More documents from the 2010 FBI investigation have become available through an FOIA request made many years ago. While there is a great deal of redacted information and many documents withheld in their entirety, there is a lot of information contained in this disclosure that I had not been previously aware of.
The full documents can be found here.
There were a lot of documents released by the FBI back in 2017 which Tony O covered on his blog. Those docs (many of them witness interviews) are included in this new release — though the redactions are very different. This is common with Freedom of Information requests — different people redact differently at different times and scientology made good use of this in the war with the IRS, filing hundreds of FOI lawsuits and getting different version of documents, piecing them together and using the inconsistencies to allege the government was hiding documents and in contempt of court orders.
Here is just one example of how different the redactions are that Tony pointed out to me right off the bat.
This is the document in the 2017 release:
And here is the same document in this latest release:
You would think these later documents would be LESS redacted. But those are the vagaries of government bureaucracy.
Though they appear generally, at least at first glance, to be more heavily redacted, there are many more documents now available.
I am going to go through them and highlight some of the things I found most interesting in a series of postings, starting with this.
There was apparently a Grand Jury used to gather evidence:
There are no details provided, but it is interesting that Tony Ortega mentioned the possibility of a Grand Jury in the Danny Masterson matter recently.
A Grand Jury is a particularly effective means of gathering information about scientology — though not as effective as seizing documents, which resulted in the only successful criminal prosecution of scientology in the US following the 1977 raids on LA and DC. The way a Grand Jury is conducted limits the ability of scientology to coach and control witnesses and how they testify.
There was an enormous amount of evidence and information gathered by the FBI in this human trafficking investigation. A great deal of it we will never know. We have seen the summary of their investigation before (FBI 2009 Human Trafficking Memo) and also seen scientology at first claim there was no such investigation and the sources of this information were all liars, and then when the documents revealed that there WAS an investigation, they switched to saying the “rapid termination” was “proof” that all the claims were lies.
If you are wondering why nothing resulted from this extensive investigation — despite huge volumes of evidence amassed, realize the FBI does not prosecute cases. They are the investigators for the US Attorneys, and it is the US Attorneys Office that decides whether to prosecute a case or not. We do not have any documents from the US Attorneys Office about why they did not consider this to be a viable case to prosecute. You will note in the earlier blog post above, scientology retained the former chief of the Civil Rights Division of the US Attorneys Office in Los Angeles, Mary Carter Andrues, who had been responsible for human trafficking cases until 2007. If you wonder whether wealthy, determined criminals can influence a US Attorney into not doing their job, I highly recommend watching the HBO documentary Surviving Jeffrey Epstein or even better, reading Brad Edwards and Brittany Henderson’s brilliant book Relentless Pursuit: My Fight for the Victims of Jeffrey Epstein. It is a story of incredible levels of influence exerted by Epstein over the US Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Florida. Despite what scientology tried to claim, lack of prosecution does not mean there was not extensive evidence of criminal activity.
Let’s not forget though, the ultimate outcome of the Epstein story.
Yes, he got away with too much for way too long. He had an enormous team of PI’s and the highest paid, high profile lawyers and a lot of influential friends.
But he was eventually held accountable because Brad and Brittany never gave up. They persisted. Eventually the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York acted, Epstein’s homes were raided and he was arrested.
It’s a great model to follow with respect to scientology. Justice WILL ultimately be served.
The sooner justice is served the bloody better for every human being on this planet. I wont be holding my breath waiting on the DAs to actually do their job though. Money is power and power is everything and these fuckers HAVE WAY TOO MUCH OF BOTH THANKS TO THE IRS
When justice is finally served and the ax falls on Scientology and David Miscavidge, I hope Tom Cruise and his role in all this does not go unpunished. He could bring the whole thing down with one interview. That he does not and keeps profiting is sickening. Will never watch one of his movies again. He belongs in jail along with his little abusive BFF.
IMO, Cruise is already being punished for his bromance with the tiny tyrant. The only gigs he’s getting are retreads of the Mission Impossible franchise which he’s doing in his sleep, AFAICT. At this rate, he’ll never be offered and take a film that could garner an Emmy. Then again, his only “stat” is MONEY and he’s already got more of that than even the Dwarfenführer® can spend in a lifetime.
Those were different days , very limited info on social media ,no insider, no celebrity no jounalist.
But it took quantum leap in following decade when Mike , Leah,Tony, John Sweeny , Brian Seamore , Chris Shelton , Hedleys , Jon Attach ,Paul Higgs and others came on board and brought it to mean stream media.
And above all social media which connected the dots. Now any one can share knowledge to the massess , the biggest nightmare for the Cult business .
During last decade Cult industry lost grip on its followers in general and on new generation in particular, blame it on Adriod and Iphone .
Now these Cults facilities more look like retirement residences.
I can understand why FBI agents couldn’t give their investigation the logical ending, they didn’t have much public material on which they built individual cases.
Remember these are organized crimes and unlike criminal cases there are no police report , crime scene investigation, individual’s testimony etc etc .
So the agent hadn’t much to built the case therefore it got bulldozed by higher authorities as they expected a legal backlash or political pressure under 2nd amendment.
Beauru won’t open the close cases but if there are new cases with public outcry and mainstream media support, they shall get it investigated.
I sure hope so. At that time, Karry and I were interviewed on camera for hours for an Exposé series by ABC Eyewitness News Los Angeles. The series was being produced by a woman named Lisa Bartley. Only the first segment, featuring Tanja and Stefan Castle, ever aired.
Marty Rathbun correctly predicted that our segment would never see the light of day. Our hopes that it would air went down as Lisa Bartley kept updating us that their legal department was wrestling with church attorneys and that it would be given the green light soon.
The next thing we heard was Marty Reporting that the FBI human trafficking investigation had been killed after the Church got a former Federal Special Prosecutor to get to Louis Freeh, the then Head of the FBI – who subsequently “suspended” the FBI investigation into C of S Human Trafficking.
Concurrently, at ABC News, Lisa Bartley told us that they had just received a monthly briefing from a U.S. DOJ rep. At the Q&A after the briefing, she mentioned to the DOJ Rep that she had heard the FBI investigation into the C of S had been suspended and that her expose series was being held up by ABC Legal as well. She said at the mention of the word “Scientology” – his face just fell. He then immediately said, “I can’t comment on that at this time,” quickly ending the the briefing.
Marty Rathbun then reported that the church had also purchased millions of dollars worth of advertising time on ABC, including ads in the upcoming Super Bowl, further bolstering his claim that Dave wouldn’t allow the rest of the ABC expose series to “see the light of day.”
Motherfuckers…
Scooter:
I was interviewed by Lisa at ABC News shortly after you were. My story was obviously terminated as your’s was
Hi Bill,
Yup, I remember. At least we have the satisfaction of seeing Miscavige and Co. bring the Church down themselves.
Fa……..K!
I’m almost angrier at the lawyers and mainstream media who enable the cult, than at the cult itself, which is just mindlessly following dead Ron’s instructions.
PS: I love Brad Edwards and wish him every happiness and every success. He’s a rare breed in this world.
“Justice WILL ultimately be served.”
Can’t wait.
Sometimes Justice is served by humans and sometimes by God. I like to believe that it is ultimately served. In the case of the church of scientology and specifically david miscavige: It/He has gotten away with so much wrongdoings for so long that it does leave me disappointed in the Justice aspect of it. The stories of david miscavige and his seeming delight in the harmful and painful control of others leave me BEGGING the gods for some kind of comeuppance in my life. (This is when the gods speak to me about beautiful human qualities and base human qualities and how the “universe is unfolding as it should.”)
Yes, Mary. They should and will be judged by Almighty God.
It is my job to arrange the meeting.
Patton!
Sorry, that was Densel Washington in the movie “Man on Fire”.
You’re right, I was mistaken. The exact Denzel Washington line was, “Forgiveness is between them and God. It’s my job to arrange the meeting.”
*I* certainly CAN wait — until the punching pontiff kicks the bucket, if need be.
As long as justice is served and/or what’s calling itself scientology loses its façade of religion so can be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in several/MANY jurisdictions.
I promise to stick around as long as it takes, even into future lives AND to contribute to the motion as best I can.
Little Davey Mismanage exists in a world of horrible punishment right now. He has to live in *his* mind, in *his* body, in *his* world, for 24 hours every day, seven days a week, with no relief ever, except possibly at the bottom of a Macallans bottle, or when he lets his inner reptilian brain loose to assault someone.
Truly, on a scale from Mild Scolding to Real Torture, I can think of no worse punishment than Being David Miscavige.
To: Ammo Alamo
From: David Miscavige COB RTC
Re: being me.
THE VERY FACT THAT YOU VIEW BEING ME AS PUNISHMENT JUST GOES TO SHOW WHAT AN SP AND A DOWNSTAT YOU REALLY ARE! MANY PEOPLE WOULD LOVE TO BE ME! MILLIONS OF MY MOST LOYAL FOLLOWERS DROOL WITH ENVY OVER THE FACT THAT THEY CAN NEVER ASCEND TO MY LEVEL OF THETA! NO ONE WILL EVER BE ON MY LEVEL. ESPECIALLY NOT YOU!
ML,
Dave.
To: David Miscavige COB RTC
From: Alcoboy
Re: being you.
Let me get this straight. MILLIONS of people would love to be you? A scotch swilling, slap happy, pint sized runt who dropped out of high school, got kicked out of auditor training for hitting his PC AAAAND probably spent his childhood years in Berks County, Pennsylvania slapping around little Amish kids because he knew they wouldn’t hit back?
That’s okay. I would never want to be you.
No love at all,
Alcoboy.
There have been many, many “organizations” who got away with crimes for years, some religions, who finally got caught and it didn’t go well for their leaders. corn cob could be one of them.
Just sayin.
Just *hoping* we don’t have to wait TOO long, so fewer innocent lives are fed into that tiny little money machine. We don’t want to have to chase him into Bulgravia, for instance.
Just for giggles: Is the proper form “corn cob”, or “Corn COBBED”? I can go either way, personally. But will Lil’ Davey?
Sort of like PTL in the 1980s. Jim Bakker put so much legal pressure on the Charlotte Observer that the reporters were soon told to focus on other stories and stop harassing PTL.
Soon after that, a young lady from Long Island named Jessica Hahn came to their offices with a story to tell.