Since 1993 FACTNet has been to Psychological Coercion and Mind Control what Amnesty International has been to Physical Coercion and Torture.

As of this date, I have successfully collected almost 70 million of the 86 million “thin dimes” that David Miscavige, their leader, personally vowed and continues to vow I will never collect.

The success in collecting these 70 million dimes also should bring renewed hope to those of you victimized by Scientology may who wish to get full refunds, out of court settlement payments from Scientology and/or win litigation with them for any and all real harm that they caused you --- even if it has been many, many years since you left.

Wollersheim attempted to escape from the ship because he felt he "was dying and losing [his] mind."His escape was thwarted by Scientology members who seized Wollersheim and held him captive until he agreed to remain and continue with the auditing and other religious practices taking place on the vessel. One of the psychiatric witnesses testified Wollersheim's experience on the ship was one of five cataclysmic events underlying the diagnosis of his mental illness and its cause.

At another stage Scientology auditors convinced him to "disconnect" from his wife and his parents and other family members because they had expressed concerns about Scientology and Wollersheim's continued membership. "Disconnect" meant he was no longer to have any contact with his family.

Wollersheim, who suffered from a bipolar disorder, was forbidden to seek medical help under Scientology policies, he says. He quit the church after spending $150,000 on Hubbard's "mental health" regimes, and by 1980 had filed suit. In 1986, a jury awarded him $5 million in compensatory damages and $25 million to punish the church for what jurors called intentional and negligent "infliction of emotional distress."

27. Mr. Wollersheim's PC file was several thousand pages in length and stood as high as a six-foot tall man. Initially at this meeting it was decided that Mr. Wollersheim's PC file would be redacted and culled of any evidence or documentation which might assist Mr. Wollersheim in his lawsuit against CSC. There was also concern that the materials known as Clear, OT I, OT II, OT III and NED for OT's (NOTS) would be open to public inspection if Mr. Wollersheim's files were produced as ordered. Scientologists are taught that a person could catch pneumonia and die if that person is prematurely exposed to these "upper level" materials without first having taken many hours of preparatory auditing. Ultimately, approximately 50 pages were produced pursuant to the court order. Mr. Wollersheim's PC file was culled based on a direct order from David Miscavige.

28. Later, I was informed that a second court order was issued to produce Mr. Wollersheim's entire file. Faced with the prospect of having to produce the entire file David Miscavige gave orders that the entire file simply be destroyed by being pulped.

The FACTNet founder says he went into settlement talks with Rinder and others in a sincere effort to settle all his past and pending litigation against the church, but the conditions sought by the church were unacceptable. By his account, they included not only a “gag order” that would have prevented him from commenting on Scientology in the future but a requirement that he make “false and self-incriminating public statements” repudiating his criticism of the group. Worst of all, he says, church officials wanted FACTNet closed and its archives destroyed; having compiled what he describes as a “massive library” of inside information about the church, including accounts of alleged mistreatment by ex-members and reports of suspicious deaths, Wollersheim refused.

“To allow a free-speech organization to be bought by an organization trying to censor information and destroy a library,” he says, “would be cognitive dissonance to the level of insanity.” [...]

Strange things happen around Lawrence Wollersheim. His businesses collapse. His Boulder apartment gets raided by federal marshals, his computers seized. When college students offer to help him rebuild his computer bulletin-board system, they receive threatening phone calls--anonymous voices urging them to stay away from Larry.

A California judge who presided over a lawsuit in which Wollersheim was the plaintiff told reporters he'd encountered a lot of "funny stuff" during the five-month trial, including slashed tires on his car and strangers tailing him. Recently, Wollersheim says, someone claiming to be him contacted his bank in a clumsy attempt to obtain his financial records. [...]

I am the Co-founder of www.factnet.org the oldest and largest internet source of free information on cults and mind control. I am also the winner of an 8.7 million dollar lawsuit against Scientology --- that Scientology was forced to pay!