The Black Bag Department

See my announcement on Friday — I am revisiting earlier posts during my vacation. Each day there will be a different one.

Marty has been doing a good job of exposing the unalterable policies of the church concerning dealing with perceived enemies.

One aspect not much discussed is who are the “outside professionals” hired to do the dirty work.

And while there is a lot that is done by Sea Org OSA staff, Class V (local DSAs like Mark Warburg and John Carmichael) and public Scientologists (John Allender, Ed Bryan and Co) there is work that requires specific skills, including licenses to carry and/or needs more distance from “the church” to afford a measure of plausible deniability.

There are quite a number of these “outside professionals” that are ostensibly hired by lawyers, but in reality are run directly by church staff either in RTC or OSA. The subterfuge of using “lawyers” like Elliot Abelson and Rick Moxon, both of whom are “in-house” attorneys whose livelihood (and in the case of Moxon, family) depends upon doing what the church asks them. They are mere window-dressing to try to cloak the activities and reports of these “pros” (and the OSA/RTC staff who run them) with a privilege. This privilege is then abused in discovery with virtually everything that might prove incriminating being withheld as “confidential” and outside the scope of discovery due to some sort of attorney-client or attorney-work-product privilege being asserted.

Some of the story is being revealed in the Monique Rathbun lawsuit with David Lubow and Monty Drake and Greg Sloat as defendants. We have seen the first indications of the sleazy tactics the church will employ to try to cover up their tortious activities, but we are also seeing that Judge Waldrip is not buying their stories. It will be interesting to see how this plays out — I predict that as this case goes forward it is going to become abundantly clear that the church has engaged in a massive cover up of what they have really been doing. And it will become clear that it extends far beyond the activities directly related to this case. I suspect it might unravel the whole sordid mess. 

But let me get back to my actual point.

Many of the “outside professionals” hired by the church have engaged in, or witnessed activities that may or may not be criminal, though many are probably tortious. Invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, interference with business relations etc etc. And a lot that may be debatable as to whether they are either a criminal or civil wrong but there is no debate that they are morally reprehensible.

“Scientologist David Lubow” (this is how Judge Waldrip repeatedly and accurately refers to him) is more visible than most as he has been the front man sent across the country to be in Marty and my face. He showed up in Los Angeles and Arizona and Texas and Florida and there is a lot of video footage of him and his antics posted on Marty’s blog and on YouTube. (Often accompanied by his video-taping buddy Bart Parr — Lubow has other cameramen he has sent around the world, most famously “Chris” featured in Bryan Seymour’s program in Australia). Previously Lubow was the designated hitter for Bob Minton (Marty and I have both discussed this at length).

The recent posting about Robert MacLean (Shelly Miscavige Guarded By Armed PI’s)reminded me that there are a lot of other “hired professionals” out there who know things that have gone down in the dirty tricks department. They are all constrained to some degree or another by Non-Disclosure Agreements, but they also have a moral obligation to tell the truth and to make known violations of the law, including violation of individual’s rights. And if they are subpoena’d they are obliged to tell the truth.

I would be willing to bet money that Robert MacLean was part of a security detail at CST Mile High provided by Talon Executive Services.  It was one of the questions he “no answered” when put to him by Tony Ortega.  Mr. Maclean’s non-denials spoke loudly.  Talon was started and is run by Ron Williams, a former Secret Service Agent. I dealt with Ron Williams for many years. He was the “go-to” guy in LA that provided armed ex-law enforcement private security people for Miscavige when he was out in public or at events. He helped set up the lines to the LAPD Bomb Squad to have their sniffer dogs come in before any event that Miscavige was attending to check for bombs. He has an extensive network of armed former law enforcement people on his payroll. And the church was one of his biggest clients.

Which brings us to Miscavige’s private security. For many years, that function was performed by Ted Banas, another former cop. He was with Miscavige 24/7, there were additional armed security personnel when Miscavige was at an event, but Ted was always there. When Miscavige was in Clearwater directing the Lisa McPherson case from 1998 through 2001, Ted was there with him. So long in fact that he married Penny Atwell-Jones and moved to Clearwater. I do not know Ted’s current status. He was a nice guy. He also knows a LOT of the real scene of Miscavige and his life.  He was with Miscavige from when he got up in the morning to when he went to sleep at night. He went to the movies with him. Scuba diving with him. Flew to England for the IAS event and anywhere else in the world that Miscavige traveled. He was part of the Miscavige entourage for many years. He may still be.

There was another ex-LAPD guy named Ken Rice who also did personal security for Miscavige at events. Mostly in LA but he was also flown to the UK and to the Freewinds and Flag. He was a very large man with a gentle demeanor who had been one of the LAPD cops involved in the massive shootout with the Black Panthers in 1969. I don’t know if he is still around.

These were the primary people who dealt with Miscavige personal security.

Then there are many others who dealt with all sorts of other matters, many not so savory.

Gene Ingram is the godfather of Scientology PI’s in the Miscavige era. He was put out to pasture many years ago after a number of incidents where he was accused of impersonating a police officer and other shady actions. I think there was even an arrest warrant issued for him in Tampa. Ingram set up the Gerry Armstrong operation and investigated the LRH forged check scam that Marty Rathbun has written about. He was the author of many investigation tactics to “get in people’s faces” (a “noisy” investigation) — see Marty Rathbun’s post about Russell Miller a few days ago.  Dave Lubow is Ingram’s protege and replacement. Lubow previously worked for Ingram in his ATV rental business and learned his trade from his boss and eventually graduated to his own business (“Falcon Industries Inc.” dba “Falcon Business Services”).  Lubow prides himself on his skills with electronic surveillance and setting up false identities.

Also in Los Angeles, but very much behind the scenes is Russ Andrews. He is the husband of Fran Andrews who runs CCHR International. For many years Russ has been the “go-to” guy to get phone and financial records and run plates and get criminal record checks done. Nobody ever wants to know how this is accomplished, but it is a well-known fact that there are people who cultivate “friends” in the phone companies and banks who like to make a little extra cash. This is how the church tracks down a lot of connections — finding out what numbers someone has been calling or receiving calls from tells you a LOT. And of course, financial information can be a goldmine.

In Clearwater, the “go-to” guy is Brian Raftery. He is a former DEA Agent who now runs a PI and Security firm. His PI’s are the ones at the front door of the Ft Harrison, 24/7. He provides additional security for Miscavige when he is in town. He also conducts investigations and was the person who tried to get Jesse Prince busted for growing marijuana. The other fixture of the Clearwater scene is Ken Cramer, a local Scientologist who does research. While he is known as a “CCHR guy” he does extensive “research” on “attackers” and “enemies” when OSA needs someone “looked into.” He and Ben Shaw used to run the “D line” (taking someone’s garbage and sorting through it) on people from the Lisa McPherson Trust. This is still an ongoing practice, though now turned over to “outside pros” — the guy who recently conducted the “d-line” on me also did surveillance on Robert Almblad and cut down the trees in front of the office we were renting so they could do electronic surveillance on it. Funny no mention of this has been made with respect to the Rathbun’s, it is a certainty that they paid people to collect their garbage — or at least tried to and there ARE reports about this).

For many years there was also a former FBI Terrorism expert who consulted the church named Bob Quigley out of Washington DC.  I believe he was an investigator that had been used by Jerry Feffer (Monique Yingling’s now deceased husband) at Williams and Connolly in DC and that Jerry made the introduction to him. I doubt Bob knows a lot and I doubt he is still involved with the church at all, but he may be….

The “go-to” guy for the IAS has for many years been a Private Security consultant from New York named Ed Seidlick. Seidlick was previously (I think) the interpol liaison for some law enforcement agency. He has connections all over the world in law enforcement, and thus was used by the IAS to help “safepoint” the Freewinds and ensure security was good for IAS events. He would be flown in to the UK each year for the annual IAS event and be the local coordination point with UK law enforcement. 

And speaking of the UK, there was a guy there by the name of James Hunt who worked closely with Bob Keenan (the “LRH PPRO UK” but really “Miscavige’s pet in the UK”). Hunt was the “go-to” guy for Keenan and worked extensively on the investigation into John Sweeney (which is how I met him). He hired others, set up surveillance and who knows what else. I am not sure of his background, I only met him a couple of times with Keenan. He is particularly interesting though because of this connection with Keenan. As I said, Keenan was Miscavige’s pet in the UK — and Miscavige wanted to move Keenan to the US. Keenan was not enthused about this idea as he told me he didnt want to be under the level of scrutiny and control (and he could see the writing on the wall, every single person who had EVER been one of “Miscavige’s pets” had eventually been busted and become the butt of endless Miscavige “jokes”). But after I left, and Marty had already gone, Keenan was brought to LA to “deal with the problem” of Marty Rathbun. He reportedly brought James Hunt to the US to be his “go-to” guy on investigating/”handling” Marty Rathbun. Who knows what they actually did, but he would be a very interesting person to talk to. Keenan shortly thereafter routed out of the Sea Org and has a cushy job doing very little for a lot of money for a Scientologist whale in Brighton, England. Like Tommy Davis and Angie Blankenship (both former Miscavige pets), he is not speaking out about what he knows or the abuses he was involved in, and somehow he is no longer in the Sea Org but remains “in good standing” with no money problems.

There are of course many others who are out there. Private investigators, private security, consultants and “muscle” (like Ralph Gomez in Texas).

These people have information that would help put an end to the abuses.

They all have a moral obligation to make this information known.

They should be known for what they are — agents of the church who carry out much of the really discreditable stuff the church engages in.

If I think of others, or receive tips from readers who know others who should be added to this list, I will do additional postings on the subject.

More people need to speak up to put an end to the abuses.