ADVANCED SCIENTOLOGY, a solitary study, should be deductible, they argued. The Scientology Church has long fought the IRS over charitable deduction of fees members pay to the sect. In 1989, the Supreme Court said fixed fees for so-called auditing were paid for services — and weren't deductible as disinterested gifts. Still, Brian G. and Margaret A. Szabo of Palo Alto. Calif., felt $10,854 of the $14,977 they paid the church in 1976 should be deductible above the $471 the IRS allowed. ...

A former top Scientologist testified yesterday she was put in a closet with a set of picks and told to unlock the door as part of her spy training. Marion Evoy told court she failed to get out. But the 42-year-old tutor testified to a string of successes with the Scientology spy network, which is alleged to have penetrated three police forces and three levels of government in the mid-1970s. The Church of Scientology of Toronto and five members pleaded not ...

The scope of Scientology's alleged spy network widened again yesterday with testimony the group had succeeded in planting a spy in Revenue Canada's Ottawa taxation offices. "She obtained a confidential manual," former Scientologist Diane Fairfield said of a Scientologist she had recruited to spy on Revenue Canada. No further details were elicited from Fairfield, who is testifying at the trial of the Church of Scientology and five members on charges of criminal breach of trust. The charges relate to a wide-ranging ...

A Scientology spy testified yesterday she smuggled out enough files from the OPP to make a stack about 15 feet high. The Church of Scientology of Toronto Inc. and five Scientologists face charges of criminal breach of trust in connection with a spy network that infiltrated the RCMP, Metro Police, the attorney general's department and the OPP. Kathy Smith told court that during her 2½ years as an OPP employee she smuggled out "hundreds and hundreds" of files. She was testifying ...

A former Scientologist says she lied to get a job with Ontario Provincial Police so she could steal secret documents for her church. Kathy Smith said she joined the Church of Scientology in 1972 and spent nine months in southern England learning church policy. Later, she was recruited by the Guardian's Office, an inner council of the church, to infiltrate the police force, court was told yesterday. Smith was testifying at the trial of five Scientologists and their church on charges ...

A man who left a Catholic seminary to eventually head the Church of Scientology in Canada said he knew church members were infiltrating police and government offices, and his wife was one of them. Emile Gilbert, 44, who now lives with his former wife and her new husband in Fonthill, Ont., testified he studied 5½ years for the priesthood then left to join the Church of Scientology in September, 1968. There he met his wife, Cathy Wilkins, who was infiltrating the ...

A former top Scientologist testified yesterday his intelligence office had copies of Ontario cabinet documents stored in a secret hideaway code-named "The Garden." Emile Gilbert, former executive director of the Church of Scientology of Toronto, told a jury yesterday "The Garden" contained 40 or 50 filing cabinets of intelligence files on Scientology's targets. "We had all kinds of files," Gilbert said, "some from Premier Bill Davis' cabinet meetings." Gilbert also said the agents had amassed so much material dealing with the ...

The jury in the Scientology trial yesterday heard the church's spy network extended far beyond the four government agencies they're charged with infiltrating. The Church of Scientology of Toronto and five Scientologists are standing trial on five counts of criminal breach of trust in connection with "agents" planted in the RCMP, the OPP, Metro Police and the Ontario attorney general's office during the mid-1970s. But yesterday, during his fifth day on the stand, a former top Scientologist admitted their "target list" ...

Church of Scientology intelligence officers in the 1970s were "complete zealots" prepared to use illegal means to attack critics, a former official has testified. "Within Scientology, we were completely indoctrinated and did believe that everything we did was 100 per cent right. Our minds were completely altered," Bryan Levman told an Ontario Court, general division, jury. Testifying in return for immunity from prosecution, Levman said he thought at the time it was justified in having "plants" infiltrate Metro police and other ...

In the summer of 1973, dedicated Scientologist Bryan Levman left the yacht of church founder L. Ron Hubbard with a new title and a mandate he believed allowed him to infiltrate police agencies and steal government files. For three years, Levman oversaw a series of covert intelligence operations as deputy guardian for Canada, aimed at attacking the "enemies" of Scientology, founded by Hubbard in the mid-1950s. Levman left the church in 1976 in some disillusionment — "it didn't deliver what it ...

The jury in the Scientology trial yesterday heard evidence about that group's infamous "Fair Game Law" which authorized attacks on their enemies. Testifying for his third day, Scientology's former Deputy Guardian for Canada, Bryan Levman, said the Fair Game Law and other policies were the basis for a world-wide campaign of spying and theft. The Church of Scientology and five members are on trial for criminal breach of trust in connection with a spy network that planted agents in the RCMP, ...

Church of Scientology "plants" infiltrated Metro police and the Ontario Provincial Police and succeeded in obtaining copies of investigators' files, a trial has been told. A church member also obtained a file from the attorney-general's office by telephoning a central registry, pretending to be a government lawyer and sending a phony secretary to pick it up, witness Bryan Levman testified. "It was considered a big win. Everybody was very happy," Levman testified yesterday. He added that a Scientology plant later obtained ...

Scientology engaged in worldwide break-ins and espionage because its founder believed he was the focus of a global conspiracy, court heard yesterday. At least 12 police forces and government agencies in Canada were targeted for penetration by Scientology spies in the mid-1970s, Bryan Levman, a former top Scientology official, testified. Levman, testifying under immunity, said L. Ron Hubbard, a former science fiction writer who founded the organization, believed mental health professions were behind a conspiracy to destroy Scientology in concert with ...

The former head of Scientology's Canadian intelligence network has identified one of his underlings as being responsible for "running" agents the church had planted in several police and government agencies. Bryan Levman was testifying yesterday at the criminal trial of the Church of Scientology of Toronto and five Scientologists. Levman said defendant Jacqueline Matz "ran the agents" who got jobs in the mid-1970s with the RCMP, the OPP, Metro Police and the attorney-general's office in order to pass information back to ...

A bewildering array of jargo and termnology characterize the first day of testimony at the trial of the Church of Scientology's Toronto chapter and five of its members on breach of trust charges. The opening witness, Bryan Levrnan, left Mr. Justice James Southey of Ontario Court, general division, confused and frustrated as he tried to explain the organization's complicated management structure. Southey stopped the proceedings several times to ask the crown and the witness to slow down so he could complete ...

The Church of Scientology of Toronto and five adherents are on trial on charges they ran a spy network that infiltrated three police forces and the attorney-general's office. A jury yesterday heard Crown attorney James Stewart outline a spy network that saw members of the church spiriting files out of police and government buildings for copying. The five counts of criminal breach of trust faced by Scientology and the five co-accused stem from activities alleged to have occured from 1974 to ...

The Church of Scientology of Toronto Inc. and five members pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of breach of trust yesterday before a panel of 200 prospective jurors. The charges, Mr. Justice James Southey explained to the panel, arise from allegations Scientologists got jobs with the RCMP, the OPP, the attorney general's office and Metro Police so they "could act as a spy or a plant." These "spies", Southey said, are alleged to have "obtained information for the church and passed ...

Nine years, several sledgehammers and one battering ram later, it was time for a massive celebration at the Church of Scientology's Yonge St. headquarters. Hundreds of jubilant church members, clutching sparklers and blowing noisemakers, spilled on to the sidewalk and cheered yesterday as a rented truck pulled up with a delivery from Ontario Provincial Police headquarters. Inside the truck were more than 2 million church documents seized from Scientology's Toronto offices on March 3, 1983, in the largest police raid in ...

They loved 79-year-old Suzine Van Sickle and brought her back home to live out her days, they said. But Van Sickle's caretakers — her daughter and granddaughter — yesterday were convicted of poisoning, then smothering her. A King County jury found Jimmie Jean Shumway, 59, the daughter, and Alexis Shumway, 29, guilty of premeditated first-degree murder in the bizarre killing last November that they kept secret for three months. The two showed no emotion as the verdict was read yesterday. Deputy ...

The Church of Scientology has a long and undistinguished history of harassing its detractors — but that shouldn't stop the media or anyone else from speaking out against it, cult experts say. The church commonly threatens lawsuits, tries to have detractors arrested, and harasses sources and individual reporters, said Cynthia Kisser of the Cult Awareness Network in Chicago. And recent Sun stories linking the church — alleged by experts to be a dangerous, mind-control cult — to Narconon, a drug rehabilitation ...

MILAN, Italy (AP) — A Milan court has acquitted 67 Scientology followers of charges ranging from criminal association to tax evasion, but it convicted six others of deceiving confused people. While not ruling that the group is a church, as Scientologists contend, the court said Wednesday that it is a non-profit organization and thus need not report to the Italian tax office. The trial was brought after a five-year investigation into activities of Scientology centers in Italy after disenchanted followers filed ...

By all appearances, Noah Lottick of Kingston, Pa., had been a normal, happy 24-year-old who was looking for his place in the world. On the day last June when his parents drove to New York City to claim his body, they were nearly catatonic with grief. The young Russian-studies scholar had jumped from a 10th-floor window of the Milford Plaza Hotel and bounced off the hood of a stretch limousine. When the police arrived, his fingers were still clutching $171 in ...

The Church of Scientology goes on trial here this morning, charged with stealing thousands of documents from government offices and law firms. It is the first time that a church has been put on trial in Canada. The trial is expected to be long and drawn-out. Various motions on legal technicalities must be dealt with first, a process that could take months. The trial is the result of eight years of legal wrangling. It began in 1983, when 110 police officers ...

A Church of Scientology minister says unsubstantiated sexual-assault charges brought against him were an attack against the church. Allan Buttnor expressed relief, but also annoyance, after the Crown withdrew several charges against him Monday. The charges were laid following a police investigation into claims by a 10-year-old girl. The girl later told police the alleged incidents never happened. "It was obviously an attack on our church," Buttnor said after emerging from Provincial Court. Judge Edward Stack dismissed two counts of sexual ...

A city police officer being sued by the Church of Scientology has launched a $100,000 countersuit. Det. Ken Montgomery is suing the church and church official Allan Buttnor for abuse of process and malicious prosecution. As a member of the Edmonton Integrated Intelligence Unit, Montgomery investigates "cult, occult, ritualistic and religious influence crime." Buttnor, who is facing sexual-assault charges, last month filed a $1-million lawsuit against Montgomery, a second police officer and a woman. Buttnor, acting director of the local church's ...

LENNIE & CO. ID: 4034266977 JUN 20 '94 9:48 No.001 P.02 IN THE COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH OF ALBERTA JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF EDMONTON BETWEEN: ALLAN ANTHONY BUTTNOR, Plaintiff, - and - JANICE "KELLY" GARIEPY, REED LEARY, and KEN MONTGOMERY, Defendants. STATEMENT OF CLAIM 1. The Plaintiff is a resident of the City of Edmonton, in the Province of Alberta, and is an ordained minister of the Church of Scientology of Alberta, who seeks to minister to the spiritual needs of the ...

Among its many adversaries, the Church of Scientology's longest-running feud has been with the Internal Revenue Service. So far, neither combatant has blinked. Over the past three decades, the IRS has revoked the tax-exempt status of various Scientology organizations, accusing them of operating in a commercial manner and of financially benefiting private individuals. From the late 1960s through mid-1970s, IRS agents classified Scientology as a "tax resister" and "subversive," a characterization later deemed improper by a judge. In 1984, the IRS's ...

The church has adopted the terminology and trappings of traditional theologies. But the IRS is not convinced. Since its founding some 35 years ago by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology has worked hard to shore up its religious profile for the public, the courts and the Internal Revenue Service. In the old days, for example, those who purchased Hubbard's Scientology courses were called "students." Today, they are "parishioners." The group's "franchises" have become "missions." And Hubbard's teachings, ...