Scientology attorneys plan to disclose
              evidence

              By THOMAS C. TOBIN

              )St. Petersburg Times, published December 4, 1997 


              CLEARWATER -- The Church of Scientology is planning
              to take the unusual and potentially risky step of showing its
              legal cards as a two-year investigation into the death of
              one of its members winds to a close. 

              Church attorneys plan to present key medical evidence to
              Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe before he
              decides whether criminal charges are warranted in the
              1995 death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson. 

              In a majority of major cases, lawyers say, such evidence is
              revealed only after a prosecutor decides to pursue a
              formal charge. 

              "It doesn't happen often, but it's happened before,"
              McCabe said. "If it helps me make a decision as to
              whether I've got a prosecutable case or not, why wouldn't
              I listen to what they have to say? I think it would be
              irresponsible not to listen to them." 

              McCabe said a prosecutor's decision to hear evidence
              from a potential defendant is not an indication of
              favoritism. 

              Investigators for the Clearwater Police Department and
              the Florida Department of Law Enforcement also are
              expected to present their findings to McCabe this month.
              They have focused on whether church members who
              cared for McPherson were responsible for her death. 

              McPherson, 36, died after a 17-day stay in Fort Harrison
              Hotel, a Scientology retreat in downtown Clearwater.
              Though mentally unstable, she was physically healthy at
              the beginning of her stay. 

              The church revealed in a statement this week that three
              medical experts have studied 21 tissue samples taken
              during McPherson's autopsy. 

              The experts -- who are state medical examiners -- have
              independently concluded McPherson died
              "instantaneously of a sudden, unpredictable pulmonary
              embolism caused by a blot clot in her leg," the statement
              says. "Had she been in a hospital the entire time, the result
              would likely have been the same." 

              Denis DeVlaming, a veteran Clearwater defense attorney
              who has known McCabe for years, said an early meeting
              between a potential defendant and the prosecutor can help
              the prosecutor decide such issues as whether the defense
              will be able to create reasonable doubt in a case. 

              An early meeting between a potential defendant and the
              prosecutor can help the prosecutor decide such issues as
              whether the defense will be able to create reasonable
              doubt in a case, a veteran defense attorney says. 

                                  * * *

              He said defense lawyers use the tactic only rarely because
              it's risky. 

              "The defense doesn't want to share what it has,"
              DeVlaming said. "The risk you're taking is that you're
              showing your hand." 

              DeVlaming said the tactic has worked for him in some
              cases and backfired in others. 

              Joe D'Alessandro, who has been the state attorney in Fort
              Myers for 28 years, said he rarely is visited by the defense
              before a formal charge is filed in a major case. But he
              welcomes it, he said, because it helps a prosecutor to
              assess a potential defendant's credibility. 

              "I think it helps and aids the system," he said. "It may put
              something in a lesser light or change my view on
              something." 

              Willie Meggs, the state attorney in Tallahassee, said he
              allows defense lawyers to come in before his office files a
              formal charge. 

              "We listen to their spiel, but most of the time, it's a begging
              session," Meggs said. "Most of the time the defense
              doesn't tell you anything. If they know you are looking,
              they want to get you looking in another direction." 

              McPherson entered Fort Harrison Hotel on Nov. 18,
              1995, to recuperate after a mental breakdown in which
              she took off her clothes at the scene of a minor auto
              accident near downtown Clearwater. 

              When paramedics took her to Morton Plant Hospital for a
              psychiatric exam, several Scientologists arrived, told the
              medical staff that McPherson's religion prohibited her from
              receiving psychiatric care and promised to care for her
              around the clock. 

              Church records from Fort Harrison indicate she was
              violent, had trouble sleeping, often refused to eat and grew
              weak toward the end of her stay. After 17 days, church
              staffers drove her to a hospital in Pasco County, where
              she was pronounced dead. 

              Early this year, Pinellas-Pasco medical examiner Joan
              Wood said autopsy test results showed McPherson's
              death was not sudden and unpredictable, as the church
              attorneys insisted, but a slow process that resulted from
              severe dehydration and excessive bed rest. 

              In this week's statement, the church said its experts had
              concluded that neither of those factors caused
              McPherson's death. 
              -- Staff writer Lucy Morgan contributed to this report.