The 19 people charged in connection with an investigation of the Church of Scientology of Toronto include employees of the Ontario Provincial Police, Metro Toronto Police, the RCMP and the Ministry of the Attorney-General, according to information the OPP has sworn before a justice of the peace. And the alleged stolen documents the church is charged with possessing include photocopies of files belonging to legal firms, the Canadian Mental Health Association, the Ontario Medical Association, the College of Physicians and Surgeons ...

The Church of Scientology of Toronto will petition the Supreme Court of Ontario Monday asking that a search warrant executed last year be quashed, although the Ontario Provincial Police have already used it to raid the sect's headquarters and seize 14 million documents. Investigators armed with the warrant raided the sect's Toronto headquarters in March 1983 and seized 904 boxes of papers and documents believed to substantiate suspected sect fraud, conspiracy, breaking and entering and theft, according to the warrant ...

The United States Treasury Department's Criminal Investigations Division has mounted an in-depth investigation into the activities of the Clearwater-based Church of Scientology, the Clearwater Sun has learned. In the past several weeks, Treasury agents have traveled across the United States interviewing a number of former Scientologists—including some who held positions of immense power and influence in the worldwide sect prior to their defection, sources said. Spokesmen for the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service in Tampa and Los Angeles, citing Department ...

How much evidence do area law enforcement agencies need before launching a full-scale investigation of the Church of Scientology? Apparently the agencies hereabouts are a lot less responsive than they are in Ontario, Canada. The same sworn statements alleging criminal activity on the part of the locally-headquartered sect given to authorities in the Tampa Bay area have prompted action by the Ontario Provincial Police and resulted in the dismissal in California of a civil suit against former Scientology archivist Gerald Armstrong. ...

Several former high-ranking Church of Scientology officials have provided state, federal and municipal law enforcement investigators with detailed information regarding the Clearwater-based sect's alleged criminal activities in the Tampa Bay area, the Clearwater Sun has learned. Although the same testimony provided to investigators in Clearwater has furthered large-scale criminal investigations in Canada and resulted in court rulings against the sect in California, no similar action has been implemented in the Clearwater area, a seven-month Sun inquiry has determined. And Gerald Armstrong, ...

L. Ron Hubbard, the controversial and elusive founder of the Church of Scientology, is nothing if not a prophet. In 1949, while still known principally as an author of science fiction, he was reported to have told a lecture audience, "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." Conventional clerics may dispute Hubbard's theology but they can't refute his economics. By ...

Former officials of the Church of Scientology say they helped L. Ron Hubbard, the reclusive founder of the cult-like organization, to secretly divert more than $100 million from the church into foreign bank accounts he controlled. The organization, long a subject of investigations in this country, Britain, France, Australia, South Africa, Spain and elsewhere, has maintained that Mr. Hubbard cut his ties to it in the mid-1970's, that he has received only a token consulting fee of $35,000 annually since then ...