I am glad that he reached out to the Aftermath Foundation. No one except ex-members would be able to understand completely what he has been through and his mistrust of the outside world.

I sure wish him all the best.

Skyler, the parts of Sam’s story that haven’t yet been summarized here but are difficult for someone not in that position to understand are:

1. After losing everything, Sam developed some psychotic ideations that caused him to act in strange ways. He lost a second job this way. (He lost the first job at a Scientology company for openly criticizing Scientology on social media.) An example of his thought processes was that he formed the idea that he should follow a person wearing a certain colored shirt wherever he was going.

2. Being homeless and following such impulses, Sam eventually ended up breaking into an airport and falling asleep in the baggage area of an airplane. He was arrested for this. It was unclear to me how much of what happened during the following 4 years of incarceration was due to his being treated inhumanely by the jail staff, how much was due to still being in the throes of psychotic ideations, and how much was essentially PTSD from losing his family, friends and job. (He was not defensive about possible interpretations. I can’t even guess what he would say himself about that.) I also wasn’t clear if the jail and courts started out by violating his rights or just failed to recognize his trauma and threw the book at him for being uncooperative. He definitely gave up hope of humane treatment and decided not to cooperate, and this strategy made things worse for him. He was repeatedly beaten brutally with kicks to the head. So as someone said, over 2 of the 4 years was a product of his not cooperating, yet as others pointed out, this was not an instance of the “justice system” serving justice. If nothing else, they could have given him credit for time served when he had already been incarcerated for over 2 years for falling asleep in a cargo hold.

I also think they ought to have been able to recognize the psych issues involved and get him into treatment instead of prison. He was lucid during the interview and recognized where his mental processes had gone off the rails, so it’s reasonable to suppose he could have done so much earlier with more human treatment and possibly medication.

Another thing of note is that Aaron was moved to tears several times during Sam’s story. When Sam asked for help, he only asked the Aftermath Foundation to buy him a bus ticket. He intended to try to work himself out of homelessness and into a job on his own. The foundation helped him much more than that, but Aaron was overcome by emotion that Sam asked for so little. It’s worth watching if you ever get the time.

Shereefe, if he waited a year or years for a trial then his constitutional rights were GROSSLY violated and all public officials involved should be in Fed prison per Federal Code.

You DO know what rights were violated under the US Const. right?

Thank you for the support. My dad used to say the same exact same thing (he was a jet pilot in the air force so there must be a connection) My mom taught me that it’s important to stand up to bullies. This cult is a giant bully. I can’t just sit back and do nothing- even if it’s just a billboard or an official letter or two. This was not just me. Many people contributed to the go fund me, and my two partners in crime were just as instrumental, if not more so than me! We still have the go fund me up, and even though the billboard wasn’t fully covered by donations, we are going to donate any new contributions to the Aftermath Foundation so that more people can be helped. If anyone wishes to donate, it is pinned to my twitter account under @katlarue7.
Thanks again!
BTW- I still read everyone’s postings every day. I haven’t left- I have just been a little busy in some other fronts lol!!
Kat

Thank you Peabody.

I tend to download the videos, convert them to mp3 and listen while I’m at work.
AGP. Love your videos too. Keep churning ’em out.

Off topic. Does anyone know when Janis Gilham-Grady’s third vol. of her memoirs is due out.

I like the in depth, “we have all day” type interviews.

In order to shop, you want to use https://smile.amazon.com/ You can select a charity – Aftermath, of course – and then when you use that address in the future, it will automatically be set for the charity you chose. I shop at Amazon a lot so my contribution is adding up slowly but surely. It’s a totally painless way to give!