Religion: Judge says Cult Awareness Network must let church members attend L.A. convention. But conference organizers fear longtime foes will disrupt activities. Members of the Church of Scientology won a court victory over a longtime foe Friday, clearing the way for a group of Scientologists to attend the Cult Awareness Network's national convention in Los Angeles next week. The ruling in Los Angeles County Superior Court is the latest development in an escalating feud between the two organizations. The battle erupted ...

BOSTON — Scientologists, long a target of deprogrammers, have gone to court to try to turn the tables, claiming that they were illegally barred from joining an anti-cult group. In a flurry of lawsuits filed around the nation, dozens of members of the Church of Scientology said they tried to join the Cult Awareness Network but were rejected because of their church affiliation. Many of the lawsuits were filed last week after a federal grand jury indicted three alleged members of ...

Seven self-professed "parishioners" of the Church of Scientology have filed religious discrimination lawsuits against the Cult Awareness Network and five members of the group, including a Glendale resident, in Glendale Superior Court. In the lawsuits, filed Friday and Monday, the plaintiffs allege that they have been denied access to the Cult Awareness Network's national convention, to be held in November, on grounds of their religious beliefs. The seven lawsuits — practically identical except for the plaintiffs' names — claim that the ...

Members of a group led by a supporter of the Church of Scientology have alerted Glendale police to alleged "deprogramming" activities of a Glendale woman. Kevin Hulce, a member of the Church of Scientology, along with two members of the Deprogramming Survivor's Network, accused Priscilla Coates of conspiring with Hulce's parents to turn him away from the religious group formed by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. "Because Priscilla Coates lives in Glendale, Kevin thought the police might like ...

The tale of Jon and Stacy Roberts and the Church of Scientology is the story of a typical couple, in many ways, who were looking for answers. When the financial advice they sought turned into spiritual guidance, the couple began to regret the direction their search had taken. In the process, they gave more than $100,000 to the Church of Scientology and an organization connected with it. Now they want to warn others not to do the same. Jon Roberts filed ...

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to pay the Church of Scientology $16,881 for legal fees it incurred during a two-year battle over records requested under the Freedom of Information Act. In 1989, the Scientologists filed a request for any government files indicating that the church had been designated a "tax protester." The IRS refused to turn over that information, and the Scientologists filed suit to force its release. Eventually, the IRS turned over a ...

A controversial drug and alcohol abuse center in north-central Oklahoma achieved a big victory Friday in its two-year battle for state approval. Less than a year after calling Narconon Chilocco New Life Center's treatment program unsafe and experimental, the Oklahoma Board of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services voted unanimously Friday to exempt the facility from a state requirement to be certified. The decision came after Narconon showed it had gained approval from a private organization, the Commission for Accreditation of ...

SANTA CLARA — Former employees of Applied Materials have filed suit alleging that the Silicon Valley manufacturing firm forced them to undergo Church of Scientology seminars. Trial proceedings began Tuesday as lawyers for both sides argued motions before Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Frank Cliff. In their suit, former employees Steven Hunziker, Virginia Sanders and Kate Schuchmann allege that Applied Materials hired an outside firm to teach workers communication and time-management skills. But the seminar firm, Applied Scholastics of Fremont, ...

The Church of Scientology uses private detectives and bulldog litigators to pursue its numerous detractors. It also hires low-key establishment lawyers who work quietly within the system. So who is directing the $416 million libel suit against Time? On April 27, 1992, lawyers for the Church of Scientology International filed a $416 million libel action in federal court in New York against Time Warner, Inc., Time Inc. Magazine Company [Time Warner is a partner in American Lawyer Media, L.P.], and writer ...

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit by two Scientologists who claimed former Pinellas Democratic Chairman Gabe Cazares violated Florida's hate crimes law by ejecting them from a meeting. Cazares said the outcome showed that "their tactic of trying to silence their critics and enemies by threats of suits under the hate crimes law is a tactic that will not work." However, Paul Johnson, the attorney who represented the two Scientologists, intends to file an amended version of the lawsuit next week, ...

An Ontario prosecution sparked by police raids in California during the 1970s has led to the conviction of the Church of Scientology of Toronto and three of its members on breach-of-trust charges. A jury that deliberated for two days after a two-month trial also acquitted the Toronto organization of three charges and found two other members not guilty. Despite the verdicts, which will lead to a sentencing hearing Aug. 12 and 13, the legal battle over espionage activities by Scientologists for ...

The Church of Scientology says it will appeal a federal judge's decision to dismiss its lawsuit against an executive at the Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co., the maker of Prozac. The suit claimed Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. maligned the church in comments published in USA Today's. The Arlington, Va.-based newspaper was not named in the suit.

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has been sued for supporting and funding a campaign of bigotry and prejudice against minority religions, spearheaded by one of its own faculty members, psychiatrist Dr. Louis Jolyn West. UCLA's Board of Regents, UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young and West are named in the suit as information in documents obtained from the University through the Freedom of Information Act showed West has been using UCLA's authority and funding to help run a hate campaign ...

Two members of the Church of Scientology have charged that a professor at UCLA has wrongly used his position and state funds to take part in anti-religious activities. They refer specifically to the professor's participation in two anti-cult organizations, the Cult Awareness Network and the American Family Foundation. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by UCLA extension students Mario Magorski and John Van Dyke, members of the Church of Scientology. They allege that the professor, Louis ...

A libel lawsuit filed by the Church of Scientology against Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., VP of corporate affairs for Eli Lilly & Co., was dismissed May 29 by a federal judge in Virginia. Daniels was sued for calling the Church a "commercial enterprise" in a question-and-answer article that ran in USA Today last June 11. The church had criticized Lilly for its Prozac anti-depressant drug.

A Scientologist sent to investigate the head office of the church branch allegedly responsible for dirty tricks and spying says he was sickened by what he saw. "I was disgusted. I was sickened to my bones," Norman Starkey, 48, of Los Angeles testified yesterday. Starkey was a defence witness at the jury trial of the Toronto branch of the Church of Scientology and five of its members on breach of trust charges. The charges are in connection with agents infiltrating the ...

INDIANAPOLIS — A federal judge in Arlington, Va., on Friday dismissed a $20-million libel lawsuit that the Church of Scientology had filed against an executive with Eli Lilly & Co., the maker of Prozac. The lawsuit accused Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., a vice president of the Indianapolis-based pharmaceuticals company, of maligning the church in comments published in USA Today. The newspaper was not named as a defendant. The church believes that Prozac, an antidepressant, is unsafe and can lead to suicidal ...

LOS ANGELES — The Church of Scientology International sued Eli Lilly & Co. for $14.7 million, alleging the pharmaceutical maker pressured a public relations firm to drop the church as a client. The church and Eli Lilly have long been at odds over the drug maker's sale of Prozac. The scientologists say the antidepressant can be harmful, even fatal. The suit, filed Friday in federal court, names as defendants Lilly, the British advertising conglomerate WPP Group, its chief executive officer, Martin ...

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY sues Time Warner for libel. The church seeks $416 million in punitive damages for an April 1991 cover story in Time magazine, a unit of Time Warner Inc. The article called the church a "Mafia-like" cult and alleged criminal activities by its leaders. The suit alleges that a biased reporter was put on the story and that the article was false and defamatory. A spokesman for Time, based in New York, said the magazine stands by the article ...

The highest libel award in Canadian history just got sweeter for a top crown attorney. In a ruling yesterday, a judge rejected the Church of Scientology's bid to slash the record $1.6 million damage award for libelling Crown Attorney Casey Hill. Instead, Mr. Justice Douglas Carruthers ordered the church and lawyer Morris Manning, a co-defendant, to pay pre-judgment interest to Hill on a portion of the damages, calculated at 10 per cent a year since 1985, when the lawsuit was launched. ...

Canada's costliest libel loss became even costlier yesterday when an Ontario Court judge not only confirmed a $1.6-million jury award but tacked on legal fees and about $560,000 in interest. In a written decision, Mr. Justice Douglas Carruthers rejected arguments by lawyers for the Toronto-based Church of Scientology and lawyer Morris Manning that he should reduce the jury award to S. Casey Hill on the grounds that it was unreasonably high. Judge Carruthers of the Ontario Court's General Division said he ...

The Worldwide Institute of Scientology Enterprises has sued other critics in the past, but now they are taking on a religious group for the first time. "I just don't think they realize potentially what kind of Pandora's box they are opening here," says Craig Branch, southeast director of Watchman Fellowship (WF), one of the groups being sued. "One of the questions is whether Christian organizations have the right . . . to publicly speak out against groups that are in conflict ...

A Church of Scientology minister is suing the provincial government for the right to conduct marriage ceremonies. Andrew Sharman, who was ordained a minister in the Church of Scientology in 1987, says the Ontario government's refusal to authorize him to solemnize marriages is a denial of his religious rights under provincial and federal law. "I don't understand it, my parishioners don't understand it and my church doesn't understand it," Sharman, 42, said yesterday. "I am an ordained minister and under the ...