Tampa Bay Paper Throws Down Hard-Hitting Scientology Report
The St. Petersburg Times is running a massive report on Scientology, focusing on leader David Miscavige and high-ranking defectors spilling on him. Revealed: Miscavige's sadistic temper. Like when he made staffers play 'violent' musical chairs, scored to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." The three-part expose, which continues tomorrow and on Tuesday, had Times reporters out doing serious nose-to-the-grindstone reporting, gathering history, interviews, and sitting for hours with Scientology flacks and reps. They published plenty of material Scientology gave them, including a letter from Miscavige about him not being interviewed for the article, though the Times asserts that they "first requested an interview with Mr. Miscavige on May 13, and offered to meet with him in person, or interview him by telephone at any time since." The St. Petersburg Times has a deep history with Scientology. The paper, a neighbor by about thirty minutes to the church's Clearwater headquarters, has had a long history of covering Scientology. Freedom, a magazine working as a mouthpiece for Scientology, once ran a piece on the St. Petersburg Times having a glass ceiling on women and minorities after accusing them of inflammatory coverage. Notable: Scientology sat down with St. Petersburg Times reporters for 25 hours trying to debunk the defectors' tales of Miscavige. They even went to far to prepare them binders of the private confessions and ethics files - yeah, ethics files - of former members. One commenter writes in on their website: "As a former Scientologist of 20 years, its sad to see that the chruch would stoop to using members confessionals against them. How can anyone trust anything they say if they violate their own teachings." In the report, Marty Rathbun, a former Scientologist, notes that Miscavige was a "deteriorating spiral" after he was named in an amended complaint against Scientology in the civil suit over the death of Lisa McPherson. According to Rathbun, he became "violent and irrational," going to so far as to assault and punch other Scientology executives from their International Council, including Marc Yager (chairman of Scientology's "Watchman Committee") and Mike Rinder (a former Scientology spokesman). Rinder was supposed to put a BBC story about Miscavige hitting staffers to rest. Two years ago, he flat-out denied it. Now, he confirms. Rinder was also the spokesperson who issued Scientology's denial in the infamous suicide of Scientology member Noah Lottick. Rinder blamed Lottick's Scientology-questioning parents on their son's death. Nothing about Lottick appears in the article, but there're two more days of this thing to get through. Tom De Vocht, who used to oversee the Clearwater headquarters, got slapped around by Miscavige as well. He came forward to speak about it after defecting for the Times, too. Same with Amy Scobee, a former high-ranking Scientologist who'd been with the church since she was 14. Scobee used to work out of the LA... MORE >>
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