Citizen Complaint Count 5

(Martin Ottmann)

Count 5: Covert intelligence operations against IRS-officials that were executed during the early 1990s by the "Office of Special Affairs International" and that included the attempt of buying information on private matters.

On March 9th, 1997 the "New York Times" reported in an article that prior to the decision of the IRS to grant Scientology tax-exempt status, IRS-officials and employees had been subject to systematic harassment and surveillance by private investigators hired by the Office of Special Affairs [Exh. No. 169]. One part of the article described the operations that were executed by OSA-employee Ben Shaw and directed by OSA-attorney Kendrick Moxon:

" The church's war had a covert side, too, and its soldiers were private investigators. While there have been previous articles about the church's use of private investigators, the full extent of its effort against the IRS is only now coming to light through interviews and records provided to The New York Times.

"Octavio Pena, a private investigator in Fort Lee, N. J., achieved a measure of renown in the late 1980s when he helped expose problems within the Internal Revenue Service while working on a case for Jordache Enterprises, the jeans manufacturer.

"In the summer of 1989, Pena disclosed in an interview, a man who identified himself as Ben Shaw came to his office. Shaw, who said he was a Scientologist, explained that the church was concerned about IRS corruption and would pay $1 million for Pena to investigate IRS officials, Pena said.

"`I had had an early experience with the Scientologists, and I told him that I didn't feel comfortable with him, even though he was willing to pay me $1 million,' Pena said. Scientology officials acknowledged that Shaw worked for the church at the time, but they scoffed at the notion that he had tried to hire Pena. `The Martians were offered $2 million; that's our answer,' said Moxon, whose firm often hired private investigators for the church.

"Michael L. Shomers, another private investigator, said he shared none of Pena's qualms, at least initially. Describing his work on behalf of Scientology in a series of interviews, Shomers said that he and his boss, Thomas J. Krywucki, worked for the church for at least 18 months in 1990 and 1991.

"Working from his Maryland office, he said, he set up a phony operation, the Washington News Bureau, to pose as a reporter and gather information about church critics. He also said he had infiltrated IRS conferences to gather information about officials who might be skipping meetings, drinking too much or having affairs.

"`I was looking for vulnerabilities,' Shomers said. Shomers said he had turned over information to his Scientology contact about officials who seemed to drink too much. He also said he once spent several hours wooing a female IRS official in a bar at a conference, then provided her name and personal information about her to Scientology.

"In one instance, information that Shomers said he had gathered at an IRS conference in the Pocono Mountains was turned over to an associate of Jack Anderson, the columnist, and appeared in one of Anderson's columns criticizing top IRS managers for high living at taxpayer expense.

"Shomers said he had received his instructions in meetings with a man who identified himself as Jake Thorn and said he was connected with the church. Shomers said he believed the name was a pseudonym.

"Shomers said he had looked into several apartment buildings in Pennsylvania owned by three IRS officials. He obtained public files to determine whether the buildings had violated housing codes, he said, and interviewed residents looking for complaints, but found none.

"In July 1991, Shomers said, he posed as a member of the IRS whistle-blowers coalition and worked with a producer and cameraman from NBC-TV to get information about a conference for senior IRS officials in Walnut Creek, Calif. The producer said that she recalled Shomers as a representative of the whistle-blowers, but knew nothing of his connection to Scientology. The segment never ran.

"At one point, Shomers said, he slipped into a meeting room at the Embassy Suites, where the conference was held, and took a stack of internal IRS documents. He said he mailed the material to an address provided by his church contact.

"Krywucki acknowledged that he had worked for Scientology's lawyers in 1990 and 1991, though he declined to discuss what he did. He said he would ask the lawyers for permission to speak about the inquiry, but he failed to return telephone calls after that conversation.

"It is impossible to verify all of Shomers' statements or determine whether his actions were based on specific instructions from church representatives. He said he had often been paid in cash and sometimes by checks from Bowles & Moxon, a Los Angeles law firm that served as the church's lead counsel. He said he had not retained any of the paychecks.

"Shomers provided The New York Times with copies of records that he said he had obtained for the church as well as copies of hotel receipts showing that he had stayed at hotels where the IRS held three conferences, in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and California. He also provided copies of business cards, with fake names, that he said had been created for the phony news bureau in Washington and copies of photographs taken as part of his surveillance work.

"One of the IRS officials investigated by Shomers recalled that a private investigator had been snooping around properties he managed on behalf of himself and two other midlevel agency officials.

"The official, Arthur C. Scholz, who has since left the IRS, said he was alerted by tenants that a man who identified himself as a private investigator had questioned tenants about him and the other landlords. He said the tenants had not recalled the man's name but had noted that he was driving a car with Maryland license plates.

"`He went to the courthouse and found the properties, and then went out banging on doors of these tenants and made a number of allegations dealing with things that were totally bull,' said Scholz, who had no involvement with the IRS review of Scientology and was at a loss to explain why the church would have been interested in him. `I notified the local police about it.'

"Shomers, who has since left the private-investigation business, said he was willing to describe his work for the church because he had come to distrust Scientology and because of a financial dispute with Krywucki.

"Moxon, the Scientology lawyer, said the IRS was well aware of the church's use of private investigators to expose agency abuses when it granted the exemptions. Moxon did not deny hiring Shomers, but he said the activities described by Shomers to The New York Times were legal and proper. Moxon and other church lawyers said the church needed to use private investigators to counter lies spread by rogue government agents. "

In an article of its July 1992 edition the "American Lawyer" portrayed the various attorneys that had been employed by the Church of Scientology during the 1980s and 1990s [Exh. No. 170]. The article also featured the use of private investigators by Scientology. In the course of its research for the report, the journal contacted four investigators who had worked on assignments for Scientology. One investigator, who wanted to remain anonymous, stated he was told by the law firm Bowles & Moxon "to do thorough investigations on people and he was urged "trying to find dirt." Three of the four private detectives confirmed that an assignment for Scientology included the investigation of a subject's family, friends and neighbors.

Five months later OSA's interest in the private life of its perceived enemies became the subject of a court case. A private investigator, Ted Heisig, had divulged information which he had obtained through surveillance of Est-founder and Scientology-rival Jack Rosenberg ("Werner Erhard), to the "L. A. Times" and was consequently sued by Bowles & Moxon, as they had hired him to conduct the investigation. A default judgement was entered in 1994. (Bowles & Moxon vs. Ted J. Heisig, Jr., Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, No. BC 071626)

Count 6: The non-disclosure of the role and the activities within the "Guardian's Office" (GO) of certain employees of CSI and other Scientology-organizations during the settlement negotiations with the IRS in 1992/1993.

In one of the supporting documents of the tax-exempt application, in which the "Church of Scientology International" (CSI) was answering questions by the Internal Revenue Code, CSI stated the following [Exh. No. 171]:

"None of the individuals involved in the criminal activities of the Guardian's Office are serving on the staff of any organization within the Church hierarchy at the level of Class V Church or above.

"During the reform and disbandment of the G. O. in the years 1981 through 1983, we kept a record of the names of individuals we found to have been involved in illegal activities, who condoned them, or who were in a position where they should have known and done something to stop them. Any individuals who were found at that time to be on staff were dismissed and informed never to apply for re-employment."

Despite of the above assertions it is a fact, that CSI, its Office of Special Affairs network and other Scientology organizations currently employ or have employed former members of the Guardian's Office, who were either involved in illegal activities or who were in a position of having had knowledge about them.

On April 2nd, 1976 an internal list of U. S. "Guardian's Personnel" was distributed for limited use among the members of the GO [Exh. No. 172]. The list contained several names of individuals that work today or who have worked during the 1980s and 1990s for Scientology organizations within the United States.

Not only were several of these individuals directly or indirectly involved with the criminal activities of the Guardian's Office, but they had in fact leading positions within the American GO-network. Ten years later these individuals can be found on similar executive positions within the "Church of Scientology International."

What follows is a table with the names of some of the individuals, their position within the GO and their present or last known position within the Church of Scientology:

Name
GO-Position in 1976
Last known position
Year
Heber Jentzsch
Assistant Guardian PR
President CSI (OSA Int.)
2001
Kendrick Moxon
Assistant Guardian Legal
Lead Attorney (OSA Int.)
2001
Wendell Reynolds
Assistant Guardian Finance
CO Golden Era Prod.
1995
Fred Ulan
D/Assistant Guardian PR
Exec. Director CCHR Int.
1989
Nicholas McNaughton
Assistant Guardian
Secretary CSI (OSA Int.)
1986
Ben Shaw
Assistant Guardian Intelligence
CO OSA Clearwater
2001
Brian Anderson
Assistant Guardian PR
OSA PR Clearwater
1997

At the time of the GO-burglaries, Heber Jentzsch, Brian Anderson and Fred Ulan worked in the Public Relations Bureau of the Guardian's Office in Los Angeles. A Public Relations Officer worked at the receiving end of the operations of the Intelligence Bureau ("B 1") within the Guardian's Office. PR was being constantly fed with negative material to be used against Scientology's "enemies." Therefore the persons who worked in PR must have known about the character of operations the Intelligence Bureau was involved in.

An internal GO-message from April 6th, 1976 shows such exchange of negative information on a Scientology critic and how deeply the PR-personnel were entrenched with illegal activities [Exh. No. 173]. The writer of this message, presumably Artie Maren ("Deputy Guardian PR US"), requested from the chief of the Intelligence Bureau, Richard Weigand, more negative material on the love life ("2 D") of New York writer Paulette Cooper:

"Sit: Flag needs Paulette Cooper 2 D crimes.

"Data: Gloria Leonard, PRC Officer ("PR Collection Officer"), spent 4 ½ hours looking through Cooper folder in B1. From what she reports the following would be items PR would like to use, if possible. According to Gloria was all obtained from a 1973 Time Track.

"A. Cooper enjoys sex with belts and whips -- made statements in front of people concerning this.

"B. She several times went to a perverted type "club" where they get to meet people of similar sexual orientation.

"C. She went out with a married man, was caught on living room floor by wife. "

During the 1970s Paulette Cooper was one of the most harassed Scientology critics in the United States, because she had dared to write a critical book about Hubbard and Scientology in 1971. Her private life was infiltrated by Scientology agents. She was sued 18 times by the organization. In one GO-operation against Cooper, an agent stole her stationary, another formulated a bomb threat letter on the paper and sent it to a Scientology organization, which reported it to the police. As a result of this Cooper was temporarily arrested and indicted. She was finally cleared in 1977 after the FBI had found out that she was set up by the Guardian's Office.

The second page of the featured document reveals that Fred Ulan, the "Deputy Assistant Guardian for PR" in Clearwater was directly involved in the operation to find more "2 D crimes" on Cooper. The participation in such a criminal operation did not seem to hurt his career within Scientology. In 1989 he was holding the position of Executive Director of the "Citizens Commission on Human Rights" and was featured in the Scientology-magazine "Impact" [Exh. No. 174, Excerpt].

The involvement with the Guardian's Office Public Relations Bureau did not have negative consequences for Heber Jentzsch and Brian Anderson either. In 1981 Jentzsch became the President of CSI, a position that was later integrated within OSA International. Brian Anderson also worked for the Office of Special Affairs International during the 1980s, before he was assigned in 1994 to work in Clearwater first as CO OSA CW and later as OSA-PR Officer [Exh. No. 175, Excerpt].

A higher standard with regards to involvement and responsibility for such criminal activities applies to Wendell Reynolds, Nicholas McNaughton and Ben Shaw. Due to their positions they directly oversaw intelligence operations or, in the case of Wendell Reynolds, financed them. Again, this involvement did not stop them from obtaining high positions within the Church of Scientology at a later date, when according to CSI's statements, such people should have been dismissed from employment.

Wendell Reynolds became in 1982 the "Finance Dictator" (sic) of the newly created "International Finance Office" [Exh. No. 176, Excerpt]. In 1995 he was listed as the "Commanding Officer Golden Era Productions" in an issue of the internal Scientology-magazine "Highwinds" [Exh. No. 177, Excerpt].

After the Guardian's Office had been dissolved, Nicholas McNaughton re-appeared as a corporative officer for CSI in a document from 1986 [Exh. No. 178] and worked for the Office of Special Affairs at least until 1990.

In the 1980s and 1990s the former "Assistant Guardian for Intelligence" in Miami, Ben Shaw went on conducting intelligence operations for the Office of Special Affairs [Exh. No. 169], before he became the "Commanding Officer" for the Office of Special Affairs in Clearwater in 1997 [Exh. No. 179].

The already in Count 4 cited "American Lawyer"-article from 1992 discussed not only the methods of Scientology-investigators in the post-GO era but also mentioned the involvement of OSA-attorney Moxon in the criminal activities of the GO [Exh. No 170]:

"Moxon for example has a long history with the church. In the late 1970s he served a stint as the `District for Columbia Assistant Guardian for the Legal Bureau,' working in the very office where massive covert operations against the government were being run at the time, according to a stipulation of evidence that was agreed to by all parties in the 1979 federal criminal case against nine church leaders.

"'It's true that I was there doing legal work as a paralegal,' says Moxon, 42, who received his J. D. from George Mason University School of Law in 1983. But he denies knowledge of the criminal operations being run out of the office: `I wasn't aware of it.'"

Moxon was not only aware of the illegalities but he even committed one, by submitting fake handwriting samples of fugitive Michael Meisner to the government [Exh. No. 180, Excerpt]. This action was part of a cover-up operation to disguise Michael Meisner's affiliation with Scientology, after GO-agents Meisner and Gerald Wolfe had been detected by FBI-agents inside the Federal court building in Washington.

Moxon's allegation that he was not aware of the other criminal activities is also not credible as his own wife Carla Moxon in her function as "Assistant Guardian Communicator" participated in the bugging of the IRS-conference room on November 1st, 1974 [Exh. No. 181, Excerpt]. Consequently the government named both in the criminal case as unindicted co-conspirators (United States vs. Mary Sue Hubbard et al, No. 78-401, Response to informal Bill of Particulars, January 11th, 1979) [Exh. No. 182, Excerpt].

Despite such past, Moxon has been for years CSI's chief litigator. In 1987 he and Timothy Bowles established with Bowles & Moxon the first Scientology in-house law firm. While it should appear to the public, as if Moxon would work on behalf of a client, f. e. CSI and other entities, Bowles & Moxon and his present law firm, Moxon & Kobrin, have been integrated in the organizational structure of the Office of Special Affairs. An internal personnel list from 1990 shows that Bowles & Moxon were indeed part of the "Legal Bureau" of the "Office of Special Affairs US" and under the command of the Executive Bureau [Exh. No. 183], together with other ex-GO staff like Brian Anderson or Nicholas McNaughton.

On a photo of the 1995-edition of the internal Sea Organization-magazine "Highwinds" Moxon was again presented as an integrated part of the "OSA Int.'s legal affairs team" [Exh. No. 184, Excerpt].

At its time of existence the Guardian's Office operated a worldwide network, similar as the Office of Special Affairs today. Inevitably, due to the nature of its operations, it committed criminal acts not only in the United States but in other countries as well. In Canada, for example, a jury found the Church of Scientology of Toronto guilty of Breach of Trust after members of the Guardian's Office had infiltrated during the 1970s offices of the Ontario government and three police agencies [Exh. No. 185]. Similar illegal operations were conducted by the GO in Denmark, England, Germany and Sweden.

The same ambiguity the "clean-up"-mission under David Miscavige applied in dismissing certain US-GO staff, while integrating others within the new-formed Office of Special Affairs, was used upon the foreign GO-personnel too. Several foreign GO-staff had been involved in criminal activities, but still they were found acceptable for later service within the new network of Scientology organizations. Two GO-staff from Germany even landed on senior executive positions at OSA International:

Edith Büchele was a GO-operative in the Scientology-organization of Munich. When I interviewed a former GO-staff in February 1998, he stated that Büchele had worked as a cover agent for Scientology and infiltrated the Max Planck-Institute of Psychiatry in Munich. During the early 1970s the Institute was declared a main opponent by the Scientologists, after it had commented critically the activities of Scientology. The German Guardian's Office initiated lawsuits and covert operations against it. Büchele was finally successfully placed at the Institute as a secretary and started to obtain there inside information for the GO in Munich.

When a final clean up of the Guardian's Office headquarters in England was announced to the press in 1983, of all people Büchele was announced to be the "Director of External Affairs." Büchele announced that she had "excommunicated" 12 former GO-staff and "uncovered a complete mess" at the GO [Exh. No. 186, Excerpt]. England was not the last employment for Büchele: Five years after her "clean-up mission" at East Grinstead she was mentioned in a newspaper article as being the "Chief Officer" of OSA International [Exh. No. 187].

At the time of the filing of the application for tax-exemption in August 1993, the former Austrian citizen Kurt Weiland had the position of "Commanding Officer of the Office of Special Affairs International" (CO OSA Int.).

CSI did not bother to mention in its declarations about the Guardian's Office that Kurt Weiland had been a public official for the GO in Germany from September 1975 until 1980, and that he had been found guilty for defamation by the District Court in Munich, Germany on April 5th, 1978. This judgement was later affirmed by the Munich Appeals Court on April 13th, 1978 ("In the criminal matter against Kurt Weiland," Landgericht München I, Case-Number: 25 Ns 265 Js 30519/77) [Exh. No. 188]. Due to his young age of 20 years at the time of the defamation, Weiland was only sentenced to a fine.

Prior to this judgement Weiland was sued by Haack in a civil suit, which ended with a final injunction on June 23rd, 1976 before the District Court in Munich against Weiland ("Friedrich Wilhelm Haack vs. Kurt Weiland," Landgericht München I, Case Number: 9 O 20370/75 (3558)).

The origin for those suits were allegations made in 1975 through a leaflet published by Weiland, saying that Friedrich-Wilhelm Haack in his function as a Protestant priest had violated the seal of confession by selling intimate information about a woman to a porn magazine. The late Haack had been an outspoken critic of Scientology in Germany. As official spokesperson for inter-religious affairs he had openly criticized certain activities of the Scientologists. The German Guardian's Office in return declared him its main enemy and started various operations against him: Haack was sued several times, Scientologists attempted to infiltrate his offices and the GO wrote several letters to Haack's superiors in the Protestant Church to have him removed from his position. In one letter addressed to Haack, Weiland compared Haack's criticism of Scientology with the Nazi persecution of the Jews [Exh. No. 189].

During the earlier mentioned deposition from 1996, Weiland recapitulated his various positions in Scientology management, after he had left the German Guardian's Office in 1981 [Exh. No. 190, Excerpt]: First he joined the Danish corporation "Advanced Organization Saint Hill for Europe & Africa" (AOSH EU & AF) and later "New Era Publications International," both located in Copenhagen, before he was employed by the "Religious Technology Center" in around 1984. In 1987 Weiland became the "Commanding Officer OSA International," a position he was holding during the upcoming seven years. In 1994 he was demoted to a "Deputy Commanding Officer OSA International." Additionally to the above "ecclesiastical" positions within OSA Int., Weiland became a corporate executive of CSI, namely he joined its Board of Directors.

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