Deposition in the homicide of Lisa McPherson
Kanabay Court Reporters; Serving West Central Florida
Pinellas (727)821-3320 Hillsborough (813)224-9500
Tampa Airport Marriott Deposition Suite (813)224-9500
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2 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PINELLAS COUNTY, FLORIDA
3 CASE NO. 00-5682-CI-11
4
5
6
DELL LIEBREICH, as Personal
7 Representative of the ESTATE OF
LISA McPHERSON,
8
9 Plaintiff,
10 vs. VOLUME 1
11 CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG
SERVICE ORGANIZATION, JANIS
12 JOHNSON, ALAIN KARTUZINSKI
and DAVID HOUGHTON, D.D.S.,
13
Defendants.
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_______________________________________/
15
16
17 PROCEEDINGS: Defendants' Omnibus Motion for
Terminating Sanctions and Other Relief.
18
CONTENTS: Testimony of Robert Vaughn Young.
19
DATE: June 17, 2002, morning session.
20
PLACE: Courtroom B, Judicial Building
21 St. Petersburg, Florida.
22 BEFORE: Honorable Susan F. Schaeffer,
Circuit Judge.
23
REPORTED BY: Donna M. Kanabay, RMR, CRR,
24 Deputy Official Court Reporter,
Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida.
25
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1 APPEARANCES:
2 MR. KENNAN G. DANDAR
DANDAR & DANDAR
3 5340 West Kennedy Blvd., Suite 201
Tampa, FL 33602
4 Attorneys for Plaintiff.
5 MR. LUKE CHARLES LIROT
LUKE CHARLES LIROT, PA
6 112 N East Street, Street, Suite B
Tampa, FL 33602-4108
7 Attorney for Plaintiff
8 MR. LEE FUGATE and
MR. MORRIS WEINBERG, JR.
9 ZUCKERMAN, SPAEDER
101 E. Kennedy Blvd, Suite 1200
10 Tampa, FL 33602-5147
Attorneys for Church of Scientology Flag Service
11 Organization.
12 MR. ERIC M. LIEBERMAN
RABINOWITZ, BOUDIN, STANDARD
13 740 Broadway at Astor Place
New York, NY 10003-9518
14 Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service
Organization.
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1 INDEX TO PROCEEDINGS AND EXHIBITS
2 PAGE LINE
3 ROBERT VAUGHN YOUNG 21 10
DIRECT Mr. Dandar 21 13
4 Recess 42 23
Recess 73 9
5 Recess 114 21
Reporter's Certificate 115 1
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1 (The proceedings resumed at 9:07 a.m.)
2 THE COURT: Apparently they just turned the air
3 conditioning on so if you all think it's rather
4 stuffy, it is.
5 Okay. Let's review where we are. I told Sue
6 to check this out for me this morning.
7 I guess this noise will just be a continuous
8 problem from now on. We're going to work this week
9 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday,
10 no. I'm leaving Thursday afternoon, and I've
11 decided I need to get my office, since I'm going to
12 be gone for a couple of weeks, in order. So I'm
13 going to take all of Thursday.
14 Unless we should be within one hour of
15 finishing the whole hearing, in which case I'll
16 finish. But assuming we're not, we're not working
17 Thursday and Friday.
18 Then the following week and the following week,
19 you all are free to do whatever you need to do. I
20 presume you're going to be taking depositions and
21 whatever. But or whatever -- I'm not going to be
22 here. One of those weeks I'm going to be in Naples,
23 the balance of the first week, and then I'm taking
24 vacation the second week, okay? So I'm out.
25 Now, I'm going to assume that I have senior
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1 judge coverage for the following week. If I don't,
2 I'm going to ask for it. I should, because I should
3 be in trial. So I should have it, but things change
4 whenever you're not in trial. So I'm going to
5 assume that we're going to come back and go Monday
6 through Friday of that week, unless I find out from
7 Sue that I've got some hearing set.
8 MR. FUGATE: Is that July 8th?
9 THE COURT: I don't know. I know it's not the
10 week of July 4th 'cause that week I'm off.
11 So I'm going to assume that we're going to be
12 going all that week, and I'm going to hope that
13 we're going to finish that week. So that's as far
14 as I want to go right now.
15 Obviously, my plans are to go until we finish.
16 So if we're not finished, we'll just keep going.
17 So with that, let's hope with eight more days,
18 that that's enough to finish this off. We ought to
19 hope that's more than enough.
20 I have decided that the closing arguments are
21 going to be essential. I mean, in other words,
22 there's no way in the world that I can remember
23 everything that's been said. Even though I have the
24 transcripts and I appreciate it, and I'll certainly
25 go from your briefs or your closings to those
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1 transcripts to look. I just need you all to pull it
2 together from your perspective sides so that I don't
3 have to think like both sides and then decide what
4 I'm going to do. So I can tell already that this is
5 not something that I'm going to be able to just rule
6 on when you're done. I mean, it's going to require
7 some thought and attention, and so I need you all to
8 write a closing.
9 This is your burden, yours meaning the church,
10 so this'll be one of those where you will go first.
11 You ought to be working on this. In other
12 words, I don't know -- I mean, granted, you don't
13 have it all, but you've put your case on, so you
14 know what it looks like from your perspective and
15 what you think you've proven, you know.
16 So you know, we -- I need to rule on this as
17 quickly as possible if I'm going to ask you all for
18 closings in writing. I'm not going to rule until I
19 get them, but I don't want to delay this thing where
20 I might normally, where I have no time limits. So
21 what I'm going to suggest is that when this is up,
22 maybe you can give me something within 10 days, and
23 that you all can give me something then within five
24 days. And if you want to respond, I'm going to give
25 you like three days. In other words, we're just
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1 going to have to make some escalated --
2 MR. LIEBERMAN: Are those real days or working
3 days?
4 THE COURT: I don't know. We'll look at a
5 calendar when I see when we're done. But for now,
6 just kind of get it in your mind that you all ought
7 not to wait; you ought to be working on this.
8 You had said to me, Mr. Dandar, that you had
9 planned to respond to their -- I presume -- their --
10 not their little short motion, 'cause I think you
11 did respond to that, but the long -- the memo with
12 the amendments. I thought you said one time that
13 you were working night and day trying to get a
14 response in.
15 MR. DANDAR: I'm still working night and day.
16 I'm on 30 pages now.
17 THE COURT: Well, what is it? I mean, what's
18 this responding to?
19 MR. DANDAR: It's a response to the omnibus
20 motion for termination --
21 THE COURT: Okay.
22 MR. DANDAR: -- sanctions and motion to
23 disqualify.
24 THE COURT: Okay. And you filed a short paper,
25 already, right?
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1 MR. DANDAR: Did I?
2 MR. LIROT: Yes.
3 MR. DANDAR: I did.
4 THE COURT: So that's why I said they had a
5 short presentation. And I presume your short one is
6 in response sort of to that. And then they had the
7 long one, and I'm assuming you --
8 But I mean, you need to get that done.
9 MR. DANDAR: Yes.
10 THE COURT: And you also have got to get done
11 their response to their summary judgment.
12 MR. DANDAR: Yes.
13 THE COURT: That all goes hand in hand. So
14 you're going to have to file your affidavits or --
15 You ought to really have that done --
16 MR. DANDAR: Yes. I will.
17 THE COURT: -- okay?
18 MR. WEINBERG: So you don't contemplate any
19 oral argument as far as the closing --
20 THE COURT: I really don't.
21 MR. WEINBERG: Okay.
22 THE COURT: Because I can pretty well know
23 where you all are going. I mean, I can tell from
24 the presentations. I think it's really a matter of
25 proof. What do you think you've proved? Show me
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1 how you think you've proved it. From the other
2 perspective, what you don't think they've proved.
3 And then, you know, you've given me some law, but
4 now put it in --
5 MR. WEINBERG: Mix it together, so when the
6 evidence is over, it's over, and then we're going to
7 submit our final argument.
8 THE COURT: Yes. So I don't expect an oral
9 presentation.
10 Even on the -- even on the idea as to whether
11 or not I should consider the opinions or whatever we
12 want to call them of the ex-Scientologists regarding
13 their -- their interpretation of the bulletins and
14 this type of thing, that ought to be addressed. In
15 other words, it ought to be addressed -- it can be
16 addressed briefly, that if -- if I don't consider
17 them, well, then X. If I do, then you better have
18 that in your proof. 'Cause I don't know -- I mean,
19 I've got to decide that too.
20 MR. LIEBERMAN: Let me ask a logistical
21 question as to how you prefer -- for example, on
22 this question of admissibility and rule 404 and rule
23 406, we've given you a memo to that. Do you want me
24 to merely refer to that or incorporate all the
25 arguments in --
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1 THE COURT: I would just refer to it.
2 MR. LIEBERMAN: Okay.
3 THE COURT: In other words, you've given me a
4 memo on -- on why you don't think -- I think you've
5 laid it out in several points --
6 MR. LIEBERMAN: Yes.
7 THE COURT: -- why you don't think --
8 MR. LIEBERMAN: Yes.
9 THE COURT: -- it's admissible at all. I think
10 if I were you, however, if I were making a closing
11 argument, I would state "Without it, this is what
12 you have."
13 MR. LIEBERMAN: Yes.
14 THE COURT: "And with it, this is what you
15 have." Because I have to make some decision on it.
16 MR. LIEBERMAN: Exactly.
17 THE COURT: Because I'm not sure -- and
18 obviously, I'm not sure here -- there may be a
19 difference, for example, in a -- in a decision and
20 on what I would hear here on a claim of fraud on the
21 court, false pleadings, what a lawyer, for example,
22 knew or --
23 In other words, a lawyer is entitled to rely on
24 a consultant --
25 MR. LIEBERMAN: Right.
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1 THE COURT: -- even if the consultant is giving
2 him his or her opinions on things, whether or not
3 they're admissible, in my mind. In other words, I
4 don't have to sit, when I'm hearing from an
5 investigator or consultant, and say, "Gee, I'm not
6 sure if that's admissible under the First
7 Amendment." So there may be a difference in the
8 decisions as to what I will consider relevant to
9 this hearing versus what I might allow at a trial,
10 for example.
11 MR. LIEBERMAN: Yes, I understand.
12 THE COURT: So if I were you, on this hearing,
13 I will make an argument with it and without it.
14 MR. LIEBERMAN: Right. I understand.
15 THE COURT: And then I think that if you all --
16 Oh, this is terrible. This is awful.
17 If you don't prevail on your motion, that I
18 would think that you would at some point in time
19 want to reargue that, as to how much if any of that
20 is admissible before a jury.
21 That's what is awkward. It's awkward maybe on
22 your summary judgment.
23 MR. LIEBERMAN: Yes. I think --
24 I'm sorry.
25 I think under summary judgment, you can only
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1 consider admissible evidence.
2 THE COURT: Right. So you might -- you might
3 want to argue on the summary judgment versus on the
4 motion itself. And maybe -- there may be a
5 difference. I don't know. But in my mind, I would
6 think that, as a lawyer, I would be entitled to rely
7 on certain things without having to worry about
8 admissibility when I decided to file a complaint.
9 So you might want to discuss it both ways.
10 MR. LIEBERMAN: Yes. And I'll discuss that
11 issue too.
12 THE COURT: Okay.
13 MR. LIEBERMAN: While I think you're entitled
14 to rely on something more, I think you still have to
15 have, as we -- you know, argued to you, you have to
16 have some concrete evidence.
17 THE COURT: Well, you -- you -- make your
18 argument.
19 MR. LIEBERMAN: Right.
20 THE COURT: As far as your First Amendment, as
21 such, you know, if you don't prevail on that in this
22 hearing, it doesn't mean you might not necessarily
23 prevail on the summary judgment or trial or
24 something like that.
25 MR. LIEBERMAN: I understand.
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1 THE COURT: I don't think you will either, but
2 I can see some distinctions rolling around this --
3 this addled brain of mine.
4 MR. WEINBERG: But the break will give us an
5 opportunity to really work on this, try to start
6 pulling together this closing argument, I think.
7 And there is obviously a lot that's gone on in
8 this --
9 THE COURT: I don't know what you all want to
10 use it for. Right now I've got a trial date set.
11 Somebody said they needed to take 10 depositions. I
12 would assume that two weeks would be a good time to
13 take some depositions.
14 MR. WEINBERG: Okay. Those will take a little
15 while to schedule because they're all out-of-staters
16 and they're experts.
17 THE COURT: Well, you know, I would assume that
18 if I needed to take them, I'd be giving you all some
19 dates or asking you for some dates now, so --
20 But I mean, I'm not saying that you should take
21 two weeks and work on this written closing argument.
22 I'm saying you need to -- both sides need to presume
23 this case is set for trial until I say otherwise.
24 It's going. So you ought to get prepared for it.
25 Whatever it is you need to do to make that
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1 preparation, that's what you ought to do, okay?
2 All right. You may call your next witness.
3 MR. WEINBERG: I had one thing that I wanted to
4 put in.
5 THE COURT: Okay.
6 MR. WEINBERG: I already talked to Mr. Lirot
7 about this.
8 Plaintiff's Exhibit 79 was one of these
9 Google -- one of these Internet e-mail things with a
10 bunch of affidavits attached. It didn't have the
11 executed affidavits but had the -- you know, had
12 the -- from the Internet affidavit and the affidavit
13 from a woman named Vicki Aznaran. And we had the
14 executed affidavit, so we wanted to put in the
15 actual affidavits to complement Plaintiff's Exhibit
16 79, which had -- I don't know whether they were
17 accurate or not -- but had on the Internet the three
18 affidavits.
19 So that's what --
20 THE COURT: Any objection?
21 MR. DANDAR: Well, I'd like to compare the
22 two --
23 THE COURT: Sure.
24 MR. DANDAR: -- three affidavits before I would
25 say yes or no, but I'm going to assume that they're
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1 the same affidavits.
2 MR. WEINBERG: Yeah. They are.
3 THE COURT: All right.
4 MR. WEINBERG: That's fine.
5 THE COURT: Then I'm going to let them in. You
6 take your copies and you make your comparison at
7 night or whenever you want to do that. And if you
8 have a problem, you raise it with me, okay?
9 MR. DANDAR: Thank you.
10 THE COURT: Just like Ms. Brooks. I mean, I
11 think that those things went in. It was assumed
12 they were the same. She wanted to see them. So
13 they went in. Presumably she's looked at them, and
14 they must be the same because they haven't asked to
15 remove them.
16 MR. DANDAR: I gave her the signed, notarized
17 copies --
18 THE COURT: Right.
19 MR. DANDAR: -- which I haven't substituted
20 yet, and I need to do that this week.
21 THE COURT: Okay.
22 MR. WEINBERG: So this will be Defense Exhibit
23 200-A, B and C, which are three affidavits -- three
24 declarations of Vicki Aznaran, all executed on the
25 same date, May 19th, 1994. And they are the three
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1 affidavits that are referred to in the plaintiff's
2 exhibit, which is the Bob Minton posting.
3 THE COURT: And what number was that?
4 MR. WEINBERG: Okay, the -- the plaintiff's
5 exhibit was 79.
6 And here is a copy for your review, your Honor.
7 THE COURT: Thank you.
8 MR. DANDAR: I think they ought to file with
9 the court the settlement agreement that resulted in
10 these three affidavits.
11 THE COURT: Well, do you have it?
12 MR. DANDAR: No. It's confidential. But she
13 completely changed her testimony from her prior
14 declaration after she settled with the Church of
15 Scientology.
16 THE COURT: Well, if it's something you want --
17 you know -- I mean, I can't demand that they file
18 things, you know. So if you want it, make a request
19 for it.
20 MR. DANDAR: All right.
21 THE COURT: See what they have to say.
22 So what did you tell me -- Number 79?
23 MR. WEINBERG: Plaintiff's Exhibit Number 79
24 was the exhibit, was a Bob Minton posting --
25 THE COURT: And it had all three of those in
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1 it?
2 MR. WEINBERG: It had all three of those in it,
3 among other things.
4 THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Dandar, you may call
5 your next witness.
6 MR. DANDAR: Plaintiff calls Robert Vaughn
7 Young.
8 MR. WEINBERG: While Mr. Young is making his
9 way, for the record, we have the same objection that
10 we had with -- I assume it's a standing objection.
11 I just want the record --
12 THE COURT: Just a second.
13 (The witness was sworn.)
14 MR. WEINBERG: We have the same objection to
15 Mr. Young's testimony as we did to Mr. Franks'
16 testimony, as more specifically referred to in the
17 memo that we filed on 404 and 406. And in addition,
18 in this case, Mr. Young has already given trial
19 testimony. And we -- we have fully explored the
20 areas that he said he had any expertise in, none of
21 which we believe had anything to do with this
22 hearing.
23 So those are our objections.
24 I'll try to -- if I have a standing objection,
25 I will not -- I'll try not to reassert that and try
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1 to just limit my objections to things like hearsay
2 and stuff --
3 THE COURT: What are the objections that you
4 have a standing on? You said sections 40 --
5 MR. WEINBERG: 404, which is pattern and
6 practice --
7 THE COURT: Right.
8 MR. WEINBERG: -- 406, which is similar --
9 which is -- which is routine. And generally -- you
10 know, generally as to relevance in this case.
11 Because Mr. Young left -- you'll find out, left the
12 church in 1989, and has no personal knowledge --
13 THE COURT: Okay.
14 MR. WEINBERG: -- as to any of this
15 information.
16 THE COURT: As to the trial testimony that has
17 already been taken, you don't need to go over all of
18 it. Just what's -- would be relevant to this
19 hearing.
20 MR. WEINBERG: And of course, the First
21 Amendment argument.
22 THE COURT: Right.
23 MR. WEINBERG: We would argue that.
24 THE COURT: So your objections would be
25 preserved, and you need only really object to the --
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1 anything additional.
2 MR. WEINBERG: I understand.
3 THE COURT: I'm going to -- I'm going to have
4 to go out and see if the chief judge is here,
5 because we can't have court like that.
6 MR. WEINBERG: We can't hear anything back
7 here.
8 MR. DANDAR: It's hard to hear.
9 Is the microphone on?
10 MR. WEINBERG: Even if it's on, it's really
11 hard back here to hear it.
12 THE COURT: I'm going to take a minute here to
13 see if we're going to have this all day, and what
14 the deal is.
15 (There was a pause in the proceedings;
16 Judge Schaeffer left the courtroom and returned.)
17 THE COURT: The chief says they had said they
18 would not do jackhammers during the day. He sees
19 that they're not paying any attention to him. He
20 has just called to get Carl Baron on the phone. So
21 we'll see who -- we'll see what happens.
22 But he agrees that that really is very
23 difficult to work with that, and he thought he had
24 an understanding with the county that they would not
25 use the jackhammers.
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1 You could not do a trial. I mean, I would not
2 want to do a trial with that.
3 MR. DANDAR: I'm sitting here --
4 THE COURT: Well, I know. Just like when you
5 think you're going to express something and it
6 starts, you're going to lose your train.
7 So we'll try to work through it and see what
8 happens.
9 _______________________________________
10 ROBERT VAUGHN YOUNG,
11 the witness herein, being first duly sworn, was examined
12 and testified as follows:
13 DIRECT EXAMINATION
14 BY MR. DANDAR:
15 Q Please state your full name.
16 A Robert Vaughn Young.
17 Q And spell your last name.
18 A Y-o-u-n-g.
19 Q What is your date of birth?
20 A April 21st, 1938.
21 Q Can you give the court a brief background of your
22 formal education and work history before joining with the
23 Church of Scientology?
24 A I was -- my early education was in southern
25 California. I went to Long Beach State College, Orange
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1 Coast College, and then in 1961 went to what was then called
2 San Francisco State College, in 1961, and received my
3 bachelor of arts from them, I believe in 1963.
4 Prior to that, I was in the United States Marine
5 Corps, from 1956 to 1959, and served with the Third Marine
6 Division overseas.
7 After San Francisco State and the BA, I worked for
8 a year with the California Democratic Central Committee,
9 working professional -- professional and political
10 campaigns. And after that, then I went back and started my
11 graduate studies.
12 And in 1967 -- I'm sorry. Earlier than that,
13 something like '65, I went to the University of California
14 Davis where I was teaching philosophy, introduction to
15 philosophy, and working on my PhD. And I dropped out of the
16 PhD program in 1969 when I entered Scientology.
17 Q Okay. And could you give the court a brief
18 background --
19 THE COURT: Did you ever get a master's or did
20 you bypass the master's and work strictly for the
21 PhD?
22 THE WITNESS: It was one of those
23 bypass-the-master's and work straight on to PhD.
24 THE COURT: Okay. So you have some of your
25 course work, but you don't have your PhD, is that --
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1 THE WITNESS: I was about a year and a half
2 away from --
3 THE COURT: Okay.
4 THE WITNESS: I was two years at University of
5 California Davis.
6 THE COURT: And I'm sorry. Your BS -- or BA
7 was what?
8 THE WITNESS: Philosophy.
9 THE COURT: Thank you.
10 THE WITNESS: And my PhD was being done in
11 philosophy but with an emphasis in certain fields:
12 Philosophy of behavior, philosophy of mind.
13 THE COURT: Okay. Thank you.
14 BY MR. DANDAR:
15 Q And give the court a brief background of your
16 Scientology experience.
17 A I began studying Scientology in 1968 with some
18 books when I was introduced to it by a gentleman who passed
19 through Davis. And he came to Davis in the summer of 1969
20 to start what was then called a franchise, which was a unit
21 that could offer --
22 THE WITNESS: That noise really is bad.
23 THE COURT: It really is.
24 Do you want to wait or do you want to just see
25 if they're going to turn it off or what?
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1 MR. DANDAR: I know a couple of bailiffs who
2 could get them to turn it off real quick.
3 MR. WEINBERG: Or if we could get his
4 microphone on or --
5 THE WITNESS: Oh, that's much better. Makes a
6 difference if you turn it on.
7 THE COURT: It does. It does indeed.
8 Where is my bailiff?
9 MR. WEINBERG: He was here right before you
10 walked in, so --
11 THE COURT: Okay.
12 A I was up to 1969.
13 BY MR. DANDAR:
14 Q All right. What did you do --
15 You said a franchise of the Church of Scientology?
16 A They were called franchises then, which was a -- a
17 unit section that somebody could set up to offer
18 introductory courses. And I went on staff there after my
19 initial training, and was at staff at the Davis franchise
20 from 1969 until '71.
21 THE COURT: Excuse me, Mr. Young. Pardon me
22 for interrupting. It's awfully early in the day for
23 me to interrupt.
24 But you said you began study in 1968. Does
25 that mean you joined in 1968 or just began studying
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1 the religion [sic] and joined later?
2 THE WITNESS: I would have considered myself a
3 Scientologist from the time I started working with
4 the books and started --
5 THE COURT: Okay. Go ahead.
6 BY MR. DANDAR:
7 Q All right. And then after 1971, from Davis
8 franchise, what did you do?
9 A Well, because of the work that I was doing in
10 Davis, I started to do some public relations work as well as
11 some other staff positions there, meeting the media. I was
12 also running a program in Vacaville Prison, which is a
13 medical facility that's just west of Sacramento -- happens
14 to be the one where Charlie Manson was kept for a long
15 time -- that I would go in every -- you know, every week and
16 hold a class in Scientology.
17 Because of this -- this work, I was recognized,
18 what I was doing, and I was asked to join Department 20 [GO/OSA] at
19 the San Francisco organization in 1971. And so I joined
20 Department 20 in 1971, and worked at public relations there,
21 which handled public relations media/government for all of
22 northern California, and did that until 1973.
23 In 1973, I was promoted to the national offices in
24 Los Angeles, and worked there in Department 20, in the
25 public relations bureau. And during that time, I served as
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1 everything from the national spokesman, being quoted in the
2 New York Times; I was a speaker at national fund-raising
3 events; I testified before a senate subcommittee in 1975 as
4 a representative of the Scientology organization; I was on
5 national TV. And I -- I worked on that up through 1982, at
6 which point then I was promoted again and moved into a
7 different unit.
8 Q In 1975, did you obtain letters of recognition as
9 a tax exempt or --
10 Well, tell us what happened --
11 In 1975, you received the letters from the State
12 Department, the Air Force and the Department of Labor. What
13 did that involve?
14 A I was directly responsible in a good part of -- I
15 had meetings with representatives of the U.S. State
16 Department, U.S. Air Force and the Department of Labor with
17 regard to their recognition, according to their regulations
18 in those agencies, if you want to call the Air Force an
19 agency; recognition of Scientology as a religion. And when
20 they gave the recognition, the letters were addressed to the
21 "Church of Scientology" -- were addressed to me.
22 I just failed -- I have -- I have a copy of one or
23 two of them that I just failed to bring with me, still.
24 But those were -- those were addressed to me to
25 just simply show that I was directly involved in some of the
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1 highest echelons at the time.
2 Q Now, what happened after 1975 in your history?
3 A Well, in 1977, three Scientology offices, one in
4 Washington, D.C. and two in Los Angeles, were the target of
5 what was then the largest raid in the history of the FBI,
6 and they were targeting the very program that I was working
7 on at the time, but they were hitting the intelligence
8 bureaus. And that was in -- I believe in July, '77.
9 And I became the national spokesman on that day.
10 I held a press conference in Los Angeles, and I was the
11 national spokesman for the churches [sic] in the United States for
12 months. So if the media had questions about the raid and
13 the indictments that came down -- L. Ron Hubbard's wife,
14 Mary Sue, and 10 others, executives all the way down to
15 low-level operatives, were indicted, and documents were
16 coming out. So I was the person that the media would call
17 up for the interpretation on this.
18 After -- after the raid, we were pretty much
19 decimated as to our functions, and so it was a struggle
20 for -- for a number of years after that, to just sort of
21 keep things together.
22 Q What was the name of Department 20 at that time?
23 A At that time, it was the called the Guardian's
24 Office. And then in 1981, we renamed it the Office of
25 Special Affairs.
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27
1 Q Was there any difference in function between
2 Department 20, known as the Guardian's Office, and
3 Department 20, known as the Office of Special Affairs?
4 A No. I was there for the change-over. The
5 policies remained the same, the directives remained the
6 same. People who were indicted were asked to step down and
7 leave, but that was something like four years after the
8 raid.
9 THE COURT: I'm sorry. What was the year when
10 the office was changed or the name was changed?
11 THE WITNESS: In 1981 was when we were doing
12 the change-over.
13 THE COURT: Okay.
14 Boy, it's peaceful when it's not going, isn't
15 it?
16 MR. FUGATE: Only when there are no questions.
17 THE COURT: Yeah.
18 A Should I continue?
19 BY MR. DANDAR:
20 Q Just a minute.
21 Let me show you what I have marked as Plaintiff's
22 Exhibit 98. Do you recognize this?
23 A This appears to be a portion of a policy letter
24 establishing the Department of Special Affairs and
25 Department 20. This is prior to it being called the
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28
1 Guardian's Office. It went through basically three phases.
2 The Guardian's Office was actually created in 1966. And so
3 this is -- this is what the area was being called prior to
4 that. So it went through different name changes.
5 Q Well, when it was called The Guardian's Office,
6 and then when it -- the name was changed to the Office of
7 Special Affairs, as this document says, "The Department of
8 Special Affairs not only helps the org by protecting it; it
9 also creates and maintains excellent public relations with
10 the community and media; it carries out public relations
11 programs and actions that create an acceptance and goodwill
12 for the org and Scientology as a whole." Was that the
13 function of the Guardian's Office and then later the Office
14 of Special Affairs?
15 A One of the functions. It expanded quite a bit
16 beyond that, because other bureaus came about in 1966: The
17 finance bureau, the intelligence bureau and the legal bureau
18 and the public relations bureau were the first four. And
19 they had wide-ranging powers given in 1966, as to what could
20 be done as far as the handling of money, the handling of
21 organizations. So this -- this was the start of it. But it
22 expanded quite a bit in 1966.
23 And I'm sorry, I don't -- I don't remember the
24 date of this particular policy.
25 Q The bottom of this exhibit says that, "The final
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29
1 product is handled situations which result in the total
2 acceptance of Scientology and its founder throughout the
3 area." Was that also the final product of the Guardian's
4 Office and later The Office of Special Affairs?
5 A Well, it also got developed, but you could say
6 that that would be pretty much the nexus -- I mean, the crux
7 of it, following through on it.
8 MR. DANDAR: Like to move Exhibit 98 into
9 evidence.
10 THE COURT: Any objection?
11 MR. WEINBERG: Yes. Because I don't know what
12 it is. I mean, even Mr. Young says he doesn't --
13 he's not quite sure what it was. He thinks it
14 predates 1966. But they don't have any heading on
15 this. I don't know where it came from. It's not
16 that there's anything controversial about it; it's
17 just that I don't know what it is. I don't think
18 it's been authenticated.
19 THE COURT: I have a little bit of a problem
20 with that too.
21 Are you -- do you know whether or not this is
22 part of a bulletin or part of -- or are you just
23 guessing that it looks like it?
24 THE WITNESS: No. I -- I can recognize it,
25 ma'am. Because this material was always kept in
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30
1 packs of materials that we had to study and restudy.
2 And you get to certain -- like recognizing music or
3 portions of a book, you get to recognize, "Oh, yes.
4 That's it." But I -- I can't attest to the year
5 because I don't know the specific year, but I'm sure
6 that --
7 THE COURT: But it predated the Guardian --
8 when it was called the Guardian's Office.
9 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am. This predates 1966.
10 THE COURT: I'm going to let it in as -- as --
11 for whatever it is; basically just -- I think it's
12 being let in for the purpose that the Guardian's
13 Office, Office of Special Affairs, whatever it
14 was -- department -- has gone through some name
15 changes. And as far as -- I guess this only deals
16 with public relations, that part of it that it
17 apparently has -- sort of been consistently in this
18 department.
19 MR. WEINBERG: That's why I'm saying -- I'm not
20 kicking and screaming; it's just --
21 THE COURT: Right.
22 MR. WEINBERG: -- I don't know what it -- I
23 don't know where it came from.
24 BY MR. DANDAR:
25 Q That document, that one page, that was -- when you
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31
1 were in the Office of Special Affairs -- that document was
2 still part of the pack that people in the office had to
3 study and know, correct?
4 A This document that you just gave me?
5 Q Yes.
6 A Yes. That would have been there.
7 Because whenever these are written, even though
8 they're -- they may be superseded by further developments,
9 all of this material had to be retained, because you -- it
10 also gave you the history of it. So even though they might
11 change the function of a department, you learned that by
12 reading the second one.
13 It's sort of like, you know, court cases get
14 modified, courts modify cases, and so attorneys learn the
15 history.
16 Well, you have to know this. And so even though
17 it could be superseded by -- by a change, the material was
18 kept there so you could study it.
19 MR. DANDAR: Okay. And Judge, what I'm going
20 to offer is something that we only had one page to
21 the last time, and this is the complete document.
22 THE COURT: What was it? Was it already
23 introduced?
24 MR. DANDAR: No. Because -- I don't think it
25 was, because it was only the first page.
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32
1 THE COURT: Okay.
2 MR. DANDAR: This is now 99.
3 BY MR. DANDAR:
4 Q Let me show you Plaintiff's Exhibit 99. Can you
5 identify that?
6 A Yes.
7 Q What is it?
8 A This is a policy letter written by L. Ron Hubbard.
9 THE COURT: What does the HCO mean? I know I
10 should know, but I can't think.
11 THE WITNESS: Hubbard Communications Office.
12 THE COURT: Okay.
13 THE WITNESS: It was a standard prefix to
14 policy letters.
15 THE COURT: Right. I've seen it before. I
16 just couldn't remember what it stood for. Hubbard
17 Communication --
18 THE WITNESS: Office.
19 And that's right across the top, ma'am.
20 THE COURT: Oh, thank you. Maybe that's why I
21 didn't have to ask that stupid question before.
22 THE WITNESS: Even though the policy letters
23 came out from, say, different locations, that was
24 always kept there as designating the type of
25 directive or issue that it was. And so they just
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33
1 became known as HCO PLs, HCO policy letters, policy
2 letters, or PLs; various ways to call them.
3 THE COURT: Okay.
4 BY MR. DANDAR:
5 Q And these were found in the books that are printed
6 by the Church of Scientology, correct? This particular one?
7 A Yes. These are now kept in bound volumes.
8 Q Okay. All right.
9 A This -- this particular one in 1965 is considered
10 probably the most important policy letter in Scientology,
11 because it was by the directive of Hubbard and -- and has
12 been kept there -- that it is to be at the front and the top
13 and the first item in every pack of materials that a
14 Scientologist studies, no matter what.
15 There's something called a hat, which is simply
16 the function that you have, the job you have in the
17 organization. And every hat has a pack of materials that
18 you study. Every course you go on has a pack of materials
19 that you study. And that they're required to put this
20 policy letter as the very first policy letter in there,
21 every single pack of material.
22 In the bound volumes that you have, what they call
23 volume zero, it is also the first policy. So this is the
24 policy letter that is probably read more times by
25 Scientologists than any other policy, and it's just hammered
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34
1 in constantly as the most important one. Because -- and you
2 can see the title. It's called Keeping Scientology Working.
3 MR. DANDAR: Okay. Now, let's have this one
4 marked as 100.
5 THE COURT: Are you introducing this?
6 MR. DANDAR: Yes. I'm moving it into evidence.
7 THE COURT: Any objection?
8 MR. WEINBERG: No.
9 THE COURT: It'll be received.
10 BY MR. DANDAR:
11 Q Let me show you Plaintiff's Exhibit 100. Can you
12 identify this?
13 A Yes. This is another policy letter called
14 Technical Degrades. This is the second policy that always
15 follows the first one. And again, in every hat pack, just
16 about, that you can find, this one will follow the first
17 one.
18 And basically, what these things combined, will
19 hammer to say, is there's only one way to do Scientology,
20 and that's by following the policies and directives of L.
21 Ron Hubbard. Everything that he says in the first one that
22 you showed me, everything that was ever written or said,
23 continues to be true. You cannot cancel it. You can't say
24 it's old. You can't say it's not used. And it's basically
25 to tell Scientologists that there's no other way to do
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35
1 Scientology than by the book. And the book is L. Ron
2 Hubbard, everything that he wrote.
3 MR. DANDAR: I'd like to move 100 into
4 evidence.
5 THE COURT: Any objection?
6 MR. WEINBERG: No, your Honor.
7 THE COURT: It'll be received.
8 BY MR. DANDAR:
9 Q Is there a policy written by Mr. Hubbard that
10 says, "I'd rather have you dead than incapable"?
11 A That's in the first one that you gave me, Keeping
12 Scientology Working, Plaintiff's Exhibit 99. And that
13 statement would be found on the last page that, in this
14 particular exhibit, has at the bottom page 13, because it
15 was copied out of one of the volumes. And at the upper
16 portion of page 13, at the bottom of the thick paragraph, if
17 I could just give it the context, he says, "The proper
18 attitude is, you're here so you're a Scientologist. Now
19 we're going to make you an expert auditor no matter what
20 happens. We'd rather have you dead than incapable."
21 THE COURT: Tell me where you were reading from
22 again.
23 THE WITNESS: It's at the last page of the
24 exhibit, ma'am.
25 THE COURT: The last page. Okay.
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36
1 THE WITNESS: Go to the top of the page, that
2 long paragraph at the top.
3 THE COURT: Yes.
4 THE WITNESS: And you go to the last few lines
5 of that long paragraph.
6 THE COURT: I see. Okay. Thank you.
7 THE WITNESS: He says, "We'd rather have you
8 dead than incapable."
9 THE COURT: Thank you.
10 BY MR. DANDAR:
11 Q In your experience in the Church of Scientology,
12 is that last statement by Mr. Hubbard something that's
13 subject to interpretation?
14 A Nothing is subject to interpretation that
15 Mr. Hubbard wrote. And that's what this policy letter is
16 about. You don't make interpretations, you don't give your
17 opinions; you simply study it. You, what they say,
18 duplicate it.
19 And this policy letter, as I say, is crucial.
20 It's -- you -- it's right there on the second page. You
21 hammer this in and you hammer anything else out of
22 existence.
23 So there's no interpretation, ever, of policy.
24 And that's according to this policy.
25 Q When he writes "rather dead than incapable," what
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37
1 does he mean by dead?
2 MR. WEINBERG: Excuse me, your Honor.
3 Mr. Young just said -- my objection is -- nothing is
4 subject to interpretation, and now Mr. Dandar is
5 asking him to interpret what Mr. Hubbard meant. I
6 object.
7 THE COURT: Yeah. It would seem like that is
8 carrying things to a bit of extreme. You're asking
9 him what did Mr. Hubbard mean. Maybe if he talked
10 to Mr. Hubbard he can tell us, but I don't know that
11 he can tell us what Mr. Hubbard meant.
12 BY MR. DANDAR:
13 Q Okay. What was your understanding, within the
14 organization, of what that meant?
15 MR. WEINBERG: I have the same objection. I
16 mean, he stands here --
17 THE COURT: Well, I agree. I mean, I think the
18 word speaks for itself. I know what the word "dead"
19 means. So unless --
20 MR. DANDAR: All right.
21 THE COURT: -- there is some other
22 interpretation put on it by somebody in the church,
23 I know what it means.
24 BY MR. DANDAR:
25 Q So do you know if there was ever any
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
38
1 interpretation put on that phrase by the Church of
2 Scientology in your 20 years plus?
3 A No. It was -- it was always in the context that
4 what it means is the technology, the organization, are --
5 are senior and the most important, so that you have to do
6 everything you can to keep it pure. And besides, we -- we
7 believe that we were reincarnated, and we had lived millions
8 of times, so the idea that you could keep going through
9 other lives was dependent upon your ability to follow the
10 technology.
11 Q Okay. Now, you said you left the San Francisco
12 org as --
13 THE COURT: Don't -- don't misunderstand me, by
14 the way, when I said I know what the word "dead"
15 means.
16 MR. WEINBERG: I understand.
17 THE COURT: I didn't think that meant that, you
18 know, somehow this meant that -- that if somebody
19 was incapable, somebody was going to shoot them or
20 something like that.
21 MR. WEINBERG: And don't misunderstand my not
22 getting up and screaming for the same reason. I
23 don't -- I think it's patently obvious --
24 THE COURT: Right.
25 MR. WEINBERG: -- I just object to the process.
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39
1 THE COURT: Well, you know, I got to thinking
2 about something that somebody had said once last
3 week or whatever. You know, those folks who study
4 the Christian religion know that the Bible has gone
5 through, certainly, while the words don't change,
6 certainly, what it says, does. And -- anyway, I
7 don't know that I'd have some objection to somebody
8 coming in and saying they thought what it meant.
9 But in any event, you've registered your
10 objection and we'll move on.
11 As I said, I just don't want you to think --
12 when I saw that, what I said then, that if somebody
13 was incapable -- which I know what that means too --
14 that somebody was going to line up a bunch of folks
15 and shoot them or anything like that. That is not
16 what I meant when I said I know what the word means.
17 MR. WEINBERG: I understand.
18 BY MR. DANDAR:
19 Q Tell us -- you talked about you were in the Los
20 Angeles org in 1977 during the FBI raid?
21 A Yes.
22 Q All right. And what -- you were still with
23 Department 20 as the public relations person?
24 A Well, not the republic relations person. I was in
25 the public relations bureau.
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40
1 Q But you were the --
2 A There was somebody in charge of the public
3 relations bureau. So if you were to ever say the PR
4 person --
5 It's sort of a sloppy phrase, let me put it that
6 way.
7 Q All right. You were -- you were designated as the
8 national spokesperson?
9 A Yes. That was a function that I took on on that
10 day of the raid.
11 We were hit at about 6 a.m. because the D.C.
12 offices had -- the raid had to be coordinated to D.C. And
13 they were hit, I think, at 9. And so I arrived at work at
14 9. The raid was under way. And I was giving my press
15 conference I think about four hours later, down at the Los
16 Angeles Press Club.
17 So they said, "Hey, Young, you're going to hold a
18 press conference. You're going to be the national
19 spokesperson." So it's just an assignment that I took. But
20 it lasted for several months.
21 Q Were you in the Los Angeles org when Mr. Bill
22 Franks was the COB ED Int for life?
23 A I was in Los Angeles but I don't know the exact
24 tenure of his office. I was in a different position while
25 he was ED. I was in two different positions while he was --
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41
1 THE COURT: Bailiff, come here a minute, would
2 you?
3 Keep going. We're just --
4 MR. WEINBERG: I imagine a well-drafted order
5 from the court might have some impact.
6 THE COURT: When I was the chief judge, it used
7 to annoy me to death when I had made some
8 arrangement and some judge would interfere with
9 something I had worked out very carefully. So I'm
10 trying to be very careful not to step on --
11 MR. WEINBERG: I don't mean by you --
12 THE COURT: Right. He seemed to be perturbed.
13 He's trying to hold a meeting in there. So maybe
14 we'll find out what success he's had.
15 BY MR. DANDAR:
16 Q During the late '70s did Mr. Hubbard announce what
17 he considered to be the two most effective arms of
18 Scientology?
19 THE BAILIFF: He wants to see you a minute.
20 THE COURT: Let's see if he wants to see if we
21 can go on with this. I'm going to tell him no. I
22 mean, we can't -- all day, we'll all be lunatics.
23 (A recess was taken.)
24 THE COURT: He's working on it. He's got
25 Mr. Baron's coming down, and there's a call in from
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42
1 our court counsel to the county attorney. But I
2 guess the problem is, is it's not just that easy,
3 because there's probably a contract in place, and
4 the question would be whether or not the contractor
5 has the right to do this or not. So he's
6 frustrated -- when I say frustrated, he thought he
7 had an understanding on Friday that they would not
8 do this. Obviously he didn't. So he's working on
9 it. But he -- I said what we need to know is
10 whether it's going to continue, for how many days.
11 MR. WEINBERG: Are they in the building or out
12 of the building? Where are they?
13 THE COURT: They're outside.
14 MR. LIEBERMAN: What about the doctrine of
15 force majeure?
16 THE COURT: What is that?
17 MR. LIEBERMAN: What about the doctrine of
18 force majeure?
19 THE COURT: Well, I remember when they built
20 the criminal justice center, I was in charge out
21 there as criminal administrator, and we had some
22 difficulties, but we usually had our way. As long
23 as we were reasonable.
24 But I mean, on the other hand, if they got to
25 do this and they can't do it at night, you've got to
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43
1 let them do it. But what they need to do is tell
2 us -- give us a date. "We're going to do jackhammer
3 work from this date to this date," so all of us
4 would say, "We're not going to hold a hearing."
5 So anyway, continue on.
6 I'm sorry, Mr. Young. This is not the way
7 things usually are here.
8 BY MR. DANDAR:
9 Q Okay. So did Mr. Hubbard ever express or --
10 express the two most effective arms of Scientology?
11 A He said the two most effective arms of Scientology
12 were the Guardian's Office and the Sea Organization. And
13 that was -- we considered that pretty much true.
14 Q The Guardian's Office was part of -- of what, in
15 the Church of Scientology or the Scientology structure?
16 A Until 1981 --
17 I'm sorry. I was just pausing because some of
18 these are really rough.
19 THE COURT: I know. Would you like to --
20 Okay.
21 MR. DANDAR: Now. Go.
22 THE WITNESS: Feels sort of like a root canal.
23 THE COURT: It really does. I feel like I'm in
24 my dentist's office. I'm sure we all do. This is
25 conjuring up -- speaking of --
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44
1 BY MR. DANDAR:
2 Q Anyway --
3 THE COURT: -- auditing and conjuring up bad
4 memories, why, this is not a good one for me.
5 MR. WEINBERG: It's that reactive mind.
6 THE COURT: That reactive mind.
7 A The Guardian's Office was an independent network.
8 It did not answer to any other network. It went straight up
9 through its own command channels up to Hubbard's wife, Mary
10 Sue Hubbard. And it had its own authorities over the
11 organization.
12 The Sea Organization was a separate arm that
13 started on the Apollo, the ship Apollo, where Hubbard was
14 residing in the Mediterranean. And that extended down into
15 a few organizations which were namely deemed advanced
16 organizations, or the organizations which took care of what
17 was called the upper level materials. And so that would
18 have been the advanced organization Los Angeles, the one in
19 Denmark, the one in the United Kingdom, and of course, the
20 flagship Apollo.
21 So they were kept very separate. Members of the
22 Guardian's Office were not members of the Sea Org. Except
23 on the flagship Apollo. And this was to keep a tension
24 between us. Because we had very different functions. Their
25 function was very much of an internal function, and the
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45
1 Guardian's Office or Department 20 was totally an external
2 function.
3 BY MR. DANDAR:
4 Q And there would come a point in time when the Sea
5 Org took over the Guardian's Office.
6 A That was the change in 1981.
7 Q What gave the Sea Org the power to do that?
8 A Well, sort of like asking what gives an 800-pound
9 gorilla the power to decide where it wants to sleep. It
10 just sleeps where it wants.
11 The -- Mary Sue had gone -- Mary Sue Hubbard had
12 gone to jail. A lot of the executive leadership of the
13 Guardian's Office had gone to jail. We were in a great deal
14 of disarray. And so what was called a mission, which is
15 basically a project, team of people, was sent in from the
16 headquarters out at the -- the base at Gilman Hot Springs.
17 And basically there was -- it was just taken over.
18 I was -- I was witness to screaming, nose-to-nose
19 arguments between, say, Bill Franks, who was the executive
20 director, and Jane Kember, who was the guardian worldwide,
21 who was in Los Angeles, as the struggle ensued. And Jane
22 Kember was removed from office. And so we agreed, everybody
23 just agreed. And we became a Sea Organization unit and we
24 signed Sea Organization contracts.
25 And at that point, the Guardian's Office was no
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46
1 longer an independent network; it -- it began to answer to
2 other people other than just its own -- Mary Sue Hubbard,
3 who was gone.
4 Q And you were part of the Guardian office people
5 who stayed on and became a Sea Org member.
6 A Yes.
7 Q All right.
8 A I stayed on until early 1982 when I was promoted
9 out to another project that became -- where I was employed,
10 until like, you know, for another seven years.
11 THE COURT: Was it in '81 when this takeover,
12 as you call it, took place, that the Guardian's
13 Office was renamed to the Office of Special Affairs?
14 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am. We were -- we were
15 informed that that was to be the new name. There
16 was a press release issued on it and we were being
17 told that we just had the new name, so we just took
18 on the new name.
19 BY MR. DANDAR:
20 Q You were still Department 20.
21 A But it's still Department 20. Everything else,
22 all the policies, the directives that -- the packs and
23 materials that you studied, the bureaus, everything else --
24 Well, there was one other thing. The intelligence
25 bureau was renamed the information bureau, because it was a
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47
1 bit of an embarrassment to call it intelligence because it
2 sounded like CIA. Which it was. That's why we got raided.
3 THE COURT: And the -- when this happened and
4 they -- they said, "Okay. Everybody in this office
5 is going to become a Sea Org member," I take it if
6 you didn't want to be a Sea Org member, you just
7 were out of the office.
8 THE WITNESS: That's correct. That was one of
9 the ways it was decided who would stay on. If you
10 didn't want to sign a contract, you went to another
11 organization.
12 THE COURT: Okay.
13 BY MR. DANDAR:
14 Q Now, who -- was there a highest-ranking officer of
15 the Sea Org at the time the Sea Org took over the Guardian's
16 Office?
17 A Until she disappeared, it would have been L. Ron
18 Hubbard and Mary Sue Hubbard, because they held the highest
19 ranks at that time. The chain of command for the Sea
20 Organization went out to the flagship Apollo and it stayed
21 through that until Mary Sue went to jail and until the
22 Apollo was basically -- I don't know how you describe it.
23 Just -- it was ended. It was beached.
24 And that's when they actually -- actually came
25 into Clearwater, when -- to set up the Flag -- what's called
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48
1 the Flag land base. Carried the name of the Apollo Flag.
2 And at that point the command structure changed over, but
3 that was a number of years later.
4 THE COURT: Excuse me just a second.
5 They do not need to get up and down when I exit
6 and enter.
7 (There was a pause in the proceedings;
8 Judge Schaeffer left the courtroom and returned.)
9 THE COURT: Well, apparently the order is being
10 given for them to stop, so we'll see how that works.
11 I don't know if that order has filtered down to
12 whoever is on the jackhammer just yet, but
13 presumably it will stop. I hope.
14 BY MR. DANDAR:
15 Q After the change when the Sea Org took over The
16 Guardian's Office, what happened to you?
17 A In -- I believe it was February of 1982, I was
18 contacted by a unit that I was already familiar with, which
19 was called Special Project. Special Project was a group of
20 Sea Org missionaires -- project personnel, if you will --
21 who had come into Los Angeles to primarily, as far as we
22 could tell, deal with the litigation that had ensued over
23 the years previous, that was naming L. Ron Hubbard as one of
24 the defendants or parties to the suits. And Special
25 Project's primary function was to take over the litigation,
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49
1 because Department 20 had not been able to clear those cases
2 or get them dismissed. And so they were coming in and
3 running these units, which was called an all-clear unit, and
4 things like this.
5 Well, I was contacted by Special Project and
6 informed that they wanted me to join the special project.
7 And this is all I knew about it. It was just a special
8 project. And in charge of Special Project was a young man
9 by the name of David Miscavige. And at first they -- they
10 wanted me to be -- I won't get technical what the title was,
11 but the post -- title changed, the name of it, after a few
12 weeks. But then they decided they wanted me to be the
13 Special Project PR, the public relations for Special
14 Project. And I -- my name was submitted, and came back
15 about -- a few weeks later, and I was told that I had been
16 approved by Hubbard himself. I later saw the dispatch from
17 him.
18 And so I joined the Special Project. After I
19 joined Special Project, then I was informed what Special
20 Project really was. It was Office Services, Inc., which was
21 a for-profit corporation that had been formed in 1981. And
22 we couldn't name ourselves as that because we were residing
23 on church property; we were conducting our operations
24 covertly, because we had to have everything set up. But
25 about six or seven months later, we got offices down on
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50
1 Sunset Boulevard and we moved out. But until that time, we
2 just stayed there.
3 And as I said, I thought I was joining Special
4 Project but then I found out I was joining Office Services.
5 Q So did you end up leaving Department 20?
6 A Yes.
7 Q And why was Mr. Hubbard being sued back then, that
8 this -- this Special Project had to come in and get the
9 cases dismissed?
10 A There was so many cases and so many reasons going
11 down, but primarily he was being named because he was the
12 author of the materials and he was on the command line many
13 times. And many times, people who were issuing the suits
14 were former staff members and so they were familiar with the
15 command channels; they were familiar with the command lines;
16 they knew how he issued commands down. And so he was -- he
17 was included because of the policies and because of the
18 management by him until -- until I'd say the late '70s.
19 Q What -- what are -- when you say command lines,
20 what are you talking about?
21 A Well, Scientology organizations are pretty much
22 built on a pyramid model. And the easiest way that you can
23 understand it is through a military model. Which is also
24 why uniforms are worn, military jargon or technical terms
25 are used.
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1 And so you have a command channel the same way you
2 have command channels in the military. You have somebody at
3 the top and then you have units underneath, and somebody's
4 in charge of each unit. And so commands go down what we
5 even knew as the chain of command. And those were orders.
6 And there's seniors and there's juniors. And then
7 compliances are sent back up this chain of command.
8 And so when I described a while ago the Guardian's
9 Office had its own chain of command, that's exactly what I
10 meant. We had our own chain of command that went up,
11 independently of everybody else.
12 Q Now, when you said Mr. Hubbard was being sued by
13 staff and they knew these command lines and channels --
14 A I -- I meant to -- if I didn't say, I should have
15 said former staff, because if -- if a staff -- a staff
16 member would never sue --
17 I just scraped myself.
18 THE COURT: Okay. Is that water fresh?
19 THE BAILIFF: Yes, ma'am.
20 THE COURT: Okay.
21 A No. These were people who were former staff.
22 BY MR. DANDAR:
23 Q Okay. And so was Mr. Hubbard's name then on these
24 directives or commands and that's how they could prove that
25 he was involved?
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1 A That's -- that's how the federal government was
2 able to name him as an unindicted co-conspirator.
3 And quite frankly, when we saw the material, we
4 were shaken up that he came within an inch of being indicted
5 along with the other 11, including his wife, because his
6 name was on the materials and his name were on orders. And
7 it's just that he was just -- just by the skin of his teeth,
8 he was not indicted. But he was named as an unindicted
9 co-conspirator.
10 Q Did something change to hide the fact that he was
11 in charge?
12 A Well --
13 MR. WEINBERG: Objection as to -- I've been
14 quiet. But objection as to the relevance of this
15 entire line: Unindicted co-conspirator; did
16 something change as to whether Mr. Hubbard was in
17 charge --
18 We're in -- we're in 2002. Ms. McPherson died
19 in 1995 and we're talking about something in 1977.
20 Mr. Hubbard died in 1986.
21 THE COURT: I tend to agree.
22 Are you going to bring this up to date?
23 MR. DANDAR: That's what I'm trying to get to,
24 bring it up to date.
25 THE COURT: It's taking an awful long time. I
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1 mean -- I mean, Mr. Hubbard's dead, for heaven's
2 sake.
3 MR. DANDAR: Well, somebody took his place,
4 Judge.
5 THE COURT: Well, I understand that --
6 MR. DANDAR: And that's in paragraph 34, and
7 that's in Stacy Brooks' testimony. That's what
8 we're getting to.
9 THE COURT: All right.
10 MR. DANDAR: Well -- all right.
11 BY MR. DANDAR:
12 Q So did there come a time when Mr. Hubbard's name
13 didn't appear on orders coming down through the command
14 channels?
15 A Yes.
16 MR. WEINBERG: Did or did not? I couldn't
17 hear.
18 MR. DANDAR: Did not appear.
19 THE WITNESS: Did not appear.
20 A Not only that, but we -- we followed the same
21 thing. Procedures went in that continued thereafter.
22 Which was when you were issuing orders that may be
23 subject to inspection by outside agencies, authorities, et
24 cetera, that you always had to hide it. The lesson was
25 learned. The only reason that those people were indicted
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1 and went to jail was because their names were on orders
2 going down, talking about illegal activities. And so the
3 government had, right in there, notes about burglary, notes
4 about eavesdropping, reports going back up. Here's the
5 notes about the wiretap we put into the IRS office. So they
6 were just basically like signed confessions as to their
7 culpability.
8 And so the one lesson we learned real fast, and
9 put in, besides some corporate reorganization, was to make
10 sure that nothing was ever put into writing that could ever
11 make you or the organization culpable for anything,
12 including giving orders from one organization to another.
13 And that went in hard and fast.
14 BY MR. DANDAR:
15 Q This young man you first met, named David
16 Miscavige, on the Special Project, the missionaires that
17 came from the -- headed into Los Angeles, did you see him
18 rise in power while you were a member of the Church of
19 Scientology?
20 A Yes, I did.
21 Q And tell us how he did that.
22 A It was an amazing process. Because he began as
23 just a missionaire and it ended up becoming like the tail
24 wagging the dog.
25 Because what Special Project was, was a little
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1 project sent into Los Angeles to handle a particular thing,
2 that grew to became the dominant organization in the entire
3 Scientology hierarchy. And this was done -- well, I -- I
4 just -- it's -- it's really complex. But it was done
5 primarily, to keep it short, through -- in Scientology,
6 power resides to whoever was the closest to Hubbard and
7 where the orders came from. If you were an aide of
8 Hubbard's directly, on the ship, for example, that made you
9 more powerful than somebody out in the field. So just
10 proximity to power gave you power.
11 In 1982 we were set up to be the receipt point of
12 Hubbard's new communications, because he had moved away
13 because of all the subpoenas flying, and couldn't be found.
14 No one knew where he was. We didn't know where he was.
15 Nobody knew. Not even his wife knew, from what I gathered.
16 And so in 1982, we were set up to be the receipt point of
17 the new communications so we could now start issuing orders
18 back in, keep in touch. And by that, we became the most
19 powerful.
20 And at that point was when David Miscavige, being
21 in charge of Special Project and being in charge of ASI --
22 the power just shifted.
23 As well as a number of takeovers. I know that
24 Bill Franks was removed and a number of other people were
25 removed from different echelons. So that any opposition was
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1 just gone. It was -- it was sort of like a political purge.
2 Q So the ASI was a for-profit corporation. David
3 Miscavige was the head. And from there, the rest of the
4 Scientology organizations were controlled?
5 A That's -- that's what I finally learned was to be
6 our function. Because the flagship Apollo was gone. And
7 even though the name of it moved ashore, you know, Flag land
8 base; even though there was the former headquarters in
9 England, there was no command structure to bring it all
10 together. Everything shattered. And so it was our job to
11 bring it together and to be the top of the pyramid.
12 So our function was to -- even though we were
13 for-profit, even though we had functions that he had
14 announced to the world that are true, we had this other
15 function of running the organizations, setting up other
16 organizations. And we did that for a number of years.
17 Q Okay. Was Mr. Miscavige -- did he become the
18 chairman of the board of ASI?
19 A That's how I knew him.
20 Q And what -- was there RTC in existence then?
21 A Religious Technology Center was incorporated, I
22 believe, in 1981, but it wasn't functional when -- when we
23 were being set up. ASI sort of came out of the closet first
24 and then RTC was set up behind it. ASI and RTC, as well as
25 another organization called The Church of Spiritual
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57
1 Technology, CST, which is another one that's in the
2 background -- these are all set up at the time as corporate
3 protections. And we were briefed on this and we knew about
4 this.
5 Because before the FBI raid, it was just this, you
6 know, chain of command, and nobody really paid attention to
7 it. But the fact that the federal government was able to
8 indict, convict -- well, they didn't convict. They had a
9 stipulation of evidence and they avoided trial -- this chain
10 of command from a low-level operative, who was going in and
11 stealing documents, right up to Hubbard's wife on the ship,
12 showed that not only was the chain of command vulnerable,
13 but there was no corporate protection; there was no
14 corporate walls. You know, they just went straight through.
15 And of course, that's how we operated. We didn't
16 pay attention to corporations. Half the time you never knew
17 what corporation you were part of. You were just part of
18 the San Francisco org; you were just part of a -- ask a
19 staff member what corporation you were a part of, we didn't
20 know. We didn't care. We were just Scientology units
21 getting our job done.
22 So after -- after that mistake was realized, then
23 all these different corporate entities started to be setting
24 up, and licensing agreements started to be set up, and an
25 entire restructuring of our orders were given, and how
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1 dispatches were written were all changed to avoid this ever
2 happening again, because it was such a close call that
3 Hubbard was nearly indicted.
4 So RTC was set up, ASI was set up. And as I said,
5 RTC came up later, after ASI was fully functional.
6 Q In the -- were all these new corporations and --
7 and ASI run by the Sea Organization?
8 A Yes. At that time everybody was Sea Organization.
9 Q Did Mr. Miscavige rise in ranks within the Sea
10 Organization?
11 A Yes.
12 Q And --
13 THE COURT: What do you mean, everybody was Sea
14 Organization? You mean every single person who
15 belonged to Scientology?
16 THE WITNESS: No, ma'am. I meant the staff
17 members. Anybody above the franchise level or the
18 lower levels, any organization -- any org, what we'd
19 call an org -- Philadelphia, Seattle, et cetera --
20 THE COURT: Okay.
21 THE WITNESS: -- organizational members. And
22 anything higher than that would have been Sea
23 Organization.
24 BY MR. DANDAR:
25 Q And did Mr. Miscavige -- did his rank in the Sea
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59
1 Org rise when he assumed, like, the COB ASI position?
2 A Yes. Somewhere he became captain.
3 Q Do you know how he became captain?
4 A No, I don't. It -- the title just -- rank just
5 appeared. Because I know he was something like, at best, a
6 lieutenant early on, and there were people that outranked
7 him.
8 But we -- see, at ASI and -- especially, we didn't
9 go by Sea Org rank. You go by your post, by your position,
10 by your job. And that's what gave you the authority to get
11 it done so I could -- even though I had a bottom rank in the
12 Sea Org myself, it was by my position in the organization
13 that gave me the authority to order somebody in another
14 organization what to do.
15 Q And in Scientology, in the Sea Organization, are
16 there things known as brevet ranks?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And could you explain the difference, if there's a
19 captain who's a brevet-rank captain versus a captain who's
20 an earned-rank captain?
21 A The Sea Organization has its own ranks. And those
22 you gained through what's called an officer selection board.
23 And your name might be submitted to the officer selection
24 board. And every organization can have its own officer
25 selection board. And so you can be promoted through that
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60
1 process.
2 And so you begin as -- they're all naval ranks,
3 you know, petty officers, warrant officers, lieutenants,
4 right on up through the -- the ranks.
5 But the problem was that sometimes the head of an
6 organization, who was given the -- he might be the executive
7 director or the commanding officer of an organization, his
8 Sea Org rank -- his or her Sea Org rank might be lower in
9 actual fact, the actual rank, lower than his juniors. So
10 that person was given what was called a brevet rank,
11 B-r-e-v-e-t. A brevet rank was basically a temporary rank
12 that was to reflect the position of that job that they had.
13 So even though I was a petty officer, say, if I were made
14 the head of the San Francisco organization, I would be given
15 the brevet rank of captain. But when I left that position,
16 the brevet rank would fall away, and I would just carry the
17 other one.
18 So you actually carried two ranks when you assumed
19 certain positions in the organizations.
20 Q Did you -- when people were promoted up in rank,
21 did everyone else know about that?
22 A Oh, yeah. Very much so. It's -- it was -- you
23 know, people took it with great pride. You -- the issues
24 would come out, the officer selection board promotions, and
25 you get to see, "Joe made lieutenant," you know, and you get
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61
1 to say, "Congratulations, Joe. Buy me a drink," or
2 something like that. It was -- you know, people took a
3 great deal of pride in it. So these were widely
4 distributed.
5 And you liked to gain rank. You know, it was just
6 a point of personal pride. You didn't make any more money
7 but it was -- you know --
8 Q Did you ever --
9 A -- you had more rank.
10 Q Did you ever -- did you ever see Mr. Miscavige,
11 officer -- whatever you call it, board -- promote him to
12 captain, nonbrevet-rank captain?
13 A No.
14 Q And is there a difference between his rank of
15 captain and the other captains within the organization?
16 A Most definitely. It's -- a brevet rank -- you
17 know, there will be captains of the Scientology
18 organizations located in Clearwater, for example, but
19 they're all brevet. They're -- the only one that has ever
20 been designated an actual rank of captain was David
21 Miscavige. There's other captains, but it's captain in name
22 only. It's -- it's like saying, "I'm the president of the
23 rotary club." Well, that doesn't make me the president of
24 the United States.
25 THE COURT: I guess I'm having trouble with
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62
1 this.
2 A brevet rank is -- is -- are you saying that
3 Mr. Miscavige is, actual rank, the only captain or
4 the captain?
5 THE WITNESS: He's the only one that has actual
6 rank, captain. All other captains would be honorary
7 ranks.
8 MR. WEINBERG: And my objection to all of this
9 is -- is that Mr. Young left the church in 1989. I
10 don't know how he could possibly say that as of
11 2002.
12 THE COURT: But you have that objection --
13 MR. WEINBERG: Right.
14 THE COURT: -- throughout so you don't need to
15 make that again.
16 MR. WEINBERG: Okay.
17 THE COURT: All -- I understand that. But I
18 thought you also implied, at least, that the brevet
19 rank was the rank of position, which in essence, in
20 an individual org, was more important than your
21 actual rank, if you had a high brevet rank; that you
22 could run that organization, order people with
23 higher actual ranks around, because you held the
24 brevet rank higher than -- than someone else there.
25 THE WITNESS: That's true. But the authority
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63
1 stems from the position that you have in the
2 organization and not even from the rank.
3 THE COURT: So the actual rank of
4 Mr. Miscavige, if in fact he is the captain -- I
5 kind of get this -- actual rank isn't as important
6 as the brevet rank.
7 THE WITNESS: The actual rank is more important
8 within the Scientology -- I'm sorry -- the Sea
9 Organization command structure. Within the
10 organizations, it's the position you have.
11 If I am the commanding officer of the Los
12 Angeles organization, that position allows me to
13 give any orders I want to anybody within my
14 organization. And so I suppose --
15 That's why I say you have to follow a military
16 model on this. That --
17 But -- however, when I was at a higher echelon,
18 it was my position in the echelon that gave me the
19 authority to issue orders to lower echelons.
20 THE COURT: Your brevet rank.
21 THE WITNESS: Just --
22 Well, I wasn't given a brevet rank.
23 THE COURT: Oh, okay.
24 THE WITNESS: Like I said, my position --
25 THE COURT: So your position wasn't
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1 necessarily --
2 See, again, I wrote this down, and I thought I
3 understood it, but apparently not.
4 I thought you said the brevet rank was a
5 temporary rank that reflects your position at -- in
6 a staff. And when you leave the position, you lose
7 the brevet rank, and might get another one depending
8 on where you go and where you rank. But that you
9 always kept your actual rank. So --
10 THE WITNESS: That -- that is true. But it
11 wasn't applied to everybody within the organization.
12 It was pretty much reserved for those that were --
13 that were in command.
14 And you could say it would be sort of like
15 crazy to say a first lieutenant working for the
16 chief of staff in the Pentagon is able to give an
17 order to a colonel out at some military division
18 because he works in the Pentagon. Well, I don't
19 know. But that's how we did it. That even though I
20 might have a lower position in the Sea Org, if I'm
21 at a higher echelon, that echelon is what gives me
22 the authority to --
23 THE COURT: So maybe it isn't the brevet rank;
24 maybe it's just the position.
25 THE WITNESS: It is actually more the position
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65
1 than anything else, yes, ma'am.
2 THE COURT: So the brevet rank -- I don't know
3 what that means, but the brevet rank may not be as
4 important as the position you hold in a particular
5 org.
6 THE WITNESS: Yes.
7 THE COURT: Okay.
8 MR. DANDAR: I have marked as Exhibit 101. I'd
9 like to show the witness --
10 THE COURT: Oh, dear.
11 MR. DANDAR: That's a heavy one.
12 BY MR. DANDAR:
13 Q Can you identify Plaintiff's Exhibit 101?
14 A This is a declaration that I wrote in, I believe,
15 October of '99, that was filed in the Wollersheim case, I
16 believe the following month, that Mr. Leipold, who was the
17 attorney of record for the case, asked me if I could draw up
18 and show how the command structure of Scientology works. He
19 asked me, "Would you be able to show it using their own
20 documents," and I said, "Yes."
21 And that's why this is so thick, is because I was
22 to show --
23 THE WITNESS: A bit what I was just talking
24 about, your Honor.
25 THE COURT: Okay.
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66
1 THE WITNESS: In fact there's one document in
2 here I can refer to, to explain what I was talking
3 about.
4 BY MR. DANDAR:
5 Q Could you point out that document, tell us what
6 the exhibit number is?
7 A Give me just one second.
8 THE COURT: Wow. I think we haven't had a
9 battering out there in a while, so it must have
10 stopped.
11 MR. DANDAR: Someone has the power.
12 A Okay. I found it.
13 Oh, how do I refer you to it?
14 BY MR. DANDAR:
15 Q Well, that's a good question.
16 A Okay. Best way is sort of like page size. One of
17 the pages sticking out, one of the 8-and-a-half-by-14
18 sticking out says across the bottom in, like, the top of a
19 newspaper, "International News, Scientology"? It's about
20 the third or fourth 8-and-a-half-by-14 page sticking out.
21 THE COURT: It look like this?
22 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am. Looks like this.
23 THE COURT: All right. I have it.
24 Do you all see what he's talking about? Looks
25 like this?
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67
1 MR. WEINBERG: Yes. I have that.
2 THE COURT: Okay.
3 THE WITNESS: Okay. If you go just previous to
4 that, one of the 8-and-a-half-by-11 pages, go up
5 four pages -- I'm sorry -- two pages, you'll see
6 something down at the bottom that says, "SCI PROD,
7 P-R-O-D, 11-4-93," looks like a Bates number 153819.
8 MR. WEINBERG: Yes. I see that.
9 THE WITNESS: You have that, your Honor?
10 THE COURT: Yes, I do.
11 THE WITNESS: What this page is, this is a
12 portion of the application for tax exemption that
13 Scientology had filed with the IRS to get their
14 exemption in the '90s. And this was filed under, of
15 course, penalty of perjury. And I happened to find
16 this in D.C. And there's, of course, a few other
17 pages from it. And so this is what they told the
18 IRS in this particular document.
19 And it explains it right there above all the
20 names. There's a paragraph in the middle. It says,
21 "Brevet ranks are assigned to certain positions
22 within the church and have the purpose of equating
23 rank and ecclesiastical authority. One holds the
24 brevet rank so long as one holds the rank to which
25 the brevet rank applies."
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1 Next paragraph, "The highest ranking officers
2 in the Sea Organization are as follows." And then
3 it gives a column of named rank, earned rank. And
4 you notice at the top it says, "David Miscavige,
5 captain, rank; earned rank, captain." And then
6 you'll notice there's a whole series of names, other
7 captains. There's commanders. And all of them have
8 the word "brevet" after their rank.
9 In fact, if you go down you'll notice at the
10 bottom, Barbara Widmore, W-i-d-m-o-r-e, she's a
11 petty officer third class, and yet she's been given
12 the brevet rank of commander, which is the second
13 highest officer rank within the Sea Organization.
14 Well, that doesn't mean that she is an actual
15 commander. This is brevet.
16 But what's interesting is that David Miscavige
17 is the only one that the Church of Scientology told
18 the IRS -- so this is why this was important,
19 because this is not based upon my experience; this
20 is based upon what they told the IRS -- David
21 Miscavige is the only one that holds an actual rank
22 of captain within the Sea Organization.
23 THE COURT: This -- by the way, this document,
24 I have seen before, this is already in evidence.
25 MR. DANDAR: That particular page is.
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69
1 THE COURT: Right. And so this is -- this is
2 what I was referring to when I said I didn't exactly
3 understand. So I've seen this before. But now that
4 you've explained it, I think that perhaps it's --
5 it's a little more helpful.
6 I suppose that if -- if one of these folks over
7 here that is in a high position ecclesiastically
8 fell from grace, so to speak, or whatever, that they
9 would be removed from their brevet rank.
10 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am.
11 THE COURT: But would maintain, as long as they
12 stayed in the church, their actual rank?
13 THE WITNESS: Their earned rank.
14 THE COURT: Their earned rank. Okay.
15 Also, I don't know -- ensign up here,
16 Mr. Rathbun and Mr. Ingberg -- ensign isn't a very
17 high rank either, is it?
18 THE WITNESS: No, ma'am. It's -- it's sort of
19 the bottom of the officer's scale.
20 THE COURT: Okay.
21 A And also, part of this -- this was drawn up
22 because part of this declaration contained affidavits from
23 Scientology in the Wollersheim case, which they were trying
24 to represent that Mr. Miscavige was just one of many
25 captains. And I was trying to point out, as far as I was
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70
1 concerned, that was false testimony; that according to their
2 own documents what they told the IRS was a different matter.
3 And so there's other documents in here to further
4 substantiate it.
5 The purpose in the Wollersheim case was because
6 they were claiming that one corporation alone was involved,
7 and Mr. Leipold was trying to show that there was a senior
8 corporation, a senior command structure that would also be
9 responsible, as far as what he was trying to put forward.
10 And when he asked me about it, I said, "Well, of course
11 that's how it works. This is how the --"
12 In fact what's the irony about this, is the Sea
13 Organization is very proud of this. We never hid this
14 internally. We're very proud that we were what we were. It
15 was just when it came to external authorities, governmental
16 agencies asking about it, that's when you came up with
17 another story. "Oh no, no. We're just a fraternal
18 organization. We're loose-knit. We just sit around like a
19 bunch of Shriners and have fun, you know; crank back and
20 have a couple of beers." You try to make it seem very
21 benign, when really, internally, we --
22 Hubbard said and he built the thing, and that was
23 our attitude -- we got things done. We had the ability to
24 go into any organization, send in, remove people, put new
25 people in, take over bank accounts. But that was to get the
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71
1 job done. Internally, we were very proud of this.
2 And so some of the material that's attached to
3 this is -- are portions of Sea Org publications where they
4 boasted about this. You know, "We went into the Munich
5 organization and we turned it around and got them back and
6 going." So it was always a point of pride -- and you'll see
7 this in some of the attachments -- a big point of pride.
8 But as soon as -- as soon as somebody else from
9 the outside says, "Well, is this --" "Oh, no. No, no."
10 MR. WEINBERG: Your Honor, would it be possible
11 to have questions and answers rather than just a
12 narrative here?
13 THE COURT: True.
14 As a matter of fact, I know that we have had
15 little breaks as I've gone in and out. Would this
16 be a good time to take a morning break?
17 MR. WEINBERG: Yes.
18 MR. DANDAR: That would be fine.
19 THE COURT: We're going to go ahead and be in
20 recess for 15 minutes.
21 Sir, I should tell you that while you're on the
22 stand, the whole time that you're on the stand, you
23 really can't talk to anybody about your testimony,
24 including the lawyers --
25 THE WITNESS: No.
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1 THE COURT: -- for either side.
2 THE WITNESS: Mr. Dandar has already instructed
3 me, your Honor.
4 THE COURT: You can talk about other things,
5 but you can't talk about what's happening here,
6 okay?
7 THE WITNESS: Thank you. Thank you, your
8 Honor.
9 (A recess was taken at 10:33 a.m.)
10 (The proceedings were resumed at 11:04 a.m.)
11 THE COURT: You may continue.
12 BY MR. DANDAR:
13 Q The declaration in the Wollersheim case that is
14 Exhibit for the plaintiff 101 -- that was filed in the
15 Wollersheim case?
16 A Yes.
17 Q And what you state in your declaration is
18 truthful, or is there anything where it's exaggerated?
19 A No. It's -- it's truthful, and most of it relies
20 upon quoting from the attachments.
21 Q Okay. And the attachments are the documents from
22 the Church of Scientology?
23 A Either from -- directly from Scientology
24 documents -- as I said, there's an IRS document and there's
25 also magazines of the Sea Organization.
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73
1 Q There's an exhibit attached to your declaration,
2 X-99, that says, "The Command Channels of Scientology." Can
3 you turn to that?
4 Or let me just ask you this question: What is
5 the -- what is that publication?
6 MR. WEINBERG: Where exactly?
7 MR. DANDAR: X-99.
8 MR. WEINBERG: Just one X?
9 THE COURT: Yeah. I'm not sure that I -- mine
10 go from --
11 MR. WEINBERG: I've got double numbers.
12 THE COURT: I've got double numbers too. I've
13 got an L, Exhibit L-99, and then all of a sudden I
14 go to something called FF-99.
15 MR. DANDAR: It is set up that way, Judge. I
16 can't explain why.
17 THE COURT: Okay. Well, where --
18 MR. DANDAR: It's this far from the -- from the
19 back.
20 I should have tabbed it.
21 THE COURT: Okay. I'll keep looking.
22 MR. DANDAR: Want me to do it for you?
23 THE COURT: Yes.
24 MR. DANDAR: Okay.
25 THE COURT: Okay. Did you find it?
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74
1 MR. WEINBERG: No, I didn't.
2 THE COURT: Do you want to show them where it
3 is too?
4 Did you find it, Mr. Young?
5 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am.
6 THE COURT: Okay.
7 MR. DANDAR: We all have it.
8 BY MR. DANDAR:
9 Q What is the purpose of this booklet called The
10 Command Channels of Scientology?
11 A Well, it's -- it's stated in there to show the
12 relationships of the various organizations and the command
13 channels.
14 But it really wasn't intended as purely an
15 internal publication, because we had all the policies that
16 are being cited in it. The actual audience for this was
17 external, that could be used with governmental agencies and
18 the courts and bring it all together in one place where they
19 could make their presentation as to how the organizations
20 fit together.
21 And I -- I say it wasn't for internal because it
22 quotes -- just as my declaration quotes from a lot of their
23 material, the command channels booklet quotes from all of
24 their materials. So it was just trying to bring together
25 these things to try to present this for other people.
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1 Q Are there for-profit organizations or corporations
2 of Scientology that are part of this booklet, the command
3 channels?
4 A Yes.
5 And I need to clarify. This is the -- it says The
6 Command Channels of Scientology, not the Command Channels of
7 the Church of Scientology. And there is a difference.
8 Because inside the booklet, there are for-profit
9 corporations which are not part of any Church of Scientology
10 entity, such as WISE, W-I-S-E, World Institute of
11 Scientology Enterprises. That is a -- not part of the
12 Church of Scientology, but you'll find it in The Command
13 Channels of Scientology.
14 Q Okay. Now, when David Miscavige became captain of
15 the Sea Org, was he at Office Services, Inc. or somewhere
16 else?
17 A First time I recall him assuming the rank of
18 captain, he was with Religious Technology Center.
19 Q Okay. And what was his position at Religious
20 Technology Center?
21 A Chairman of the board. Same sort of title as with
22 ASI. Otherwise we just knew him as COB.
23 Q And within your experience in Scientology, how did
24 David Miscavige exert his power or influence?
25 MR. WEINBERG: Object to that question. I
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1 think that's a fairly open-ended -- what's that --
2 what is -- what is he seek -- how did he exert his
3 power?
4 THE COURT: Yeah. Over what?
5 BY MR. DANDAR:
6 Q How did he exert his power over the entire -- all
7 the organizations of the Church of Scientology?
8 A Pretty much the way most --
9 MR. WEINBERG: Well, excuse me. The -- first
10 I'd like to establish -- I'd like at least to
11 establish what it is -- when it was that Mr. Young
12 believes that he became the chairman of the board
13 and what Mr. Young's exposure to Mr. -- you know, to
14 RTC at that point was, if anything. Because I
15 didn't hear him say that he was in RTC.
16 THE COURT: All right.
17 MR. DANDAR: All right. We'll go back a little
18 bit in history then.
19 BY MR. DANDAR:
20 Q You started reading books in 1968 and you joined
21 in '69. When did you leave the Church of Scientology?
22 A 1989.
23 THE COURT: When did RTC come into effect?
24 THE WITNESS: It was incorporated in 1981, and
25 I believe it was starting to be active, actually,
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1 more in 1983, was when it started to make its
2 presence known. And I -- I heard the name Vicki
3 Aznaran, from affidavits filed just before I took
4 the stand, and she was the first one, if I recall
5 right, to be the head of RTC.
6 BY MR. DANDAR:
7 Q And were you in the Church of Scientology when
8 Mr. Miscavige became the chairman of the board of RTC?
9 A Yes.
10 Q And how many years were you in Scientology while
11 he remained chairman of the board of RTC?
12 A Well, he was chairman of the board of RTC until
13 the time I left, so that would -- it would include my entire
14 tenure while he was -- he and I knew each other.
15 Q Okay.
16 MR. WEINBERG: Well, could we just establish
17 when he became the chairman of the board as it
18 related to when you left?
19 MR. DANDAR: I think he answered that question.
20 BY MR. DANDAR:
21 Q But go ahead and do that again.
22 When did Mr. Miscavige become chairman of the
23 board of RTC?
24 A Officially I can't say. Because the way it worked
25 was one just -- he was the source of authority. So wherever
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1 he resided was where the authority was.
2 He began to work both RTC and ASI, started in
3 1983, and slowly began to move over and spending more time
4 with RTC, until finally he was pretty much operating out of
5 RTC, out of the RTC headquarters full-time, I would say,
6 1980 -- probably 1984.
7 Q And when Mr. Miscavige was chairman of the board
8 of ASI, was ASI the -- have the most authority in all of
9 Scientology?
10 A Yes.
11 Q And when Mr. Miscavige moved himself over into
12 RTC, did ASI lose its authoritative position?
13 A Yes. As well as some functions. The -- RTC took
14 on -- we used to run -- even -- even the Department 20
15 activities, down through the organizations, lawsuits and
16 things like that out of the ASI. But those functions moved
17 into RTC with him so he could concentrate more on just the
18 organizations and making money.
19 THE COURT: I'm going to allow his answer to be
20 given, so go ahead --
21 MR. DANDAR: All right.
22 THE COURT: -- back to your question, whatever
23 it was.
24 BY MR. DANDAR:
25 Q Up until the time when you left in 1989, who was
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1 the -- was there any one person that had the most power in
2 all of Scientology after Mr. Hubbard died?
3 A Except for the short hiatus while there was this
4 power struggle going on, finally it emerged that it was
5 Mr. Miscavige.
6 Q And have you kept up with the -- how the
7 organization -- the Scientology organization -- all the
8 organizations -- run since you left in 1989?
9 A That's what I tried to show in this declaration
10 that -- that was presented all the way through IRS filings,
11 et cetera, so that you could see how it operates.
12 Q So Mr. Miscavige, when he exerts any authority,
13 starts, you know -- based upon your experience and what
14 documents you've reviewed, does he exert it because he's the
15 chairman of the board or does he exert it because he's the
16 only captain, earned rank, of the Sea Org?
17 A It's sort of both. Because it's -- in the same
18 military model, if somebody doesn't follow orders, they're
19 removed and replaced with somebody that will follow orders
20 and get it done. And so just by a process of elimination,
21 you finally get the people that you want, that will follow
22 orders. And so that's why people are removed, dismissed,
23 disappear. You know, they're just not around that org
24 anymore, because they've been assigned to another org.
25 And so that's what -- 1982, 1983, and then when
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1 Hubbard died, again, until finally he had what he wanted:
2 Aides who he trusted who would get it done.
3 Q When Mr. Miscavige was chairman of the board of
4 ASI, was there a chairman of the board of RTC?
5 A I don't know really.
6 Q Okay.
7 THE COURT: Didn't you say Vicki Aznaran was?
8 THE WITNESS: No, ma'am. Her title was
9 inspector general --
10 THE COURT: Oh.
11 THE WITNESS: -- which was the designated title
12 that was used internally and externally.
13 BY MR. DANDAR:
14 Q In your 20-plus years as a Scientologist, did you
15 ever come across references to the tech that Mr. Hubbard
16 wrote being referred to as scripture?
17 A No. This was a term that came up later on for
18 litigation purposes. It never appears in his own writings,
19 the word.
20 Q While you were a --
21 THE COURT: What word? The word "scriptures"?
22 THE WITNESS: Scriptures.
23 BY MR. DANDAR:
24 Q While you were a Scientologist, did you ever hear
25 anyone, including Mr. Hubbard, call himself or herself the
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1 ecclesiastical leader?
2 A I don't think he ever used the word
3 "ecclesiastical," and I would challenge anybody to ever find
4 it used by him. Ecclesiastical was a term we began to
5 assume later on in litigation purposes.
6 Q And in your experience, PC folders, which I
7 believe the court is well familiar with what that means --
8 PC folders -- were they ever considered priest-penitent?
9 A That designation came up after the FBI raid of
10 '77. It was never used before then. After the FBI raid, we
11 had orders to label all folders and all files considering --
12 containing folders priest-penitent formulary and always
13 represent them as that. The name had never appeared before.
14 So it was -- you did this as a -- as a legal stance to see
15 if we could gain protection, trying to learn from the
16 mistakes.
17 Q And in your experience, could anyone destroy
18 records that is in a person's PC folder?
19 A No. Not -- not really.
20 I need to qualify that, if I may.
21 Q Yes.
22 A If there was any files that were just inviolate,
23 it would be the PC folders, because everything needs to be
24 put in there. And Hubbard even said when in doubt, file
25 things in the PC folder so we know everything about this
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1 person; you know, if they got, you know, a rash from eating
2 strawberries.
3 But there were times when certain sections were
4 authorized to go in and delete things from folders and
5 destroy records. And I was personally involved in that
6 myself.
7 Q For what reason?
8 A Confidentiality. To hide evidence.
9 Incident that I was involved in was a woman in the
10 San Francisco organization who had been assigned to the
11 intelligence bureau in Los Angeles, and so she was going to
12 become an operative. Marsha -- I can't remember her last
13 name. And I had orders to basically start going in and
14 finding certain things, and just destroy them to -- to not
15 have any trace of her. I destroyed not only her records in
16 the organization, I made sure her name was never on any
17 payroll receipts. I -- we also had orders to go in and
18 check the PC files to make sure certain things were not
19 there so she couldn't be traced.
20 But that was -- again, as I say, this was -- this
21 was extremely rare. But it was only done as a -- like a
22 defensive measure to protect yourself, that she could be
23 arrested and picked up, and you'd want to be able to have
24 plausible denial: "I don't know who she is. I don't have
25 any records."
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1 MR. WEINBERG: Your Honor, could Mr. Young date
2 that, please?
3 THE COURT: Yes.
4 MR. WEINBERG: What his post was at that time?
5 THE WITNESS: This was in 1972 in San
6 Francisco.
7 BY MR. DANDAR:
8 Q Now --
9 THE WITNESS: Possibly 1971.
10 BY MR. DANDAR:
11 Q And you were in Department 20?
12 A Department 20, yes.
13 Q Now, the organization board of all of Scientology
14 has all these lines. Are those called the command lines,
15 connecting one department to another, one division to
16 another?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And then RTC just kind of sits up at the top where
19 there's no lines running to it, is that right?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Why is --
22 A That's -- that's the diagram. I showed the
23 diagram.
24 Q Why -- why is that?
25 THE COURT: What diagram are you talking to?
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1 In the command channels?
2 MR. DANDAR: It's in the command channels or --
3 I mean, I have one here that's in the back of this
4 book.
5 BY MR. DANDAR:
6 Q RTC just kind of sits up there at the top.
7 A Yes.
8 Q Why aren't there any lines connected to RTC?
9 A Because RTC operates, as the most senior
10 network -- and following what we learned back in '77, you
11 don't want to show, like you're doing right now in a court,
12 that there are command lines coming out, even though that's
13 how it operates.
14 Q So even though it's not in writing, it operates
15 with command lines coming out.
16 A Oh, definitely. RTC was set up to be the most
17 senior command organization.
18 THE COURT: When you say because of what they
19 learned, what we learned -- I don't remember how you
20 referred to it -- you're speaking now of the fact
21 that -- what you told us before, about the
22 indictments and how they were able to link some of
23 the folks higher up with certain actions that were,
24 I guess, perceived to be criminal actions, by these
25 command lines?
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1 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am. The documents that
2 had been seized in the raid, as well as --
3 THE COURT: Okay. I don't need all of that.
4 But I guess what I'm trying to say is when you
5 said, "Because of what we learned," it's that
6 episode that you're speaking of.
7 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am. The indictment and
8 the -- of --
9 THE COURT: The jailing of the --
10 THE WITNESS: Well, the jailing followed. But
11 the indictment, it -- that involved Hubbard's wife,
12 who worked right next to him, all the way down to
13 the lowest-level operative; the fact that they could
14 climb through so many organizations and link them
15 all with our own documents at the time. That was
16 what had to be prevented from ever happening again.
17 THE COURT: Okay.
18 BY MR. DANDAR:
19 Q Now, you left in 1989, the organization, correct?
20 A Yes.
21 Q What was your -- where were you working at the
22 time? What was your post?
23 A At the time I left, I was actually out at Gilman
24 Hot Springs, which is the actual international headquarters.
25 But at the time I was still staff at Office Services.
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1 Q Okay.
2 A Paid staff at Office Services.
3 Q And what were you doing at Gilman Hot Springs?
4 A I had said I wanted to what we call route out,
5 which means you would like to leave your position and just
6 cease working for the organization. And there's a procedure
7 to be followed.
8 And so they sent me out to Gilman to sort things
9 out, so to speak. And I was to stay out there and sort of
10 get rest and recuperation and come to my senses.
11 So finally I realized -- I asked, and they weren't
12 going to allow me to route out, so I just said, "Okay," and
13 I took it upon my own and left.
14 Q And since leaving the Church of Scientology in
15 1989, have you become involved in any manner in assisting
16 people or their attorneys who are in litigation with the
17 Church of Scientology?
18 A Yes.
19 Q Can you tell us how that first came about?
20 A I -- I believe it was in 1994. I don't recall
21 exactly. I was contacted by Dan Leipold, whose name I just
22 mentioned a while ago. And he was the attorney of record in
23 the Wollersheim case. And said that he understood that I
24 had a lot of years -- and my wife at that time, Stacy -- we
25 had a lot of years in. Would -- could he meet with him --
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1 could we meet with him?
2 And so we did. Met at his office, along with
3 other attorney, Graham Berry. And we spent -- I don't know,
4 maybe five, six hours -- as they sought to find out how much
5 I knew; what did I understand; finding out that I knew the
6 vocabulary, the language. I'd been in virtually every
7 echelon, so I had this experience.
8 And so they -- he said, you know, "We have
9 litigation going and we don't understand the terminology.
10 We don't understand all these bulletins, these policies. We
11 ask questions," like, "What's HCO," like was just asked.
12 And it's -- more than anything else, it's the vocabulary.
13 Q So you -- you didn't go out on the Internet and
14 have a Web site saying, you know, "Come hire me. I'm a
15 former Scientologist," or advertise or send letters to the
16 lawyers who were suing Scientology or defending --
17 A Not at all. I hadn't been in contact with hardly
18 anybody, just about two people, with regard to my past
19 experiences; just personal friends.
20 They contacted me.
21 Q Well -- well, when is the first time -- since
22 Mr. Leipold contacted you in '94, when is the first time you
23 started preparing as a consultant in reference to
24 Scientology matters?
25 A That would have been actually 1982.
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1 Q While you were still a Scientologist?
2 A Yes.
3 Q And explain that.
4 A There was a court case in Los Angeles, in Los
5 Angeles Superior Court, where -- I forget which Scientology
6 entity. I think the Scientology International -- as well as
7 Mary Sue Hubbard at that time, who came in -- I forget how
8 it was that her name was added -- were suing Gerry
9 Armstrong. Gerry Armstrong had been an archivist who had
10 basically left with thousands and thousands and thousands of
11 documents. And so he was being taken to court.
12 I was with Office Services at the time. And since
13 I knew about those documents, and worked with them, they
14 told me that I needed to go off and work on this for a few
15 months, put this stuff together as evidence that could be
16 used against Gerry. So I produced documents, worked for
17 other people, put together packs for attorneys, advised
18 them, and then I was called as a witness in the court case
19 and spent a few hours on the stand testifying according to
20 my, at that time, expertise and knowledge about the
21 materials.
22 Q And this is at -- you're testifying for a Church
23 of Scientology entity, and you're an employee for a
24 for-profit corporation, ASI?
25 A Yes.
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1 Q All right. And then the next time you got
2 involved in litigation, is that with Mr. Leipold?
3 A Yes.
4 Q Okay. And did you have any -- did you file any
5 declarations for Mr. Leipold in that Wollersheim case back
6 then?
7 A No.
8 Q Did you file any declarations for Mr. Berry?
9 A Mr. Berry asked us to come work for him. I didn't
10 start to do any work for Mr. Leipold for quite a while.
11 And as I told you, he was in the room asking
12 questions. And he had litigation going as defense counsel
13 for a suit being -- that was brought against two individuals
14 based upon the 1991 Time Magazine case, for statements made
15 in the magazine, and asked if we could come on as
16 consultants for that case.
17 Q So you and your wife then, Stacy, did not seek out
18 Mr. Berry?
19 A No.
20 Q He sought you out.
21 A Yes.
22 Q And the Time Magazine case, what two individuals
23 was he representing?
24 A Dr. Geertz, which is, I believe, G-e-e-r-t-z, and
25 Steve Fishman, F-i-s-h-m-a-n. Dr. Geertz was the
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1 psychiatrist of Steve Fishman. And statements were made in
2 the Time Magazine article for which they were being sued.
3 Q Is that something that has to do with Mr. Fishman
4 being ordered to kill his psychiatrist?
5 A Yes. That was the context.
6 Q And did Mr. Berry tell you or your wife, Stacy,
7 what he wanted you to write in your declaration?
8 A Never.
9 Q What was the purpose of your --
10 A No. When you said -- I'm sorry. I think you said
11 me or Stacy?
12 Q Right.
13 A You know, I was there for, I think, just about
14 every time when she was doing hers, so -- I'm trying not to
15 speak for her.
16 Q Right.
17 A But no, I had never had any evidence or any
18 conversations from her telling me or while I was there with
19 him telling her. But he certainly never told me.
20 Q So did you write a declaration?
21 A I wrote a number of declarations.
22 Q For that case, the Fishman case?
23 A Yes.
24 Q And did Stacy write a number of declarations?
25 A Yes.
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1 Q Do you know, as you sit here today, whether any of
2 those declarations included anything that was not true?
3 A No. I read hers and I knew about mine, and I
4 never found anything that was false.
5 THE COURT: This is for what I have referred to
6 in this courtroom periodically as the Fishman case?
7 MR. DANDAR: Yes.
8 THE COURT: Okay.
9 MR. DANDAR: Which apparently is included in
10 the Time Magazine case. Somehow.
11 A Well, it stemmed from the Time Magazine article.
12 And originally the defendant -- plaintiff had gotten the
13 case -- whatever you call it -- bifurcated. The cases were
14 almost together -- because there was cases being run out of
15 New York as well. Time Magazine was being sued in New York.
16 And so --
17 BY MR. DANDAR:
18 Q Oh.
19 THE COURT: It really doesn't matter.
20 THE WITNESS: I'm just trying to stay --
21 THE COURT: Right. I just need to know -- it's
22 been referred to here as, I've heard --
23 THE WITNESS: Right.
24 THE COURT: -- the Wollersheim case, the
25 Fishman case, and this case, the Armstrong case.
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1 So I take it this is the Fishman case.
2 MR. DANDAR: Yes.
3 THE COURT: Okay.
4 BY MR. DANDAR:
5 Q Did you do any -- did anyone contact you on the
6 Time Magazine case?
7 A Yes.
8 Q Who?
9 A A representative from the office of Floyd Abrams.
10 I don't know Mr. Abrams -- the name of Mr. Abrams' office,
11 but he's well known as probably the most prominent First
12 Amendment attorney in the United States.
13 I was contacted --
14 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry. There's a gesture I
15 missed.
16 MR. DANDAR: I thought Mr. Lirot was.
17 THE COURT: And I always thought it was George
18 Rahdert. And I can see that counsel sitting over
19 here is taking exception to that.
20 MR. DANDAR: I thought it was Mr. Lieberman.
21 MR. WEINBERG: I knew it was not me so --
22 THE COURT: Right.
23 BY MR. DANDAR:
24 Q But did you go --
25 THE WITNESS: Mr. Abrams is the one that's
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1 always quoted on CNN when they want a talking head.
2 BY MR. DANDAR:
3 Q So did you go meet with Mr. Abrams at his law
4 firm?
5 A Yes. They asked me to come meet with them. And I
6 flew out to New York, and we spent the day, Mr. Abrams and a
7 number of his counsel, going over it. They wanted to find
8 out what I knew about this, because they were having
9 trouble, again, understanding the jargon, understanding the
10 materials. You know, "I can't read this stuff. What does
11 this organizational chart mean?"
12 THE COURT: Who is Mr. Abrams again?
13 MR. DANDAR: Floyd Abrams is a well-known First
14 Amendment lawyer from New York City.
15 THE COURT: But I mean, who was he
16 representing?
17 MR. DANDAR: Time Magazine.
18 THE COURT: Okay.
19 THE WITNESS: He was representing Time
20 Magazine, yes.
21 BY MR. DANDAR:
22 Q And again, you did not solicit Mr. Abrams?
23 A No.
24 Q Okay.
25 A And to mention -- he was defense counsel for Time
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1 Magazine. This wasn't a suit being brought by them, but he
2 was defense counsel.
3 So after that, I went back. And then I was
4 notified that they wanted to retain me.
5 This was a case that Stacy did not work on. We
6 often worked together, but I just worked on this one myself.
7 THE COURT: Who is they again, please?
8 THE WITNESS: Mr. -- for Mr. Abrams' firm.
9 BY MR. DANDAR:
10 Q Did you ever -- were you ever approached by
11 Mr. Rinder after you filed declaration for Mr. Berry in the
12 Fishman case?
13 A I was approached by Mike Rinder after the case was
14 done. They had withdrawn their suit and the case was over.
15 And I don't recall how long after that it was that he
16 contacted me.
17 Q The Church of Scientology dismissed its suit
18 against Mr. Fishman?
19 A Yes.
20 Q And where were you living when Mr. Rinder
21 contacted you?
22 A Newport Beach, which is maybe 50 miles south of
23 Los Angeles.
24 Q And did Mr. Rinder tell you why he wanted to see
25 you?
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1 A Yeah. He said he wanted to just work things out,
2 you know, and set