"Corrupt, sinister and dangerous" were the words used to describe the Church of Scientology in a judgment given by Mr Justice Latey this summer. He also referred to it as "immoral and socially obnoxious". But who controls the Church now? A major Sunday Times Magazine investigation into the activities of the cult in America and Britain has uncovered a disturbing and extraordinary story — the takeover of the organisation by a small band of youthful fanatics following the disappearance of the ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A $20 million-plus lawsuit has been filed by two branches of the Church of Scientology accusing a Boston lawyer, his brother, his law partner and a former Scientologist of violating the civil rights of church members. The federal lawsuit claims attorneys Michael Flynn and Thomas Hoffman, Washington, D.C. restaurateur Kevin Flynn and former Scientologist Laurel Sullivan conspired to violate the church members civil rights by a campaign of lies that led to government investigations and adverse publicity. ...

LOS ANGELES — Michael J. Flynn, a Boston lawyer, was piloting a light aircraft toward South Bend, Ind., in October 1979 when its engine quit mysteriously at 8,500 feet. After making an emergency landing, he said he found several quarts of water in the fuel tank. Since then, Mr. Flynn, who has led a legal battle against the Church of Scientology, a group that has long been the subject of Government investigations, says he has been followed by as many as ...

The young man — by all appearances a teen-ager — crouched on the dark, narrow stairway as he scrubbed the sixth-floor landing in the former Fort Harrison Hotel, the "Flag Land Base" headquarters of the Church of Scientology. "Are you in RPF?" queried a reporter. "Sir?" he asked quietly, peering up from his work. "Are you in RPF?" "Yes sir, I am." RPF is the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which, depending on who is speaking, is either a businessman's approach to ...

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, ...

Charges by church defectors that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard diverted more than $100 million in church funds to foreign bank accounts was described Wednesday as "garbage" by the sect's president. "I call it hyperspace junk writing," said Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International. The former senior church officials, who have testified about the church's inner workings in Los Angeles court, told the New York Times that Hubbard directed them to establish shell corporations to channel much of ...

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 ...