera. All three declined through their lawyer.
Memo to Taryn Teutsch: The real abuser in Scientology is David Miscavige. The real victim is his wife Shelly Miscavige who has not been seen in public for twelve years. Taryn, if you cared for the well-being of women you would ask David Miscavige why he locked away his wife. You would ask if Shelly was okay. Have you done this?
In this next photo we see Taryn hogging the camera again with her giant sign as she attempts to hijack Denim Day on behalf of Scientology:
******
In the tweet that appears at the opening of this article we see Taryn Teutsch tagging #ywca_gla. This is the YWCA chapter of Los Angeles. Stealing a page from fellow Scientologist Joy Villa’s playbook, Taryn is now, apparently, networking at women’s events. In the space of two weeks Taryn appeared at Denim Day and then the YWCA event. Taryn appears to be positioning herself as a woman’s rights activist. This is bizarre when we consider the fact that Scientology is a Master Race group that calls humans “homo saps” and “wogs.” Scientology has no regard for human rights whatsoever and uses four unconscionable contracts in which Scientologists sign away their legal and civil rights
In my opinion, there may well be a ploy at work: Scientology is using Taryn Teutsch to infiltrate women’s groups in an covert effort to attack Mike Rinder and Leah Remini’s show. One of Scientology’s main tactics is to infiltrate groups of all kinds. The other tactic Scientology uses is called “safe-pointing.” In this tactic, Scientology spreads love and money around to influence various organizations. Scientology’s favorite is the LAPD, a police department that seems to be in bed with Scientology:
Taryn may be multitasking and engaging in both Fair Game and safe-pointing as it suits David Miscavige’s needs on any given day.
In Taryn’s next tweet from the recent YWCA Phenomenal Women event in Los Angeles she is seen hugging Denim Day/Peace Over Violence Director Patti Giggans; does Mr. Giggans realize Taryn is a Scientology Sea Org member on a mission that seeks to ultimately destroy her own father and Leah Remini’s television show by use of a demonstrably false narrative?
I wrote to Denim Day and asked for a response to this matter of Taryn using her blog and photos to co-opt the real meaning and purpose of Denim Day; Denim Day has not responded as of this writing.
Taryn Teutsch can try to spin an eight year old event to fit her fake Cult narrative, but the Sheriff’s report says otherwise — and Leah’s show is entering its third season.
The 2010 Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office report is offered here for the reader’s examination; please hover your mouse over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the document:
