Computers have done what years of opposition couldn't do, uniting the handful of former Scientologists who have waged war against the Church of Scientology. These dissidents are now gathered under the rubric of the Fight Against Coercive Tactics (FACT) network, or FACTnet, a free data base and electronic bulletin board available to the public. The network, based in Golden, Colo., electronically stockpiles information critical of Scientology, from affidavits to court rulings to federal investigations. Although fewer than 150 people now use ...

Exclusive A former cult security guard blows apart the star's squeaky clean image with claims of shocking abuse HOLLYWOOD megastar Tom Cruise has been sensationally named in a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the United States alleging receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illicit perks from the controversial Scientology religious cult. The 32-year-old Oscar winner is alleged to have turned a blind eye to the use of slave labour to build him a gym, an apartment and other gifts ...

[Picture / Caption: RESOLUTION — "I think the judge just wanted to bring an end to this case," says Graham E. Berry, right, with Gordon J. Calhoun.] For years, the Church of Scientology has been synonymous with bitter litigation battles. But the 40-year-old religious organization, long known for its aggressive legal tactics, threw in the towel recently on a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles that it had been waging against two critics. Besides serving as a legal setback, the action in ...

Police are investigating complaints that private investigators employed by the Church of Scientology, the cult created by L. Ron Hubbard, have intimidated witnesses and plaintiffs in forthcoming court cases. The cult, which claims to have 300,000 members in Britain and 8m worldwide, has attempted to undermine its critics after coming under severe financial pressure in this country. It is anxious to protect its funds which are set to be drained further by a series of expensive civil actions brought by former ...

GRAHAM E. BERRY, State Bar No. 128503 GORDON J. CALHOUN, State Bar No. 84509 LEWIS, D'AMATO, BRISBOIS & BISGAARD 221 N. Figueroa Street, Suite 1200 Los Angeles, California 90012 Telephone: (213) 250-1800 Attorneys for Defendants UWE GEERTZ, PH.D. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA No. CV 91-6426 HLH (Tx) DECLARATION OF VICKI AZNARAN RE: MOTION FOR COSTS Date: APRIL 4, 1994 Time: 10:00 a.m. Courtroom: 7 CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL, Plaintiff, VS. STEVEN FISHMAN and UWE GEERTZ, Defendants. —– ...

[This appears to be an OCR'ed version of a paper document. I wish to find a copy of the original document in order to fix the typos troughout.] —– To Whom It May Concern To the best of my memory - I, Lorna Levett was a Scientologist from 1961 to 1974, from 1966 to 1974 full time, from 1968 to 1974 a franchise holder and received rewards for being the top recruiter on the planet 1969 to 1970. In late 1969/early ...

The tangled murder-suicide case of a British stripper and her husband has prompted the slain man's children to file a civil suit against a psychiatrist whose handgun was used in the Sherman Oaks couple's deaths. The suit filed Friday in Van Nuys Superior Court also seeks unspecified damages against Eli Lilly & Co., the maker of the controversial antidepressant Prozac, claiming that Victoria Howden's use of the drug contributed to her June 10 murder of the children's father, Charles House, and ...

ROCKVILLE, Md. — A panel of experts told the Food and Drug Administration on Friday that there is no sound evidence to conclude that Prozac or any other antidepressant causes suicides or other violent behavior. The scientists said they were moved by the many stories they heard earlier in the day about suicides and other violence committed by people taking Prozac, but they voted 6 to 3 to recommend against any label changes for antidepressant drugs. A vote rejecting a link ...

The Food and Drug Administration has denied Scientology's Citizens Commission on Human Rights' (CCHR) petition to withdraw fluoxetine (Prozac) from the market, indicating in its report that CCHR's evidence was primarily based on five "unsubstantiated cases that cannot be adequately evaluated." The agency said that its Psychopharmacological Drugs Advisory Committee will review all pertinent data linking suicide and antidepressants in a late summer or early fall meeting. Although most of the media coverage has been about fluoxetine, the committee will look ...

WASHINGTON —The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday rejected a request by a group affiliated with the Church of Scientology that it ban the anti-depressant drug Prozac on grounds that it makes people suicidal and violent. The FDA released a letter to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights saying that it had found no evidence for these claims or for the commission's additional claims that Prozac is addictive and causes movement disorders. The agency said it had reviewed the evidence provided ...

INDIANAPOLIS —The Food and Drug Administration weighed in heavily on the side of Ell Lilly & Co. in rejecting claims that the popular anti-depressant drug Prozac is connected to murder, suicide or other maladies. The FDA action follows a yearlong campaign against Prozac by the Church of Scientology that had sought to persuade the federal agency, through a formal petition, to ban U.S. sales of the Lilly drug. But the FDA found that a Scientology-founded group called the Citizens Commission for ...

The following is the first of a two-part series to be concluded in the next issue. The impact of Scientology's ongoing war on psychiatry, now focused on the antidepressant drug Prozac, was a topic of discussion in the corridors and lecture halls of this year's annual meeting in New Orleans. Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration (ADAMHA) director Frederick Goodwin, M.D., discussed the anti-Prozac campaign of the Scientologist's antipsychiatry affiliate, the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). "The disingenuously named ...

A personal aide to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for eight of her nearly 20 years with the group says that fluoxetine (Prozac) and therapy have finally stopped the depression and suicidal ideation she had suffered since 1976. "I have to speak out." Hana (Eltringham) Whitfield told The Psychiatric Times. "The Scientologists choose the most prominent psychiatrists and the most successful drugs to attack. That's why they attacked Ritalin, and that's why they are now attacking Prozac." Although ...

MEMBERS of the Church of Scientology, described as a thriving cult of greed and power in a recent Time magazine expose have been linked to Cyprus through offshore company Theta Management Limited, which deals in consultancy and investments. In a special report dated May 6, Time reporter Richard Behar said the Church, which claims to have eight million followers, squirreled away an estimated $400 million in bank accounts in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Cyprus. Theta Management Ltd was created on 29.10.1984, on ...

After a whirlwind love affair with the media, fluoxetine's (Prozac's) fall from grace has been just as spectacular. Just over a year ago it was featured on the cover of Newsweek as a "wonder drug" that not only helped patients overcome major depression, but improved their social life, their careers, and their marriages. Patients testified on talk shows and in newspaper interviews that the drug made them feel even better than before they were sick. A small case report of six ...

Internal documents from the Church of Scientology, the parent organisation of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, indicate that behind the church's public battle to expose abuses of psychiatric patients lies a hidden plan of retribution. The documents contain evidence that some Australian Scientologists apparently have remained committed to a 30-year-old doctrine of revenge and intimidation against people the church describes as enemies. And while church members in Australia have been speaking out against psychiatric abuse, courts in the United States ...

WHEN a royal commission last year exposed atrocities at Chelmsford Private Hospital in New South Wales, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights scored dual victories: one public, one private. The first came with the release of Mr Justice Slattery's 12-volume report into the nightmarish "cuckoo's nest" of Chelmsford — a private hospital where the commission found that at least 24 people died as a result of deep-sleep therapy. Another 24 patients survived the treatment but later took their own lives, 19 ...

Scientologists Claim Prozac Induces Murder or Suicide, Though Evidence Is Scant Campaign Dismays Doctors INDIANAPOLIS—L. Ron Hubbard, the late founder of the Church of Scientology, long harbored a profound and obsessive hatred for psychiatrists, who, he declared, were "chosen as a vehicle to undermine and destroy the West!" Five years after Mr. Hubbard's death, Scientologists are still waging war on psychiatry. The quasi-religious/ business/ paramilitary organization's latest target is Prozac, the nation's top-selling medicine for severe depression. The group is calling ...

PARIS — The president of the French branch of the Church of Scientology and five colleagues have been arrested in a probe of alleged fraud and illegal practice of medicine, court and church officials said Saturday. The president, Daniele Gounord, was arrested Friday in Paris along with the church's treasurer and the head of a church foundation. They were placed under court supervision, but not jailed Three officials of the Scientologists' branch in Lyon were arrested there in the last 10 ...

Aides indulged his eccentricities and egotism. L. Ron Hubbard enjoyed being pampered. He surrounded himself with teen-age followers, whom he indoctrinated, treated like servants and cherished as though they were his own children. He called them the "Commodore's messengers." " 'Messenger!' " he would boom in the morning. "And we'd pull him out of bed," one recalled. The youngsters, whose parents belonged to Hubbard's Church of Scientology, would lay out his clothes, run his shower and help him dress. He taught ...