Attorney Gur Finkelstein, who represents the Scientology Center in Israel, was detained several weeks for allegedly hiring this gang to help him with his own criminal endeavors. Israel Police forces have uncovered a Jaffa-based gang allegedly behind a series of attacks and attempted assassinations in the Tel Aviv area, including a plot to kill a senior sheikh of a local mosque, it was revealed after a gag order was lifted on Tuesday. Those mobsters are suspected of plotting to plant an ...

BRIGHTON, Colo. – A software company founder is being tried for first-degree murder. Rex Fowler is accused of shooting and killing business partner Thomas Ciancio in December 2009. TheDenverChannel's Alan Gathright is in the courtroom and will be blogging throughout the trial. This is his blog on Day 2. 4:30 PM – The former president and CEO of Fowler Software choked back tears on the stand Thursday afternoon, recalling how she arranged the fateful meeting between Tom Ciancio and Rex Fowler ...

BRIGHTON, Colo. – The trial of a software company founder is underway in Brighton. Rex Fowler is accused of shooting and killing business partner Thomas Ciancio in December 2009. TheDenverChannel's Alan Gathright is in the courtroom and will be blogging throughout the trial. This is his blog on Day 1. 4:30 PM -Battle Over Scientology Evidence In a dramatic moment, defense attorney Sarah Quinn objected to prosecutors introducing in evidence a manila folder belonging to Fowler. The judge had the jury ...

BRIGHTON, Colo. – The murder trial starts Wednesday morning for an Adams County software firm founder accused in the 2009 execution-style shooting of his former business partner. William Rex Fowler is charged with first-degree murder. He's accused of shooting Thomas Ciancio, 42, three times in the head with a 9mm Glock handgun when Ciancio came to collect a $9,000 severance payment at Fowler Software Design in Adams County on Dec. 30, 2009. Fowler, 58, has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he ...

BRIGHTON, Colo. – An Adams County software firm founder accused in the execution-style shooting of his former business partner pleaded not guilty Thursday. William Rex Fowler is charged with first-degree murder in the Dec. 30 slaying of Thomas Ciancio at their office, Fowler Software Design. The case has been marked by bizarre revelations ever since heavily armed SWAT officers surrounded the building near Federal Heights, unsure whether the "gunman" was barricaded inside. During the initial confusion, the 42-year-old Ciancio, the former ...

BRIGHTON — William Rex Fowler lured his former business partner into a deadly trap last year, killing 42-year-old Thomas Ciancio over claims Fowler was embezzling money from the company he founded, an Adams County prosecutor said Friday. But the second half of Fowler's plan failed when the 58-year-old tried unsuccessfully to kill himself, prosecutor Dave Young said in a preliminary hearing. "His intent was suicide," Young said. "He was going to take care of his business before he took care of ...

[Transcript by Anonymous @ http://forums.whyweprotest.net/1207504-post1/] Hello, everyone. I guess I'll start off with borrowing a lyric from The Grateful Dead: "What a long, strange trip it's been." My journey into Scientology started in 1976. I was in San Francisco and I was a young guy; I was twenty-one years old and full of piss and vinegar, trying to figure out what to do with my life. And I was walking down the street and this very attractive woman came up ...

BRIGHTON — A district judge's ruling last week may aid prosecutors in their claim that William Rex Fowler was not defending himself when he shot to death his former business partner at an Adams County software company. Adams County District Judge Francis Wasserman ordered that all medical records concerning Fowler's treatment at Denver Health Medical Center be released to prosecutors. Fowler, 58, is accused of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Thomas Ciancio. Investigators say Fowler shot Ciancio, 42, three ...

BRIGHTON — A shackled and dazed-looking William Rex Fowler was ordered to submit to a DNA test Monday as Adams County prosecutors began building a murder case against the 58-year-old software entrepreneur accused of killing his former business partner. Fowler is accused of shooting 42-year-old Thomas Ciancio three times in the head on Dec. 30 at Fowler Software Design. District Judge Francis Wasserman, in a short hearing, ruled Fowler must give samples of his DNA to investigators but held off on ...

BRIGHTON — A DNA test was ordered today for a 58-year-old businessman and founder of an Adams County software company accused of killing his former business partner. Adams County District Judge Francis Wasserman this morning also set an April 9 preliminary hearing for William Rex Fowler, who appeared in court shackled and wearing surgical scrubs. Fowler allegedly shot and killed 42-year-old Thomas Ciancio on Dec. 30 at Fowler Software Design. Investigators say Fowler shot Ciancio three times in the head with ...

A 58-year-old businessman and founder of an Adams County software company was arrested Friday on murder charges in a bizarre office shooting at the end of the year that left him injured and another man dead. Adams County District Attorney Don Quick filed charges against William Rex Fowler in the shooting death of 42-year-old Thomas Ciancio, his former business partner at Fowler Software Design. Investigators say Fowler shot Ciancio three times in the head with a 9mm Glock handgun when Ciancio ...

The Church of Scientology plans to open a street-level cafe, bookstore, and chapel as part of its renovation of the 19th-century Hotel Alexandra, a long-faded Gothic beauty that for years has sat mostly empty at a prominent Boston crossroads. The revived building would add more street life to a corner of the South End that is seeing more activity, and signals that the city’s desire to have the neighborhood revitalized after the removal of the elevated Orange Line on Washington Street ...

Thomas P. Ciancio, a former employee of the software company founded by Rex Fowler, was identified today as the man found dead hours after Fowler was critically injured after being shot at his office complex. The Adams County Coroner said Thursday afternoon that Ciancio was shot more than once in the head and the wounds do not appear to be self-inflicted. The autopsy and investigation suggests that Ciancio is a homicide victim, Coroner James Hibbard said in a press release. The ...

Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Eric Goodman on Thursday ordered Metro Police to return everything they seized in a midnight raid last month at the Las Vegas home of anti-Scientologist Colby Schoolcraft. Among the items SWAT officers and counterterrorism detectives took were several rifles, including a semi-automatic Yugoslavian AK-47, and numerous boxes and cases of ammunition. Police arrested Schoolcraft, 23, during the raid for allegedly making threats against the Church of Scientology over the Internet, but the district attorney’s office ...

The arrest of a member of an anti-Scientology group on terrorism-related charges last month thrust Las Vegas into the forefront of a worldwide dispute between the group and the celebrity-laden church. Metro SWAT officers and counterterrorism detectives stormed the southwest Las Vegas Valley home of Colby Schoolcraft in the middle of the night Oct. 15 and seized a cache of weapons and ammunition, including an AK-47 assault rifle. Authorities say they believed acts of violence were about to be committed against ...

They squeezed into a two bedroom apartment, all they could afford. Two couples and a single guy had left the Church of Scientology and joined up in Las Vegas, starting a mortgage business near the Palace Station Casino. They were faces in the crowd. Except that the two wives were important in Scientology history, sisters Terri and Janis Gillham. They were two of the original four "messengers" for L. Ron Hubbard. The founder ran his church from his ship, the Apollo, ...

PART EIGHT Up until the late 1990's, each person inside received five cards. There's a pay card, a berthing or "housing" card, a chow card, a social card, and, a bonus card. If the production statistics for a worker or their team go down, management took a card or two away. If you lost your chow card, you had to make do with rice and beans. If you lost your berthing card, you lost your apartment. If you lost your pay ...

CLEARWATER — Police investigated the role Scientology played in the suicide of a troubled young man two years ago, but did not conclude church members forced him off his antidepressant medication or contributed to his death. Last week, the mother of Kyle Brennan filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Scientology's Clearwater-based Flag Service Organization and three Scientologists, claiming they took away Brennan's medication. The suit names the boy's father, Thomas Brennan, as a defendant; along with Denise Gentile, who is the ...

TAMPA - A mother is blaming Scientologists for her disabled son's death, which police ruled a suicide. Victoria L. Britton has filed a federal lawsuit accusing Scientologists, including her son's father, of taking his antidepressant prescription from him and giving him access to a loaded gun. A police investigation, however, concluded that Kyle Brennan, exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia, willingly stopped taking medication before he visited his father and that there was "no evidence they were purposely kept from" him. Brennan, 20, ...

The representative, Doug Bushwar, told police he arrived with a can of gas and found [Mario Jay Majorski] standing on the passenger side of his Toyota pickup, which had its flashers on. Behind the truck, there were "small kids' toys lined up in a row on the street," Bushwar told the officer. "He thought this looked very strange," the report said. When Bushwar approached, Majorski became upset and agitated, according to the report, yelling at Bushwar to stay where he was, ...

SCIENTOLOGISTS are furious about a new book by an Irish writer that is set to expose the controversial church's military plans - including a sinister mission to 'clear the earth'. Author John Duignan claims to be a former high-ranking member of the church's secret army, the Sea Organisation or 'Sea Org', which answers directly to leader David Miscavige. His book, The Complex: An Insider Exposes The Covert World Of Scientology, details the weapons training he received at a naval base in ...

NEW YORK – An Armenian immigrant accused of plotting to sell anti-aircraft missiles and other military weapons from the former Soviet Union to an FBI informant was convicted Tuesday along with five co-defendants. Artur Solomonyan could face up to life in prison on charges including arms trafficking conspiracy, firearms trafficking conspiracy, interstate firearms trafficking and illegal transfer and possession of a machine gun. The charges accused the men of conspiring from December 2003 to March 2005 to import shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, ...

Tom Cruise studied intensively at the remote compound near Hemet while becoming a passionate messenger for the church. GILMAN HOT SPRINGS, Calif. — Nearly 30 years ago, the Church of Scientology bought a dilapidated and bankrupt resort here and turned the erstwhile haven for Hollywood moguls and starlets into a retreat for L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who founded the religion. Today, the out-of-the-way 500-acre compound near Hemet has quietly grown into one of Scientology's major bases of operation, ...