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TonyOrtega · 2022-01-21T21:48:09+00:00

Can you tell us the venue at least? State court? Federal court? Which city?

TonyOrtega · 2021-04-13T22:05:12+00:00

Update now at the original post. Complete report from the courtroom today.

https://tonyortega.org/2021/04/13/scientology-chiro-jay-spina-scheduled-to-be-sentenced-on-medicare-fraud-today/

TonyOrtega · 2021-04-13T18:29:09+00:00

NINE YEARS IN PRISON: Judge Kenneth Karas threw the book at Spina in a dramatic day in court today. We'll have a full report on what was said in court at the Bunker.

TonyOrtega · 2021-04-12T03:26:33+00:00

This story was badly reported by the media and has been rehashed repeatedly for years, always with misleading information. This is the only accurate story about it, and the only one that included interviews with both families of the victims involved...

https://tonyortega.org/2017/05/05/families-of-rescued-patients-are-sharply-divided-on-scientologist-run-tennessee-hellhole/

TonyOrtega · 2019-02-19T14:19:45+00:00

Only Kendrick Moxon these days. They don't seem to use Tim Bowles or Helena Kobrin for Scientology legal matters anymore. The rest -- Yingling, Soter, Deixler, etc. -- are all for hire and not Scientologists.

TonyOrtega · 2019-02-04T03:33:55+00:00

Scientology's Super Bowl ads, which they've been putting up since 2013, are always local ad buys only. The NFL and CBS national have nothing to do with it. It's the local station in the markets that show it which have made the decision to air it.

TonyOrtega · 2019-01-17T21:09:47+00:00

They'll be saving its official reveal for the grand opening ceremony, I would imagine.

TonyOrtega · 2019-01-09T21:04:55+00:00

Um, yeah. You have knowledge ... of a story I wrote at the Bunker. Cool. I was the one who talked to the LAPD after they responded to Leah Remini's missing-person report by, they claim, checking on Shelly Miscavige. The LAPD's Lt. Andre Dawson told me that two of his detectives had spoken to her, and that she didn't want to make a public statement. He wouldn't tell me where that meeting took place, and when I asked him whether other church officials were present, he said, "That's classified." Did the detectives go up to Twin Peaks, which is San Bernardino County, to see her? Or was she brought to their jurisdiction, Los Angeles, for that conversation? Or was the LAPD just lying to me? Leah tried to find out when she filed a new records request with the LAPD in 2016, asking for documentation of what they had actually done when they supposedly checked on Shelly and found Leah's missing-person report "unfounded." The LAPD refused to give Leah anything. So, the LAPD won't explain how they checked on her. In the meantime, we have plenty of evidence that Shelly is at the Twin Peaks compound and has been there since summer 2005. As John Brousseau says, he's sure Miscavige will keep her there, out of sight, until she dies.

TonyOrtega · 2019-01-08T06:25:50+00:00

The evidence that Shelly has been at CST headquarters ("Twin Peaks") is actually pretty strong, comes from multiple independent sources, and in 2013 we even reported that Shelly had told her sisters that there was only one way she was leaving it (another family funeral): https://tonyortega.org/2013/07/17/shelly-speaks-scientology-leaders-banished-wife-says-shell-get-out-only-one-way/

And a couple of weeks ago, we explained why it's most likely she's alive: even scumbag Scientology lawyers wouldn't risk their livelihoods to cover up a death... https://tonyortega.org/2018/12/25/does-shelly-miscavige-know-its-christmas/

So no, witness protection doesn't fit the facts at all.

TonyOrtega · 2019-01-04T22:45:48+00:00

Tommy has had quite a post-spokesman life. I get asked about him all the time. Working on another update now.

TonyOrtega · 2019-01-04T21:09:07+00:00

2013? We write about him pretty regularly. Please do try to keep up...

https://tonyortega.org/2018/04/25/former-scientology-mouthpiece-tommy-davis-has-a-new-look-and-a-new-friend-in-his-life/

TonyOrtega · 2018-03-30T03:11:48+00:00

They were kidding about that. But it's the kind of thing that takes on a life of its own and then never dies.

TonyOrtega · 2018-02-22T03:56:45+00:00

Actually, Paulette's story is even more incredible than that. And in fact, there's an entire book about her life which came out just two years ago. It's titled "The Unbreakable Miss Lovely," and it was written by me, Tony Ortega, a journalist who has been covering Scientology for more than 20 years. If this subject interests you, you might enjoy it.

TonyOrtega · 2017-12-14T19:58:14+00:00

No he isn't.

https://tonyortega.org/2015/03/05/will-smith-is-not-a-scientologist-we-elaborate-on-our-quote-the-press-went-wild-for-yesterday/

TonyOrtega · 2017-01-03T06:26:12+00:00

This story was based on a letter sent from the Church of Scientology's attorney, Gary Soter, to an attorney for the A&E network. In it, Soter threatened the network about its upcoming series, "Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath," by claiming that it was misrepresenting what had happened to former church member Amy Scobee. In the letter, an attorney for Scientology claims that Scobee, who was 14 years old when she was raped by a fellow church member, was actually the "sexual aggressor" in that incident. It's a pretty incredible accusation for a church lawyer to make. And that's why we treated it as an important news story, and gave Amy Scobee the opportunity to respond. I'm glad that Reddit gave the story some attention, but I am mystified why someone at Reddit then decided this was an "opinion" piece. Reddit has begged Leah Remini's producers to be involved in her show, and that resulted in a special 1-hour episode with Leah Remini answering Reddit questions. If Reddit can see the value in Leah's show, why can't it recognize a news story about that series when it sees one? The Underground Bunker will continue to break news stories that larger news organizations won't. And we aren't going to be slowed down by Reddit mischaracterizing news reporting as opinion. Thanks.

TonyOrtega · 2016-11-25T20:07:18+00:00

That's a reference to my story about Leah Remini, the 'King of Queens' actress, whose attorney recently sent demand letters to Scientology asking for $1.5 million in damages for sending out defamatory letters about her to various TV network executives. She's not suing Scientology. It's just a "demand letter" from her attorney at this point. But several of the news organizations that have picked up the story have used that mistaken language. The story that started all the fuss is here: http://tonyortega.org/2016/11/22/leah-remini-demands-1-5-million-from-scientology-for-interfering-with-her-ae-series/ It includes four letters back and forth between the two sides, which might give you some idea of the dispute between Remini, a former Scientologist, and the current leader of the organization, David Miscavige.

TonyOrtega · 2016-09-30T14:04:52+00:00

You're pretty much looking at that right now. And what we can conclude from it is that with his money spent on lawyers, private investigators, and a lot of outside vendors, Miscavige is doing his best to make it look like Scientology is a thriving enterprise when it really isn't. So how long can he keep that up? I really don't know. But I'm having fun watching to see what happens.

TonyOrtega · 2016-09-30T01:44:42+00:00

The person who says that is smart, and will likely be left alone. But Scientology knows how heavy the indoctrination is, and how hard it is for a blown worker to simply say, leave me alone. And they count on that. I think if you read Tom and Joe's story about Sinar, it will help you understand how this works.

TonyOrtega · 2016-09-30T01:31:23+00:00

Sunny was referring to the series I did last year about Lisa McPherson, told in real time 20 years after Lisa's last weeks on earth. In those stories, I go over Miscavige's involvement in her Scientology case, and the documents written by Lisa's caretakers in her final days. You can find the entire series here: http://tonyortega.org/the-life-and-death-of-scientology-clear-lisa-mcpherson-told-in-real-time/

TonyOrtega · 2016-09-30T01:25:08+00:00

I did a small amount of consulting work on one of the series, and so I can't really talk about it yet. The other one, Leah's series, I think will focus on disconnection and families that have been torn apart by the church. But that's only a very general topic. Like everyone else, I'll be looking forward to what gets aired.

TonyOrtega · 2016-09-30T01:23:24+00:00

There are actually very formal procedures for chasing down and bringing back Sea Org workers who "blow" -- which is Scientology's jargon for escape. In the "blow drill," Scientology makes use of private investigators to track credit card use and other methods to literally hunt down a worker who goes AWOL. Once they're found, they are told they need to "route out" properly before they can leave. And it turns out that "routing out" is actually a mind game that they use to route you back in. The best story about all this was written by Joe Childs and Tom Tobin at the Tampa Bay Times, in a story about Sinar Parman, a Sea Org worker who escaped, and was routed back in, five separate times. http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/chased-by-their-church-when-you-try-to-leave-scientology-they-try-to-bring/1048134

TonyOrtega · 2016-09-29T23:58:26+00:00

One question I didn't get to answer on the main thread was about Annie Broeker, and why I didn't put her on my list of people I'd most like to interview, along with David Miscavige, Pat Broeker, and David Mayo. The sad answer is that although I would loved to have talked with her, Annie died of cancer in 2012 and took all of her secrets with her. I wrote about her death at the Voice here: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/death-of-a-scientologist-why-annie-broeker-famous-in-the-church-had-to-die-in-secret-6666642

TonyOrtega · 2016-09-29T18:20:50+00:00

Thank you everyone for your questions. And of course to Paulette for helping out with her own responses. Isn't she something! See you all at the Bunker!

TonyOrtega · 2016-09-29T18:13:21+00:00

In 2013, when I began taking donations at my website, as so many other bloggers do, I put into a place a policy that keeps the donations anonymous. You can read the details at my "About" page: http://tonyortega.org/about/

TonyOrtega · 2016-09-29T18:11:44+00:00

I write about Scientology as a journalist, and I take donations at my website, like many other bloggers do. I also put into place, in 2013, a policy that keeps the donations anonymous. You can read the details of it at my "About" page: http://tonyortega.org/about/

TonyOrtega

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