Eberle & J o r d a n 225 West Broadway, Suite 500 Glendale, California 91204 (213)224-8479 Ms. Chris Ripley GLA Legal Affairs 1306 N. Berendo Los Angeles, CA 90027 September 19, 1983 Dear Ms. Ripley: I am writing to you because I am concerned about a recent trend I have detected in your handling of the many claims against the Church of Scientology which are being handled by this office. You have recently been requesting additional documentation from my clients and requiring them to complete nonsensical routing forms based on nitpicking review of the documentation they have submitted. As I have informed the church in previous correspondence, the documentation submitted by my clients is strictly an accomodation to assist your internal burocratic procedures. However, in each and every case the documentation submitted with the original claim has been more than adequate to identify the accounts involved. I understand that the church has circulated a policy statement advocating delay in procesising repayment claims. As I have indicated to the church previously such delay will only result in my clients filing suit against the church for much larger amounts than they are now claiming, with the attendant bad publicity for the church. This office has been very lenient with the church to date. Your dilatory tactics are now forcing this office and our clients to take more agressive action to obtain relief. Several lawsuits are imminent. Several of my clients have been contacted concerning an investigation of church activities in Florida and will now be supplying information to authorities there. A number of clients will also be pushing for investigation of church activities here in California. Only your prompt processing of the repayment requests many of which have been pending since June can save the church from costly litigation and judicial scrutiny. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation. Sincerly, Clamore Dale Eberle To Whom It May Concern: My name is Charlene Fassa. I live at 4451 Lauderdale Ave in Glendale, Califonia, county of Los Angeles. My maiden name, Charlene Kushner, is on some of the Church of Scientology documents which I've enclosed with this testimony. On August 16th, 1983, I filed for a repayment of funds from the Church of Scientology with legal counsel from Eberle and Jordan, attornies of law. I had retained the attornies to represent me and to correspond with the necessary Church principals in order to avoid anticipated loss of my time and coercion from Church members. My anxiety of the Church's coercive tactics were founded on actual prior experiences with the Church's "Financial Police", among other actions, plus my awareness of other former Church members' accounts of trying to deal fairly with the Church. You may know that the term "repayment" is the Church's own label for return of payments to them for funds not utilized for services. In short, my money, paid in advance to my account and unused to date. The amount left in my Church of Scientogy account is 2622.00 dollars. I've enclosed Xerox copies of Church invoices to subsantiate that claim. Also, you'll find a copy of my letter of resignation from the Church of Scientology. The letter explains my current viewpiont on the Church and briefly outlines my experience with the Church's "Financial Police". If the Church, continues to ignore my repayment request, and if your office requires, more information. for it's investigation of Church financial. activities, I shall be happy to provide you and your associates with more detailed and documented reports on the Financial Police and the Church's "Guardian's Office". But, for now, I'll return to the issue at hand. Sometime after my claim was sent to the Church by attornies Eberle and Jordan, I was notified by a Ms. Chris Ripley that she was in charge of the repayment cycle. She seemed professional and was reasuring in her manner at first. Then, her subsequant communications were frought with delays and attempts to undermine my relationship of counsel with attorney David Jordan by circumventing him, communicating directly with me, and implying that Mr. Jordan's legal intervention was the prime source of delay. Most recently, her latest ploy was to renounce my claim, stating that there is only seven dollars in my account. This contradicts the Church's own financial statement which was sent to me. Her only point is that the Church has no copies of my checks to them, which she claimed are necessary to satisfy the Claims Verification Board's requirements before a repayment claim. can be approved. I wonder what happens if one pays them in cash. I shall explain the circumstances which make it impossible to provide anyone with cancelled checks of my most recent "contribution" to the Church. In November of 1981, I gave the Church $4,420.00 for twenty-five hours of advanced spiritual counseling. I was put near the bottom of a long waiting list as the Church's delivery was slow and those who had paid more were put at the top. Unfortunatly, the Church's ability to deliver did not exceed the ability of others more well off than I to keep putting more money into the Church. Regardless of how recently someone came in with more money, that person would be placed ahead of me. Spirituality to the highest bidder. During my hopeless wait for service, some changes were made by the Church. One was the usual1 price increase. The other was the inception of what the Church has labeled "Eligability Auditing". what the added was a subtle method of interogation to determine if one is worthy of receiving upper level counseling. The same high price is charged for this interogation, and I'm not sure whether this is an expression of their paranoia or a devious method of extracting more money from it's gullible following. It's probably both. In order to get what I wanted in services, a loan shark scheme was set up by an Advanced Organization member. Her name is Enid Byrne. She was a registrar(salesperson), and she was aided by Field Staff Member(field salesperson)Doug Nagey. They arranged for a loan for me of $4,000.00. The interest rate'was 20%, and the principle and interest had to be paid within one month. If I went along with this I was promised a special package which compensated for the counseling time I had lost with their security checks. My Ace was a small parcel of real estate in Indiana which could be mortgaged. The month given to pay their loan was almost enough to obtain the mortgage. I needed a short extension and got it, but I had to pay the interest for the extra time(another month). The actual loan which they arranged was from an outside scource, an individual "investor". His name was not rvealed to me. I payed back the loan through Doug Nagey with a cashier's check from the Bank of Indiana, Gary Indiana. Doug got his commission from the Church, the loan shark,er, "investor" got his interest, and Enid Byrne got her quota for that month. That is why I cannot provide the Church with cancelled checks to prove my payment of $4,000 in September of 1982. Their records show that,however. The $4,000 was given to the Church in September by the "investor" through Doug Nagey. My $4,000 went to the outside scource of money. My subsequent disenchantment with the Church of Scientology(the organization, not the subject) is outlined in the letter of resignation which which I have enclosed. I certainly do want the remaining $2622.00 in my acount. I have filed a complaint also with the LA Dept. of Consumer Fraud. I am quite willing to sue for more money if necessary. The Church has obtained well over ten times the amount left in my account over the past few years. It has only been recently that I have become fully cognizant of it's increasinly mercenary and heartless activities. Again, I will do whatever is necessry to obtian justice from this group. They have betrayed me, the subject of Scientology, and the trust of religous groups in general Please assist me with the newly passed City Ordinance #3091-83. I am sure that I can provide you with more information of violations by the Church. Especially violations against Sections 100.5 and 100.6 of the Ordinance. Please stay in touch. Sincerely, Charlene Fassa To: Heber Jentzch From: Charlene Fassa President, Church of Scientology 4451 Lauderdale Av. c/o GO LA Glendale, CA 91214 1306 N. Berendo Street Los Angeles, CA 90027 To Whom It May Concern: This is to inform you of my new position regarding the Church of Scientology. This change of viewpoint was precipitated by the Gestapo-like actions of the Financial Police --how can Financial Police be justified in a spiritual movement? These "police" epitomized for me the dichotomy which exists in the Church itself. How can the enforcement and inhibition of communication lead to a greater freedom for the individual or the group? It was at a meeting in the office of R.G. Stewart and Co. that I first encountered the Financial Police. This was one day in mid-March at about 10:00 pm. I was shocked at the tactics I observed there. To be specific, after being verbally ordered by Finance Police E/O Don Larson to go to Flag within two weeks to do the KSW Course, a lady said it would be impossible for her as she was sole proprietor and carrying out the order would hurt her business. She was escorted from the room and told very loudly by Larson that she had CI. There was a distinct inhibition of communication and at the same time an enforcement of reality. You must go to Flag immediately or else you'll, be at the mercy of Justice International and you'll be barred from all training and processing until you go. These were outright threats of punishment: a pain/punishment drive to control a cowering group. I refused to go along with this low tone dramatization and began systematically inspecting the Church and its actions. This led to a long and thorough doubt formula application, the conclusion of which is to disconnect from the Church. I really got three feet behind the Church and observed. I observed the staffs, the prices being charged for services, the speed and quality of service, and the expensive and enforced HCO Set-Checks "used to determine the eligibility for acceptance to the OT levels". I looked at the amount of wholesale declares of highly trained OT's and longtime staff members, the highly touted intimidation of the mission-holders, the stop on Operation.4th Dynamic, the abolishment of the "com-line Magazine", the demise of the "Who, What, Where", the encouragement and increased activity of close friends writing each other up and subtle fear of questioning the Church in any way, shape or form. I also looked at the Org's products and my own gains and was able to clearly distinguish between the Orgs, their personalities, LRH,and the subject and technoloqy of Scientology. I found the Tech to be excellent, but the para-military vehicle used to administer and disseminate the subject and its technology creates a dichotomy. The tech is a purely spiritual endeavor, but the structure to deliver it is suppressive. It is suppressive to its own stated goals. [See definition #l of group in the Modern Management Technology Dictionary (here, group is defined as an entity). Also, observe the amount of Grade 0 in the orgs and, after looking at the prices for services, see if this is the route to clearing the planet.] Look through the Central Files and see the thousands of people who have never returned for more services. Are they all SP's, PTS or MWH cases? Look over your six million members: how many are OTIII, how many NOTS? I wonder why this is really such a low ratio. The prices for the OT levels are prohibitive for many, especially young people with families. I don't care if a Mercedes-Benz costs $35,0OO or more. Are we to compare MEST values with Theta? It's a little like comparing rats and men. The old-time behavioral psychologists tried that already! 2. I suggest that all Church members take a good, objective look at the areas I've mentioned. Only by observation can something be true for an individual. I suggest strongly that the current Church management be disbanded in order to regain the spirituality and the humanitarianism so lacking in upper management actions. It's illogical to think that a dictatorship will allow for freedom of the individual. The Church is a dictatorship and is determined to control as many aspects of its members lives as it can. To be a slave to a religious group in order to achieve total freedom is in itself a deceptive dichotomy. The technology of Scientology will live on with or without the Church of Scientology and is doing so right now in the Field. The Field is growing in leaps and bounds. The Field has proven that high prices and dictatorial mandates are not necessary for'the application of Scientology. I do appreciate the in- dividuals in the organization who have helped me up to NOTS completion, and I hope they come to an understanding of their true situations and act accordingly. I will not sacrifice my freedom and integrity as an individual for the false security the Church offers its members. I do suggest that all individuals con- nected with the Church carefully read the Creed of the Church and the HCO/PL "An Essay on Management", then look at what is actually going on and then decide what group to support. I hereby resign from the Church of Scientology. Any threats or harassment will be dealt with through legal channels. Sincerely, Charlene Fassa