More McPherson Cover-Up Corroboration: “I Watched Them Drain $20 Million In Reserves”

Posted on November 28, 2012

New revelations in the 17-year Lisa McPherson saga keep coming as evidence mounts that the Church of Scientology spent tens of millions of dollars in an attempt to corrupt the investigative and judicial systems in the state of Florida.

Now, we have found more evidence from inside Scientology that tends to corroborate testimony given by Marty Rathbun, formerly the second-highest ranking official in the church.

Rathbun testified to Scientology’s huge expenditures that were used to influence attorneys and judges as the church tried to undermine a criminal investigation and then a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the McPherson estate and attorney Ken Dandar.

Now, another former Scientology official says he watched that money drain from Scientology’s accounts from his position as a treasury secretary inside the church.

We talked with Mat Pesch (pictured), a former longtime member of Scientology’s elite “Sea Org,” who was the treasury secretary of the Flag Service Organization (FSO), which operated Scientology’s spiritual mecca in Clearwater, Florida (known as the “Flag Land Base”).

“I watched them drain $20 million in reserves for the Lisa McPherson fight,” Pesch tells us.

Pesch was treasury secretary from 1995 to 2002, and his job was to keep the books for the FSO, which operated Scientology’s most lucrative enterprise, the hotels and conference rooms of “Flag,” where all church members must come for upper-level training on their way up the “Bridge to Total Freedom.”

“FSO is the golden goose of Scientology,” Pesch tells us. When he started at his position in 1995, FSO was pulling in about $1.7 million a week in revenue, about $300,000 of that was kept by the FSO in a financial planning account that was used to pay for expenses and payroll, and FSO had about $20 million in reserves.

Lisa McPherson was a troubled church member who had a breakdown in 1995 and then died after a 17-day stay at Flag’s Fort Harrison Hotel. Some time passed before the circumstances of her death became generally known, and by 1997 Scientology was embroiled in a criminal state investigation, and McPherson’s estate had filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit.

As that battle heated up, Pesch says he was told the FSO reserves would be accessed by the Office of Special Affairs — Scientology’s legal affairs and intelligence wing that pays for attorneys, private investigators, and covert operations.

Pesch says he watched as OSA steadily drained away the entire $20 million in reserves.

When that ran out, he says, OSA turned to his financial planning account — the money that was being used to keep FSO running, and which came to about $300,000 a week.

OSA asked him to start turning over about $100,000 of it, and suddenly, Pesch had to find a way to operate the FSO on a smaller budget.

Sea Org workers — who sign billion-year contracts — were only getting paid about $40 to begin with, he says, but they had to take pay cuts in order to help FSO fund OSA’s efforts to wage the Lisa McPherson battle.

Pesch says OSA was probably also drawing on other accounts, but he is only personally familiar with FSO’s accounts, and had to siphon off $100,000 a week for OSA.

“You’re getting pretty desperate when you’re pulling feathers and drawing blood from your golden goose,” he says.

Then, OSA wanted more. “During one year near the end of my time in that job, they wanted $200,000 a week. And for that entire year, everyone at FSO got paid only $10 a week,” Pesch says.

The only exception? For a few weeks, all members were returned to full pay — about $40 — so that they could all contribute to a present for church leader David Miscavige.

It was something they did every year, and there was nothing volunteer about it.

“There’s someone at the pay window making sure you turned in a certain percentage of your weekly pay for David Miscavige’s birthday present,” Pesch says, and his wife, former Sea Org worker Amy Scobee, agrees.

Pesch estimates that about $60,000 for a present was raised. Then everyone was moved back down to $10 a week.

Based on what Pesch told us, as well as what we’re hearing from other former executives we’ve talked to, it may turn out that Marty Rathbun’s estimate — that Scientology spent up to $30 million to fight the McPherson case — is actually substantially less than what was actually spent.

We asked Pesch if OSA ever told him what the money was used for. He said they told him vague things about medical experts and attorneys.

But then, for two or three weeks, someone screwed up, and Pesch found that FSO was being billed directly for a couple of OSA operatives. The OSA employees were being paid $1,000 a week each, and Pesch paid that from FSO accounts for two or three weeks until the error was discovered. “It caused a huge flap,” Pesch says when the error came to light. Quickly, OSA took back the billing on the two operatives.

We asked him what the two operatives were doing, according to the paperwork he saw.

Pesch says the two people very clearly described as infiltrators of the Lisa McPherson Trust.

The LMT was a non-profit formed in 1999 by businessman Robert Minton to organize protests in Clearwater, Florida and raise awareness of the circumstances of Lisa McPherson’s death.

We talked today with two of its former members, Mark Bunker and Jeff Jacobsen, who each said they had always had some suspicions about some of the people who became attached to the group before it disbanded in 2001. But neither of them had heard that two church operatives were being paid a weekly wage to infiltrate the group.

Pesch cannot today recall the names of the two operatives on the paperwork he handled, and after checking with former OSA employees, we have no solid evidence about who those two operatives might have been. We will continue to look into it further.

Pesch says he does remember the talks that OSA would give to explain where FSO’s money was going. “The staff was told this was all an attack from the mafia, the police, Interpol, Germany. Any invented enemy they could think of was all behind this Lisa McPherson attack. So we were needed to work hard and make money, and OSA would defend the church,” he says.

The state’s criminal investigation was derailed in 2000 when medical examiner Joan Wood changed the cause of McPherson’s death from “undetermined” to “accident” — under improper influence of the church, Rathbun says today. The civil suit was settled in 2004, and Rathbun testified that Judge Robert Beach was improperly influenced by an attorney hired by Scientology.

On December 7, Ken Dandar, who is facing $1.1 million in sanctions requested by Scientology, will present evidence to federal Judge Virginia Covington that there is enough evidence of a conspiracy to subvert the state courts to grant him an injunction against those state sanctions. And we expect until that date for even more revelations about this complex case to break loose.

from Tony Ortega's new site: http://tonyortega.org/2012/11/28/more-mcpherson-cover-up-corroboration-i-watched-them-drain-20-million-in-reserves/

Miscavige, Scared Of The Press & History

death of lisa mcpherson is cult leader's titanic, that keeps resurfacing

Earlier this week, the St. Petersburg Times did a special report on Scientology leader David Miscavige, but he couldn't find the time to do an interview that might affect the standing of his church, not to mention him personally.

After he was notified that the Times was going ahead with the printing without his input, he e-mailed a statement brow-beating them for not giving him a chance to "provide information annihilating the credibility of your sources". He goes on to say, "I am at a loss to comprehend how the St. Petersburg Times can publish a story about me and the religion I lead without accepting the offer to speak with me".

What David didn't realize, the Times also added the length of time he had been offered in a footnote: " Editor's note: The Times first requested an interview with Mr. Miscavige on May 13, and offered to meet with him in person, or interview him by telephone at any time since."

In more than a months time, he couldn't pick-up the phone to do a interview, but could arrange a "church spokesmen, executives, attorneys and others [to fly] in from around the country to meet with reporters in Clearwater. The parade started with ex-wives of the three male defectors. In 25 hours of meetings with reporters, the two church lawyers and two spokesmen extolled the accomplishments of David Miscavige and attacked the credibility of the defectors."

this was no accident of a busy schedule. this was policy.

Right out of Scientology's strategies for managing the news media

• Before taking with any Scientology PR or executive, a journalist must know that he or she will be talking to a fanatic -- a person seeking to save the world. This is exactly what Scientologists believe they are doing. Moreover, unless you stand ready to print a Scientology story exactly as presented, you will be viewed as an enemy.

• Realize that when you are dealing with a PR or official of the Church of Scientology, religious image is not only a vital PR defense (the ecclesiastical equivalent of wrapping oneself in the flag) but is also crucial for tax-exemption purposes and for court cases. Thus the PR must be sure to demonstrate that Scientology is "an applied religious philosophy." The PR will have many documents to "prove the religious bona fides" of Scientology (but lack anything to the contrary -- such as decisions or rulings -- of which he may honestly not know) .

• Politicians are notorious for responding to a question without answering it; Scientology PRs practice the skill for hours on end. The PR will drill how to answer simple questions about Scientology, how to "no-answer" a question, how to stall for time, and how to attack. (According to the original material, this included shouting, banging the desk, pointing at the reporter, and swearing.) [listen to audio sample of Tommy Davis, church spokesman, below]

• Depending on your story angle, you can easily find yourself buried by packs of documentation. Some are called "DA [dead agent] packs." Hubbard took the phrase from Sun-tzu's "The Art of War," in which different types of agents are described. The "dead agent" is the one who is caught in a lie. The "DA pack" is supposed to counter a lie (thereby rendering the liar "dead" as a credible source) and usually addresses a particular document, from a newspaper article to a book.
It is also used to discredit a person or a group that may be a source of criticism of Scientology. A DA pack can include anything from Hubbard's writings to a piece of press to an affidavit obtained by a private investigator.
The purpose is to refute the targeted piece, person or group at virtually any cost. If the article presents no clear-cut falsehoods or errors but paints Scientology in an unfavorable light, the DA becomes a general reply (usually an attack on the source) that may be issued as a pamphlet, an ad, or an article.
In Scientology, only trained PRs are supposed to talk to the press. If an exception is made, it will be only those that are proofed up or drilled or have a proven track record of talking to the media about Scientology, and then it is often with a PR present.

Example: Tommy Davis Looses It
Audio from Part 5 of St.Pete Times: The Church of Scientology's Response.

Another recent example of the Scientology-Run-Around is documented in Nathan Baca's blog (of KESQ News3) while trying to get an interview/tour scheduled at Golden Era Productions, Miscavige's home, earlier this year. Well, that never happened, but they did end up in Los Angeles interviewing, none other than, Tommy Davis. Small world.

the miscavige interview was never going to happen

The Lisa McPherson debacle that was all bought and paid for was about to resurface. And Miscavige was going to be queried on it.

Her death on Dec. 5, 1995, triggered nine years of investigations, lawsuits and worldwide press coverage. Alive on the Internet, it stains Scientology’s reputation still. Rathbun, who defected from Scientology’s staff in late 2004, admits that as prosecutors and attorneys for McPherson’s family prepared subpoenas, he ordered the destruction of incriminating evidence about her care at the Fort Harrison.

He and others who have left the church disclose for the first time that Miscavige was involved in McPherson’s Scientology counseling. Just weeks before her mental breakdown, they say, it was the leader himself who determined that she had reached an enhanced mental state that Scientologists call “clear.’’

The full story can be viewed in Death in Slow Motion: Part 2 of 3 in a special report on the Church of Scientology.

The Story Behind David Miscavige, Marty Rathburn and Lisa McPherson