The promise of a free dinner in an estate-like atmosphere, plus live entertainment, were enough to entice Barbara Moke to spend her Saturday evening behind the gates of Church of Scientology's newest film studio. Moke, a volunteer at the Hemet Police Department, said her office received an invitation to the opening of The Castle, the sprawling film studio operated by Golden Era Productions in Gilman Hot Springs. "This is the perfect place for a party," she said, while partaking of the ...

The Scientologists prepare to open a studio in Gilman Hot Springs. Films will be educational and won't star Tom Cruise. Talk of movies and Scientology usually leads to mention of John Travolta and Tom Cruise. But don't expect to see the church's best-known members on the set when its new $7 million film studio in Gilman Hot Springs opens Saturday. Golden Era Productions makes religious training and education films, not blockbusters needing big-name talent to sell tickets, general manager Ken Hoden ...

The Church of Scientology International has settled a long-standing legal battle to repossess about 2,000 unpublished and copyrighted documents and keep them from being accessed by computer users in the future. Under a settlement reached in a U.S. district court earlier this month, a Colorado-based nonprofit group called FACTNet is permanently enjoined to pay the church $1 million if FACTNet is found guilty of future violations of church copyrights. FACTNet, started by former Scientologist Lawrence Wollersheim, also promised to return all ...

Quaint Clarkson, tucked away on the westernmost edge of Mississauga, seems as unlikely a place as any to find L. Ron Hubbard, sci-fi-writer-turned-icon and founder of the much-vilified Church of Scientology. But here, just past the picket fences and over the train tracks where the old post office used to be, the portrait that graces Hubbard's opus Dianetics: The Modern Science Of Mental Health – sailor cap, face turned upward, blue sky in the background – hangs in the foyer of ...

The Church of Scientology, stung by a five-part series in the Boston Herald that raised questions about its practices, has hired a private investigator to delve into the Herald reporter's private life. The Rev. Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, confirmed that the church's Los Angeles law firm hired the private investigative firm to look into the personal life of reporter Joseph Mallia, who wrote the series. "This investigation will have to look at what's riving this" coverage, ...

The Church of Scientology International is accusing two Web sites of trademark violation and is taking action to stop it. The church has threatened to see legal recourse against a Colorado Web site owner if he continues to run a site called "scientology-kills.net," which also sells T-shirts bearing the same phrase. In the second dispute, the church sent a letter to Tilman Hausherr of Berlin on Monday telling him to remove altered Scientology graphics from his CompuServe home page, which he ...

Type: Tort, intentional infliction of emotion distress, alter ego. Bench decision: Amendment of judgment - $6,025,857 ($4,649,328 renewed judgment plus $1,376,529 accrued interest). Case/Number: Larry Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology of California / C332027. Court/Date: L.A. Superior Central / Oct. 29, 1997. Judge: John P. Shook. Attorneys: Plaintiff - Craig J. Stein (Gartenberg, Jaffe, Gelfand & Stein, LLP, L.A.); Daniel A. Leipold, Cathy Shipe, Robert F. Donohue (Hagenbaugh & Murphy, Orange); Lita Schlosser (Encino); Ford Greene (Hub Law Offices, San Anselmo). ...

As if your article of pure innuendo (For some Scientologists, pilgrimage has been fatal) weren't enough, you've also continued to use discredited sources as "authoritative consultants" to forward your bigoted agenda. I won't detail how a similar article could be written about any religion. Indeed, I'd bet money that no newspaper in the United States has ever started isolating the death of the members of a religion. If you were to do it with the local Catholics, I am sure it ...

On Dec. 2, the IHT ran an article concerning the tragic death of the Scientologist Lisa Mc-Pherson ("Police Studying a Life and Death in Scientology") that had appeared on the front page of The New York Times the day before. The article was a biased distortion of the facts that used the tragedy of Ms. McPherson's death to present a misleading picture of the activities of the church and its members in the city of Clearwater, Florida. The church and its ...

TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 7 — A Federal immigration court judge has granted asylum to a German member of the Church of Scientology who claimed that she would be subjected to religious persecution had she been required to return to her homeland, the woman's lawyer and a Scientology official said today. While few details of the case were available, it is believed to be the first time the United States has given asylum protection to a Scientologist. The Church of Scientology has ...

Pressure from the Church of Scientology International was at least partly responsible for the recent shutdown of a well-known Internet messaging service based in Helsinki, according to the Finnish operator of the service. The service, known by its Internet address, anon.penet.fi, was used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to send and receive electronic messages without divulging their true identities. It was the best known of a small, global network of special computers known as remailers, whose legitimate users include ...

SAN FRANCISCO — Saying that the Church of Scientology has been playing "fast and loose with the judicial system," a federal appeals court has ordered the religious organization to pay nearly $3 million in attorneys fees to a former member it sued after he formed his own splinter group. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the unusual sanction against the church for years of litigation spawned by two 1985 suits it filed against David Mayo and others involved with ...