UPDATE: MARTY RATHBUN'S FIRST HAND ACCOUNT JUST POSTED (scroll to bottom)
Mark "Marty" Rathbun defected from the church in California 2004 and landed here in the bayside community hoping to put his life back together after enduring and participating in what he and other church critics say are abusive practices.
He now counsels other former church members, practices Scientology independently and maintains a website where he continues to criticize the organized church and network with other defectors and church critics.
From April to October 2011, a group of Scientologists and hired, non-Scientologist crew members tracked Rathbun, regularly filming him, his wife and visitors at their home, even tracking his movements when he traveled in and out of Texas. They claimed to be making a documentary but never produced the film. Neighbors, law enforcement and a cameraman who eventually left the group said their activities amounted to little more than a thinly veiled harassment campaign.
Rathbun attributed the unwanted attention to the church and its leader, David Miscavige. Rathbun was a top Miscavige lieutenant before he fled the church. The church has always denied stalking or harassing Rathbun but admits hiring licensed private investigators through attorneys. Church spokeswoman Karin Pouw said in an email that the church is trying to cut ties with anyone associated with Rathbun.
A lawsuit filed Sept. 20 in San Patricio County by two private investigators asserts that they worked directly for the church for decades, receiving lucrative monthly payments to track church defectors and opponents, including a man who claimed he — not Miscavige — was the rightful successor to L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who founded Scientology and died in 1986. Paul Marrick and Greg Arnold also claimed to surveil Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a former drug company executive, after he made disparaging comments about the church because of its opposition to psychiatric drugs.
The men's attorney, Ray Jeffrey, said his clients, former peace officers, dedicated 25 years to covert investigations for the church, but that recently, the church suddenly cut them off, violating a verbal contract. Their dismissal left them with a 25-year gap in their career history that they had no hope of explaining to any future employer, Jeffrey said.
The church issued a statement saying the lawsuit is a frivolous shakedown attempt for money. Its attorneys have filed motions to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction.
"There is no basis for this frivolous lawsuit, least of all in Texas courts," Pouw said.
One of Marrick and Arnold's most recent jobs for the church, Jeffrey said, was mapping out a way to watch Rathbun in Ingleside on the Bay.
The news came as a shock to Rathbun, who said that two decades earlier, as a top church official, he received regular reports from Marrick and Arnold on every move of Pat Broeker, the Hubbard associate who wanted to succeed the founder.
Now Rathbun was learning how his two prized investigators turned the tables on him.
The pair recently visited Rathbun with their attorney to show him how they operated several years earlier, identifying ways Rathbun could be watched and followed.
"They came down to sort of come up with the road map," Jeffrey said.
Rathbun believes that work paved the way for the Squirrel Busters — the film crews that followed him in 2011. "Squirrel" is a Scientology term for a heretic.
Now he believes he still is being watched, but not by the group that made headlines and drew neighbors' ire by creating a scene in their quiet town.
Since the lawsuit was filed, Rathbun said he noticed a stranger visiting a house down the street, within view of his home. Upon closer inspection, he saw a slit in the blinds.
Starting with property tax records, he was able to track down the renter of the home, Monty Drake, a licensed private investigator from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, who has rented there for about two years.
"There's a house I use for business out there," Drake said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I do security work. I'm not at liberty to talk about that to anybody."
He said he has never heard of Rathbun.
Later, Rathbun provided photos he shot from outside the home's window, showing two video cameras and a still camera just inside, and the viewing angle from that window to his own home, the direction the cameras were pointed.
Drake could not be reached for further comment.
_________________________________________
CHURCH STATEMENTS
These statements were provided by Karin Pouw, director of public affairs for the Church of Scientology International.
On the Paul Marrick and Greg Arnold lawsuit:
"The lawsuit filed in Texas on behalf of two out-of-state residents is nothing more than a transparent shakedown effort. This frivolous action stems from a decision to suspend a relationship with two independent contractors who provided various services on behalf of church counsel. Their collaborator, Marty Rathbun, a vehement apostate, a self-admitted suborner of perjury and a shameless self-promoter who was removed from his position of authority for malfeasance more than a decade ago, orchestrated their revisionist history. This action — along with the proliferation of Rathbun's fabrications, exaggerations and ever-shifting tales about his former activities with the church — reflect Rathbun's pathological obsession with seeking revenge on those who removed him and who oversaw his ecclesiastical discipline, as well as his inability to move on with his life.
The ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion has guided the church to an entirely new level, making available all basic scripture, completing all of Mr. Hubbard's training films, opening more than 30 Ideal Churches of Scientology, now at a rate of more than one a month, establishing state-of-the-art publishing and dissemination facilities with a new television station and our magnificent new Super Power building soon to open in Clearwater (Fla.). This is in addition to guiding the church through its most difficult times to an era of peace and overwhelming public interest in the religion. For accurate information about Scientology, seewww.scientology.org."
On the use of private investigators:
" ... it is not unusual for companies, as well as large tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations, to use licensed investigative services through an attorney. Such services of licensed investigative services provided to the church were paid for through counsel and are part of attorney/client-privileged information.
"The church has been on an ongoing program to eliminate all relationships with those who worked with or were associated with Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder."
- Discuss
The Rest of the Story – Scientology Inc. Spies
reference: Busted! Scientology Spies in South TexasIn the third week of November a documentary film crew arrived at our home for a ten day stint. The crew wanted to know all about Operations of David Miscavige’s Scientology Inc. carried out against Monique and me. I told them there had been no overt harassment to speak of going on around here since Nov 2, 2011 when the Miscavige Squirrels left town. There was only a deep-cover, constant surveillance operation.They pressed for particulars on the surveillance apparatus. I told them I assumed there were at least three safe houses in our town that were devoted to surveillance. I described how they would situate them so that they could alert tails in such a fashion that we could never spot a tail. They asked whether I had any suspicions about any of the houses involved. I casually pointed to a green house situated catty-corner to ours, 201 Bayshore Drive, apparently abandoned for the two years we’ve lived in our current locale. I noted small slits cut in the upstairs bedroom window blinds facing our home. I told them that if I had the time I could likely blow the whole thing wide open, but with all the other forms of resistance that gets thrown our way, and the importance of our activity, I don’t have the time to investigate it. So, we live with it. I told them I wasn’t too interested in fooling with it because it was David Miscavige’s intent to distract me from the more important work we do day in and day out; that the intent of Miscavige’s productions was to get into the target’s head; and that the way to get into Miscavige’s head is not let him get into yours, or as Jason Beghe says “the way to handle bullying is to not be bullied.”The crew was fascinated and began filming the green house with particular attention to the window. That was 22 September.The week before last the following scene was posted on my blog. Pictured are Paul Marrick, Greg Arnold, Tony Ortega, and three members of the documentary film production crew preparing for a tour of Ingleside on the Bay (IOB).The film crew recorded my drive through IOB with Paul and Greg narrating the two missions they conducted in the neighborhood in 2009. Their mission was to ‘case’ IOB in order to set up what Miscavige ordered to be a surveillance set up ‘ten times what we did for Broeker’, except this time on yours truly. Greg and Paul were brought in because the PI tailing me up to that time was, in the words of Greg and Paul, an amateur. He was not keeping David Miscavige sufficiently informed of every last action of my wife and me and so Miscavige wanted the heavyweights to come set the scene straight. The ‘amateur’, Monty Drake, had been Scientology Inc.’s Texas PI since 1988. In that year he worked on Rick and Vicki Aznaran (former Inspector General who was suing RTC) of Dallas. During the nineties Drake was assigned to scour every last detail of Lisa McPherson’s life, the woman whose life David Miscavige cut short in 1995. According the former Director of Special Affairs Scientology Dallas, Drake was also assigned to put the late-heretic Alan Walter to rest.Arnold and Marrick described their recommendations, which included the purchase or lease of at least three (3) safe houses for surveillance of me and my wife – just as I had long-ago predicted to my wife and several days previous had estimated to the film crew. Since that time we have moved to the other side of the town of 615 people. But, Drake was assigned to take Paul and Greg’s recommendations and implement them for our new location.I pointed out to Greg and Paul the suspicious circumstance in the home catty-corner to ours. Here is a shot of the home from my living room.201 Bayshore DriveThe back bedroom window facing our home – with the two blue splotches on it (from tape I have since applied to the window) had three cut outs in the closed blinds that looked as if they could be allowing cameras to surveil our home.As we completed our IOB tour and were heading down Bayshore Drive to our home, I noticed a grey Crown Victoria backing out of the driveway of 201 Bayshore Drive. As I pointed it out to the film crew and Arnold and Marrick, the car quickly reversed into forward and sped back into the home’s carport. In the thirty seconds it took us to arrive at the home, the driver of the car had secreted himself within the house.I dropped the crew and others off at my home. The crew wired me up and provided me with a camera as I walked to 201 to confront the mystery visitor. The car was gone. I banged on the door for some time. The home looked unlived in, and the door to the suspicious bedroom was closed shut. On the way out, I noticed the grey crown victoria had been put into the garage. So, the mystery visitor was inside, apparently hiding.Law enforcement officials traced the plates on the car to one Fidel Garcia Jr., of FNG Security, Corpus Christi and San Antonio. When I returned to my house, the grey crown victoria sped out of the garage and left IOB at at least 80 mph. Since no human forms had been seen at that house for two years, we all concluded that the Film Crew’s interest and the appearance of Marrick and Arnold (accompanied by three lawyers, including Sugar Ray Jeffrey) must have caused David Miscavige to choke – sending his PI in in the middle of the day to either attempt to clean out the house of equipment or adjust focuses on the cameras so that DM could make out the corps of media, lawyers and investigators who were congregating at my home.The next day I caused Garcia to meet me in a coffee shop in downtown Corpus Christi. When we met I told him that I knew what he was doing in the house on the corner across from mine. I told him about the people that he works for. I let him know that I could handle what he had been doing but I that I thought that he ought to search his conscience about what he was putting my wife through. Garcia, the 6′ 5″ sniveling coward denied knowledge of Scientology. Instead he claimed to be working on a confidential project for Kiewit Offshore Services (largest San Pat county employer, constructs and repairs oil rigs). He said it was a Security Department program that require a number of random investigators to come to the house in question periodically to take readings from a computer stationed there. He denied that there were any cameras in the house. I told Garcia that I would check on his story and if he was telling the truth, I would take him out to dinner and apologize for wasting his time; but that if I found he was lying he would take me out to dinner and sort out how he would make good with our family. Garcia agreed. The entire conversation was recorded by the documentary film crew; I bet you’ll see substantial portions of it sometime around Spring or Summer next year.I visited the head of security at Kiewit who told me that Mr. Garcia was lying through his teeth. He was not employed by Kiewit and Kiewit had no operations whatsoever off their own plant premises.In the meantime, I found out that the lessee of the home in question (201 Bayshore Drive) was one Monty Drake.Mark Collette of the Corpus Christi Caller Times then phoned Fidel Garcia to confront him with his lies to me. Garcia held to his Kiewit story. Collette then called Monty Drake. Drake denied any connection to Scientology, but did admit to ‘doing business’ at 201 Bayshore.I then phoned Mr. Garcia to call in the promise he had made to me at the coffee shop several days before.You can hear that conversation here:I then phoned Monty Drake to give him an opportunity to make good for the crimes he had committed against my family. Drake confirmed he had been at 201 for ‘longer’ than I had lived in my current home.You can hear my discussion with Drake here:Drake hung up the phone while I was clarifying his admission that he had been at 201 Bayshore for longer than I had been in my current home. I knew Drake was lying even about that.In fact, Drake leased 201 Bayshore drive, the very same day that Monique and I moved into our current home. November 1, 2010. Drake knew that I was moving into my home a couple weeks before that date, because Scientology Inc. was surveilling me visiting our new home two weeks in advance when I was making improvements in preparation for our Nov 1 move in.I also learned that shortly after the film documentary crew began taking overt interest in 201 Bayshore, 22 Sept, Drake re-signed a THREE YEAR lease on 201 Bayshore, more than a month before his current leased expired. David Miscavige has committed to pay 1,500/month for the next three years to be next to me when he was alarmed that I might force him to leave me and my wife alone. All told, in lease payments alone, Miscavige has committed to spending $90,000 in church of Scientology parishioner donations for 201 Bayshore Drive in IOB, 40% of which has already been spent.Now, for the photos the Caller Times did not publish. First, there was more than one video camera. There are TWO, in addition to the still camera.Third cameraIncidentally, the still camera’s telephoto lens appears to be about a foot and one half long. As Monique put it, “strong enough to read the ingredients from the containers of the food we eat”, particularly since it is trained on our living room, dining room, and kitchen.In addition to the three cameras, the Miscavige bedroom was outfitted with a desktop computer and a laptop computer on a desk with a chair. All three cameras were connected by wiring to the computer set up. Clearly, David Miscavige had it all set up so that he personally could watch my wife and me 24/7/365 from the comfort of his bunker near Hemet, California.Message to David Miscavige:Don’t send boys to do a man’s work.
0 comments:
Post a Comment