The Scientology files

by Ned Seaton, Jane Meinhardt, Wayne Garcia

©St. Petersburg Times, published January 23, 1994

They never broke into church buildings or planted electronic bugs, but for the past 13 years, undercover Clearwater police detectives have investigated the Church of Scientology.

They never developed a case against the church that was prosecuted.

The work ranged from gathering Scientologists' names to seeking refunds for dissatisfied parishioners. Police once stormed Scientology headquarters after hearing anonymous allegations - unfounded, it turned out - that Scientology children were being strapped to gurneys and given electric shocks.

The investigation boils down to thousands of pages of reports and file cabinets full of tape recordings and books. Stacked up, the documents would reach 40 feet.

The Times recently gained access to the files through the state's public-records law.

"The city of Clearwater has an obligation to understand what, although now determined to be a religion, certainly in the eyes of many is a cult," said Clearwater Police Chief Sid Klein, who started the investigation in 1981.

Scientology officials blasted the police.

"No local police force in history has ever conducted a campaign of harassment such as this," Scientology spokesman Richard Haworth said in a written statement.

But the files indicate that in the 18 years since Scientology made Clearwater its intemational spiritual headquarters, police have heard from anonymous tipsters and former Scientologists accusing the organization of fraud and holding people against their will, among other things.

The files show that:

A Clearwater detective in 1984 tried to persuade Pinellas prosecutors to aggressively pursue Scientology. He produced a massive report, never before revealed. In it, he alleged Scientology was a money-making scheme that sold its services through fraudulent claims about Scientology's founder, science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, and his research.

"I believe I did the right thing," Lt. Raymond Emmons said last week. "I believed then and do now that it was a fraudulent enterprise."

The report didn't work. Emmons grew bitter after his probe failed to ignite interest in Pinellas prosecutors and other state and federal agencies.

Haworth scoffed at Emmons' report: "This police investigation reads like the National Enquirer."

Dissatisfied Scientologists who said they'd been ripped off by Scientology went to the cops. At least nine times parishioners filed formal complaints accusing the church of fraud and asked police to try to get back thousands of dollars in advance payments.

Five Scientologists visiting Clearwater for specialized counseling or training told police they were stranded after breaking with Scientology. They alleged Scientology was holding their money or had cashed in their promised round-trip airline tickets.

Scientology tried to ingratiate itself to the Police Department through its public relations efforts. Scientologists sent letters offering anti-drug programs and consulting. They tried to give awards to Clearwater police officers. The police consistently refused.

Scientologists have been harassed. People have attacked uniformed Scientologists in downtown Clearwater, screaming obscenities and throwing fists, eggs, beer cans and tomatoes. Scientology officials insist these are hate crimes. The files document one arrest.

Police gathered the names of some members and Scientologist-owned businesses from various public documents, including Scientologist publications. Church officials said this was tantamount to surveillance.

Scientologists are not immune from involvement in petty crimes, either as victims or as supects. From incidents involving stolen guitars in their Scientology-owned Hacienda Gardens apartments to being suspected of giving a beer to a minor, Scientologists show up in a few dozen routine police reports that were placed in the intelligence files. Overall, Klein said, "individual parishioners have not been a law enforcement problem."

Scientology's view

Within hours of being questioned by the Times Wednesday, Scientology flew lawyers and church leaders from Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. to Clearwater and made a public records request for the police documents. By Friday afternoon, Scientology officials said they were shocked by the scope of the probe and called it unconstitutional.

"This investigation is all about Scientology's beliefs being different than other beliefs," said Bill Walsh, a Washington lawyer for Scientology.

Scientology officials said they were considering taking legal action.

"Once we know our rights are being violated, we don't take that easily," said Kurt Weiland, a director of the Los Angeles-based Church of Scientology International.

Klein said the investigation was legal and warranted.

"I felt I had a responsibility to the citizens of Clearwater to be vigilant with regard to an international organization that had established a criminal predicate," Klein said, referring to 1978 convictions of nine top Scientology officials, including Hubbard's wife, in a plot to steal government documents from agencies including the IRS and the Department of Justice. Scientology leaders have said the nine were renegades who were excommunicated because of their actions.

Klein said that when he took the chief's job in early 1981, he discovered Scientology security officers patrolling downtown Clearwater. He was dismayed to find almost no intelligence reports about the organization.

He now says the Scientology investigation represents the most extensive collection of information on any organization in Clearwater police files.

"No regrets"

Scientology was founded in the 1950s by Hubbard, whose Dianetics: The Modem Science of Mental Health forms the foundation of the organization's beliefs. Scientology officials say court rulings and the Internal Revenue Service have deemed it a legitimate religion, but critics maintain it is a money-making scheme or cult.

Scientology dogma is based on Hubbard's complicated writings, which Scientologists view as the only workable guide to clear the mind of negative memories and move people to higher spiritual levels.

The Church of Scientology has been a force in Clearwater since 1975, when it moved to the Fort Harrison Hotel under the false name United Churches of Florida. When its real identity became known, a war between the city and the church began.

"During my time, (Scientology) was very secretive, and there were a lot of things that were done that we were concemed about," said Tony Shoemaker, who as Clearwater's city manager fiom 1977 to 1987 helped start the investigation. ""I don't regret what we did."

"Clearwater is practically in a state of siege," said Gabe Cazares, a former Clearwater mayor. "It's extremely important that law enforcement agencies keep abreast of what this organization is doing."

Even though there has never been a conviction?

"There's been many a criminal that did something wrong and didn't get caught," Clearwater Mayor Rita Garvey said.

Civil liberties experts said it's not clear if such a long-running investigation violates the constitutional right to free exercise of religion.

Robyn Blumner, executive director of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said police have an obligation to continue an investigation if an organization is implicated in complaints filed regularly.

"(Police) can't take a cry-wolf mentality and say that just because they haven't come up with a charge, the next person who comes to them must be lying," she said.

The Emmons probe

The investigation peaked in 1984 with a small task force and an aggressive Clearwater detective, Lt. Emmons. Working with Emmons were two state attorney's investigators, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigator, a Pinellas deputy sheriff and a part-time lawyer/consultant.

But in reports filed with his investigation, Emmons called the task force a sham. The others were either barely interested in the case or unable to devote the time needed, Emmons wrote in 1984.

Emmons forged ahead. He spent the better part of a year on Scientology, flying to Boston, Toronto and Washington, D.C., to meet with congressional aides and law-enforcement officials. Emmons also flew ex-Scientologists to Clearwater to give sworn statements.

Emmons concluded: "This particular organization is a multifaceted criminal enterprise employing many techniques of financial manipulations, diversionary cover-ups, deceit, extortion, kidnapping, for a common goal: to criminally enrich its founder, L. Ron Hubbard."

He wrote that in a 10-volume report bound in black notebooks - a report that began with quotes from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and the Bible - in an attempt to interest other authorities in a bigger investigation. He shipped it to then-State Attomey James T. Russell.

Russell said Friday that he impaneled a grand jury in 1979 that looked at Scientology. "I was working them pretty hard, but I don't think the records would ever stack up to indicate there was a crime."

Russell said Emmons' case wasn't prosecutable, either.

Scientology lawyer Michael Hertzberg said Friday that Emmons' conclusion has been repudiated by the IRS, which recently granted the church tax-exempt status. Emmons' allegations, and the kinds of intelligence gathered in the files, "chill the free exercise of religion," said Hertzberg.

Emmons retired in 1989. He declined an in-depth interview but did talk briefly about his disappointment: "I felt like I was hunting bear with a switch, and the people with guns were sitting on top of a hill, watching.

"I spent $150,000"

Other items in the Clearwater Scientology files include the allegations of Scientologists who say they were ripped off.

These types of cases have been publicized before: They normally involve dissatisfied parishioners trying to get refunds or their church bank accounts returned to them. In many cases, thousands of dollars are at stake.

Police files show that such complaints continued through at least 1992.

Take the case of Eric Gerken, a Fort Myers chiropractor.

He said he spent more than $200,000 on Scientology training over a three-year period, then broke with the organization in 1991. He said he was being urged to shun members of his family who were skeptical about Scientology.

Gerken said he asked the Clearwater-based Flag Service Organization arm of Scientology for a refund of more than $50,000 that he had pre-paid into his Flag account.

Scientology services for the many levels of training and counseling are expensive, rising to as much as $800 an hour. Scientologists are strongly urged to pay their "donations" for the services in advance.

For more than a year, according to police records, Gerken didn't get his money back. He finally went to Clearwater detectives and wrote to state consumer affairs investigators and the Times. Shortly after that, before police could interview him, he got $46,000 back and a visit from Haworth, who he said told him "no one needs bad PR."

Weiland had no explanation for Gerken's case but said Scientology policy requires refunding the payments if requested.

The Clearwater files document eight other cases of Scientologists trying to get their money back. In some cases, they did. The files do not document the outcome of all the cases. Other people never went to police, choosing instead to file civil lawsuits.

Stranded in Clearwater

Scientology's two resort hotels in Clearwater - the Fort Harrison and the Sandcastle - and their advanced training and counseling courses attract followers from around the world. The Clearwater Scientology files show that a few have had bad experiences.

In three documented cases, detectives helped five foreigners who were trying to get home or get help. In a fourth case, a German Scientologist wrote to his parents that he was held against his will, an allegation he later recanted.

Some said they were without money, which was held by Scientology officials after their arrival in Clearwater. Others said they were promised a round-trip airline ticket, which was cashed in by church officials by the time the parishioners wanted to leave.

In one case, two Italian men sought Clearwater police help in June 1987. The men said they were recruited in Italy to train in Clearwater as Scientology teachers. They said they were promised a salary, room and board.

But within two months of their arrival, they tried to flee. The man told police that Scientology didn't live up to its promises, that the "food was not the best, the working conditions were bad and the hours were long." They stated they worked from 12 to 14 hours a day, and maybe on a Sunday they would get three or four hours off.

Within a day, Scientology officials paid for their tickets home and helped them get to the airport. The officials blamed the problem on a misunderstanding.

Weiland said he was not familiar with that case but added that the number of police reports involving international visitors is minuscule given the roughly 900 foreigners who come each year to Clearwater to study Scientology.

The Clearwater police files also show some of the wild accusations against the church, some of which detectives took very seriously.

The most dramatic incident of this type came in 1989, when an anonymous caller said children were being strapped to gumeys and given electro-shock therapy in the Fort Harrison. The caller said two such children were in critical condition and being held in the hotel penthouse.

Two teams of detectives, armed with a hastily arranged search warrant, swept into the Fort Harrison within five hours of the calls, blowing past Scientology security guards. They found nothing.

"That anyone would give credence to an anonymous allegation such as this is indicative of the underlying bigotry that motivates these actions," Haworth wrote.

The probe continues

The investigation continues today. Klein said he could not estimate how much his department has spent on the probe, but he said there has not been a full-time investigator on the case since Emmons in the mid-1980s.

The files form the nucleus of a briefing that intelligence officers give to ranking city officials to teach them about Scientology.

Klein said he narrowed the investigation substantially after Emmons' efforts failed to spark more interest or prosecutions. Rather than investigating the church's overall structure, city police now respond to individual complaints.

Klein added that he was disappointed that other authorities never saw fit to take up the case.

"lt's always been frustrating, and it continues to this day," Klein said. "Basically, we've been on our own since day one.

- Times Associate Editor Lucy Morgan contributed to this story.

MONEY

The former Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, headquarters of the Church of Scientology's Flag Service Organization, takes in millions of dollars in donations for services each year, according to the Internal Revenue Service. In 1992, that totaled more than $74 million.

MEMBERS

According to Scientology estimates, more than 3,000 Clearwater residents are Scientologists. Another 750 are members of the uniformed Sea Organization and are staff at the various Scientology facilities in Clearwater. More than 12,000 visitors come to Clearwater each year for Flag services, many of which are not available anywhere else.

PROPERTY

The Church of Scientology owns about 20 properties worth an estimated $24-million in Clearwater, which is its spiritual headquarters. It has since the early 1980s fought against paying property taxes, arguing it is a tax-exempt religion. That court case is pending.