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December 20, 2005Cops Eye Tom's Medical Guru Tom Cruise's onetime alternative medicine consultant - a Church of Scientology member and advocate - is the subject of a six-month investigation by Los Angeles police, who are asking the district attorney to indict her and a colleague for fraud, grand theft and malpractice.
November 20, 2005Scientologists' New Psych-Out Museum Scientology is taking its fight against psychiatry to the streets - namely Sunset Boulevard. The church will open a "Psychiatry: Industry of Death" museum next month in L.A., complete with vintage instruments of torture, images of electroshock therapy and "rare archival footage of psychiatry's brutal treatments."
November 9, 2004Couple Sues IRS Over Tuition Rule A lawyer for an Orthodox Jewish couple from Los Angeles claimed Monday that the Internal Revenue Service has violated the 1st Amendment by refusing to allow tax deductions for their children's religious schooling. The IRS should allow the deductions because it permits members of the Church of Scientology to write off the cost of spiritual counseling sessions, attorney Jeffrey Zuckerman said.
November 3, 2003Rehab Facility Draws Gripes Neighbors of an oceanfront drug treatment center in Newport Beach are complaining to City Hall that facility operators are violating the occupancy limit in one house while expanding by renting another home nearby. Neighbors say Narconon's incentive to overcrowd is the $20,000 fee that clients are charged.
November 12, 1991Putting the Cult Back in Culture Future Films may be the latest, thinly disguised attempt by Scientology to gain widespread acceptance and suck thousands more into the movement. Cult watchers wonder if the upstart studio is related to a massive, sophisticated ad campaign now underway, which is designed to improve the groups dismal reputation, the result of a decade long mass of lawsuits and inquiries by the IRS, the courts, and governments around the world. Former members say the Church of Scientology is no Church at all, but rather an enormous totalitarian pyramid scheme whose bottom line is its bottom line.
October 14, 1990School Drops Assembly Because of Group's Scientology Link The principal of a Sherman Oaks elementary school has canceled an assembly by an environmental group because of fears that parents would object to the organization's connection with the Church of Scientology. The church has been investigated by federal authorities and is considered by many experts to be a cult. At least one parent raised questions about the group's affiliation with Scientology.
November 26, 1987Scientologists Sued for $6 Million in Suicide of Man A woman filed a $6-million lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday against the Church of Scientology for allegedly driving her son to commit suicide last year. Irene Marshall said in her suit that church officials tried to destroy the close relationship she had with her son, Pedro Rimando, 22, and that their efforts drove him to leap off the sixth floor of a church-owned building in Hollywood on Nov. 25, 1986. The church "imposed certain psychologically coercive techniques" on Rimando "to exploit for power, labor and money (his) pre-existing emotional vulnerabilities and inner conflicts," the suit said.
November 10, 1987Justices Rebuff Scientology Bid for IRS Data In a blow to the Church of Scientology, a unanimous Supreme Court today made it easier for the Internal Revenue Service to withhold material sought by individuals or organizations under the Freedom of Information Act, a law aimed at curtailing government secrecy. In a case brought by the Scientologists, the court ruled 6 to 0 (with two justices not participating) that the IRS legally may refuse to disclose certain records even if the tax agency could delete anything linking those records to individual taxpayers.
January 1, 19876 Ex-Scientologists File $1-Billion Suit Over Funds, Secrets Former members of the Church of Scientology filed a $1-billion class-action lawsuit against the organization Wednesday, accusing its late founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and a cadre of his most trusted aides of plundering church coffers, intimidating critics and breaching the confidentiality of sacred confessional folders. The action, charging fraud and breach of fiduciary responsibility, represents perhaps the broadest condemnation of the church to date.
November 6, 1986Scientology Church Sued Over Alleged Assault Plot The attorney who won a $30-million judgment against the Church of Scientology sued church members Wednesday, claiming that they concocted a scheme to assault him in the courthouse cafeteria and blame the confrontation on him. In the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, attorney Charles B. O'Reilly alleges that church leaders coaxed a young woman into "assaulting and battering" him in order to file a false criminal complaint against him.
October 14, 198620-Year-Old Gives Narconon $10,000 Check A 20-year-old man who said his housecleaning business has made him a millionaire presented a $10,000 check Monday to Narconon, a Los Angeles drug rehabilitation program. Minkow said he has ordered all 330 people employed by his company to take drug tests. Several workers, including a manager and a member of his board of directors, resigned, saying the test violated constitutional rights, he said.
December 22, 1985Bumpy Sleigh Ride: Chamber Draws Fire for Being Co-Sponsor With Scientologists For all its supposed good cheer, the holiday season is ending on a beastly note for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The chamber joined Scientology in co-sponsoring a seven-mule-team sleigh ride on Hollywood Boulevard. The decision has stirred criticism from some Hollywood merchants and religious leaders who complain that the chamber's co-sponsorship might be interpreted as a tacit endorsement of Scientology's controversial counseling and religious theories.
November 17, 1985Church Says Interplanetary Tyrant Exists Publication of secret documents that blame the world's troubles on an interplanetary tyrant named Xemu has held the Church of Scientology up to public ridicule. Church leaders vow to prevent further release of secret scriptures in ongoing courtroom battles with opponents the leaders say are attacking the Scientology religion. According to the tracts, Xemu, fighting galactic overpopulation, ordered humans and beings from other planets captured and placed in several large volcanoes.
November 11, 1985U.S. Judge Refuses to Block Use of 'Sacred Scriptures' of Scientology U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer has refused to block the use of "sacred scriptures" the Church of Scientology alleges were stolen from a Denmark church by former members two years ago. Pfaelzer, who had issued a temporary restraining order, said that although she believes that the documents were stolen, church attorneys failed to properly trace their trail from Denmark to the United States. Pfaelzer said she also is reluctant to interfere because the material is key evidence in a $25-million Los Angeles Superior Court fraud case filed against the church by former member Larry Wollersheim.
November 8, 1985Scientologist Objections to 2nd Judge Overruled Over their objections, lawyers representing the Church of Scientology in a civil case brought by a former member were ordered Thursday to appear for trial before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald E. Swearinger. Swearinger was the second judge to whom they objected having the case reassigned for trial Thursday after unsuccessfully moving for a continuance or a change of venue on grounds of pretrial publicity.
November 6, 1985Xemu and the Thetans Documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times show that members of the Church of Scientology believe that mankind's ills were caused by an evil ruler named Xemu who lived 75 million years ago. Scientologists have been trying to prevent the release of the documents, which they consider secret and sacred, and about 1500 church members crammed three floors of the Los Angeles County Courthouse, effectively blocking public access to documents.
November 5, 1985Scientologists Block Access to Secret Documents In one of the largest court demonstrations in Los Angeles in years, about 1,500 Church of Scientology members crammed three floors of the County Courthouse on Monday, effectively blocking public access to documents that the church considers secret and sacred. For hours, Scientologists swamped workers in the clerk's office with hundreds of requests to photocopy the documents, which reveal some of the organization's most fundamental beliefs. Scientology attorneys have argued that disclosure of the materials is a violation of the group's religious freedom.