Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [234]
[back]
***
* Rathbun admitted to ordering the destruction of evidence during a 2009 interview with the St. Petersburg Times, several years after breaking with the church and aware that he'd committed a crime. However, there is a three-year statute of limitations for destruction of evidence. The state prosecutor, Bernie McCabe, has said he would not pursue other charges against Rathbun.
[back]
***
† Baden nonetheless said that due to Simpson's dwindling financial resources, he'd accepted a fee of $1,500 a day. He never commented on what the Church of Scientology paid him.
[back]
***
* Davis, who, according to Crow's report, had suffered from psychological problems, may have been under significant duress from the church. However, he refused to implicate Scientology as the reason for his abrupt change of heart. (Letter from Douglas Crow to Bernie McCabe re Review of Evidence in State v. Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc., June 9, 2000.)
[back]
***
* In an article about Bashaw that appeared in the Chicago Reader in August 2002, church officials denied they'd had anything to do with Bashaw's decline. "[He] left the church to go sort out his life," said one spokeswoman, Mary Anne Ahmad, who knew Bashaw. Ahmad blamed "family troubles" for Bashaw's problems and said that he'd declined "help" when it had been offered by the church, opting to go with psychiatry, upon his family's advice. "Frankly," she said, "no Scientologist would ever seek psychiatry as a solution to problems."
[back]
***
* According to one report, Crosby also sent a list of Narconon's celebrity sponsors to the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control to illustrate how many celebrities were opposed to drugs. When the Scientology scheme was exposed—by theNational Enquirer, in a report that was never refuted—stars like Rob Reiner and Henry Winkler, feeling duped, demanded that their names be taken off the list. See David McCrindell, "Bizarre Brainwashing Cult Cons Top Stars into Backing Its Drug Program," National Enquirer, April 21, 1981.
[back]
***
* Travolta, according to several former officials, proved to be an effective recruiter, introducing stars like Priscilla Presley, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Patrick Swayze, Tom Berenger, and Forest Whitaker to Scientology. None but Presley, who remains a Scientologist, stayed for long.
[back]
***
* When I interviewed Alley in 2005, she made no mention of Narconon in relation to her own prior history of drug use but told me that she'd kicked a cocaine habit thanks to a single Scientology auditing session. "It was highly dramatic," she said. "I did one Scientology session and I never wanted to do drugs again."
[back]
***
* When asked about it several months later on Meet the Press (February 15, 1998), Berger said he'd met with the celebrities "to indicate that we would continue to discuss with the German government our belief that one should not be discriminated against on the basis purely of belief," adding that the only ulterior motive he had for the meeting was to get an autograph for one of his children.
[back]
***
* Those who knew of it believed it to be Scientology's production facility.
[back]
***
* Though Miscavige hadn't audited anyone personally for decades, he routinely spoke of his teenage years when he audited officials at Saint Hill.
[back]
***
* Sea Org staffers, who divorce at an alarmingly high rate, are an exception to this rule. Jeff Hawkins, for example, had three wives during the time he was in Scientology.
[back]
***
* Scientology's course completion lists, published in the back of many church magazines, pertain strictly to programs, not individuals. The 1989 figure thus does not suggest that over 11,000 people were at Flag—indeed, according to the website www.truthaboutscientology.com, which keeps track of these statistics, just 5,515 people completed courses at Flag in 1989, and just 3,155 in 1998, some taking multiple courses. These numbers are consistent with anecdotal reports from Scientology members