We just concluded our second episode with Mike Brown, detailing the abuses rampant in scientology, and especially with Sea Org members.
We showed some documents during the course of the episode and I am including them here.
Rosemary Chicwak Letter to Miscavige & Cruise
This is the list of elderly SO members Rosemary is aware of:
PAC Base Elderly Sea Org Members
Glendale House “Oakridge Inn 2” (1225 Oakridge Dr. Glendale CA. 91205)
This facility is a residential “Board and Care” facility run by a private contractor (non-scientologist) by the name of “Romik Rostomyan” 35yo. Board and care for each resident is billed to the PAC Orgs at $3000.00 per person. There is a 24-hour care giver able to assist residents. There are a total of 6 residents that live in this house, 4 of which are Sea Org Members. There is no food plan for residents and meals are haphazard and unbalanced. Residents with dementia do not comment on the food due to their mental state. One of the residents with Parkinson’s has special dietary needs that are provided for daily by her husband (who lives in the medical house on Edgemont in Hollywood) which he brings to the care takers to cook for her. Residents who are placed here are thought to be “high risk” medically and not authorized to be at the “Medical House” or on the PAC Base as they might need Paramedic/911 support or are unable to take care of themselves. Sea Org residents are as follows:
Daphne Griffin-Smith (Parkinson) from AOLA (~67yo)
Ilona Gallop (Dementia) from AOLA (~78yo)
Formerly Rosemary Chicwak (Heart Failure) from AOLA (75yo)
Sandra Johnson (Dementia) from Flag Office/FSC worked with Hubbard, 50+ years S.O. (~85yo)
Glendale House “Oakridge Inn #1” (1281 Oakridge Dr. Glendale CA. 91205)
This facility is like the residence above and owned by the same private contractor. There is only one Sea Org resident in this house named below:
Stanley Doyle (Dementia) from OSA (~85/90yo)
Medical House (1200 N. Edgemont St. Hollywood CA.)
This is a property where senior citizens or Sea Org members with terminal illnesses are housed if their illness is deemed too bad off to live on the PAC Base. It is a scientology owned property where residents largely are required to care for themselves, and no skilled care is provided. The residents are required to organize and conduct themselves as active-duty Sea Org Members while living there with some work requirements, a rank structure and are kept largely isolated from the outside world with no TV, Internet, minimal phone access, etc. Residents are as follows:
Barbel Light, PAC MLO “for Seniors”/ driver at the medical house.
Nancy Phelps, Lives in a small room (former closet) works as a driver. Has a personal van she uses for moving people around. Has it set up to live in as needed.
Suzanne Justus (Stroke, High BP, Heart Problems) former D of P AOLA (75yo)
Carol Hougin (Stroke) Bridge Publications (~80yo)
Janice James (Stroke) former Auditor in CLO EUS (~83yo)
Weldon Caldwell (Stroke, congestive heart failure, heart attack) former Chaplin AOLA (~73yo) Received money from Social Security and was made to pay and take out loans for services and IAS donations. Paid for bridge up to OT3 at Las Vegas Org. Unable to cover bills with SS income.
Kylea-Rose Kevit (Unknown terminal Illness) Dep Qual Sec AOLA (~45yo)
Damien Kevit (Hit and run car and dragged, handicap, lost right leg and most of hip) former Auditor CLO WUS (~45yo)
Gail Mortensen (Cancer) former Treasury AOLA (~68yo)
Ed Smith (Heart Trouble) ASHO (~75yo) Daily drives to Glendale House #1 to care for wife
Faith Schermerhorn (Care giver for husband) former ESI/Gold Staff (~63yo)
Tom Schermerhorn (Back and physical problem from military service) ALOA (~70yo) Received money from the VA and Social Security and was made to pay and take out loans for services and IAS donations.
Carla Cohen (Brest cancer) Class 9 Auditor AOLA (~65yo)
“Suki” (LA Org) Missions guy (~55yo)
“Harold” (Stroke) Estates CLO (~85yo)
Cheryl Krishko (Cares for husband still works at base) Central files ASHO (~72yo)
Jack Krishko (Diabetic, High BP) former PAC Landlord (~78yo)
Mike Spillino (Sugar Diabetic, legs degrading, smell, dying) Word Clearer AOLA (~75yo)
Eunis Spillino (Dementia) ASHO (~75yo)
Pam Bowen (Cancer) OSA (~76yo)
Don Bowen (UNK med problem) OSA (~76yo)
Margie Esterman (Stroke) C/S ASHO (~82yo)
Mitch Esterman (Old age, eye patch, dementia) Class 9 Auditor AOLA (~83yo)
PAC Base Complex, Main Building Room 216 (L. Ron Hubbard Way Hollywood CA.)
This room is where the elderly female Sea Org Members from the local orgs are housed. It is a converted large storage room separated into two individual rooms that has no windows, fresh air intake or exhaust. Residents combined funds to purchase portable heater/air conditioners for the room that vents into an elevator shaft close by as nothing was provided by the organization. The room has 2x refrigerators (uncommon for staff), a small kitchenette and its own bathroom with a sink and toilet (no shower only a tub but not handicap accessible). Other lavatory and shower facilities are located down the hall (open bay design). Beds are a combination of single and bunk beds.
Many of the following names are suspected to have been subject to illegal financial practices. They were made to pull out lines of credit to pay for Scientology Services at The Church of Scientology Los Angeles (L.A. Org), American Saint Hill Organization (ASHO) and the Advanced Organization of Los Angeles (AOLA). Credit was stated to be obtained from Navy Federal Credit Union and Chase Bank but other banks were likely also used. Registrars “Reges” from all the above organizations were actively having Sea Org Members pay for Scientology “church services” that should have given for free during the period 2011 and 2014-15. Some form of internal Sea Org investigation was conducted and some of the Registrars were forced to leave the Sea Org or were sent to the RPF. Money taken was never refunded from the Church of Scientology to those Sea Org Members that made them take out loans resulting in most, if not all, of the below named individuals still paying off debt using their Social Security money.
Residents in Room 216 are as follows:
Rosemarie Paquett – (91yo, deceased) Owed ~$17,000 to Navy Federal at time of death
Florence “Flo” Petro – (~85yo, deceased) Owed money for loans at time of death
Linda Hall (Back problems, walks with cane, twisted spine) CLO WUS (~70yo)
Patricia “Pat” Hammerson (Heart trouble, high BP) PAC Call Center (~65yo)
Jane Gerow (Heart trouble) Bridge Publications (81yo)
Judith “Judy” Ferguson (MS) CLO WUS Data (~60yo)
Janet “Jan” Blout (Overweight, heart trouble) CLO WUS Treasury Chief (75yo)
Kathy “KJ” Johnson (Heart trouble, stints, collapsed on post) AOLA Reg (~68yo)
Janet Weiland (Heart trouble and diabetic) OSA PAC (83yo)
Charlotte Cook (Heart trouble, High BP, hard of hearing) ASHO Central Files (81yo) She was made to give money, like Rosemary Chicwak, and still struggling to make minimum payments.
I listened to Rosemary’s story on your podcast and I’m crying like a baby !!! Bless Rosemary’s heart ❤️ I’m so happy she can live the remainder of her life with her son and grandchildren without being imprisoned by Scientology. I’m sure Mike and Leah did this to at least help one person … They did that and then some.
I see there are a man and a woman, aged 75, with last name Spillino. Is that Katherine’s parents? The bad cadet. I remember her saying on Aaron’s channel that they were in some retirement medical housing and she couldn’t reach them anymore. I remember because Aaron ++ had just had something about the elderly being basically kept prisoner and hid away from family in houses that were not in any way medical. This was probably when you worked on Rosemary’s case, because it is a while back. Aaron looked like the alarm bells were going off in his head.
posting updates here as i see them …. https://exscn2.net/forums/reconnecting-with-old-friends.23/
aaron just read out this name and it sounded familiar. was thinking it was a “he” but clearly i see now a “she”. she just wrote my sister the other day. my sister has been out for 50 years but pat said they were there/in at the same time. there’s a 2014 post here on the blog with her info/email.
Patricia “Pat” Hammerson (Heart trouble, high BP) PAC Call Center (~65yo)
The Gods Are Crying
https://www.mikerindersblog.org https://www.mikerindersblog.org
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014
From: Pat Hammersen
Subject: THE GRAND OPENINGS!!
This criminal cult loudly accuses its critics as “all criminals” while its sordid brutal conduct is within.
Daily conduct.
Tony Ortega did a fabulous summary detailing their financial irregularities and viciousness on its elderly
who has served them in slave labor for decades.
Wicked.
Depraved conduct masquerading as a “church”.
Incredible story, second gen Scientologist offspring ultimately with the Aftermath Foundation’s excellent wise staff help, helping spring a parent from Scientology’s retirement, over to normal retirement.
All the more reason like Mike Brown urges, to donate to Aftermath Foundation.
Praise praise praise Aftermath Foundation for helping Mike get his mother out.
Really look forward to a video on this.
Aftermath Foundation is such a worthy group, highest praise to all who support and give advice and the board of Aftermath Foundation.
It’s sickening to see how degraded Scientology and the Sea Org have become. When I was in the SO from 1973-1982 it was pretty crazy but at least I was able to move up through OT III and not have to pay for any services. And I realized when I left that I would not have to pay a freeloader debt unless I wanted to suffer more. They think they are the most ethical group on the planet but that’s total bullsh*t. They say the real insight to what kind of character a person has is how they treat people who have no power over them. The fact that so many reg’s and other SO members repeatedly took advantage of Rosemary (and others), opening multiple credit card accounts and charging so much to her accounts without her permission shows such very bad character that one can only say that Scientology is a criminal organization.
I’m still shaking my head after going through the old auditor newsletters. he was in hiding the whole time i was in. the 60’s newsletters announcing the beginning of the sea org states that the purpose of the sea org was “to put ethics in on the planet”. i mean wtfukk does that even mean? he created the sea org to HIDE from authorities.
So sad that this is going on and that our government does nothing. I have to say as an American citizen I am embarrassed that nothing is being done. DM is a criminal and should be jailed and treated as a criminal.
It is so nice to see that Rosemary is in such a good place now. She deserves it as do the rest of them.
Keep fighting you all! I’ll keep supporting you and telling everyone I know.
Hugs
I wonder where my mom Yolanda Avila is – she was paralyzed while working in the props department at Gold. I sent a sheriff to her hospital room where he asked if I could talk to her and she refused. Jocelyn was present next to her so… I would love to know where she is now.
post in the ex forum and we can help look. too hard to do in here. (google exscn2)
i started a thread in the forum asking for info. Mitch Brisker worked at gold and left in 2020. she was there when he left. what timeframe was this accident? i was assuming long ago. https://exscn2.net/threads/yolanda-avila-son-is-looking.7779/#post-175292
Wow, what a shocker the truth is. The SO is despotically and horribly the worst of the worst cults hiding in plain sight in the freest of the democratically powerful countries on earth. That their judicial system is so blind to this abuse I feel is the responsibility of every lover of freedom to seriously look at why it doesn’t respond to such criminality once reported.
I salute Mike Brown and his mother Rosemary for their actions and this blog and its contributors for their tenacity and getting the word out there. A clink in Scientology’s armor has been exposed here, getting a bit light headed where this may go – here’s hoping all the way to tax exemption status removed and criminal proceedings.
Cults everywhere need to be placed on warning too, the people are waking up. The law and banks can hopefully be woken up to what their actions create and harbor.
To the discredit of Scientology, there is plenty of money to correct each and every one of these disturbing abuses of elderly Sea Org members. The funds are in real estate, in cherch accounts, and in IAS accounts – all under Miscavige’s direct control.
The problem is the cherch was set up as an inverted money funnel whereby the wealth is swept up from the membership at the bottom and sent upstream to the control of whoever is the top dog.
That top dog used to be L. Ron Hubbard. Today it is COB David Miscavige.
Think of the millions spent on property bought for the Idle Morgue program, property that has never been renovated or opened for its intended use. Often expensive real estate sits unused, without full renovation, and accumulating expensive tax bills.
Think of all the money, again under the control of Miscavige, that is currently used to buy the services of Private Investigators, lawyers, to pay off police, to write and maintain black websites, all to follow Hubbard’s Fair Game directives.
Think of all the millions of dollars swept up into the IAS, another resting place for money under the control of Miscavige. That huge slush fund has no accountability, and no apparent use except to pay for whatever is needed to protect Miscavige and keep him from appearing in court.
Then think of the orgs and facilities such as described in this complaint. Why do they not have funds to provide adequate housing and medical care for people who contracted to serve for a billion years, yet who are essentially left to suffer in the horrific conditions described in the complaint?
Why is all the money at the top under the control of Miscavige, and so little retained for essentials like toilet paper, proper berthing facilities, and adequate food, clothing and shelter for the elderly and disabled? The only word that correctly describes this imbalance is enurement, the situation where a supposed 501c3 tax exempt organization should lose its tax exemption (and has lost it once before under Hubbard) because excessive monies are enuring to the sole control of one person at the top. That is, and always has been, cause for loss of that tax exemption.
There is a simple and easily identifiable cause and effect: there is too little money to provide adequate food, clothing and shelter for members at the lowest levels of Scientology, because too much of the cherch’s income and donations enure to the direct control of Miscavige at the top of Scientology. And Miscavige seldom cares to correct this imbalance of income unless threatened with legal action.
Sincerely hope something can be done for those people still trapped in COS who are mentioned above. How lonely, hopeless and disillusioned they must be now. Wish they could all spend their final years with hope and faith in humanity restored. This cannot be ignored.
It seems that legal bedrooms require window if no door to outside and ventilation is required. The type of room zrosemary had is probably illegal and should be reported. Mayor Bass said during her election that she would investigate Scientology. If she meant it, she should do something about this elder abuse (assuming she has been informed about it). Clearwater should also investigate the conditions there along with the elder abuse.
I can’t really understand how any decent person, even with years of indoctrination in Scientology could not be horrified by how CoS is treating these elderly people. I certainly am.
Mayor Bass also needs to do something about Los Angeles, chief of police being seemingly sympathetic of Scientology. His treatment of Leah, Remini, and Claire Headley was beyond rude and dismissive.
Slight correction:
Per my family cheat sheet –
Leonard John Kruchko 06/14/1957 a Friday born in Pontiac MI.
He turned 66 this Jun. I turned 71 in August.
okay now we’re talking. that leonard part is critical for an internet search. lots of info in the ex forum if you want to post there. https://www.peoplefinders.com/people/leonard-kruchko?landing=all
Thank you vegan3 😘
The two interviews with Mike Brown brought my attention (with plenty of tears) to the neglect and outright abuse of the elderly in the organization. This is heartbreaking, and also hopeful, knowing people are “doing something about it” – and I realize Mike named this blog deliberately in that regard.
I am so relieved to know that Rosemary got out. Every photo of her brought a new wave of sobbing – holy moly, this hit me. I am glad she is not being interviewed; she deserves to be privately treated as a queen now. But we all love her, we can’t help it. And I am so happy for Mike Brown, her son, who has her back in his life when he thought it might never be the case.
Thank you Mike and Claire and all involved with the Aftermath Foundation. You are doing good, and I ‘ll bet it is a healing work for you too.
Wow. Mike Brown is an incredible man all the way around. As far as I’m concerned he is first and foremost, an incredible son. Thank you Mike Brown.
This story is beyond words. I cried tears of grief and tears of joy (that picture of the reunion of Rosemary and Mike when she was leaving and in her FIRST CLASS seat eating a good meal – priceless).
I do hope that something is done in a meaningful way to stop david miscavige and his church from further abuse of the elderly, from further abuse of children, from further abuse of families.
Thank you to all of those who helped get Rosemary out of her situation with the church of scientology.
Thank you ROSEMARY! YOU deserve First Class treatment all the way.
Thank you Mike, Claire, Mike Brown (thanks for your service in army), aftermath foundation and the legal team. Incredible story.
The elder abuse has been going on since at least the 90’s in CW and PAC, I saw it when on those bases..
Thanks to Rosemary for providing the names and addresses of the other seniors she stayed with.
I see so many of my friends and coworkers in PAC are now in dreadful shape in hospice at the base and these other locations. I might just write to them all. It’s got to start somewhere.
Your victory in getting Rosemary to a good life in retirement and the work you did to get recovery of her stolen funds is, I think, more significant than you have stated from your YouTube presentations. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I am so grateful to have gotten out after 30 years, have new life of freedom and free choices. Next month I’m celebrating 19 years of freedom from Scn cult oppression.
I haven’t made it past seeing my X of 24 years.
It’s Jack Kruchko – his age is 67 not 78. I’m for sure 71 and he was a bit less then 5 years younger iirc.
Mike you’ve just changed my whole life for the better.
I now have a firm hope for the future. Not hope that comes just so one can hang on in this crazy world but hope with a whole string of ideas to fix things.
Thank you so much for all you are doing along with such a good team 😘
What a relief 😅
Sad.
Makes me wonder how many of those listed, at some point, began to think about (see) their future and rather than take action, decided to just hope for the best.
According to some info on internet, dormitories require 50 sq ft per person. It would seem that rooms like Romary’s would be violating that. Ventilation is also required. Hopefully, these conditions will be reported so at least SO members will be provided with decent living conditions. Dm gets to live in luxury but most of the SO members, at least unmarried ones, live in substandard, crowded conditions.
The men in Infantry Basic Training in the spring of 1982 lived in better conditions than members of the Sea Org.