Reporters' Daily Transcript (June 4, 1984)
Armstrong 1SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
DEPARTMENT NO. 57 HON. PAUL G. BRECKENRIDGE, JR., JUDGE
| CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff, vs. GERALD ARMSTRONG, Defendant. MARY SUE HUBBARD, Intervenor. |
) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) |
No. C 420153 |
REPORTERS’ DAILY TRANSCRIPT
Monday, June 4, 1984
Volume 24
Pages 4161 to 4364, incl.
| APPEARANCES: (See Appearances Page) |
NANCY L. HARRIS, CSR #644 HERB CANNON, CSR #1923 Official Reporters |
APPEARANCES:
| For the Plaintiff: | PETERSON & BRYNAN BY: JOHN G. PETERSON8530 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 407 Beverly Hills, California 90211 (213) 659-9965 -and- ROBERT N. HARRIS The Oviatt Building 617 South Olive Street Suite 915 Los Angeles, California 90014 (213) 623-7511 |
| For the Intervenor: | LITT & STORMER BY: BARRETT S. LITT Paramount Plaza 3550 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 1200 Los Angeles, California 90010 (213) 386-4303 -and- BARRETT S. LITT BY: MICHAEL S. MAGNUSON The Oviatt Building 617 South Olive Street Suite 1000 Los Angeles, California 90014 (213) 623-7511 |
| For the Defendant: | CONTOS & BUNCH BY: MICHAEL J. FLYNN - and - JULIA DRAGOJEVIC 5855 Topanga Canyon Boulevard| Suite 400 Woodland Hills, California 91367 (213) 716-9400 |
| INDEX FOR VOLUME 24 | Pages 4161 — 4364, incl. |
||
| DAY | DATE | PAGE |
|
| Monday | June 4, 1984 | A.M. | 4161 |
| P.M. | 4259 | ||
WITNESSES
| PLAINTIFF’S | DIRECT | CROSS | REDIRECT | RECROSS |
| REEVE, Donna | 4161-H | 4195 | 4205-H | 4206 |
| 4207-H | 4208 | |||
| 4208-H | 4208 | |||
| SPURLOCK, Lyman | 4210-H | 4213 | ||
| KOON, Dan | 4215-H | 4217 | 4223 | |
| GAMBOA, Terri | 4226-H | 4263 | 4289-H | 4290 |
| SOMMER, Michael | 4291-L | 4317 | 4326-H | |
| YOUNG, Vaughn | 4329-L | 4350 | 4362-L | 4363 |
EXHIBITS
| PLAINTIFF’S: | FOR IDENTIFICATION |
|
| 93 - HCO PL 3-1-65 | 4182 | |
| 94 - HCO PL 3-17-65 Issue II | 4184 |
|
| 95 - HCO PL 8-16-65 Issue II | 4185 | |
| 96 - HCO PL 12-23-65 | 4186 | |
| 97 - HCO PL 5-16-80 | 4189 | |
| 98 - HCO PL 10-6-70 Issue III | 4193 | |
| 99 - Suppressive Person Declare Mike Somme 6-11-83 | 4295 | |
| 100 - Book, Introduction to Scientology Ethics by L. Ron Hubbard | 4304 | |
| 101 - HCO PL 11-16-71 revised 11-16-73 | 4309 | |
| 102 - Board PL 11-16-71 revised & reissued 9-6-75 | 4314 | |
II
INDEX FOR VOLUME 24 (Continued)
| PLAINTIFF’S: | FOR IDENTIFICATION |
| 103 - HCO PL 4-29-65 Issue III | 4314 |
| 104 - Document, The China Year Book 1929-30 | 4336 |
| 105 - 1-page document 7-5-41, Appointment in Naval Reserve | 4338 |
| 106 - Certified copy J.C. Thompson Death Certificate | 4340 |
| 107 - Certified copy from Library of Congress, The National Union Catalog | 4342 |
| 108 - Certified copy fro Library of Congress from Sigmund Freud Collection | 4343 |
| 109 - Certified copy, United States Naval Medical Bulletin | 4346 |
| 110 - Copy of a sketch of J.C. Thompson | 4347 |
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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA; MONDAY, JUNE 4, 1984; 9:22 A.M.
oOo
THE COURT: Very well. Let the record show in the case on trial that counsel are all present.
You may call your next witness.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Your Honor. Donna Reeve.
DONNA REEVE, called as a witness in behalf of the plaintiff, was sworn and testified as follows:
THE CLERK: Please state your name and spell your last name.
THE WITNESS: Donna Reeve. R-e-e-v-e.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. HARRIS:
Q Miss Reeve, I note that you are wearing what appears to be a uniform; what is that?
A It is the uniform of the Sea Organization.
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Q What is that red –
A The red lanyard means technical specialist.
Q I take it you are a Scientologist?
A I certainly am.
Q And for how long have you been a Scientologist?
A Thirty-four years.
Q And when was the first time that you participated in any Scientology activities?
A Well, I read an article in 1950 in April when it was first issued. So as far as any group activities concerned, the first time was in 1951. And that just consisted of attending some group meetings.
Q And in what location?
A Philadelphia.
Q Have you been on the staff of any Scientology organization?
A Yes, I have.
Q Could you, please, list for the Court the posts that you have been on and the organizations within which you occupied those posts?
A Yes. I was first on post in an organization in the founding Church of Scientology in ‘Washington, D.C.
Q Could you give a date as to when these were so we can get a picture of the tine frame?
A Yes. I started there in September, 1956 as HCO secretary, Hubbard Communication Office secretary, which at that time was pretty much an executive secretary post to L. Ron Hubbard as he was actively running the church at that
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time.I transcribed materials for him and received correspondence, briefed correspondence for him. Those were the primary things that I did.
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Q All right, and for how long did you remain in that position?
A Through the end of February 1957.
Q And where did you go then?
A I remained in the area and in July I went to work for the founding church just as a typist for a few months.
Q Next position, next organization?
A Well the next thing was I went with my husband to Seattle, Washington, and it was not an official church organization at that time. It was what we could call a field practice at that time.
The next time I was actully [actually] within the church organization was 1964.
Q All right. During the time that you were in Seattle, did you, despite, it not being an organization but a group, did you perform various executive functions there?
A Yes, I did. Actually there was a period of time when I was a voluntary HCO city secretary.
Q And the next post and organization?
A Next was again the founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C., and I went buck there in November or December of 1964, and for a while I was an auditor for perhaps a month or so, and then I was a supervisor of training of auditors, and then I was on administrative lines doing registration, promotion, things of that nature.
In August of 1965 I became the HCO executive secretary of that organization.
Q Now, the HCO executive secretary at that time,
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was that a different post, though it seemed to have the same sort of title?A It was quite a different post because for openers Ron wasn’t in that organization at that time although he was the Executive Director Worldwide at that time, but it was primarily concerned with the executive functions of a portion of the organization which had to be with ethics and justice, personnel, dissemination, registration, that kind of thing.
Q All right, and I take it there were people that were working under you?
A Yes.
Q For how long did you remain in that position?
A Until August of 1966.
Q Next post and in what organization?
A Same organization and I then became the organization executive secretary which is the comparable post over the areas of technical delivery, direction of the organization and public dissemination.
Q All right, and for how long were you in that post?
A About three months.
Q Next post?
A Then I went to St. Hill in England and I was posted there just as a communications department person. I did various functions in the department of communications there; mail income and receipt distribution, and communications, inspections of communications systems, things of that nature.
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Q The next post, next organization?
A Then I was returned to Washington, D.C. in January.
Q January of what year now?
A 1967.
Q Okay.
A And I became the qualifications secretary of Washington, D.C. at that time.
Q What is that post? What did you do in that?
A In that post you are responsible for the technical training of staff members and for the quality of technical delivery of the organization and actually the whole qualify of performance of the organization.
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Q Okay. Next post, next organization.
A Next I was the HCO executive secretary of the Washington Foundation. And when I say “foundation,” this is an organization that operates in the same premises, but in different hours than the rest of the organization.
Q So there was a day in a foundation?
A Yes. The foundation organization exists to serve the working public on evenings and weekends.
Q All right. Next.
A Then I was sent to — I was off for a few months. And then I was sent to Detroit. And the first post that I was sent to there wasn’t actually a Detroit post; it was called Deputy Organizer for Qual for the Eastern U.S.
Q It was larger than an organization post?
A Right. It would be essentially like the functions of the qualifications secretary, but senior to the whole organization.
Q Okay. Next.
A Then I became the HCO executive secretary of that organization. And I was on that post until about August of — July or August of 1969.
Q All right.
A Then I was briefly the organization secretary of that organization, organization executive secretary. And I left there in September of 1968.
Q Your next post.
A Then I came out to California and I was an auditor again in the American Saint Hill Organization.
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Q And that is part of the Church of Scientology of California?
A Right.
Q And for how long did you remain in that post?
A I was an auditor from the end of September to about the first of — the latter part of November, actually.
Q Of what year?
A Of 1968.
Then I was sent to do some special training, the Class A [8] course at the Advanced Organization also in Los Angeles and also part of the Church.
Q Right now just the posts and not the training; we’ll get to that in a bit.
A Okay.
So then when I had completed that, I became case supervisor which is a person who supervises auditing; sees that it is done standardly and correctly.
Q And for how long did you hold that position?
A About three or four months, something of that order.
Q That would have been when?
A The early part of 1969.
Q All right. And then all of your positions thereafter have been with the American Saint Hill Organization?
A Yes.
Q Could you just name those for the Court and the years?
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A Okay. Later in 1969 I was again briefly auditor. And then I was out –
Pardon me. There was another organization in between.
Q Okay. Sorry, Go ahead.
A From the latter part of 1969, probably September or October, to about April of 1970 I was in Fullerton doing the technical functions at a Dianetics counseling group.
Then I came back to the American Saint Hill Organization and I was an auditor until about September of 1970. And I again became case supervisor and was that through most of October of 1971.
Q All right. Next.
A Next I came back in August of 1972 and I was the technical secretary from then through January, slightly into February of 1973.
The technical secretary is the administrative senior of the technical division, the main delivery division of the organization.
Then I returned — not until 1980.
g During the period from ‘73 to ‘80 you were not in any position?
A Right.
Q All right. Now, would you, please, tell the Court what training you have had in Scientology; more particularly, in auditing and case supervision?
A Yes. My first training was the “Philadelphia Doctorate Course” so called.
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Q Which was given in ‘52?
A December, 1952 in Philadelphia. It comprised primarily lectures by L. Ron Hubbard. He was there. And it comprised co-auditing based on the lectures.
Q Co-auditing is people in training auditing each other?
A Right.
Q Okay.
A Next I did a field HCA course, Hubbard Certified Auditor’s course. And that was in 1955 in Camden, New Jersey. And that comprised studies of axioms and other basic Scientology materials and, again, co-auditing.
Q Okay.
A And next was the course that was called the “Advanced Clinical Course.” It was the 21st one of those in America. And that was given in January and February, 1952 in Washington, D.C. And that had a lot of drills, a lot of taped lectures and the study of bulletins, and so forth and co-auditing.
Q Okay.
A Then the next was July, 1959. And that was called “Special Events Course.” And it was basically the same format as an Advanced clinical Course, but L. Ron Hubbard was not there personally on that one. It, again, comprised lectures, taped lectures in that case, and co-auditing primarily.
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Q All right.
A Let’s see. Then the next thing I did was the St. Hill special briefing course.
Q And was that given at St. Hill in England?
A Right, at St. Hill.
Q And about how long was that?
A It was from April of 1962 to November of 1962 I was on that course.
Q What kind of hours would you be in training during that?
A We started at 9:30 in the morning. We supposedly were off at 10:30 at night. It often was later than that, depending on how long Ron’s lectures ran because he lectured the last thing at night, and that was five days a week and then you did — came and listened to tapes on the weekend on your own time, things of that nature, and then there was co-auditing as well, and the taped lectures and there was bulletin study and this was where we first began the procedure of checking people out on the materials, giving them oral examinations on the materials as you went along rather than some exam at the end of the course to see if you had passed or not.
Q All right.
A So that was the briefing course, and then in July of 1963 I returned to St. Hill and redid the briefing course.
Q Was it essentially the same course at that time?
A No, it wasn’t the same course at that time.
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The briefing course format has changed over the years. At the time that I first went in in 1962 and actually again in 1963 it was advanced materials for people who were already trained as auditors, and it was learning the new materials as they were being researched and developed and issued.
Q And how long were you at St. Hill on that occasion?
A A little over a year.
Q and the schedule at that time?
A The schedule at that time was about the same except that we had very definite assignments of things that we had to do over the weekend, not merely go listen to some tapes on your own time.
Q And the next training that you had?
A The next training I had would have been, let’s see, at the American St. Hill organization. I began the Class 7 internship.
Q What is an internship?
A An internship is what you do after a course. So you studied all this material and you have practiced it to some degree, and now you do an internship under somebody who is very, very well trained and qualified in the delivery of this particular auditing or whatever it may be, and any error that you make is corrected until you get your skills in it perfected.
Q From the time that you were doing the Class 7 internship until today have the remaining courses that you have taken been in the area of auditing and case supervision?
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A Almost all of them. I have — there was one course that I did that I actually didn’t get to complete that was in the subject of ethics.
Q All right. Now as far as your experience as an auditor, about how many people have you audited, your best estimate?
A Probably somewhere between 500 and 750, something of that order.
Q And in terms of hours, what is that?
A About 5,000 hours.
Q And as far as you [your] work as a case supervisor, about how many people have you case supervised?
A About 2,000.
Q And about how many auditing hours does that entail?
A About 40,000 to 50,000, somewhere in that area.
Q And what is your present position?
A I am the Senior CS.
Q What is the difference between the Senior CS and a CS?
A A CS supervises auditing session by session by session. Senior CS oversees the programming of the case.
The ordinary course of events would be when someone comes in for auditing, his preclear folders have an error sommary [summary] made on them which is a listing of any errors that have been made in the auditing that he’s already had and what’s already been corrected of those errors, and then
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the folder goes to the case supervisor who proposes a program to correct, any of the outstanding errors and to further advance the case, and that program folder comes to the Senior CS to ensure that the program is correct to achieve the optimum spiritual gains for the preclear.Q How, as to how a folder is developed, I take it you have knowledge of how a PC folder is developed?
A Oh, yes.
Q And an auditor, what do you do as far as making what is called a PC folder? How does that happen?
A All right. Let’s say this person is just beginning his auditing. You take a manila folder and you print his name on it and you put on the inside front cover, you put a record, a summary of what actions are done in each auditing session.
When you are auditing a preclear, you keep notes of what questions he was asked, the meter response to his questions, briefly what his response to them was, and various technical factors as to what occurred with him emotionally by direct observation and by meter response, that kind of thing.
Q What happens to that piece of paper?
A That piece of paper or that packet of pieces of paper gets stapled to a thing called an auditor report form which summarizes that and that, with an examination form and case supervisor form, go into the folder.
Q And then where does the folder go from there after the auditing session?
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A The folder goes to the case supervisor and the case supervisor reads the session to see that the auditor did what the auditor was; supposed to do, and that the response attained was what was expected.Q Now, what then happens to the folder?
A Then it goes back to the director of processing who looks simply at the case supervisor’s direction which will be on top of it to see whether the auditor has a cram. By “cram” I mean he is ordered to go to a special training officer who corrects any errors that he’s made, which is to say, corrects his misunderstanding that led to the area [error].
Q All right.
A So the director of processing looks to see if the auditor has a cram, so that the auditor can get that done before the preclear is scheduled for his next session, and also to see whether the next thing for the preclear is another auditing session or whether he is going to the examiner for some other thing or whatever.
Q How does the senior case supervisor fit into this process?
A The senior case supervisor would come into this process if the case supervisor didn’t know what to do next.
Q Okay.
A Or things had gone off the rails in some fashion.
Q So you are, in effect, the supervisor of the case supervisors?
A Right.
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Q All right. Now, in your position in all of these years as an auditor, a CS, and a senior CS, I take it you have been aware of the Auditor’s Code?
A Oh, certainly.
Q During the period of time when you have maintained these positions and PC folders were in your control did you ever let anybody look at the folders who was a member of the Guardian’s Office?
A No.
Q When you were an auditor is there any way that session data would escape this circle of the CS, senior CS, or the director of processing?
A The only time that that would occur would be if the pre-clear had revealed something that was somebody else’s action that would come under our Ethic’s Code, in which case a report would be made to the Ethic’s [Ethics] Section.
Q And that would be labeled nonactionable?
A And that would be labeled nonactionable on the pre-clear.
Q That is where I want to get a little understanding here.
Are you familiar with something called “Sec Checks”?
A Oh, very.
Q Are you familiar with the origin of Sec Checks?
A Very.
Q Now, have Sec Checks been known by various names over the years?
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A They have, indeed.
Q What, first, is a Sec Check?
A A Sec Check — originally a Sec Check was putting the person on an E-meter, hooking him up to the E-meter, having him hold the cans and asking him several questions which would affect the security of the Church, such as, “Have you been sent here to destroy us,” or something of that nature and observing the response of the E-meter.
Now, the person was given a chance to answer this if he chose to. And if his answer was something innocuous and cleared the reaction from the meter, then that was the end of it.
If he didn’t choose to answer or if his answer didn’t clear the response, then he was considered a security risk and he was not permitted into the Church. And that was the original format and intent of it.
Prior to the evolution or the use of the Sec Check in that format we had religious technology on the subject of what we called “overt act” and “withhold.”
By an “overt act,” we mean a harmful action that the person did that was harmful or that he considered he shouldn’t have done, that kind of thing. And we knew that a person who does something that he considers harmful or wrong, being basically good, will now withhold himself and withdraw himself from the area of the person or thing that he has harmed or considers he has harmed. And in order to have this person in very good communications with other beings and surroundings and so forth, it is very helpful to him to
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communicate these things, take responsibility for them; get them thoroughly viewed because he will tend to hide them from himself even.So we had had some technology which consisted of auditing questions that the person would be asked along these lines. But he couldn’t always find all the things by those methods. And the use of the E-meter to assist him with very pointed and direct questions was an assistance to him, actually, in finding and getting into clear view and so forth, getting the spiritual relief that comes from that on these things that he had done.
So Sec Checking in its original form then became a processing check that was actually the next name for it. And it would consist of a list of questions such as, “Have you ever stolen anything,” and so forth.
Q And then what was the evolution of it over the years and the different names?
A Then we had something that was called “Prep Checking.” And it took the security check question which would be a broad thing like, “Have you ever stolen anything,” and got it down to a specific kind of thing and handled that. And then rechecked, “Have you ever stolen anything,” and so forth, got all the different kinds of things, kinds of places, people that he might have stolen from.
Then I believe the next name for this was “Integrity Processing.”
Q All right.
A And the next was “Confessional.”
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Q All right. And, again, the purpose of these which are given in session, in an auditing session, the purpose of these was what?
A The purpose of these was the spiritual relief that one gets from confronting things that he has done that he feels bad about.
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, is this limited to what her state of mind was, what she perceives the purpose was?
THE COURT: She has, apparently, been in this area for many years. She can express an opinion.
Q BY MR. HARRIS: Is there something called a HCO Sec Check or confessional?
A Yes.
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Q And what is that?
A That is the exact same technical procedure except that the person is told before it begins, the usual statement is, “I am not auditing you.” And he is told what is meant by this which is that the data that is revealed is actionable in the ethics section of the church.
Q All right, but now would this be actionable outside the church?
A No.
Q This is an ethics action within the church?
A Right.
Q The person is told that this is actionable within the church?
A Right.
Q Now what happens in such an HCO sec check or confession if something is disclosed?
A A thing called a knowledge report is written, and in this case it says “actionable.”
Q All right.
A And it goes to the ethics section.
Q And what is the purpose of that?
A Well, the purpose of that — there are two purposes. One is in some instances an HCO confessional may be done where a person has himself done or has knowledge of things done that would be a danger to the church; okay?
The primary thing is so that the ethics officer cannot take this up with the person and use a whole other body of technology, if you will, that is called ethics to
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take responsibility for and correct any damage he’s done.Q All right. Now, the HCO confessional which results in ethics action, if required, the person is told per policy, the person is told that it is actionable within the church?
A Right.
Q And he is told it is not an auditing session?
A Right.
Q Would you force somebody to take an HCO sec check or confessional?
A So far as if you mean physically for someone, certainly not.
Q All right.
A You could say that a person could be forced to take an HCO confessional in the sense he can choose between taking one and being expelled from the church.
Q All right. Now, in the mid-’70s, and I take it at various times throughout the years, you have left the church?
A Right.
Q And left staff?
A Right.
Q And during the period when you were away from staff, did anybody harass you?
A No, no, never.
Q Did anybody attempt to blackmail you?
A No.
MR. HARRIS: All right, Your Honor, I have a series
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of policy letters, the first being an HCO policy letter of March 1st, 1965. May that be marked plaintiff’s next in order?THE COURT: What are we up to, Rosie?
THE CLERK: 93.
THE COURT: All right, 93.
MR. HARRIS: 93, I am amazed.
Q I am going to direct your attention to exhibit 93 and ask you if you have heretofore seen that?
A Yes, not in this exact format, but I have.
Q And when was the first time that you saw it?
A In March of 1965 in Washington, D.C.
Q And that was the first mention of the fair game law to your recollection; is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Now at the time that you read that, and I am particularly directing your attention to about the third paragraph up from the bottom, it says, “By fair game is meant” –
A Yes.
Q What was your understanding at the time that you read this and as best you could tell the understanding of others insofar as the way they acted when you read what fair game was; what did it mean to you?
A It meant to me that the person was no longer protected by the ethics and justice systems of Scientology.
Q What sort of protections did he lose?
A Well, the sort of thing — we tend to handle
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things of our numbers within the church.In other words, although it wasn’t as well defined in those days as it is now, but in other words, if two parishioners have a dispute among themselves and one says, “You owe me money and you haven’t paid,” that kind Of thing, they would go to a chaplain or someone within the church to resolve that dispute rather than resorting to courts outside of the church.
Q All right. Now, at the time that you saw for the first time exhibit 93, what, was your post?
A I believe I was on a post that was called Director of Estimations that only existed for a short time at that time.
Q All right. From the period 1965 through 1969 were you responsible for any ethics at all?
A Yes.
Q And what post and what organization?
A At the founding Church of Scientology from the post of HCO executive secretary. That has the ethics section under it.
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And also in Detroit with HCO executive secretary. And actually in Detroit it was a very small organization. I was directly handling the Ethics Section.
Q You yourself?
A Myself, yes.
MR. HARRIS: Next, Your Honor, as exhibit 94 I have a HCO Policy Letter of 17 March, 1965, two pages.
Q I’ll ask you if you have seen what is now marked exhibit 94?
A Oh, yes.
Q And when and where did you first see that?
A Toward the latter part of March, 1965, probably in Washington, D.C.
Q And when you first saw that particular issue what was your post?
A It was still that Director of Estimations post.
Q Now, specifically directing your attention to the fourth paragraph down which says “. . .hence, we have a Fair Game law. . ,” and then beneath that “. . .if a group member,” et cetera –
A Yes.
Q — what was your understanding, and insofar as you could observe, the understanding of others in respect to what this meant?
A It meant pretty much the same thing as the other one did.
I would say this clarified it, if anything, that a person who came under the category of someone we could
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Declare a suppressive person, Fair Game, whatever, had effectively said I don’t want to belong to this group and we said great; go away.Q And was there a practice also at that time of not communicating to such persons?
A Right. That one actually goes back a long way.
Before my husband and I went to Seattle in 1957 we went and talked to Ron about whether he wanted us to go to Portland or Seattle.
And he said, “Seattle. Because there are some bad eggs up there. And there has not been a stable group because of it. And what you do with these guys is you put them on no com.”
Q On what?
A No com, no communications, which means you don’t talk to them; you don’t send out your mailings to them.
If they come to contact you, you say I don’t want to talk to you. Go away.
MR. HARRIS: All right. Now, next as 95, Your Honor, I have a HCO Policy Letter of l0 August, 1965, “Collection From SP’s and PTS’s.”
Q Directing your attention to exhibit 95, I ask you when the first time was that you saw that and where?
A August of l965 in Washington, D.C.
Q And at the time that you saw that what was the practice — strike that.
Before this policy letter of 16 August, 1965 what was the practice insofar as going after someone in civil court
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for debts owed to the organization?A It didn’t happen.
Q And after exhibit 95 was there any attempt to collect from people who owed the organization who were declared?
MH. FLYNN: Objection.
THE COURT: If you know.
Q BY MR. HARRIS: If you know.
A Not to my knowledge in Washington, D.C. Actually, not to my knowledge. I don’t know of any.
MR. HARRIS: The next, Your Honor, if I may mark it, is a HCO Policy Letter of 23 December, 1965. May that be marked exhibit 96?
THE COURT: Yes; 96.
Q BY MR. HARRIS: Directing your attention, Mrs. Reeve, to exhibit 96 when is the first time that you saw that?
A That was — I think it arrived before the end of December in 1965 in Washington, D.C.
Q And you saw it at that time?
A Yes.
Q Now, this particular policy letter, up at the top it states that it replaces the HCO Policy Letter of 7 March, 1965, Issue 1.
And then it states, “This was originally misstated as 1 March, 1965?; so, again, directing your attention to exhibit 93 and then looking at exhibit 96, was exhibit 93 replaced by exhibit 96?
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A Yes.
Q Now, directing your attention to the second paragraph from the bottom, there is a definition, “. . .by ‘Fair Game’ is meant, may not be further protected by the Codes and Disciplines of Scientology or the rights of Scientologists”; is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Now, at the time that you read that did that comport with your understanding of what Fair Game was?
A Yes, completely.
Q All right. At any time in 1965 from the beginning, that is, from March of 1965 through the end of 1965 while you were at the Washington, D.C. Church did you or to your knowledge anyone else believe that to be a license to go out and harm others?
A No.
Q Whether or not they were Declared?
A No.
You see –
MR. FLYNN: Objection, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Sustained.
Q BY MR. HARRIS: As far as your understanding, what it meant was that the person would not be communicated with in part?
A Right.
Q What it meant was that the person did not have access to the justice system of Scientology?
A Except via the one person, the Ethics officer.
4188
Q What was the role of the Ethics officer insofar as the person –
A There are certain steps that are laid out in this policy for the person to take if he wishes to rejoin the Church. And the Ethics officer would be the one who would assist him in getting these steps done.
Also, he has the right to request a committee of evidence if none has been given or if one has been given and he did not agree with the results, he has a right to request a review of it.
4189
Q So in other words, the person could still have access to some justice procedure?
A Right, but only with respect to the actual declaration and expulsion.
MR. HARRIS: I have an HCO policy letter of 16 May, 1980, Your Honor. May that be marked exhibit 97?
THE COURT: Yes.
Q BY MR. HARRIS: I ask you when and where you first saw that, exhibit 97?
A I first saw it at the American St. Hill organization and I would say it was probably 1981 or so before I saw it because it was issued in a time I wasn’t directly on staff.
Q And at the time that you read exhibit 97, did you understand than to be a summary of what the fair game policy was and the history of it?
A I would say it was a restatement. I don’t knew that I’d say it was a summary.
Q All right, let me get exhibit RR.
Now, directing your attention to what has been marked exhibit RR –
A Yes.
Q Have you previously seen that?
A Yes, I have.
Q And when approximately did you see that?
A Around the end of October or early November, I think, in 1957.
Q And where were you at that time?
4190
A Detroit.
Q All right. Now at the time that you saw that, I am locking particularly at the portion on the left-hand side which says, “Liability, treason, doubt” et cetera.
A Yes.
Q What were those designations?
A Those were designations of conditions which are operating conditions that one may find himself in.
Q All right, and the penalties in respect to these operating conditions I take it are the ones that are set out in small print after the conditions itself?
A Right.
Q Did you personally observe people who were in the operating condition of Liability wearing a dirty gray rag on the left arm?
A Yes, and I did it myself.
Q And day and night confinement to work premises?
A I have slept on some carpets.
Q And you did this yourself?
A Yes.
Q Nobody ordered you to do that?
A No.
Q This was something that you self-assigned?
A Right.
Q All right.
A The condition of Liability may have been assigned from someone else, but having it been assigned and agreed to it, I then followed the penalties.
4191
Q Now with respect to the last line which is — well, not last line but the last paragraph, “SP Order Fair Game” et cetera, what at the time that you read this did– was your post first?
A At that time I am not sure whether I was still deputy organizer for QUAL or whether I had been HCO exec sec at that time.
Q In any event you were in an executive position of some sort?
A Right.
Q What did you take that to mean, and I am looking at the last paragraph?
A I took it to be a very colorful statement of “We don’t want anything to do with you and go away.”
Q At the time that you were at the Detroit organization –
A Yes.
Q Did you or to your knowledge anyone else use this last paragraph as a license to go out and harm somebody?
A Not to go out and harm somebody, no. I will say that there was one person who was declared at the time, and it was a license, as far as I was concerned, to talk bad about her.
Q Okay.
A Which is something I wouldn’t do to a Scientologist in good standing.
Q Other than talking bad about her, anything else
4192
happen to her to your knowledge?A Not to my knowledge.
Q Exhibit AAAA, I ask you if you saw that before?
A Yes.
Q And when did you see it and where were you when you saw it?
A I believe I saw this one at the American St. Hill organization in October or it might have been November. The lines were a bit slow around then.
Q Of 1968?
A Of 1968, right.
Q All right. Now this has as the last sentence, “This PL does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP.”
A Yes.
Q Now, as holding an ethics position from time to time during the ’60’s, what was the treatment or handling of an SP by your observation?
A By my observation the treatment and handling of an SP was if he attempted to communicate to any Scientologist other than the ethics officer, he was directed to the ethics officer.
If he attempted to come in the organization other than to see the ethics officer, he was directed to the ethics officer or to leave.
4193
Q All right. And if he wished to get back into the group, what was he to do? Were there certain steps that were –
A Right. These are steps that were outlined in that other policy.
Q And with respect to how he would do these steps, that was governed by the Ethics officer?
A Right.
Q He was not involved in any — with any other person within the organization?
A Right.
Q Directing your attention to what has been marked exhibit 55 I ask you when and where you first saw that?
A At the American Saint Hill Organization and probably in February of ‘81, thereabouts.
Q And did you understand at the time that you saw that that this was the conditions — strike that — the penalties for certain operations conditions?
A Yes.
MR. HARRIS: I kind of went a bit out of order here. The next exhibit is a HCO Policy Letter of 6 October, 1970, Issue 3; may that be marked Plaintiff’s 98?
THE COURT: Very well.
Q BY MR. HARRIS: Directing your attention to exhibit 98, I ask you if you have seen exhibit 98 before?
A Yes.
Q And when and where?
4194
A In October of 1970 at the American Saint Hill Organization.
Q Now, directing your attention specifically to the first line, “. . .the following HCO PL’s are canceled.. .’ and then the second — strike that.
The second reference to HCO PL says, “. , .18 October, 1967, Issue 4, Penalties for Lower Conditions.”
A Right.
Q That was exhibit RR that I showed you?
A Right.
Q And you understood, at least, by 6 October, 1970 that that PL had been canceled; right?
A Right.
Q Now, the Court has under seal, the Court’s seal, separately from the documents taken by Mr. Armstrong exhibit LLL.
May the witness be shown exhibit LLL?
4195
Q Directing your attention to exhibit LLL, when is the first time that you saw that?
A Yesterday morning.
Q And were you aware that some person had culled your PC folder at any time prior to yesterday morning?
Q Now the court has this under seal; do you wish it to remain under seal?
A Yes.
Q Did you know that Mr. Flynn had that?
A No.
Q Is the practice as disclosed in exhibit LLL something of which you had any knowledge during the time that you were an auditor or a case supervisor?
A No.
MR. HARRIS: No further questions.
THE COURT: You may cross-examine, Mr. Flynn.
MR. FLYNN: Thank you, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Oh, why don’t we take a 15-minute recess and then we will resume.
(Recess.)
THE COURT: Very well, we are back in session.
The witness has retaken the stand. Please state your name again for the record, ma’am. You are still under oath.
THE WITNESS: Donna Reeve.
THE COURT: You may cross–examine, Mr. Flynn.
MR. FLYNN: Thank you, Your Honor. I just have a few minutes.
4196
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Donna, you have been involved in Scientology since about 1952?
A Right.
Q And exhibit triple L you just saw a couple days ago; is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Do you know who Allen is at the bottom?
A No.
Q Do you know Allen Hubbard?
A I know the name. I don’t know him personally.
Q Do you know who he is?
A No.
Q Did you know his post in Scientology from ‘76 to the present time?
A No.
Q Do you know he is presently the president of the Church of Scientology of California?
A No.
Q Do you know he was a high–ranking guardian office member throughout the 1970’s?
A Not aware of that.
Q Now have you ever heard the term “shore story”?
A Don’t believe I have.
Q Many of these policies that Mr. Harris showed you about the fair game doctrine, you as a Scientologist were made to understand what you believed the fair game
4197
doctrine meant; is that correct, such as exhibit 93 and exhibit 96?A Yes.
Q Incidentally, these two policies, 93 and 96 are before the creation of the Guardian’s office; is that correct? HCO policy letter March 1, 1965, that is before the GO?
A Right.
Q And 7 March, 1965 it before the GO; right?
A Right.
Q And 16 August, 1975 is before the GO; right?
A Right.
4198
Q Now, in this one, 17 March, 1965, exhibit 94, that is before the Guardian’s Office; right?
A Right.
Q Now, I take it that you have always believed in the creed of the Church of Scientology?
A Yes.
Q And you believe that all men have a right to think freely and utter statements of their own freely; correct?
A Certainly.
Q You don’t believe that people should be attacked for speaking out; correct?
A Right.
Q And you also understood that that is what the Church meant to you; correct?
A Yes.
Q Incidentally, what class auditor are you?
A VIII.
Q And you have been auditing people for how long, since 1962 or so?
A Since 1952.
Q Since 1952; you never knew anything about a practice of culling people’s pre-clear folders?
A Right.
Q For purposes of using it against people; is that correct?
A Right.
Q How, I notice in exhibit LLL when people –
4199
strike that.When you were auditing people, when a person first came into the organization they would be very concerned about the confidentiality of information they would give you; right?
A Yes.
Q In the first auditing sessions –
A Right.
Q — that is generally when the most significant information comes up about a person’s past; is that correct?
A I don’t know that that is true necessarily.
Q Generally in the first 10 or 15 hours of auditing, that is generally called, “Life Prepare” ["Life Repair"]; right?
A In some cases.
Q As a general rule that is when the person gets off his most significant overt or withholds in his past?
A I don’t know that that is true.
Q All right.
Now, when a pre-clear just starts auditing, right at the beginning, does he even know about a case supervisor?
A Ordinarily he is educated in what the various posts that have anything to do with him are.
4200
Q That is your understanding?
A Yeah.
Q All right. There is a notation in here, “She may go Type 3 if not handled.”
Tell the court what Type 3 is.
A Type 3 is a person who is to the point of agitation where he may be seeing Martians or whatever, a person who is very agitated.
Q Well, there is a term that is commonly used in Scientology meaning “Going psychotic”? isn’t that commonly used for Type 3?
A Uh-huh, yes.
Q And when a person goes psychotic, they could become a threat to the organization; is that correct?
A Could.
Q And you didn’t knew anything about the policies and practices of the Guardian’s office as to when a person became a threat to the organization if they became PTS, Type 3 or threatened to blow as it says in exhibit triple L? You didn’t know anything about that?
A No.
Q Now, you also an auditor, I take, that you never allowed through your direct permission the one bureau to have access to your auditing files?
A Right.
Q You knew what the B-1 bureau was, though?
A I have heard of the B-1 bureau.
Q Did you know anything about the powers of the
4201
Guardian’s office after it was created in 1966?
A I know what the policies say about it.
Q You knew it was a very powerful organization within the church; right?
A Yes.
Q And you know it was under the ultimate control of Mary Sue Hubbard and L. Ron Hubbard; is that correct?
A I know what the policies say about it.
Q Throughout the period of time that you were involved, you didn’t know that there was this practice of culling folders. Did you know whether L. Ron Hubbard was receiving any church moneys in the period you were involved?
A To my knowledge, no, no.
Q It was your understanding he never did?
A Right.
Q So between roughly April of 1982 and October 1982, if $30 million was transferred from the Church of Scientology, various accounts to Author Services Inc. to L. Ron Hubbard, you know nothing about that?
MR. HARRIS: I will object to that as assuming facts not in evidence.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. FLYNN: I will put it in evidence on rebuttal, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Well she apparently has no knowledge about it.
4202
Q BY MR. FLYNN: You read the things like, “What your fees buy”; is that correct?
A Yes, I have read that issue.
Q And you also believed, as you testified, that Mr. Hubbard was never receiving anything?
A Right.
Q Now, you mentioned a little bit about –
Incidentally, were you ever in a high security org?
A No.
Q Now, you mentioned that you perceived — your understanding of what you perceived a security check to be; have you ever participated in a gang security check?
A No.
Q Do you know what they are?
A No.
Q Do you know of anyone who has been subjected to a gang security check?
A No.
Q Do you know who Homer Shomer is?
A Yes.
Q What is your understanding of who Mr. Homer Shomer is?
A I know he was — I don’t know him at the present time. I haven’t seen for a number of years.
At the time I knew him he was an Ethics officer at the American Saint Hill Organization.
Q And to your knowledge in the last few years has
4203
he been an employee of Author Services Inc.?A I don’t know.
Q Now, during the security checks did you ever understand it to be the practice of the people running the security checks to sit [spit] at the people being checked?
A No. If they did that, that would be contrary to the technology.
Q And who in your understanding is the highest official of the Church of Scientology at the present time?
A If you are talking about the legal structure, I don’t know. If you are –
Q Have you ever heard the name David Miscavige?
A I have heard the name.
Q Do you have any understanding as to what role or participation he has in the Church?
MR. HARRIS: Beyond the scope of direct, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I don’t know. I’ll overrule the objection. She has some testified to some 30 years’ involvement and as a person who has certain expertise and knowledge of the way the Church functions in various ways. It may be within the scope. You may answer.
THE WITNESS: I don’t know his position.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you know Mr. Spurlock?
A I have heard his name. I don’t know him.
Q Were you just talking to him out in the corridor?
A Yes.
Q Do you understand that he is a high official
4204
in the Church?A I don’t know anything about him other than I have heard his name. And I shook his hand.
Q You also told your PC’s that the information you were collecting from them was confidential; is that correct?
A Yes.
Q To your knowledge they all relied on that?
A Yes.
Q And when you were in auditing sessions you always relied that it was confidential; is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Now, you have testified a little bit about the Fair Game Doctrine; I take it to your knowledge the Fair Game Doctrine has never been invoked to harm people outside the Church; is that correct?
A Not to my knowledge.
Q And if you knew that this was going on you wouldn’t be a participant in harassing and attacking people, would you?
A No, I would not.
MR. FLYNN: That is all I have, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Mr. Harris.
4205
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. HARRIS:
Q Did exhibit LLL, the data contained in exhibit LLL, was it ever used against you or mentioned to you by Allen Hubbard?
A No.
Q Any member of the Guardian’s office?
Q No. The first time 1 had any knowledge of it at all was when you showed it to me yesterday morning.
Q All right. Now, you not only read the policies in respect to fair game and its cancellation, but were aware of the practices that were going on at the time?
A In my immediate vicinity, certainly.
Q And at any time did you have any knowledge whatsoever that anybody was being attacked, harassed and the like pursuant to fair game?
A Never.
Q And insofar as Mr. Hubbard receiving any moneys, were you on any finance lines at all?
A I have been on finance lines.
Q And when was that?
A I was on finance lines in Washington, D.C. when I was the HCO executive secretary, and the knowledge that I have of any personal transactions between L. Ron Hubbard and the church at that time is that I asked him for a loan to the church of a thousand dollars which he sent me.
Q Now, as far as whether or not he receives any
4206
salary or otherwise from the church now, do you have any knowledge?A None.
Q So, insofar as forming a belief as to whether he gets any money from the church at all, you have no information?
A Right, none.
MR. HARRIS: No further questions.
MR. FLYNN: Just A couple, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
RECROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q You relied on such things as “What Your Fees Buy” as to their accuracy?
A Yes.
Q And you testified that the fair game doctrine or the contents of exhibit triple L were never used against you; is that correct?
A Right.
Q I see you are wearing a uniform of a Sea Org member; right?
A Right.
Q So after you blew, someone came and got you and you returned; correct?
A No. After I blew, I went back and asked to return.
Q So you returned and you have been involved in
4207
the organization ever since?A Yes.
Q And you have been working industriously as hard as you could to promote Scientology?
A Yes.
Q So there would be no reason to attack you, Mrs. Reeve; would there be?
A Not at this time.
MR. FLYNN: That is all I have, Your Honor.
FURTHER REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. HARRIS:
Q At various periods when you have been staff of Scientology organizations, have you blown?
A Yes, I have.
Q And the longest period that you were off staff was from 1973 to 1981?
A 1980.
Q A period or about seven years?
A Seven-and-a half years.
Q And again at any time did somebody try to get you and drag you back to the church?
A Not at all.
MR. HARRIS: No further questions.
MR. FLYNN: One more, Your Honor.
4208
FURTHER RECROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q During that period you didn’t know, according to your testimony, about culling PC files and the activities of the Guardian’s office; correct?
A I didn’t and don’t have any knowledge of such.
Q So you didn’t speak out against the organization in any way?
A No.
MR. FLYNN: That is all I have, Your Honor.
FURTHER REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. HARRIS:
Q If PC files were being culled, that would have been against the policy as you understood it; right?
A Completely against the policy, the intent, the whole of the Scientology movement.
MR. HARRIS: All right, no further questions.
FURTHER RECROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q And who promoted the policy of the organization to your knowledge?
A Who promoted it?
Q Who wrote the policy of the organization?
A L. Ron Hubbard.
Q And if the practice of culling PC files was going on for a period of 10 to 12 years by at least 1100
4209
people –MR. HARRIS: I will object to that as assuming facts not in evidence already, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I will sustain the objection.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: It was your understanding that L. Ron Hubbard was the ultimate policy maker of the Church of Scientology?
A He is the founder.
Q And the ultimate policy maker?
A At this stage my understanding is that he suggests policy which are adopted by the board.
MR. FLYNN: That is all I have, Your Honor.
MR. HARRIS: That is all I have, too.
4210
THE COURT: Let me ask you one question:
When you saw this yesterday were you shocked?
THE WITNESS: I was surprised that such a thing would exist, yes.
THE COURT: Did you feel as if you had been subjected to a form of mental rape?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: Anything further, gentlemen?
MR. FLYNN: Nothing further.
MR. HARRIS: Nothing further.
THE COURT: You may step down.
MR. HARRIS: May she be excused, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Certainly.
MR. HARRIS: Call Lyman Spurlock, Your Honor.
LYMAN SPURLOCK, recalled as a witness by the plaintiff in rebuttal, having been previously duly sworn, resumed the stand and testified further as follows:
THE COURT: Mr. Spurlock, you have been sworn. Have a seat. State your name again, for the record. You are still under oath.
THE WITNESS: Lyman Spurlock.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. HARRIS:
Q Mr. Spurlock, were you an auditor at La Quinta?
A Yes, I was.
4211
Q Were you an auditor at LA Quinta at the same time Nancy Dincalci was an auditor at La Quinta?
A Yes, I was.
Q Did you ever, while an auditor at La Quinta, route auditing session data to anyone in the Guardian’s Office?
A No, I didn’t.
Q Were you aware of any policy to do such?
A No, I wasn’t.
Q Did you ever, while an auditor at La Quinta, route auditing session data to the Ethics officer?
A No, I didn’t.
Q Did you ever do a HCO confessional while you were at La Quinta?
A Yes, I did.
Q And were the people who did the HCO confessional told it was not an auditing session?
A That’s right. They were told it would be actionable within the organization.
Q And is a [an] HCO confessional an auditing session?
A No, it isn’t.
Q Would you send reports of HCO confessionals to Ethics?
A Yes, I would.
Q Were you at La Quinta when Nancy Dincalci routed out?
A Yes, I was.
Q By the way, had you audited Nancy Dincalci?
4212
A Yes. I did prior to her routing out.
Q And did you ever disclose even to the present time any auditing session data from her PC folders?
A No, I didn’t.
Q Did you participate in any action regarding her PC folders when she routed out?
A Yes, I did.
Q What did you do?
A There were several people routing out at that time. The auditors went through their folders for the sessions that they had had at La Quinta and vetted out any references to location.
Q And was there anything else done in respect to the PC folders at that time?
A No, not to my knowledge. They were then bundled up and sent to Los Angeles for storage.
Q If a person were to route out at La Quinta and then come back into the Church the PC folder would be reactivated?
A That is correct.
Q And your purpose for vetting the location was?
A Security. La Quinta was a confidential location at that time.
Q And that would mean that auditors back at the Church unit, if they were to reactivate these files, would be learning confidential data about locations?
A That’s right.
Q Did you or anyone else to your knowledge make
4213
her sign any confessions of crimes before she routed out?A I have no knowledge of that.
MR. HARRIS: No further questions.
THE COURT: You may cross-examine.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q When someone was routing out, Mr. Spurlock, I take it you never saw any type of document where overts and withholds were written up?
A I never saw such a document.
Q Do you know Homer Shomer?
A Yes.
Q And you participated in a gang security check of Mr. Shomer in the fall of 1982; didn’t you?
A I wasn’t a participant, no.
Q You were in the room?
A I was in the area.
Q And you saw David Miscavige and Norman Starky spit in his face in the security check?
A No, I didn’t.
Q You weren’t present when that occurred?
A No.
Q Mr. Shomer in the fall of 1982 was working for Author Services Inc.; wasn’t he?
A That is correct.
Q And he wanted to leave; didn’t he?
A He later decided to leave.
4214
THE COURT: I am sorry.
THE WITNESS: He later decided to leave.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: He was put under guard, wasn’t he?
A Not to my knowledge. I don’t know anything about that.
Q Mr. Shomer handled the T & B’s for L. Ron Hubbard between April and October, 1982; didn’t he?
MR. HARRIS: That is way beyond the scope of direct, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I’ll sustain the objection.
MR. FLYNN: That is all I have, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Mr. Harris, do you have anything further?
MR. HARRIS: Nothing more, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You may step down.
MR. HARRIS: Call Dan Koon, Your Honor.
DAN KOON, called as a witness by the plaintiff in rebuttal, was duly sworn, and testified as follows:
THE CLERK: Raise your right hand to be sworn.
THE WITNESS: I do.
THE CLERK: Be seated, please. State your name and spell your name.
THE WITNESS: Dan Koon, K-o-o-n.
4215
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. HARRIS:
Q Mr. Koon, are you a Scientologist?
A Yes, I am.
Q For how long have you been one?
A Fifteen years.
Q And for how long have you been a staff member?
A Fifteen years.
4216
Q Are you a member of the Sea Org?
A That is right, I am.
Q What areas nave most of your posts been in?
A Generally in the area of auditing.
Q And you are familiar with the auditor’s code?
A Yes, very.
Q During all the time that you have been auditing, have you ever violated the confidentiality provision of the auditor’s code?
A No, sir.
Q And approximately how many PC’s have you audited?
A Hundreds.
Q And did there come a time when you were auditing at La Quinta?
A Yes, there did.
Q And were you an auditor at the same time that Nancy Dincalci was an auditor there?
A Yes, I was.
Q And did you during that period when Nancy was there writing auditing session reports to the Guardian’s office?
A No, never.
Q And did you Know of any policy or directive to write session reports to the Guardian’s office?
A No, I don’t believe one exists.
MR. HARRIS: No further questions.
4217
THE COURT: You may cross-examine.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q What did you do with the reports you did write up, Mr. Koon?
A I am not sure which reports — the auditing reports?
Q Did you ever take any information from the file and just write it up?
A In sec checks, yes, you would normally file like a summary of the sec check with the ethics officer.
Q How long have you been an auditor?
A Since about 1972.
Q So you have some experience with regard to who in the organization had the right to go and get auditing files?
A That is right.
Q Auditing files are processing files; correct?
A Yes.
Q Who did have the right per policy to go in and get the files?
A You mean look at the files, look at the data in the files?
Q Right.
A One person would be the case supervisor. One person would be the auditor, himself.Sometimes if an auditor needs correction from another trained auditor, that
4218
other person, the other auditor would have access to the file.Q Do you knew whet a gas worker is?
A No, I don ‘t.
Q Guardian office staff worker?
A I am not — I maybe heard the term, but I am not familiar with what they do.
Q You knew that Guardian office had access to every file in every building you were in; right?
A No I didn’t know that.
Q Did you ever see anyone in the B-1 bureau in any organization you were in in the director of processing office?
A No. I am not familiar — I wasn’t particularly familiar with the Guardian’s office and B-1. I wasn’t familiar with them.
Q Did you know anyone who was in B-1?
A No I actually didn’t.
Q So to your knowledge you write up your reports, you give them to the ethics officer, but you wouldn’t know what the ethics officer did with them; is that your testimony?
A No I wouldn’t say that is the case. If I were writing up a report like say a summary of a sec check, security check, I would write it up and it would be filed. It would go to the ethics officer who would then file it in the person’s ethics file.
Q Do you know Brian Rubinek?
4219
Q He is B-l; right?
A I didn’t know that, no. I knew he worked in the Guardian’s office, but I didn’t know what his post was. I didn’t knew what division of the organization he worked in.
Q He was in the GO at La Quinta; right?
A Yeah.
Q And you never sent any reports to Brian?
A Not that I recall.
Q There may be some that you don’t recall?
A I don’t recall sending him any, no.
Q Do you recall seeing some in his possession?
A No, I don’t.
Q What about Ann Mulligan?
A What about her?
MR. HARRIS: Is there a reference? The question is incomplete.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Was she in the Guardian’s office in La Quinta?
A Yes.
Q Did you see her with any auditing files?
A Not that I recall.
Q A security check is designed to protect — was it designed in 1979 at La Quinta to protect the security of the organization?
A I am not sure I understand the question. The security –
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Q Was La Quinta a high security area in 1979?
A Oh, yes.
Q What was the purpose of security checks?
A Well I would say there would be different purposes. Probably most generally just to protect the security of the organization.
Q Let me show you exhibit triple L. You are an auditor; right?
A That is right.
Q The type of information that is in exhibit triple L, is that the type of thing you elicit during a security check?
A I wouldn’t say that this is anything unusual.
Q Is it the type of information you elicit in a security check was the question.
A Yeah, things like this come up in security checks.
Q What the person’s private sexual habits are?
A Not ordinarily. That does come up occasionally, yes.
Q That would have to do with security?
A Not particularly, no.
Q Whether they were Type 3, were PTS, Type 3, would that have to do with security?
A It could.
Q Why?
A If the person was in such a state that he was agitated and might harm himself or say other members of the
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organization or, you know, blow the security of the organization, that would affect the security of the organization.Q When you say “blow the security” meaning if he wanted to leave?
A No, like, for instance, at La Quinta it was a high security area; right?
THE COURT: I don’t know. Whet do you mean by “high security”?
THE WITNESS: Well –
THE COURT: I have heard of high security cells in a jail,
THE WITNESS: Well the area itself was confidential. We didn’t want Scientologists from Los Angeles out there visiting and perhaps distracting activities and things like that.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Suppose a person wanted to leave, would that be a potential for a security problem?
A I don’t know. It could in some instances. I don’t know ordinarily that it was.
Q Now Type 3 — PTS Type 3 is a definition of someone who is going psychotic in Scientology parlance; is that correct?
A I don’t know. I think it has — I personally just use the term as someone who is sort of, you know, maybe agitated or upset, almost as a slang term.
Q And that is interpreted as anyone who is questioning the organization; is that basically true?
A No, that is basically very untrue.
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Q Well suppose the person is questioning the organization to such a degree that they want to leave. Then they are a potential trouble source?
A No, not necessarily.
Q You don’t know anything about — do you know what the term “blew” means?
A Sure.
Q Means they want to leave; right?
A No. Blow means the person has left. They just like pick up and go.
Q And in your understanding in 1979 at La Quinta that was not a potential security problem?
A People blowing?
Q Yeah.
A That would have been, yeah, sure.
Q So that would be the type of thing that would come up in a security check?
A Yeah, could.
Q And the person’s sexual history might have something to do with why they are blowing; is that your testimony?
A No, I wouldn’t say that. To me they might or might not have anything to do with it. I don’t know of any correlation there particularly.
Q Now, since 1972 I take it that you have never seen the practice of culling PC files?
A No. PC files are occasionally culled.
Q For security reasons?
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A Not to my knowledge of that, no.
Q By the case supervisor?
A I am sorry. I didn’t understand the question.
Q Culled by whom, Mr. Koon?
A Ordinarily an auditor in programming out the person’s progress through auditing would go through the sections and write down say lists of people’s names that the person might have had some trouble with or something like that and that would be culled forward and then various other auditing actions could be programmed off of that.
Q That is for the person’s technological benefit?
A That is for his spiritual gain from auditing, right.
Q But I take it since 1972 you have no knowledge of culling files to get information such as in exhibit triple L, so it could be used as some kind of leverage over the person?
A That’s right. I have no knowledge of that.
MR. FLYNN: Thank you, Mr. Koon.
THE COURT: Mr. Harris?
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. HARRIS:
Q Yes. The security check where you would send the information to the ethics officer, was that an HCO security check?
A That’s right.
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Q And was security of the location the only item that would cause people to go and get an HCO confessional?
A Would –
Q Was security of the location the only reason people would get an HCO confessional?
A No, I wouldn’t say that necessarily.
Q If they were having difficulties in any area of ethics, they would be given an HCO confessional; is that correct?
A Yeah, that’s right. It sort of helps them to sort of be able to see the situation that they are in and get them a little more causative overts so they can — it helps them sort it out.
Q If you had written any reports to Brian Rubinek or Ann Mulligan, it would not have been PC folder data; right?
A That’s right.
Q And with respect to an HCC confessional, that the PC is told it is not an auditing session?
A Very definitely. He is told that right at the beginning.
Q And that it is an actionable within the church?
A Right.
Q But not outside?
A Right.
MR. HARRIS: No further questions.
THE COURT: Mr. Flynn?
MR. FLYNN: Nothing further.
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THE COURT: You may step down, sir.
MR. HARRIS: Terri Gamboa, Your Honor.
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TERRI GAMBOA, called as a witness by the Plaintiff in rebuttal, was sworn and testified as follows:
THE CLERK: Raise your right hand to be sworn.
THE WITNESS: I do.
THE CLERK: Take the witness stand. State your name and spell your last name for the record, please.
THE WITNESS: Terri Gamboa, T-e-r-r-i G-a-m-b-o-a.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. HARRIS:
Q Miss Gamboa, in my questions to you there is an area that I want you to be very careful of.
You were married to the defendant at some point; is that right?
A That is correct.
Q All right. Now, any question I ask you I want you to exclude from your answer any confidential communications that you received from your husband; do you understand that, during the time of your marriage?
A Yes, I do.
Q Are you a Scientologist?
A Yes, I am.
Q When did you become one?
A When I was born.
Q And what does that mean?
A My parents were Scientologists at the time I was born; so I was born into Scientology.
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Q Where were you living in 1968?
A In England, East Grinsted [Grinstead].
Q And did there come a time when you joined the Sea Org?
A Right.
Q And when was that?
A In early ‘68.
Q And did you go [to] some ship?
A Yes.
Q And were your parents there?
A My mother was there. My father came shortly after.
Q Where was the ship located at that time?
A In Valencia, Spain.
Q Give me a brief summary of your posts on the ship.
A The first post I had was dishwasher and security.
Then I wanted to work in the engine room and learn about the engines on the ship. I did that for about six months.
Then I worked in HCO as a com runner.
Then I heard about a new position where there were Commodore’s Messengers, youngsters who were delivering messages for him. And my sister had become one and I was immediately interested and asked if I could become one. So I did.
Q Who appointed you that position?
A CS-4 and CS-7 at the time.
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Q What is CS?
A Commodore staff.
Q I take it you learned some seaman’s skills when you were aboard the ship?
A Yes, I did. I learned quite a bit.
Q Like what?
A I learned helmsman, radar; I learned lookout; I learned a bit about navigation; I learned how the ship is docked, the lines, the fenders, the winch pulling up the anchor, putting down the anchor; directions at sea; engine room type stuff.
Q And how many messengers were there when you first became a messenger?
A Four.
Q And did you understand why there was a need for messengers at that time?
A Yes, I did.
Q What was it?
A To assist Mr. Hubbard in the administrative side of his research.
He was training crew members, seamen, navigation, and stuff like that. We assisted him in photography. We assisted him in training evaluators.
He did a lot of various different training of staff members.
Q What has that got to do with messengers? I mean what did you do as a messenger?
A To begin with, we simply did errands, delivered
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messages. They could be verbal; they could be written. Then it sort of expanded from there.At the very beginning I was 13 years old. We were all about that age. And it sort of expanded from there. As we learned more, we were able to do more.
Eventually he gave us the responsibility of taking care of the photographic equipment which we used for doing a lot of Scientology photographic publication pictures and stuff like that.
He taught me to be a photographer. I was his assistant photographer for a couple of years and then did photography myself.
He taught us how to find misunderstood words on people and get those clarified, get them cleared up.
We learned how to do inspections, inspections of the ship or inspecting of graphs, specifics, to find areas that weren’t doing well so they could be pointed out and handled, things like that.
Q Were there telephones aboard the ship?
A No. There was — it was a very simple intercom-type system which was sort of general. There was only intercoms in certain areas, not like in each office. So to deliver a message by intercom was very difficult. You couldn’t contact any specific person. So it was having a messenger, we were able to deliver messages to specific areas of people.
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Q And I take it that you ran these messages all over the ship in 1968?
A That’s right.
Q And how big was the ship?
A About 365 feet.
Q And as you took on more areas of responsibility as a messenger, other than just running messages back and forth, what was your particular specialty? You talked about photography; was that your specialty?
A Yeah, for most of the time.
Q And were other messengers trained in different areas?
A That is right. There was a couple of messengers training as Scientology auditors, technical — they had technical training.
There was a couple might be trained in public relations, doing things like that.
Q Now how many people were aboard the ship at the time that you became a messenger roughly?
A It is hard to say because — when I came on board, there was also a lot of Spanish workers, the cooks and stewards and so forth, a lot of them were Spanish. Some of the engine room people were Spanish.
Maybe there was 50 to 100, but I am not sure.
Q And did that number grow over the years?
A Yes.
Q Mr. Armstrong has testified that while he was
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aboard the ship that Mr. Hubbard controlled everything on a day-to-day basis; what was your observation of Mr. Hubbard during that period of time?A Mr. Hubbard vas mainly involved in his researches of Scientology, future auditing levels and training levels.
He supervised the auditing rundowns. There was new rundowns. As he would do his research, he could come up with a now rundown and he would supervise the piloting of it and advise as needed.
He would case supervise the folders for that pilot. There were executives on board the ship who were responsible for the organization and the management. If Mr. Hubbard saw an outmiss [?], a situation in a particular area that was not getting taken care of, in other words, if he noticed statistics of an org or something where there was a dangerous situation or it wasn’t being taken care of, he would then, of course, ask us to bring in the statistics so he could look at them and he would insure that the person responsible would get corrected on that particular area and would then be able to handle it.
Q When you say the person responsible, who was responsible aboard the ship for these various functions?
A Well, there was executives over all different areas. There was commodore staff aides. There was executive managers. There was programs, people who run the programs in the orgs.
Q Did you understand at the time that you were a
4332
messenger aboard the ship that you were the personal employee of L. Ron Hubbard?A No I wasn’t.
Q Who did you think you were working for?
A For Scientology.
Q And were you paid by Mr. Hubbard?
A No, I wasn’t.
Q Did Gerry Armstrong while he was aboard the ship and again excluding confidential communications ever expressed to you that he was working for L. Ron Hubbard personally?
A No, not at all.
Q By the way, did you ever have a conversation with Mr. Armstrong prior to your marriage about how he got into Scientology?
A Yes.
Q And can you tell us when that conversation was approximately?
A That would have been around ‘73, I think it was.
Q And where was the conversation?
A In the ‘tween decks where had an office space. He had a desk and so forth.
Q What was said by him on the subject of how he got into Scientology?
A He said that in Vancouver he did a communications course. Somebody told him about Scientology and he did a communications course which he really liked. He felt that he
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got a lot out of that. He read some books, and I am not sure if he did another course of [after?] that. I think he might have, and he felt that it helped him a lot spiritually and he was very interested in it.Q Did you ever have a conversation with Mr. Armstrong on how he got into the Sea Organization?
A Yes.
Q When? Where?
A That would have been part of the same conversation.
Q All right. That would be in the ‘tween decks sometime in 1973?
A ‘73, maybe early ‘74. It was around then.
Q And what was said by Gerry about why he joined the Sea Org?
A The main thing was to help others. He wanted to be able to help others. He wanted to help forward the goals of Scientology, and he felt that Scientology could do a lot for people and he wanted to forward that.
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Q All right. At any time did Mr. Armstrong tell you that he got into Scientology or the Sea Organization because LRH was a scientist?
A No; he never mentioned that.
Q At any time did he tell you that he got into Scientology or the Sea Organization because Mr. Hubbard had traveled throughout Asia and learned the wisdom of the Llamas?
A No.
Q Did he tell you that he had joined Scientology or the Sea Org because Mr. Hubbard was a war hero?
A No.
MR. FLYNN: This is all leading. Your Honor. I’ll object.
THE COURT: Well, I’ll overrule the objection. I want to expedite this.
Q BY MR. HARRIS: Did he ever tell you that he got into Scientology or the Sea Org — and I’ll go through a whole list of them. If he said anything about any one of them of them, you say so — because Mr. Hubbard was a nuclear physicist, had cured himself of being crippled and blinded or that he had written Hollywood screen plays?
A No; he never mentioned this.
Q Did he ever tell you that he got into Scientology or the Sea Org because of anything he had read on a book jacket?
A No.
Q Or any other biography of L. Ron Hubbard?
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A No.
Q Mr. Armstrong mentioned that Mr. Hubbard didn’t want to bring the vessel, that is, the Apollo, up to standard as far as safety; what was your observations about what Mr. Hubbard did in respect to the safety of the ship?
A Mr. Hubbard was always very concerned with that. He would constantly, whenever he would walk around the deck, always observe fire extinguishers or life preservers, making sure that everything was intact. It was something that he constantly insured that the Sea Org members of the ship were drilled on. Every week we had drills for certain safety precautions like the life boats, raising the life boats, lowering the life boats, fire drills, any types of drills like that.
If he ever did observe that anything was not correct, if there was a life preserver missing, for example, or a fire extinguisher that was not on the stand where it should be, he would have us deliver a message to the captain or to the First Mate, whoever was responsible, and point out whatever that situation was so it could be handled.
Q Mr. Armstrong described the RPF aboard the ship as a segregated group of persons treated as prisoners; what was your observation about RPF aboard the ship?
A They definitely weren’t prisoners. They were a team of Sea Org members who were doing a rehabilitation program.
You’d get assigned to the RPF for something that is very out Ethics, that is, not per the rules and mores
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of the group. And it gives you a chance to do an auditing program and to do a program of deck work or some type of labor work like that where you worked together in teams. You learned team spirit. And the team spirit is usually very strong in the RPF.You do five hours a day of auditing and training, Scientology training and auditing. And you would complete a specific program of steps. And once that is completed and you have done well on your deck work and so forth, then you may graduate.
Everybody who I saw that did the RPF and graduated the RPF did very well. They looked very good.
They always were very glad to be able to get the chance of redemption because the other choice is if you don’t want to get corrected like that, you can leave. So a person has that choice.
Q All right.
Now, Mr. Armstrong has testified that his dominate emotion aboard the ship was one of fear; what did you observe?
A I didn’t observe any fear at all. I usually saw him running around. He looked pretty chipper; seemed to enjoy his job.
He was the driver for awhile. I know that he really enjoyed driving out in the various ports that we were in because he got to see the places. He would talk about, you know, different places he saw, different things that he saw.
4237
When he was the ship’s rep, same sort of thing. He was more often ashore and off the boat than on the boat. He got to visit and meet a lot of different port officials and made friends with a lot of them.
He often would mention friends, some official that he went and visited and had a very good relations with or whatever. He would then as the ship went from port to port, Borne of the time he went to the next port to set up and prepare the port for when the Apollo would arrive, handle any legal natters that need to handled and stuff like that, and then we would arrive and so during that time he maybe would have a bit of free time, be able to see the city a bit. He was very familiar with of the ports we went to because he spent most of his time in the port.
Q All right. At some point, did people who were on the ship come ashore in Florida?
A Yes.
Q And when was that?
A In late ‘75.
Q And where was that?
A First in Daytona. We went to a motel and then shortly after that we moved across to Clearwater.
Q Now, what was your post at that time?
A I was the Commodore’s messenger in charge.
Q In charge of the remaining messengers?
A That is right.
Q Was Gerry Armstrong living with you at that time?
4238
A Yes.
Q Now, did you see him on a daily basis?
A Yeah.
Q And what was he doing at that time in Daytona?
A I am not too sure. Right around that time he started working in external comm.
Q And external comm — comm means communications?
A Communications, that is right.
Q And where was Mr. Hubbard at that time?
A He was there in Daytona.
Q At some point did you subsequently move to the Clearwater area?
A Yeah, shortly after that.
Q And was Mr. Hubbard in the Clearwater area?
A Yes, he was in Dunedin.
Q And were you there, too?
A Yes we stayed there then.
Q And was Mr. Armstrong there?
A Yes.
Q What was Mr. Hubbard doing during the period of time that you were in Daytona and Dunedin so far as your observations?
A He continued his researches. He continued case supervising different pilots that were going on at the time. He did — was still doing a lot of photograph at the time, and I was assisting him on that.
He still would handle if he would come across some situation again as I mentioned earlier, he would insure
4239
that that was taken care of. He would check into whatever the situation might be, and he would deliver a message to a person to point out that situation.Q During the period of time that you were in Daytona did Gerry Armstrong appear to be happy?
A Yeah.
Q And Gerry has testified that Mr. Hubbard broke up your marriage; is that true?
A No that is not true at all.
Q What did happen?
A Well, Gerry when we were in the RPF the second time together, I completed first or I got out first, and he still continued on the program. And I had noticed that Gerry had over the years been critical of my friends off and on, my friends being other messengers that I worked closely with, my sister included, and this became increasingly more dominant. At first I didn’t particularly notice it, and then at the time that we finally did break up, I had decided that I just didn’t want to go through with this any longer and I decided to end the relationship, and that is basically what happened.
It was some time after, I think, he completed the RPF the second time.
Q And you mentioned you were in the RPF twice with Mr. Armstrong. When was the first time?
A ‘76, about mid-’76.
Q And where was that?
A That was at the Fort Harrison in Clearwater.
4240
Q And at that time who was in the RPF other than you and Mr. Armstrong?
A That was it at the very beginning, just the two of us.
Q When you first went on the RPF there, did you sleep in the bathroom?
A Yeah, for a short period of time.
Q Can you describe — first, how big was the bathroom and second, how long a period of time?
A It was about, I guess, 12 feet by 16 feet, something like that, and we had — there was a rollaway bed in there, and we had just come from Los Angeles so we didn’t really have a place established, a room, and because there hadn’t been an RPF, there was no dormitories or anything like that. So we were there temporarily, and then a space was established which we moved to.
Q Now, in 1976, that would have been the summer at Fort Harrison, did ultimately some other people come to the RPF?
A Yeah, after a while a few more people were assigned and then it increased from there.
Q What was your post in the RPF?
A I was — first of all for a short period of time I think — well I was the deputy boatswain and Gerry was the boatswain.
Q What is the deputy boatswain and what is the boatswain?
A The boatswain is in charge of the RPF.
4241
Q And –
A And the boatswain is responsible for all of the RPF members, their progress, through the RPF program and insuring that they get through the program and they complete it to a full product.
Q All right.
Now, at some point did your post change?
A Then I became the Tech-in-charge.
The Tech-in-charge is in charge of the technical unit which is responsible for the training and auditing of the RPF members.
Q And what was Mr. Armstrong’s post when you were the Tech-in-charge?
A He was the boatswain for a period of time.
Q Now, did you ever have any courses in the RPF while you were the Tech-IC where there was no check sheet?
A No. We always made up some sort of a check sheet.
Q And during the time that you were in the RPF was Mr. Armstrong learning to audit?
A Yes.
Q For how long did you remain in the RPF?
A Six or seven months.
Q And for how long aid he remain in the RPF at Fort Harrison?
A I think he was another six or seven months after me, something like that.
Q During the time that he was in the RPF at
4242
Fort Harrison was it a practice to have success stories?A Yes.
Q Ana what — were these success stories posted on bulletin boards?
A Yes, or announced at musters.
We would have a muster at the end of each study period or at the end of each day and somebody might — would announce their wins or how they did or some break through they had in their auditing or some gains that they had. They would announce it at muster.
Q I’m going to show you what has been marked exhibit 53 and I am going to ask you if you have seen exhibit 53 before?
A Yes.
Q And did you see that at the time that Mr. Armstrong completed RPF?
A Yes.
Q And did Mr. Armstrong read his success story from the RPF to others?
A I don’t know if he read the whole thing, but he definitely told everybody of the wins that were in
here.
And this, I believe, was on the notice board or he showed it around. He was very proud of it. He was very happy to have completed it and he looked very good.
Q By your observation, was — during the time that Mr. Armstrong was in the RPF did he appear to be happy?
A Yes, particularly at the end.
I mean at the beginning he wasn’t real happy that
4243
he had goofed and had to do the RPF. I wasn’t either. But we decided to do it and he wanted to do it. And we wanted to get the training.We had never been auditors before. I had done a Dianetics course at Saint Hill, but only the theory. I had never done the actual practical.
We wanted to have the chance to learn to become auditors and we decided that would be a good opportunity. So we busy and started training as auditors.
Q During the period that you were training as auditors was Mr. Clavell Mr. Armstrong’s twin?
A Yes.
Q Now, what was a twin? What was that supposed to be?
A In the RPF you had a twin that you could twin up with, which means pair off together to do the training, to learn to become auditors. You helped each other to get through the materials; you studied together.
A twin is responsible for another twin. And when you get to the practical section, you audit each other. It is a co-auditing.
Q What sorts of physical labor would you do on the RPF at Fort Harrison?
A A variety of things. It could be anything from cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning floors, vacuuming carpets, vacuuming, cleaning the lobby of the hotel; renovating rooms; upgrading the building. In general, we were responsible for the upkeep and upgrade of the building.
4244
Q This would, again, be on a team-work basis?
A That’s right.
Q And so would people go to all parts of the hotel who were on the RPF and work?
A That’s right. And they would go in teams.
They would have in-charge and they would work together because you can get — for several reasons, one being that you can get more work done that way when you have a group working together. It is more fun to work together and it creates a team spirit.
Q And were you under guard at the time you were off doing this work?
A No, not at all.
Q Now, the second time that you were on the RPF with Mr. Armstrong was where?
A That was at La Quinta,
Q And was Mr. Hubbard at La Quinta at that time?
A Yes. At the very beginning, I don’t think so. And then shortly afterward.
Q What was your post at La Quinta before you went on the RPF?
A Messenger and photographer.
Q And at the time that you were in the — doing photography what was going on at La Quinta?
A Well, we — that is when we started doing training films. We started doing cinematography of Scientology training films. And the first one we did was like a thrill film because most of the — nearly all of the
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crew on the photography crew had not done movie photography before. I hadn’t. I had done still photography, but not movie photography.So the first one we did was a thrill film so that we would learn the ropes, so to speak; we would learn how to do movie photography. And we studied and did the practical.
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Q All right now what was Mr. Armstrong’s post at the time that you were doing this?
A He had various different posts. He was for a while, he was handling the sets and props and doing — he did some location scouting. I am net sure how much, and he did assistant director, I think, for a short time, so he did various different posts in the movie team.
Q All right, now, on these location scoutings, would these be off the La Quinta base?
A Yes.
Q Did Mr. Armstrong appear happy to you during the time that he was at La Quinta?
A Yeah.
Q Now, insofar as graduation from the RPF, if one has not had any auditing or auditor training, does it take longer?
A Yes because if the person is already an auditor, a trained auditor, then when they go into the RPF, all they have to do during that five hours a day is just the auditing. They are all ready to start and they get twinned off with somebody else who is already an auditor and they just do the auditing on each other, and then they can complete.
If a person is not already auditor trained, then they must do basic auditor training so that they can then audit each other.
Q And had Gerry prior to the Fort Harrison RPF had any auditor training that you were aware of?
4247
A No.
Q Did he remain in the RPF at Fort Harrison for longer than most?
A Well not necessarily. There were other people who took that long who also were not auditor trained.
Q So the determinant was the ability to audit or your auditor training?
A That was a big factor, yes.
Q Now at the time that you were at La Quinta in the RPF, what were you doing as far as your activities with Mr. Armstrong?
A In the RPF?
Q Yes.
A Well, during the work time we were either gardening or cleaning or renovating, and then five hours a day we would do training and auditing.
Q And how long did it take you to graduate the RPF the first time in Fort Harrison?
A Six or seven months.
Q And how long did it take you to graduate the RPF on the second occasion?
A Just a few months.
Q Did you have an opportunity to observe Mr. Hubbard while he was directing the making of films at La Quinta?
A Yes, I worked with him.
Q And during the period of time that you were at La Quinta after you were trained, what were you doing?
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What was your post?
A Then I became the camera man.
Q And what was the responsibility of that job?
A Well it is similar to director of photography. I was responsible for all of the camera work and photography that went on in the films.
Q Now did you ever observe Mr. Hubbard to be irrational and eratic [erratic] at La Quinta?
A No, I wouldn’t say he was irrational and eratic.
Q From time to time did he get angry?
A Yes, he did get angry.
Q And were you there when he would get angry?
A Some of the time, yes.
Q And did you understand why he was getting angry?
A Yeah, I definitely understood. I got angry myself many times.
When you are shooting movies, it is a very expensive business. It is very time-consuming if you don’t work quickly.
I have also been on Hollywood sets and observed when I was doing my training and observed them on the set there, they worked very quickly. It is an important factor because you have got a lot of people working on the crews. You have got a lot of people who are going to be standing around waiting and you can’t afford to lose time. You have got actors who have to go through the paces so many times if somebody goofs up on the lighting or forgets
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to put a certain tie on the person or the wrong color clothing that doesn’t match the shot before, so these mistakes can cost time and money and he was always working diligently to keep the pace at a fast pace and high quality so that the least time and money was wasted during the photography.If somebody slowed down the operation, there were times when he did get angry.
Q And what were the films that you were working on, what general type?
A They were training films, Scientology training films.
Q While on the film crew at La Quinta, did you believe that you were personally employed by L. Ron Hubbard?
A No.
Q Did Mr. Armstrong express to you that he felt that he was personally employed by Mr. Hubbard?
A No.
Q Did the Commodore’s messenger group form into an organization at some point?
A Yes.
Q And when did that first happen?
A Early — late ‘68 when I first became a messenger. I was just like a unit, and I was the messenger in charge.
In the early ’70’s we formed up our own organizational board which is similar to most other
4250
Scientology organizations where you have specific posts. You have executives at the top and then you have divisions and so forth.4251
We called ourselves at that time Commodores Messenger Organization.
Then our duties — as I said earlier, our duties increased as we learned more about administrative policy and so forth.
In around 1980, 1979, ‘80, is when CMO then formed up and started to actually take on management duties which is what they now do also.
Q All right. And principally, during that period of time when it took over the management functions, what was your post?
A Do you mean in ‘79-’80?
Q Right.
A I was cameraman still doing training films.
Q All right. Now, did you have any communications with Mr. Armstrong while he was in the archives post?
A Just a few.
Q Can you recall the first one, approximately when it was?
A The first time — oh, yes. When Omar Garrison started on the biography or shortly after.
He came around to interview a lot of the old time messengers. And I was one of them. And at that time I saw Gerry briefly then. I remember asking him, you know, well, what type of thing do I tell Omar. I don’t know this guy. I have never met him before and I don’t know, you know. Was he — I didn’t know how much he was briefed on and what this guy was like, who he was, where did he come from.
4252
Q You asked Gerry these things essentially?
A Yes. I basically asked him what is okay to tell him or what shouldn’t I tell him. I didn’t know exactly what this guy was going to interview me on. I had no idea.
He said, “Totally fine. Tell him anything. You can trust him with anything. It is okay. It is not going to go anywhere else.”
Q At that time when Mr. Garrison was interviewing you was Gerry sitting in on this interview?
A No.
Q He left?
A I just saw him briefly. He was working on something else or getting more people or something.
Q Now, do you recall a second conversation with Mr. Armstrong while he was in the archives post?
A Well, briefly I remember one time passing by when he was Xeroxing. And it was like a hello, something like that.
Q Xeroxing in the archives area?
A Right.
Q Where was the archives area, by the way?
A In the main building at the Cedars Complex.
Q And during this period of time did you observe Hr. Armstrong to be at various places in the Complex?
A Yes. He was running around looking very busy most of the time I did see him. I would see him passing by.
Q Did you see him in the dining area?
A I saw him near that area, passing by.
4253
Q And were you aware of whether he had berthing in that building?
A I imagined he did.
Q No. I wanted to know if you are aware; no imagination.
A I never saw him [his] berthing arrangement.
Q Okay. Now, did there come a time when you received some photos?
A Yes.
Q And can you indicate approximately when that was?
A It must have been early ‘82.
Q Okay. And how did you come into possession of these photos?
A Ron Pook had them. And he showed them to me.
Q And did you recognize any of the photos as containing something which you recognized?
A Yes.
Q What was that?
A There was a set of photographs — they were test shots of testing a camera. They looked very familiar to me because we had done many, many tests like that when doing the training films and shooting with LRH. They were, obviously, tests that he was shooting in a camera or testing ASA of the film or something like that. He was in some of the shots holding up cards. And on the card it had the ASA of the film and the speed of the camera which was a standard test shot that we did for every new type of film or new camera.
4254
Then there were cards at the bottom, definitely on some of them, that had like the color scale and the black and white scale.
Q Was there a distinctive color swath that you saw in any of the photographs?
A Yes, it was a Kodak color swath which is what we used for doing test film.
Q And is that something that you recognized as being unique?
A What do you mean by “being unique”?
Q Unique in the sense that Mr. Hubbard always used the same one.
A Yes. Those are the ones that he always used and the cards that had written on them the exact tests that we had done many times before.
4255
Q And at the time that you received these films or these photographs; were there any negatives attached?
A I didn’t see any negatives.
Q And what was your state of mind with respect to these photographs?
A Well I couldn’t figure out how Gerry had gotten a hold of them. Ron Pook told me that Gerry was trying to sell them to Virgil Wilhite, and I thought that he must have taken them from somewhere or something. I don’t know how he could have gotten a hold of them because they were obviously LRH shooting test films of his camera or some new film that he wanted to use or something like that. I was a bit mad that he was trying to sell these to somebody else, and obviously — he obviously hadn’t told Virgil, I assumed he hadn’t told Virgil what these photographs were. So I was pretty mad at seeing them.
Q And did you do something with the photographs?
A Yeah, I chucked them out.
Q Was it your understanding at the time that there were still negatives was still existing of these photos?
A I knew that the negatives would be with the rightful owner. I assumed that they were from the archives or the LRH photo files or something like that.
Q And I take it you now feel some regret about that?
A Well, yes.
Q Did you at any time have the thought that this
4256
would be, the destruction of the photographs, one of the first steps in some sort of fair game activity against Mr. Armstrong?A No, not at all.
Q Did there come a time when Mr. Armstrong came to the CMO building in Los Angeles?
A Yes.
Q And can you date approximately when that was?
A I now it was in early ‘82.
Q All right, and what gave you a clue that he was there?
A I heard that he was downstairs yelling and screaming at somebody and asking — talking to Steve Harlow, and there was two other guys there as well, and I went down to find out what was going on, and I listened outside the door.
I could hear yelling and screaming coming from inside. I just listened for a few minutes and I heard him, kept swearing, using some very severe swear words and he was calling somebody names, and I couldn’t tell and I looked through the door and I could see him pointing to a photograph of L. Ron Hubbard and calling him dirty names and saying other derogatory comments which I don’t remember all of them because by then I was pretty mad and I couldn’t figure out why Steve Marlow was allowing him to carry on like this, and I walked in there and I told him to leave the property.
Q Did you say anything about an attorney at that
4257
time?A Not right at that time. I just walked in. He had his wife with him and Omar Garrison and Omar Garrison’s wife.
4258
And I thought I couldn’t understand why he brought such an entourage of people with him unless he obviously wanted to cause trouble.
When I heard him yelling and screaming, I wasn’t going to stand for that in our building, on our property, yelling and screaming and calling names of our founder whom I respect. And other Scientologists and staff members in the building felt the same way.
I was only interested in getting him to leave.
And I said, “Please leave,” or something like that. And I pointed to the door, which was right next to something, to me.
He immediately looked at me; started walking toward the door; had a second thought, obviously; turned around and said something like, “I am not leaving until I get the photographs,” something like that.
And I said, “I’m asking you to leave right now.”
And he said, “Well, I am not leaving,” or muttering something like that. He sort of was half walking to the door and half sort of not going to leave.
I said, “Look, I just want you to leave. You get right off the property right now.”
And, again, he sort of didn’t really want to.
And I said, “if you want to get an attorney, get an attorney. But you leave the property right now.”
And at that point he left.
THE COURT: We’ll take a recess until 1:30.
(At 11:59 a.m., a recess was taken until 1:30 p.m. of the same day.)
4259
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA; MONDAY, JUNE 4, 1984; 1:30 P.M.
oOo
THE COURT: All right, in the case on trial let the record reflect that counsel are present.
TERRI GAMBOA, the witness on the stand at the time of the noon recess, having been previously duly sworn, resumed the stand and testified further as follows:
THE COURT: The witness has retaken the stand. Just state your name again for the record, ma’am. You are still under oath.
THE WITNESS: Terri Gamboa.
THE COURT: You may continue, Mr. Harris.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Resumed) BY MR. HARRIS:
Q I am going to show you exhibit X and ask you to take a look at that.
A Okay.
Q While you were in the RPF with Mr. Armstrong at the Fort Harrison hotel, did you gather up the materials that are in exhibit X?
A No. The first one I have never seen before. It is an old 1960 security check. There is more recent issues that we would have used at that time. I don’t remember this
4260
one. This is the first time I have read that.The next one here, I have seen this some time back but I don’t remember using this one from the RPF. Again, there was more recent ones that we used.
MR. FLYNN: Can we identify that next one, Your Honor?
Q BY MR. HARRIS: Sure. The next one that you referred to is what?
A Policy letter 7 April, ‘61, Johannesburg Security Check.
4261
Q By the way, did Mr. Armstrong ever mention to you anything about Fair Game during all the time that you knew him?
A No.
Q And did Mr. Armstrong even mention to you with others anything about Scientology being a religion?
A Yes.
Q All right. Can you tell me the place that it occurred and who was present?
A When we went to visit his parents after they received this postcard about him being shanghaied or whatever and he hadn’t been writing to them very regularly at all, they were concerned; hadn’t heard from him.
We went to visit them to show that he was perfectly fine, that he was not shanghaied. We took a few books with us to show them on Scientology because they didn’t know a lot about it; he hadn’t told them a lot about it even earlier before the Sea Org.
And we told them a bit about it. We told them the basics, that it was an applied religious philosophy; how it worked and some basic parts of it such as community, affinity, reality communications equals understanding and how those things interrelate and our beliefs and such as that and so forth.
Q Did you ever have a conversation with your mother with Mr. Armstrong present?
A Yes.
Q And specifically directing your attention to
4262
a time in 1974 in Los Angeles — were you with Mr. Armstrong in Los Angeles in 1974?A Yes. I think that is where it was. I think it was the same trip when we visited his parents. We also went — we were in Los Angeles; we went to Celebrity Center which is where my mother worked. She was running the Org there. And that was the first time that he met her. And we discussed with her — he was telling her how he had gone to one of her lectures. I think it was in Vancouver when he first heard about Scientology and the Sea Org. And at that lecture he learned from her, you know, different things about the Sea Orgs, stuff like that. And we discussed then some basic things about Scientology and it being a religion and our beliefs in auditing and different things like that.
4263
Q Now, while you were the Tech IC in the RPF, did you ever cull PC folders for crimes?
A No.
Q Did you ever see Mr. Armstrong do that?
A No.
Q And did you ever have any Guardian’s office personnel ask you to see the folders?
A No.
Q Were you ever asked by any Guardian office people at any time to look at the folders?
A No I wasn’t.
MR. HARRIS: No further questions.
THE COURT: You may cross-examine.
MR. FLYNN: Thank you, Your Honor.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q What is your current position at ASI,Miss Gamboa?
A I am the executive administrative officer.
Q And in terms of ranking, are you the highest ranking official of ASI or second or third?
A No. I handle administrative affairs, handle things such as programs which is a series of steps to get done in a particular area, and the main area I handle deals with marketing and sales of fiction and nonfiction properties.
Q Who is the chairman of the board of ASI?
A Mr. Norman Starky — oh, I am sorry, the
4264
chairman of the board?Q Right.
A Mr. Norman Starky.
Q When was David Miscavige the chairman of the board?
MR. HARRIS: All assumes a fact not in evidence that he was.
THE COURT: I will sustain the objection.
Q BY MR. FLYWN: Was David Miscavige the chairman of the board?
A Do you mean as the officer — Mr. Starky has been.
Q Was David Miscavige ever the chairman of the board?
A At one time he had that title but not as the corporate title.
Q When did he have that title?
A Well he was actually just called COB, we didn’t really call him chairman of the board. Was called COB and that would have been last year and this year.
Q Now, you deal with attorneys quite a bit; is that correct?
A Personally, no.
Q Through other people on your staff?
A No, I don’t.
Q Why, you have told several people that you are supervising this litigation; haven’t you?
A No. There was a time in ‘82 when I was working with some people in that area, but not since then.
4265
Q So in ‘82 you were supervising the litigation?
A No, I was supervising the administrative affairs of the unit that we had at the time that was over-seeing legal and public relations.
Q What unit?
A It was called Special Unit, Special Project.
Q When in 1972?
A In ‘82.
Q I mean 1982.
A The end of ‘81, possibly the very beginning of ‘82. Mostly the end of ‘81.
Q And you were dealing with lawyers at that time?
A A little bit. Mostly the people in the unit were. I was the administrative officer coordinator.
Q What lawyers were interfacing with that Special Project Unit at that time?
MR. HARRIS: What is the relevance of that? I will object.
MR. FLYNN: I will tie it in.
THE COURT: Well, I will overrule it subject to a motion to strike.
THE WITNESS: What is the question?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: What lawyers was the Special Project Unit dealing with at that time?
A John Peterson, Barry Litt somewhat.
Q Sherman Lenske?
A I know that there was some meetings where he attended. He was involved with some of the tech meetings
4266
that might have been going on then.Q And for a period of time in 1982 there was a standing rule that everything was to be cleared through the lawyers that you were dealing with in that special project; right?
MR. HARRIS: I think I will object to that. Probably is calling for privileged information, Your Honor, or at least the very beginning of it.
THE COURT: Well I don’t think that would. I will overrule that.
THE WITNESS: What is the question exactly?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Wasn’t there just a standing rule that while you were working on that special project everything was to be cleared through the lawyers?
A What do you mean by “everything”?
Q Well, was that a standing rule?
A Legal affairs were cleared through attorneys. So, as far as legal affairs, yes, they would be cleared through the attorneys.
Q Now you told Mr. Armstrong to go get himself an attorney; is that correct?
A I said if he wanted to get an attorney, that is what he should do, something to that effect.
Q And then after that you destroyed the photos?
A No, I had already thrown them away.
4267
Q You destroyed the photos before you told Mr. Armstrong to get a lawyer if he wanted the photos back?
A Excuse me?
Q You told Mr. Armstrong to go get an attorney after you had destroyed the photos?
A When he was down in the building yelling and screaming, I told him to leave. The photos I had — I had already checked them out.
Q So then you told him to go get an attorney after you had destroyed them?
A Exactly what I just said. I think I made it clear.
When I first — when Ron Pook showed me the photographs, right after that I threw them out.
And then Mr. Armstrong came by. And I told him to leave.
He didn’t want to leave. And I said, “If you want to get an attorney, you should do that. But I am asking you to leave right now.”
Q Did you testify this morning that you thought that the photographs were from the archives?
A Right.
Q And you thought they were from the archives when Mr. Armstrong first brought them to you — strike that — when Mr. Pook first brought them to you?
A Right.
Q And how long after you thought they were from archives did you destroy them?
4268
A Shortly after I spoke to Mr. Pook.
Q And did you check with anyone in archives to see whether there was an inventory for them?
A No.
Q Now, did you have any understanding at that time as to whether the photographs had any value in terms of people being willing to pay, say, $6,000 for a set of 45 photos?
A When I spoke to Mr. Pook and I saw the photographs, they were these shots. And they weren’t flattering photographs.
THE COURT: How many did you see?
THE WITNESS: How many photographs?
THE COURT: Yes.
THE WITNESS: Maybe 10, something like that.
THE COURT: What size were they?
THE WITNESS: Just regular size.
THE COURT: That covers a lot of bases; what is regular size?
THE WITNESS: About three by five.
THE COURT: Individual photographs?
THE WITNESS: Right.
THE COURT: No negatives?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: Were they mounted on anything?
THE WITNESS: Some of them might have been and some of them might have been on a little folder, might have been on a board or something.
4269
THE COURT: Were they black and white, or in color?
THE WITNESS: I think most of them were black and white; might have been a few color.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: So you threw 10 photographs out; is that your testimony?
A It was about that many. I mean I didn’t count them or anything.
I just looked at them, and thought, “Why is he trying to sell these to Virgil? These aren’t the types of photographs that Virgil or a Scientologist would buy or sell.”
They were test photographs with big cards and writing in the middle and being held up and stuff like that.
Q When you say test photographs, do you mean like, you know, when someone is shooting a movie and they say, “Take 2? and something and they slap the thing down?
A No. That is a clapper board.
This is like written on a piece of paper.
Q At the bottom of the photograph?
A It could be at the bottom or held up in the photograph.
Q Did all the photographs have that test-type thing on it?
A Most of them, yes.
Q Did you see any that didn’t?
A Yes. There was a couple, I think, that didn’t. It was a bunch of people sitting around or something.
Q So those that didn’t, you didn’t think those were
4270
test photos, did you?A No.
Q But you threw those out too?
A Yes, I think so.
Q What were the pictures with a bunch of people sitting around?
A What were they? I think there was one like on the — when we were shooting on the set in La Quinta, there was a — everybody was sitting around; people were working on the set shooting or whatever. One of them, I think, was like that.
Q Well, 10 photographs; at any time did you see as many as 45 photographs?
A No.
Q Did you see photographs of your wedding pictures with Mr. Armstrong?
A No. I knew about those.
And I said those should be given back; those belong to Gerry’s family and those are Gerry’s.
Q Who did you tell that to?
A Mr. Pook.
Q Did he show you those?
A No. I wasn’t interested in those.
I just told him, you know, “I know about those. You should give those back.”
Q So he just described the wedding photographs; he never showed you any, Mr. Pook?
A Right.
4271
Q And so the 10 you saw were not wedding photographs?
A No. They weren’t wedding photographs.
Q Now, did you inquire with anyone as to what the total number of photographs were that Mr. Armstrong was attempting to sell?
A No.
Q Did you ask Mr. Pook are these all the photographs that he was trying to sell?
A No.
Q Did you understand that in addition to these photographs, there were photographs of another wedding in which Kima Douglas played a role?
A I don’t remember anything like that.
Q Those weren’t shown to you?
A I don’t remember anything like that. So I don’t think so.
Q Were they described to you?
A No.
Q Now, these test photos, did you try to ascertain the period of time that the photographs were taken?
A No. I knew — well, I knew it was early ’70’s. I think it was.
Q How did you know that?
A Because they were — well, I heard that from somebody.
I didn’t have personal knowledge.
4272
Q Who did you hear that from?
A I think from Ron Pook.
4273
Q All right. I am sure you have seen that photograph before; is that correct?
A Yeah I think this might have been one of them, yes. I am not totally sure; that it was. They were the same time period.
Q Now I am not exactly clear what you. mean by these test photos. Where on this photo that has been marked triple D is there any — a card saying “test photo”?
A This one doesn’t have it, but if you have the others, I believe most of the others do.
Q I’d like to have the others. Do you know where they are?
A Whoever has the negatives. I thought you would have the negatives.
Q Now you are absolutely certain that there were no negatives; is that correct?
A There weren’t any when I had the photos. I never had the negatives.
Q There were negatives when Mr. Wilhite had the photos?
MR. HARRIS: Your Honor –
THE COURT: If you know.
THE WITNESS: I don’t know.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, what role if any did you play, Mrs. Gamboa, in preparing the Declare issued on Gerry Armstrong?
A I didn’t have anything to do with that.
4274
Q Now when you thought that the photos were taken from archives, you had the impression at that time, I take it, that Gerry had stolen the photos from archives?
A I didn’t know. It was a possibility, but I didn’t know.
Q And during that period of time did you see the Declare that was issued on Gerry?
A No.
Q When did you first see the Declare?
A Some time, I guess, in early ‘82, quarter of the way through ‘82, something like that. I am not sure. I never saw the second one. I have heard about it, but I saw the first one.
Q Now –
A When I saw Gerry later, he told me about the second one.
Q Are you familiar with the policy regarding destruction of materiel in Scientology?
A I don’t know which policy you mean. I’d have to see it.
Q Where it is made a crime to destroy organization materiel, you have seen that policy?
A Maybe, but I’d really like to see it first to be able to answer the question.
Q You remember something about a policy of that nature?
A Well I know there is a policy or a Flag order to do with archives material, that you can destroy archives
4275
and valuable documents or something like that. Is that what you mean?Q And you were familiar with that policy in 1982?
A Yeah.
Q When you destroyed the photographs?
A Yeah.
Q When you thought they were from archives?
THE COURT: You have to answer audibly.
THE WITNESS: I am sorry, yes. I knew that wherever the photographs –
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Thank you, Mrs. Gamboa. You have answered the question.
Now you testified that you had never seen some of the security checks in exhibit X; is that correct?
A I am sorry. What was that?
Q Do you remember Mr. Harris showing you exhibit X?
A Right.
Q Now you do know what a security check is, though?
A Yes.
Q And you participated in a security check of Homer Shomer in the fall of 1982 in which it was a beginning security check?
A No.
MR. HARRIS: Well I will object.
THE COURT: It is compound and assumes a fact not in
4276
evidence.Q BY MR. FLYNN: Did you participate in a security check of Homer Shomer in the fall of 1982?
A Yes.
MR. HARRIS: That is irrelevant and Homer Shomer doesn’t have anything to do with this case.
THE COURT: What is your answer? Yes?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: How many people were present in that security check?
A Myself and I think one other.
Q Was Nan Starky there?
A She might have come in during part of it. She wasn’t there — I don’t think she was there for the majority of it.
Q Was Norman Starky there?
A He came at one point to find out what was happening.
Q Was Owen Starky there?
A No I don’t remember Owen being there.
Q Who was running it?
A I think it was Mike Eldridge.
Q Was DM there?
A He also came at one part of it.
Q That is David Miscavige; right?
A Right.
Q What [Was] Fran Harris there?
A She was in the building at the time. I don’t
4277
know if she was right there.Q You don’t recall whether she was there?
A No.
Q And how about Fred Harris?
A I am not sure.
Q And what about Lyman Spurlock?
A I don’t know. I wasn’t there the whole time so I don’t know exactly who might have been in the vicinity.
4278
Q How long did the security check last?
MR. HARRIS: Objection. Irrelevant, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled.
THE WITNESS: I don’t know. I was there for maybe an hour or something.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Did you hear questions like, “Who are you working for?”
MR. HARRIS: I’ll object to that, Your Honor.
What is the relevance of the questions that were asked.
THE WITNESS: I think that gets into personally privileged information as far as discussing –
THE COURT: There is no legal privilege attached to you at the moment.
I’ll overrule the objection. It goes to credibility, bias, interest, motive.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Did you hear questions like that, Mrs. Gamboa, to Mr. Shomer?
A Questions like what?
Q Like “Who are you working for”?
A I didn’t ask questions like that.
Q Did you hear questions like that?
A Not when I was there, no.
Q How long did the security check last?
MR. HARRIS: That has been asked and answered.
THE WITNESS: Yes. That was asked earlier.
THE COURT: Let me rule.
THE WITNESS: I am sorry. Excuse me.
4279
THE COURT: I don’t remember if it was asked and answered or not.
MR. HARRIS: It was an hour, is what she said.
THE WITNESS: That I was there.
THE COURT: That she was there, yes.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you remember Mr. Shomer being placed under guard?
A No.
Q Have you ever known anyone to be placed under guard, Mrs. Gamboa?
A No — no. I have heard claims from some people, but I haven’t personally seen it myself or known about it.
Q Were you around when Bill Franks was placed under guard in the fall of 1981?
MR. HARRIS: Objection. Assumes a fact not in evidence.
THE COURT: There have been so many questions and there — I don’t know if there has been testimony on that or not.
MR. HARRIS: There has been constant questions by Mr. Flynn about it, Your Honor, but never an answer.
THE COURT: It can be asked a different way,
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you know whether or not Bill Franks was placed under guard?
A I know that he claims that he was. And I know that I was around and saw him walking around. So I very much doubt that he was placed under guard.
Q You don’t whether Mr. Shomer was placed under
4280
guard; is that right?A That’s right.
Q During the security check did you see David Miscavige spit at Mr. Shomer?
A No. I didn’t see that.
MR. HARRIS: What is the relevance, Your Honor?
MR. FLYNN: The relevance is intimidation, duress.
THE COURT: Overruled. You can answer.
THE WITNESS: I didn’t personally see it.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: You heard about it?
A I heard something about that.
Q What about Norman Starky; did he spit at him?
A I don’t know.
Q Did you hear about that?
A No, I just heard something about the incident.
Q And do you know about when John Nelson tried to leave being punched in the face by David Miscavige during a security check?
A No.
Q Did you hear about that?
A No.
Q Now, in the RPF at Clearwater do you remember people sleeping in a storage area?
A The room was a large room. At one time in the past it was used for storage. It was converted into a dormitory and a course room.
Q And how many people were sleeping in this area?
MR. HARRIS: Objection, Your Honor. Irrelevant.
4281
THE COURT: Overruled.
THE WITNESS: Maybe 30. It is a very large room.
Q BY MR. FLYNN:And do you remember people sleeping in the garage in the RPF in Clearwater?
A There were a couple of dormitories built in one corner of the garage near several other rooms. And it was a part that was no longer used for cars, it was converted into a type of building.
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Q You testified at some length about your observations of Mr. Hubbard with regard to photographs, doing photography and research; do you recall that testimony?
A Can you give me that again, please?
THE COURT: Which point in time? You mean when they were on the ship or in La Quinta or taking movies or what?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you recall your testimony of observing Mr. Hubbard on board the ship?
A Right.
Q And you observed him doing photography and research; is that correct?
A That is right.
Q Did you observe him doing any managing of any Scientology organizations?
A No. As I covered earlier, if he saw an area, and [an] org that wasn’t doing well, he would call for the information, the statistics. He would view it, determine what was needed, which person was responsible for the area, what was needed to get that person corrected, and then take action to see that that person was corrected which times we would deliver a message to do with that.
Q So your answer is no, he didn’t do research — I mean, he didn’t do managing of Scientology organizations?
MR. HARRIS: She described what she described. Calls for a conclusion.
THE COURT: All right. I will sustain the objection.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now when you were making the
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films at La Quinta, did you observe Mr. Hubbard doing any managing of Scientology organizations then?A No.
Q And I understand he would occasionally get angry from your testimony?
A Yes.
Q But you never saw him get irrational or abusive; is that correct?
A That is right.
Q Now do you recall signing a waiver when you were working on the films, Mrs. Gamboa?
A No.
Q In which you waived any claim to any financial profit from the films?
A I don’t recall a waiver like that.
Q Did Mr. Hubbard receive funds from the films?
A I don’t know. I don’t have any information on that.
Q While you have been the executive administrative director at ASI, have you received any information on that?
MR. HARRIS: I will object to that, Your Honor. It is irrelevant to this case.
THE COURT: I don’t know. We have been here for six weeks hearing a little bit of everything and not everything about a few things.
MR. HARRIS: Post ‘82, Your Honor, is a point where she is executive administrator and has to do with marketing and so on.
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THE COURT: I will permit a limited inquiry. We have been here for six weeks.
THE WITNESS: So what is the question.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: The question is, Mrs. Gamboa, whether or not while you have been working at ASl to your knowledge Mr. Hubbard has received funds for those films?
A I wouldn’t know because I haven’t been directly on the financial lines.
Q Have you participated in financial meetings?
A Some.
Q Did you –
A You mean for Author Services?
Q Correct.
A I said some.
Q And in those meetings did you acquire any information about Mr. Hubbard receiving funds from films?
MR. HARRIS: I will object, Your Honor. It is irrelevant.
THE COURT: Well I will sustain the objection,
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you recall writing up knowledge reports on Gerry when he was your husband?
A Possibly. I don’t recall right now exactly what I might have written.
Q Now do you recall how many such reports you wrote up?
A No.
Q Have you written programs with respect to this litigation, Mrs. Gamboa?
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A No.
Q Did you run programs with respect to this litigation?
A No.
Q Have you told Mr. Armstrong that you did?
A No.
Q Now when you were in the RPF about which you have testified — incidentally, you were never in the RPF on board the ship; is that correct?
A That is right.
Q Did you ever observe Mr. Hubbard on board the ship send anyone to the RPF?
A Yes, a few.
Q And do you recall what types of infractions Mr. Hubbard sent people to the RPF for?
A If anything put the ship’s safety in danger, he would send someone to the RPF for that.
Q Did you discuss that subject at noontime during the lunch break?
A No.
Q And he would send them to get spiritual betterment if they had messed something up on the ship?
A For redemption, for correction and spiritual benefit, yes.
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THE COURT: How do you define redemption?
THE WITNESS: If a person on a post or position is having trouble, for example, if someone did put the ship in danger, they would need to get corrected on whatever caused that to happen. And in the RPF, the RPF program would be sure to address that area so they could get that corrected.
THE COURT: What does that have to do with redemption?
THE WITNESS: That would be redeem the person as far as whatever problem areas they had.
THE COURT: All right.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Mrs. Gamboa, you have heard Mr. Hubbard cursing and swearing frequently; isn’t that correct?
A No, that is not correct.
Q Did you ever hear him curse and swear?
A Very rarely. Very rarely.
Q How about DM; he was cursing and swearing all the time?
MR. HARRIS: Objection, Your Honor. What is the relevance?
THE COURT: I don’t know what the relevance is.
MR. FLYNN: Intimidation, Your Honor; the way the organization is run.
Q Mrs. Gamboa, do you know what the auditing process is?
A Yes.
Q And in Scientology, it is very important to rigidly adhere to the Tech and see to it that the Tech is
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rigidly applied; is that correct?A That is correct.
Q And when a person is audited, the auditor is supposed to follow very rigid applications of L. Ron Hubbard’s Techs; [Tech;] is that correct?
A That is correct.
Q And for that reason, the auditors are very carefully trained to make sure that they audit properly per the Tech of L. Ron Hubbard; is that correct?
A That is correct.
Q And it is well known in Scientology that squirrel groups, people who try to audit outside Scientology, is frowned upon because it is a misapplication of the Tech; is that correct?
Q That’s right?
MR. HARRIS: Objection. It is a compound question and also, at least the word “squirrel” –
THE COURT: The witness seemed to understand. I’ll let the answer stand.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: A squirrel group is one who tries to sell Scientology auditing who is not a part of the group, a part of –
MR. HARRIS: I’ll object, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I’ll overrule the objection.
THE WITNESS: What is the question?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: A squirrel is someone who is out selling auditing that is not a part of your group, the Church that you are in?
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A [A] squirrel is somebody who is not a part of the Church, but also not applying the technology correctly.
I mean you can have Scientologists in the field delivering auditing to somebody.
Q What happens if you don’t apply the Tech correctly?
MR. HARRIS: I’ll object, Your Honor. It is irrelevant; also, First Amendment at this point.
THE COURT: I am not sure I understand the question. I’ll sustain the objection. It is ambiguous.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Isn’t it a fact that if you don’t apply the Tech correctly during an auditing session, you can damage the person?
MR. HARRIS: I’ll object to that.
MR. FLYNN: I’ll tie it in, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You can answer.
THE WITNESS: What is the question exactly?
THE COURT: The court reporter will read the question. (The question was read.)
THE WITNESS: If you don’t apply the Tech correctly the auditing session won’t go smoothly.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Can you damage the person?
MR. HARRIS: Same objection, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I think “damage” — I suppose it depends on the person. Some people are most [more] susceptible to mental trauma, I suppose, than others. But the Court can draw certain conclusions.
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Q BY MR. FLYNN: In the RPF, Miss Gamboa, people are co-auditing who have never audited before; right?
A Well, they do training first. They learn to audit. They drill it. And then they go into in-session audits.
Q That is where you and Mr. Armstrong learned to audit?
A That is right.
Q With other people who had never audited before?
A The person that I was twinning with had done, I think, some auditing, but not a lot.
MR. FLYNN: That’s all I have, Your Honor.
THE COURT; Redirect?
MR. HARRIS: Briefly, Your Honor.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. HARRIS:
Q Mrs. Gamboa, was there some place else that you were aware of that the photos could have come from other than archives?
A Yes. They could have come from — somebody might have had ahold of them or had them stored away somewhere. They could have come from some other LRH photo files or films — where he kept his cameras and photography equipment. There were various photographs that might not necessarily have been archives. Test film is usually not archives. So it could have come from the test film file.
Q Now, when you were doing the auditing in the
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RPF did you have a case supervisor?A Yes.
Q Who was checking on the auditing that was going on in the RPF?
A Yes; usually there are several case supervisors and also a cramming officer. And any time you flub or make an error in session, it is taken note of by the case supervisor and then a cramming order is written which then goes to the cramming officer who pulls you in and gets you corrected on the relevant Tech.
Q With respect to the garage in which people were sleeping, how big was the garage?
A Huge. I mean it was several levels, a very large space. It would have held many, many cars, like several hundred or something like that. It wasn’t — most of it wasn’t used because we weren’t using the building as a regular hotel which is what it was in the past.
MR. HARRIS: No further questions.
THE COURT: Mr. Flynn.
MR. FLYNN: A couple, Your Honor.
RECROSS-LXAHINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q When you say all of these people were sleeping in the garage and in this other storage space, did you have any knowledge about the fire code or the rules and regulations of the City of Clearwater?
A Not personally, no.
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Q Incidentally, you had — That is all I have.
THE COURT: Mr. Harris?
MR. HARRIS: Nothing further.
THE COURT: You may step down.
MR. HARRIS: May she be excused, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. HARRIS: Mr. Litt will be handling the next witness. It has been pleasant seeing you again.
MR. LITT: Our next witness will be Michael Sommer, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Please, come forward, sir.
MICHAEL SOMMER, called as a witness by the Plaintiff in rebuttal, was duly sworn, and testified as follows:
THE CLERK: Please, raise your right hand to be sworn.
THE WITNESS: I do.
THE CLERK: Be seated. State your name and spell your last name.
THE WITNESS: Michael Sommer, S-o-m-m-e-r.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LITT:
Q Mr. Sommer, have you held any Scientology staff positions?
A Yes, I have.
Q And when did you first join staff?
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A I joined staff in 1973, July of 1973 in Detroit.
Q And was that at the Church of Scientology in Detroit?
A The Church of Scientology of Michigan.
Q What was your first post?
A I was director of income.
Q At some point subsequent to that were you sent for some Ethics training?
A Yes. I was sent to Los Angeles for a Hubbard Ethics and Justice Specialist Course.
Q When was that?
A That was in July of 1974.
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Q So from July 1973 to July 1975 you had held a position as director of income?
A Yes.
Q And how long did your training in the Hubbard ethics and justice specialist course last?
A I trained from July 1974 until October at which point I returned to Detroit. I was unfinished on the course, but I left because my wife was having a baby.
Q All right, and did you at some point in 1975 return to finish the course?
A Yes, I returned in March of 1975 and I was there for six weeks.
Q Now after you returned from L.A. — I am sorry — the training that you had, was that at the church in Los Angeles?
A No, it wasn’t.
Q Where was that?
A That was training under the US GO.
Q And was that in Los Angeles?
A Yes it was.
Q Now after you returned from finishing the course in 1975, did you assume a new post?
A Yes, I was the director of inspections and reports.
Q And what were your functions there?
A I did inspections of the org on statistics.
I also held the ethics officer post and I handled all the ethics of the students, preclears and staff members.
4294
Q And how long did you hold that post?
A I held that post until January of 1976.
Q And did you then have some further training?
A Yes, I did. I went to Clearwater and I was trained in executive director training.
Q And how long were you trained in that?
A I returned to the Org in March of 1976.
Q And what post did you assume then?
A I assumed the organizing officer post.
Q And how long did you hold that post?
A I held that post until July of 1976.
Q And after that were you on a new post?
A Yes, I was then posted as the executive director of the Church of Scientology.
Q In Detroit?
A In Detroit.
Q How long did you hold that post?
A I held that post until March of 1981.
Q Now did something happen in March of 1981 that led to your leaving post?
A Yes. My contract, my five-year contract with the church was up. I had just returned from Flag Liaison Office East U.S. after some ethics handling. After about a month, I was called back to New York for further handling. At that point I refused to go back and I was dismissed from staff.
Q And who dismissed you from staff?
A A Sea Org missionaire.
4295
Q And what did you do then?
A I went out and got a job and started working.
Q And since that time have you returned to any staff position?
A No, I have not.
Q Now at some point after you left staff in March 1981, did you receive a Suppressive Person Declare?
A Yes, I did.
Q When was that?
A In June of 1983.
Q And who was it that issued the Suppressive Person Declare, if you know?
A Liz Brenner, a Sea Org — Sea Organization missionaire.
MR. LITT: May this be marked next in order?
THE COURT: All right, 99.
Q BY MR. LITT: Mr. Sommer, I am showing you exhibit 99; do you recognize that document?
A Yes, I do.
Q And what is that?
A It is a Sea Organization Ethics Order Suppressive Person Declare on me.
Q How did you find out that you had been declared?
A I was called by a missionaire and was asked to come into the organization to see her, so I went in and we sat down and we talked for about an hour and then I went home, and the next night I received a call to come back down
4296
to the Org and I couldn’t make it that night, so she read me the Declare over the phone.Q And subsequently was a copy of the Declare delivered to you?
A Yes, it was.
Q And how did that come about?
A My sister, who was at the Org that night, brought the Declare over to my house.
Q And what was your reaction upon receiving the Declare?
A I was quite upset, upset over the fact that I would not be able to receive any further training and processing, that my communication to the church had been cut off and that my future as a Scientologist was in jeopardy.
Q Now did you consider that you were fair game by having been Declared?
A No, I did not.
Q Did you think that the fact that you were Declared meant that you would be attacked in any way?
A No.
Q Did you think that it meant that you would be lied to?
A No.
Q Did you think that it meant that you would be sued?
A No.
Q Did you think that it meant that you would be cheated?
4297
A No.
Q Did you think that it meant that you would be tricked?
A No.
Q Did you think that it meant that you would be destroyed?
A No.
4298
Q Did you think that it meant that it was a license to do any of these things?
A No.
Q Are you still declared?
A Yes, I am.
Q And do you intend to try to do anything to deal with the situation of your being declared?
A I am currently putting together a request for a committee of evidence.
Q And what is a committee of evidence?
A A committee of evidence is basically a court held to look into the fact of whether this action was a just action or whether I was given an injustice.
Q And how does a — well, first, you are putting things together; what do you put together to request a committee of evidence?
A A SKW [CSW] which is a completed staff work where I collect all the information which I feel is pertinent to the situation; I send up — I write down all the information; I come up with a solution which would be to convene a committee of evidence with a spot for them to approve or disapprove the fact that I can have a committee of evidence.
Q And who would that request go to?
A Per the Ethics order, my only terminal is the Continental Justice Chief, U.S.
Q By the way, since you have been declared, except for having been called and asked about the possibility of your being a witness in this case has your connection to
4299
Scientology been cut?A I have had no communications from the Church whatsoever.
Q And when were you called and asked if you would be a witness in this proceeding?
A Saturday afternoon.
Q And now, in — not speaking only in the context of a declare, but in general, what does a committee of evidence — how does it operate?
A Usually four staff members or, in this case, it would be four Sea Org members will be requested by the convening authority, who will be the Continental Justice Chief, to look into the matter point by point.
I’ll show up; they’ll go over each point and decide whether or not I’m guilty of those and whether or not it was a just action that I was declared a suppressive person.
If they find me to be a suppressive person, then my suppressive person order stays.
If they find that it was an injustice, my suppressive person declare will be lifted,
Q Do you have a right to request this committee of evidence under the Scientology Ethics and Justice system?
A Yes, I do.
Q Now, if a declare — if a person requests a committee of evidence and the committee of evidence upholds the declare is there any other recourse available if the
4300
person feels that the declare is unjust?A Yes. My next recourse action would be a petition to the office of L. Ron Hubbard which is the department in the organization that handles communications for the office of LRH. And it handles petitions to LRH.
I’ll write up a petition stating why I don’t feel it is just and send it up.
Q And when you say you don’t feel your declare is just, does that mean that you feel that some of the statements made in the declare are inaccurate?
A Yes.
Q And does it mean that other statements, even if they are accurate, you don’t feel warrant a declare?
A That is true.
Q Now, if an individual does not wish to have a committee of evidence on the declare or has a committee of evidence and the declare is upheld, is there anything else that a person can do to get back into good standing with the Church?
A Well, if his petition is also disapproved and the suppressive person declare is still in effect, per policy, he is to do steps A to E on the policy on suppressive persons at which point he’ll be allowed back into the Church.
MR. LITT: May I have exhibit 97, please?
THE COURT: Yes.
Q BY MR. LITT: Now Mr. Sommer, showing you exhibit — we can give this to the Court and you can look
4301
at this one — exhibit 97, when you say “Steps A to E,” are you referring to steps set forth at the bottom of page 3 and the top of page 4 on exhibit 97?A Yes, I am.
4302
Q And what is your understanding of basically what is involved in the steps?
A I will then go to the Continental Justice Chief who is my ethics terminal, and she will do step A, which is to tell me to quit committing any present time crimes or overts.
Q When you say “crimes,” are you referring to the use of that term as it is defined within Scientology?
A Yes, crimes against the organization or anything to harm the organization.
B. Will require me to then write up a public announcement that I have realized that my actions were incorrect and to make this known.
Step B-1 is if I owed any money to the organization, it would be to pay it off.
Step C will require me to start my training from the beginning, which would be the very basic course in Scientology, and the rest would be done by her which would be to file the thing, and,
Step D would be to notify the International Justice Chief.
Q Now, why did you decide, I know you haven’t done it yet, but why did you decide that you intend to request a Committee of Evidence?
A Because I feel that the action was unjustified and that there are some falsehoods in the action and that the action did not require a Suppressive Person Declare. Also, I feel I am not a Suppressive Person.
4303
Q Now, in exhibit 97 also there is a discussion concerning Suppressive Persons on page 7 that says that a Suppressive Person expelled from the church is not otherwise disciplined.
Was that your understanding?
A Yes, it was.
Q And is it your understanding that other than the fact that a Suppressive Person may be, and we will talk about this a little more, expelled from the church and therefore have their communications with the church cut off, that there was no other action that was permitted to be taken with respect to the person?
A That is true.
Q And is that essentially what happened to you?
A Yes, it is.
Q Now, let’s go back for a moment and track through some things.
In the course that you took in 1974, was this a course that trained you in the Scientology ethics system?
A Yes, it was.
Q Were you subsequently then an ethics officer?
A Yes, I was.
Q And in the training that you received from this course, did you use materials that were the current materials reflecting the operation of the Scientology ethics system?
A Yes, I did.
MR. LITT: May this be marked next in order, Your Honor,
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I only have one copy at the moment.
THE COURT: Exhibit 100.
MR. LITT: If it can be returned to us, we can copy any relevant pages, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
Q BY MR. LITT: Now the book that I have just given you which has been marked as exhibit 100, do you recognize that book?
A Yes, I do.
Q And the title of that book is “Introduction to Scientology Ethics” by L. Ron Hubbard.
A Yes, it is.
Q And does that book discuss what the purpose of the Scientology ethics is?
A Yes, it does.
Q And what is that pursuant to your understanding?
A Scientology ethics is the contemplation of optimum survival across all eight dynamics. Its purpose is to get the Scientology technology to work. In the presence of out ethics, the training and processing will not work. Therefore, the purpose of the ethics is so that the tech can work. It is a tool used.
Q And in your training course did you learn about the various conditions that an individual can be in?
A Yes, I did.
Q And among those that you learned about did you learn about the condition of enemy?
A Yes, I did.
4305
Q Now, what was your understanding of what — referring to page 56 — what it meant within Scientology to be in the condition of enemy?
A It meant that the person was being an enemy on one of his dynamics, maybe an enemy to himself, and that he was involved in actions which were counter survival to himself or to his organization or to his family or whatever; the condition of enemy did exist.
Q And in Scientology’s understanding, are all people in some condition?
A Yes.
Q So is there a series of conditions?
A Yes. There are conditions that run from treason all the way up to power.
Q And this list on page 24, does that refer to the conditions as they were defined at that time?
A Right.
Q Now, was there a formula for someone who was in the condition of enemy, what they should do to try to deal with that situation?
A There was a formula for all the conditions.
Q And what was the formula for the condition of enemy?
A It was to find out who you really were.
Q And what was your understanding as to why that was the formula for the condition of enemy?
A A person involved in any type of countersurvival activity who is doing destructive actions, either to himself
4306
or whatever, these are occurring because of aberrations that the individual has collected. And a person finding out who he really was and that he was not his aberrations, he could correct the situation and the condition would better.Q And does the Scientology system with respect to conditions work by trying to have people move from what are defined as lower conditions to higher conditions?
A That is the only purpose of the conditions.
Q Why does it work that way?
A Because everybody is in a condition. And by applying a correct formula, it will better the condition up to the next one. And by applying that formula, it is bettered to the next one.
Q Now, if a person were in Scientology and was assigned a certain condition, did that — were there penances that were attached to that condition or awards attached to the condition, depending on the level of the condition?
A Yes, there was.
THE COURT: Who determines when you are in a condition of enemy of [or] liability or doubt?
THE WITNESS: If a person is in the position where he can’t spot the condition himself, it is the job of the Ethics officer to make him understand which condition he is in.
THE COURT: How does he know what condition he is in?
THE WITNESS: By interviewing the person.
THE COURT: Does he go over the PC folders to find out what position [condition] he is in?
THE WITNESS: No. He does not go into the PC folders.
4307
THE COURT: The Sec Check folders?
THE WITNESS: No.
ThE COUKT: The confessional folders?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: Is it his determination, for example, that somebody is in a condition of liability, the Ethics officer?
THE WITNESS: If the person has been doing actions that warrant a condition of liability, he may be assigned one.
THE COURT: By whom?
THE WITNESS: By the Ethics officer.
THE COURT: Who tells the Ethics officer he is in liability?
THE WITNESS: His senior.
THE COURT: Who is his senior?
THE WITNESS: The HCO area secretary.
THE COURT: And who tells that person?
THE WITNESS: His senior.
THE COURT: And who is his senior?
THE WITNESS: The executive director.
THE COURT: Who tells the executive director?
THE WITNESS: The executor of Flag Liaison Office.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
Do you ever get to the top of the ladder in this situation?
THE WITNESS: Oh, yes.
THE COUKT: Who is at the top of the ladder?
4308
THE WITNESS: At the top?
THE COURT: Yes.
THE WITNESS: After you have gotten to Flag, I don’t know how the chain of command goes.
MR. LITT: Now, may this be marked exhibit 101, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Right.
Q BY MR. LITT: Mr. Sommer, showing you exhibit 101, is this a document that you used and were shown for study when you took your Ethics course in 1974?
A Yes, it was.
Q And what does this document tell you?
A It tells you the awards which are connected with the upper conditions and the penalties connected with the lower conditions.
Q And on page 2 there is a discussion of enemy and the penances for someone assigned the condition of enemy that continue [continues] on to page 3; is that correct?
A That is correct.
Q And was it your understanding pursuant to the course that you took that at the time you took the course that this was the correct penalties or penance available to someone assigned a condition of enemy?
A Yes, it was.
4309
Q Now, at the top of this document it says, “Cancel the following policy letters” and it has a list of policy letters that are cancelled.
What was your understanding of what it meant if a policy was cancelled?
A It was no longer in use and that the policy that cancelled those policies was now the current policy to be used.
Q And as result, did you study cancelled policies in your course?
A No we did not.
MR. LITT: May I have exhibit 96 and also quadruple A and double R.
Q Now, was there any mention of fair game in the course that you took in 1974?
A There was a policy that did mention it.
Q And I am showing you exhibit 96; is that the policy that mentioned it?
A Yes, it is.
Q And was there discussion in your course as to what the status of fair game was?
A Yes, there was.
Q And what was that discussion?
A Whether fair game was still an applicable practice.
Q And what was your understanding as to that?
A That fair game was cancelled by a policy letter that superseded this one.
4310
Q And is that policy letter quadruple A?
A Yes, it is.
Q Was it your understanding that even though exhibit 96 was still in use that the portion of it that contained discussion of fair game was cancelled?
A Yes.
Q And why was that?
A Because there is a later policy letter that cancelled it, put it out of use.
Q All right. Now I am showing you an exhibit that has been marked double R in this case.
This is an exhibit that talks about penalties for lower conditions.
A Right.
Q And there are penalties next to the word “enemy.”
A Right.
Q And there is mention of fair game?
A Uh-huh.
Q Was it your understanding from what you learned within Scientology that the fact that exhibit 101 stated that the policy letter of October 18, 1967, which is exhibit double R was cancelled, meant that this order was no longer applicable?
A That is correct.
Q Or, sorry, that policy letter and accordingly did you ever study exhibit RR?
A No, we did not.
4311
Q And with respect to exhibit 101, was that subsequently in your experience slightly modified?
A Yes, it was.
Q And was that in 1975?
A Yes, it was.
MR. LITT: May this be marked 102, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Very well.
Q BY MR. LITT: Showing you what has been marked as exhibit 102, Mr. Sommer, do you recognize this as the modification in 1975 of exhibit 101?
A Yes, I do.
4312
Q And was the modification, as you understand it, the information contained on page 3?
A Yes, it was.
Q And that is what is in italics?
A Yes.
Q And what was your understanding of what the modification meant?
A That the penalties for enemy and treason expulsion was only used for high crimes or suppressive acts. And that is what they were used for.
Q And that people therefore could be assigned a condition of enemy and not be expelled?
A That is correct.
Q And did that refer in part to the language in exhibit 101 that states after “enemy,” that “. . . accompanying the condition of enemy is a writ of expulsion from the Church”?
A Yes, it does.
Q So in your experience could people be assigned the condition of enemy and remain within the Church?
A Yes, they could.
Q In fact, in your experience was that normally what the situation was with respect to individuals who were assigned the condition of enemy?
A Yes, it was.
Q And did you personally observe many people to be assigned a condition of enemy?
A Yes, I did.
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Q And by the way, did — the Court was asking you how people get assigned to the condition and you said that an Ethics officer could assign such a condition; could the individual also assign himself such a condition?
A Yes.
Q And did that occur?
A Yes, it did.
Q And while you were still in the Church — showing you exhibit 55 — was there a later policy letter that replaced exhibit 101 and 102 with respect to awards and penances?
A Yes. I believe there was in 1961.
Q And is that exhibit 55?
A Yes, it was.
Q And pursuant to exhibit 55 was it your understanding that the condition of enemy no longer contained the penance or amend expulsion from the Church?
A That’s correct.
Q Now, these conditions operated within an overall Ethics system; is that correct?
A That is correct.
THE COURT: I think we’ll take 15 minutes. We’ll reconvene in 15 minutes. (Recess.)
4314
THE COURT: All right, we are back in session. The witness has retaken the stand. Just state your name again for the record, sir. You are still under oath.
THE WITNESS: Michael Sommer.
THE COURT: All right, you may continue, Mr. Litt.
MR. LITT: Thank you, Your Honor.
Q Now, Mr. Sommer, before the break we were discussing the fact that the various conditions that could be assigned arose within the context of the overall operation of the Scientology Ethics and Justice System. Was there a policy that talked about the relationship between assigning someone a lower condition and various other types of ethics actions that were available and should be employed with respect to the individual?
A Yes there was.
MR. LITT: May this be marked next in order, Your Honor? I believe that would be 103.
THE COURT: Very well, 103.
Q BY MR. LITT: And is the document that has been marked as exhibit 103 a true copy of the policy letter that would discuss the evils [levels] of ethics actions?
A Yes, it is.
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Q BY MR. LITT: At pages — well, what are the third and fourth pages of this exhibit 102 which have the markings on them, pages 397 and 398? There is a section entitled “Levels of Ethic Action”; do you see that?
A Yes, I do.
Q Now, how did the system operate; if one was assigned, for instance, a condition of enemy, how would that fit into these 36 levels of Ethics actions?
A Well, the Ethics officer uses these levels, always used these levels in the lightest gradient until he gets some kind of effect, desired effect that would better the person. And then he stops. But if the desired effect is not reached, he would go on to the next one. And the person could be assigned a lower condition at 13 or 14 which could be a condition of enemy. And as you see, No. 36, the last one, is expulsion from Scientology.
So an Ethics officer assigning an enemy condition at 13 or 14 will not use expulsion because he is not down to that gradient of ethics action yet.
Q When you say “gradient,” were these various levels that could be applied progressively; if one didn’t work, then you tried the next one?
A That is right.
Q Now, the course that you took, the HEJSE –
A Right.
Q — was that, as you understood it, the main course that was used to train an Ethics officer?
A At that time it was.
4316
Q And I think you said that you took the course from March to July of 1974?
A July to October of –
Q Okay. I got my dates wrong.
And was it your function during that time period when you were taking the course to spend your time just learning this material?
A Yes, it was.
Q And would you say that it was an intensive course?
A Yes, it was.
Q And was the purpose of the course to make sure that you fully understood how the Ethics and Justice System worked?
A Yes.
Q And to fully understand how to apply it?
A Yes.
Q And to understand the meaning of the various conditions and ways of handling these conditions as well as other matters that arise within the Scientology Ethics System?
A Yes, it was.
MR. LITT: May I have one moment, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. LITT: Nothing further.
THE COURT: You may cross-examine.
MR. FLYNN: Thank you, Your Honor.
4317
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q What is your understanding as to who wrote this whole Ethics and Justice System?
A Some of the policies were written by L. Ron Hubbard; others by members of the board.
Q Well, the basic policies of the whole Ethics System was written by L. Ron Hubbard; is that basically true?
A I would say most of them.
Q And this book, “Introduction to Scientology Ethics” is written by L. Ron Hubbard?
A Yes, that is correct.
4318
Q Copyrighted by him?
A Yes, sir.
Q You are familiar with this book?
A Yes.
Q Was this part of the course in 1974?
A Yes, it was.
Q Now it is a high crime in Scientology to testify in a court against Scientologists; correct?
A May I see it if it is in there?
Q Item 7, page 50 under “High Crimes Suppressive Acts.”
A Okay.
Q Within the crimes, proposing or advising or voting for legislation or ordinance, rules or law directed toward the suppression of Scientology.
A Right.
Q “Public statements against Scientology.”
A Uh-huh.
Q “Testifying hostily before State or public inquiries.”
A Uh-huh.
THE COURT: You have to answer audibly, sir.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: And then down to 7, “Testifying as a hostile witness against Scientology in public”; right?
A Right.
Q That is a high crime?
A Uh-huh.
4319
Q And the formulas for conditions under condition of liability, you are familiar with those formulas; right?
A Yes.
Q Now you have heard the term “strike a blow against the enemy”?
A Right.
Q And you are familiar with in the ethics book No. 2 under the formula of liability as “deliver an effective blow to the enemies of the group one has been pretending to be part of despite personal danger.”
A Right.
Q Now you have done word clearing?
A Uh-huh.
THE COURT: You have to answer audibly, sir.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
Q “Deliver effective blow”; could that entail going out and doing say overt data collection?
A Overt data collection?
Q Overt data collection.
A Could possibly.
Q Have you ever done overt data collection?
A No, I haven’t.
Q But that could be part of striking a blow against the enemy; right?
A It is possible.
Q And covert data collection, you have heard of that?
A Yes.
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Q Could that be part of striking a blow against the enemy?
A I believe covert data collection is illegal. It is not legal. If it is illegal, it is not okay.
Q Where did you learn that?
A Pardon?
Q Where did you learn that that it is illegal to do covert data collection?
A That is just my thought on it.
Q Did you learn that in any Scientology training courses?
A I learned that it is out ethics to commit an illegal crime.
THE COURT: An illegal crime? Seems a little redundant there.
THE WITNESS: Well, commit a crime.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Breaking and entering, in your understanding, is illegal; right?
A Yes.
Q Now, when you strike an effective blow against an enemy, that could be someone who is testifying hostily against Scientology in court?
A The enemy you are talking about?
Q Right.
A It could possibly be, yes.
Q And that is a civil court; right?
A Yes.
Q And enemies are people on the outside who try
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suppress Scientology? right?A Right.
Q Who have never been Scientologists before?
A Possibly.
Q So you could strike an effective blow against that enemy to do the conditions?
A Right.
Q In fact, if you were really hooked into the group, you’d come to court and testify on behalf of the group to strike an effective blow against the enemy; right?
A No. You’d testify to help the group.
Q Now you have heard the term that LRH is the most ethical being on the planet?
A I may have heard that.
Q Well that is commonly bandied about in Scientology terms; right?
A If I have heard it, it is not a common thing that I have heard.
Q Well, in your mind is L. Ron Hubbard the most ethical person on the planet?
A I don’t know every person on the planet.
Q Well in your mind do you know of anyone more ethical than L. Ron Hubbard?
A I know L. Ron Hubbard is an ethical person.
Q Because he is honest?
A I imagine.
Q And one side of out ethics is dishonesty;
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right?A Yes.
Q As a matter of fact, that is a severe thing in Scientology, being dishonest? right?
A That is right.
Q Very severe.
In fact, you can be charged with offenses of which the first one, in capital letters, is dishonesty.
A Okay.
THE COURT: Well, maybe you ought to state for the record what that book is that you are showing the witness.
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Q BY MR. FLYNN: This is”PTS and SP Detection Routing and Handling” pack; are you familiar with that?
A Am I?
Q Yes.
A Yes.
Q You have seen this pack?
A I have read all of the information in it.
Q So you are familiar with dishonesty as being a very serious offense?
A It is an offense, yes.
Q Or the use of false statements to cover up the situation; correct?
A Correct.
Q Now, in your mind, with all the Ethics and Justice training you have had under L. Ron Hubbard’s system, the person who wrote that probably would not be a dishonest person; is that correct?
A That is correct.
Q And if he really was a dishonest person, then it could be a kind of hypocrisy, wouldn’t you agree with that?
MR. LITT: Objection. Calls for speculation, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled.
THE WITNESS: Can you give me the question again?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: If the person who wrote all of this, L. Ron Hubbard, was being deliberately dishonest and you didn’t know about it, that would be hypocrisy?
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A Possibly.
Q You have never seen any of the documents under seal in this case, have you?
A No, I have not.
Q Now, in your Declare, Mr. Sommer, you — I take it from reading it, apparently, the gross income went down while you were the ED?
A For a period.
Q That is one of the things that is mentioned on the first page of your Declare; right?
A Yes.
Q And in your Declare there is talk — Mr. Hubbard’s HCO Policy Letter of 14 March, 1982 it is discussed; “Financial irregularities, copyright L. Ron Hubbard”; right?
A Right.
Q Are you familiar with that policy letter about financial irregularities?
A Right offhand, you know, I could not quote the whole policy to you, but I am familiar with it,
Q That those who engage in financial irregularities join the walking dead; do you remember that?
A Yes.
Q And Mr. Hubbard says, “Criminals are those who engage in financial irregularities”; right?
A Right.
Q “They are only suffering in this life”; are you familiar with the document called “What your fees buy”?
A I have read it in the past, but I really couldn’t
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say what is on it.Q Do you have a basic understanding that L. Ron Hubbard never received any monies from any Church of Scientology organization?
A As far as I know.
Q That is true; right?
A I amend. I really couldn’t, you know, tell you what he is getting paid. I’m not that high up. I was never that high up in the organization to see where the money went.
Q I understand that.
A Okay.
Q I’m just looking for your understanding as to what was commonly known among Scientologists. And there are numerous publications such as “What your fees buy” that say L. Ron Hubbard didn’t receive
anything from Scientology organizations; correct?
A Correct.
Q You knew that.
Now, suppose L. Ron Hubbard had received millions when he said he hadn’t received anything; that would be dishonest, right?
A I never heard LRH say he never received anything. I don’t think he has ever written anything that said what his pay was.
Q This “financial irregularities” was dated 14 March, 1982; right?
A Right.
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Q Suppose between April, 1982 and October, 1982 after saying for 20 years he had not received anything he took $30 million from the Church; that would be a financial irregularity; wouldn’t you think so?
A I don’t know the circumstances behind why he would take $30 million.
Q Suppose he did it with retroactive billings covering the past years?
MR. LITT: Objection, Calls for speculation.
THE COURT: I’ll sustain the objection.
MR. FLYNN: Nothing further.
THE COURT: Redirect?
MR. LITT: Just very briefly, Your Honor.
Can I have one moment, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LITT:
Q Mr. Sommer, Mr. Flynn asked you about some language about striking an effective blow against the enemy; would that concept include, for instance, that if there is an internal group that is doing something wrong internally, that you would effectively deal with it?
A Effectively deal with it.
4327
Q Yes?
A Yes.
Q And can that term even refer to an individual?
A To an individual?
Q To oneself.
In other words, that the concept of enemy can include dealing an effective blow against one’s own problem?
A Yes.
Q So it is a fairly generalized kind of concept of trying to change the situation for the better?
A Right.
Q Now, Mr. Flynn asked you some questions about testifying in court and you said that it would be helping Scientology to testify to help the group. I take it you feel that you are helping Scientology by testifying today?
A Yes, I do.
Q Are you testifying truthfully?
A Yes, I am.
Q Do you have any understanding of the notion of testifying to help the group or not testifying hostily to the group — let me rephrase that.
Would not testifying hostily to the group have any connection to testifying falsely. If you don’t understand my question, tell me.
A I don’t understand your question.
Q My point is that with respect to any testimony, is it your understanding if one testifies in court, that one
4328
is to tell the truth?A Yes.
Q And is it your understanding that any Scientology policy indicates otherwise?
A I know of none.
Q You wouldn’t lie in court to help Scientology; would you?
A No, I would not.
MR. LITT: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE COURT: Anything further?
MR. FLYNN: Nothing.
THE COURT: All right, you may step down, sir.
MR. LITT: May I have a moment, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. LITT: Your Honor, our next witness we will be recalling Vaughn Young who has testified, but we have some additional information that has come to light that we would like to have him testify about.
MR. FLYNN: Can I inquire at this point as to how much longer Mr. Litt expects to go with witnesses?
MR. LITT: Well my expectation is that we will certainly finish tomorrow morning. It may finish very early in the morning.
THE COURT: Is this the last witness, Mr. Young, or are there additional witnesses?
MR. LITT: There is one witness who’s being lined up and I just don’t know what the person’s availability is, and if we get to that point we may ask for a short recess.
4329
There are one or two possibly short witnesses. We have unfortunately been somewhat constricted in our time frame.
VAUGHN YOUNG, called as a witness in behalf of the plaintiff in rebuttal, having been previously sworn, resumed the stand and testified further as follows:
THE COURT: You have already been sworn, sir. Just state your name for the record. You are still under oath.
THE WITNESS: Vaughn Young, Y-o–u-n-g.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LITT:
Q Mr. Young, let me begin with the subject of processing files or processing folders.
When you first came into Scientology, did you function as an auditor?
A Yes, I was. That was the first thing I was trained at in 1969.
Q And where was that?
A That was up in Davis, California.
Q And how long did you act as an auditor in Davis?
A I was an auditor probably for about a year and a half?
Q And was that in Davis?
A Yes, it was.
4330
Q Now at that time were there folders called processing files or processing folders maintained at Davis that were different from preclear folders?
A Yes, they had that designation either processing file or processing folder, and they were clearly labeled as different.
Q And what went into a PC or preclear folder?
A Only what occurred within the privacy of the section, the worksheets between the auditor and the preclear. Other material went into the processing folder.
Q And what kind of material went into the processing folder?
A Such as a form that the person might use to be routing on into the counseling. Sometimes they were asked to take tests. They would take tests sporadically. The tests would go in there with the scores. Anything that did not involve the particular session per se.
In that case I had two people that were professional preclearers [preclears]. Invoices would be there. Those never went into the other folder.
Q And were there interviews that — when you say session, are you referring to an auditing session?
A An auditing session which if clearly designated when it begins and when it ends.
Q And were there interviews that would occur not in an auditing session with the preclear?
A Yes.
Q And would that interview sheet also be kept –
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would they be kept in the preclear folder or would they be kept in the processing folder or file?A That would be determined by whether or not it was relevant to what was going on in the section. It may fall outside, for example, how is he doing. How is he doing with his family. What is going on. It might be very extraneous to determine that there is nothing of interest. That sort of interview would go outside.
4332
If the person started talking about, “I am very upset,” they started talking about himself very personally, that there is something that the auditor has to know, then it would go into the pre-clear folder. It went one place or the other. That was it.
Q Now, the information that was kept in a processing file or processing folder, was it denominated confidential information in the way that auditing sessions were?
A No, it wasn’t; in fact, as an auditor, the first time you ever saw the processing files was when you first met that person. After that point in time it went in and somebody else kept it on file.
As an auditor I would never see it again. And the processing folder was kept in the director of processing’s office. I don’t know if that was his title, but that was his basic function.
I am trying to remember what the title was in ‘69.
It was that person who handled all the administration of all of the people coming in for counseling. And that would be the director of processing, yes.
Q Now –
A May I interject something?
Q Sure.
A That later became known as “Admin file” which is short for administrative file.
Q And an Admin file, at least, for some period of time was also kept separate?
4333
A And still is today. There is still an Admin file for every pre-clear which contains invoices and other material.
Q I have one other question on that which is that these folders that you are talking about specifically refer to pre-clears who are coming in for auditing; is that right?
A Yes.
Q So there could be other kinds of personnel records or other records that would apply to other people, but the term “processing folder” or “processing file,” refers to this material for pre-clears involved in auditing?
A Yes. And that doesn’t matter whether it is a public person, a staff member, whoever; as soon as they basically pick-up that hat, so to speak, of being a pre-clear, they fall within that category.
Q Now, let me turn to some of your additional researches that you have been able to find concerning Mr. Hubbard.
You have reviewed — I think we went over this before — Mr. Armstrong’s testimony about various matters in this case; is that right?
A Yes, I have.
Q And Mr. Armstrong testified, I believe, that Mr. Hubbard had only been in China once for two weeks on a YMCA trip?
A That is correct.
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, objection.
He went over this on his last excursion on the
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witness stand.MR. LITT: That is foundational, Your Honor.
4335
Q BY MR. LITT: Now, Mr. Young, are you familiar with the letter is under seal — may I have exhibit — may I have exhibit 66? Strike the “under seal,” Mr. Young, showing you exhibit 66, are you familiar with this document?
A Yes, I am.
Q And do you know what it is?
A This is a letter. This is a photocopy of what exists in the archives which is a letter that was written to Mr. Hubbard by Ian McBean dated January 1, 1929. Return address is British Legation, Peking, China.
There is also in the files, which is part of this document, which is the actual envelope which is addressed to Mr. L. R. Hubbard, care of U.S. Naval Station, Guam, and it is postmarked January 11, 1929, and the stamp of the British Legation if [is] on the back of the envelope. It is a letter, just personal between them.
Q And does the letter say anything about Mr. Hubbard returning to China?
A Yes, it does, invites him back as to when he will come back to China.
Q And did you ever have any discussion with Mr. Armstrong concerning trying to find out anything about this Ian McBean to see whether he had been in China or could track down anything about the relationship between Mr. Hubbard and Ian McBean?
A It had been brought up when I had seen the letter because it would be another instance of just
4336
somebody else — albeit the chances of them living would be very remote, but there might be some information. I had brought up the subject, yes.Q Now, in Mr. Armstrong reaching the conclusions he did about Mr. Hubbard being in China, did he do any research to try to verify anything about Ian McBean?
A Nothing was stated to me as occurring.
Q Could you see any reflections in the files of him having done anything?
A The folders were very consistent as to what information there was about the Far Eastern trips, and this was the only document relating to Mr. McBean.
Q And have you been able to verify that Ian McBean was a member of the British delegation appointed to China?
A Yes, I have.
MR. LITT: May this be marked next in order, Your Honor?
THE COURT: 104.
Q BY MR. LITT: Now, this exhibit 104, what is that?
A This is a list of, as you will, which attached by the second page, it is the China yearbook which has a great deal of information about China as well as who was in the British Legation in China during this period. There is a number of extraneous pages which are attached which I had simply had Xeroxed so that one could get an idea of it because it contains lists of British Legations in other
4337
countries, and if you go back to the back you will see that there is even discussions about the regions that one can find in China. It was exactly what it says, a yearbook for the British.4338
Q All right. And on the second page of this exhibit is there reference to an Ian McBean?
A The second page, which is 107, is a book. There is a Major McBean IG who is listed as a cipher officer, who is listed as the person who took care of ciphers which is a code in the British office.
Q And had Mr. Armstrong, from what you could determine, done any research into this area?
A As I said, I couldn’t find anything about Mr. McBean. Clearly, he wasn’t with the YMCA.
Q There was some discussion the other day as to whether or not Mr. Hubbard was an intelligence officer; is there anything in the archives that shows Mr. Hubbard having been appointed as an intelligence officer as early as June, 1941?
A As soon as he was actually appointed to the Navy he was appointed as an intelligence officer and his travel orders from that point on for about a year were listed as an intelligence officer.
Q And showing you what I’ll mark as exhibit 105, is this a document showing when Mr. Hubbard was appointed to the Naval Reserve?
A This is dated July 5th, 1941.
You’ll note under the middle paragraph under Point 1 it says, “You are hereby assigned to the volunteer reserve intelligence duties” which, I might point out, if you look through the rest of the materials, on the sealed documents for a year, you’ll find that designation. You can
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tell whenever he was carrying that designation because that was the designation that they used until he had another designation. So he began his service as an intelligence officer.Q All right. Now, we talked a little bit the other day about this person. Commander Thompson; do you recall that?
A Yes, sir.
Q And have you had the opportunity to try to obtain more information to verify what Mr. Hubbard had said about Commander Thompson?
A Yes, I have.
Q And now, what was Mr. Armstrong’s testimony as you understood it concerning Commander Thompson?
MR. FLYNN: Objection, Your Honor.
THE COURT: There is no reason to rehash it. I’ll sustain the objection.
Q BY MR. LITT: Did you have any discussions with Mr. Armstrong while working in the archives area about Commander Thompson?
A Yes.
Q What was that?
A As I mentioned before, the name Thompson on one Naval record was brought to me at one point as a Thompson that he could find.
Thompson is known as “snake Thompson.” And he appeared several times in Mr. Hubbard’s writings.
Q What did Mr. Hubbard say about this
4340
Commander Thompson?A He describes him in different characteristics. At different points a little piece of information will drop. But basically, he credited him in about 1923 with introducing him to a lot of ideas. In Washington, D.C. in the Library of Congress he said he was a man who studied Freud; said his nickname was “Snake”; his friends called him Snake and his enemies called him “Crazy”; that he was a lieutenant commander in the Navy; that he raised cats; that he traveled a lot. And he basically credits him with a lot of ideas, introducing him — he was a teenager at that time, about 12 or 13.
Q Mr. Armstrong has asserted that this Commander Thompson is a myth.
MR. FLYNN: Objection. That is not the testimony at all.
THE COURT: The testimony speaks for itself.
Q BY MR. LITT: Have you been able to obtain any information that identifies an individual who meets the characteristics that Mr. Hubbard ascribed to this “Snake Thompson”?
A Very much so.
Q I have here –
This would be 106, I believe, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes.
Q BY MR. LITT: I have here a copy of a death certificate of an individual named Joseph Cheesman Thompson.
Where did you get this death certificate from?
A This is from San Francisco. He died in
4341
San Francisco in 1943.Q Is there anything in this death certificate that leads you to believe that this is the Commander Thompson described by Mr. Hubbard?
A This is the first part. We have here a Commander United States Navy retired. And he was a physician which is also indicated as a distinct possibility.
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Q All right. Now, did you locate any other documents concerning this individual named Joseph Cheesman Thompson?
A I found documents which correlate each point that Mr. Hubbard said describing him.
MR. LITT: All right. I am approaching you with what I would ask to be marked as exhibit 107.
THE COURT: All right, 107.
Q BY MR. LITT: Can you identify what has been marked as exhibit 107, Mr. Young?
A This is a certified copy of a catalogue which is basically the catalogue of the Library of Congress which was obtained in Washington, D.C. The one page of this catalogue pre-1956 imprint page 581, nearly the entire page is taken up with articles that were written by Mr. Thompson, the bulk of which had to do with snakes. He was a great snake lover and quite an expert writing scientific articles on snakes, which is where he got his nickname, Snake Thompson.
There is also an articel [article] in there on psychoanalysis.
Q And Mr. Hubbard had said that this gentleman that he was referring to was a Snake Thompson who had studied with Freud?
A That is true.
Q And were you able to find anything that showed that this individual, Joseph Cheesman Thompson, had had any connection with Sigmund Freud?
A Yes, we did.
4343
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, if I may object on relevancy grounds. This is concluding that the Atlanta Hawks are going to win the NBA championship because some time during the year they might have beaten the Boston Celtics. Remoteness of this, Your Honor, in light of the records under seal is almost farcical.
THE COURT: Well I will overruled [overrule] the objection.
MR. LITT: May this be marked next in order?
THE COURT: I think we are up to 108 apparently.
Q BY MR. LITT: Showing you exhibit 108, Mr. Young, what is that document?
A This is obtained from the private papers of Sigmund Freud in Washington, D.C. This is a postcard which was sent to Commander Thompson.
It is in German and somebody else can do the translation. It is basically, “Thanks for the photographs and do keep in touch.” We got it from the Library of Congress.
Q And did you reach any conclusion from this about whether or not there had been contact between Sigmund Freud and this Commander Thompson?
A This is correlated also by his stepdaughter who I have spoken with, Mr. Thompson’s stepdaughter.
Q And what did Mr. Thompson’s stepdaughter tell you?
MR. FLYNN: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. LITT: Your Honor, if I may, we are dealing here with whether or not Mr. Armstrong did adequate research in
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order to reach the conclusions that he’s reached. All of this information was readily available to him and he has testified in court as a purported expert having done all of this research, and while we are not asking that the court accept what the stepdaughter said for the truth of it, in terms of a researcher gathering information, it certainly would reflect on whether or not he did that and whether there was research information to verify this information.THE COURT: I am not really sure that he is on trial here for the quality of his research.
MR. LITT: Well, I don’t think he is on trial —
THE COURT: I don’t think that is the nature of the case. You are not suing for malpractice; are you?
MR. LITT: No, Your Honor.
However, he has testified as to conclusions that he reached about Mr. Hubbard.
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He has specifically testified that the statements Mr. Hubbard made about “Snake Thompson” were a lie. And it is representative of the quality of his whole conclusions and whether in fact he has a proper foundation for them. That is a matter of argument.
But all we are asking at this point is that we have the opportunity to present the information that he could have found had he looked.
THE COURT: Well, all you want to know is what the daughter of this Commander Joseph Cheesman Thompson told you; when did you talk to her?
THE WITNESS: I spoke to her today, sir, this morning.
THE COURT: Face to face, on the telephone, or what?
THE WITNESS: On the telephone. They live up in the Bay Area.
THE COURT: I’ll receive it for some limited purpose.
MR. LITT: Thank you, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I’m not sure which at the moment, but perhaps as the basis for any opinion that this witness might express. I don’t know.
Q BY MR. LITT: And what did Commander Thompson’s stepdaughter tell you with respect to his connection
with Freud?
A That he was close and he was quite active in the field of psychoanalysis; basically at that time the study of the mind; it simply correlated what Mr. Hubbard had said. And that is as far as giving him instructions on what he knew.
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Q And have you been able to find anything else that indicated that Commander Thompson had worked in the field of psychiatry?
A Yes, sir. I found one specific article that he had written in a Navy bulletin.
Q Showing you what 1 believe would be exhibit 109 –
THE COURT: All right. 109.
Q BY MR. LITT: Mr. Young, have you seen that exhibit before?
A Yes. This is a certified copy of a portion of the United States Naval Medical Bulletin which was published in September, 1923.
Q Does it have any articles by Commander Thompson?
A Just inside you’ll notice on the table of contents page it is the second one down.
And it is “Psychoanalytic Literature” by “Commander J. C. Thompson, Medical Corps, United states Navy.”
And that article is attached in which he discusses his psychoanalytic literature which is another piece as far as the veracity of what Mr. Hubbard has said about him.
Q And I believe you said that Mr. Hubbard said that he had met Commander Thompson in 1923; is that correct?
A Yes, sir.
Q Have you been able to obtain any information from any source to corroborate that statement?
A Yes, sir.
I simply actually had to cut it back; just on –
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I didn’t want to get into a lot of documents. There were other documents that I simply didn’t want to bring in, a picture of him and his cats — and Mr. Hubbard talked about the cats — him being at Washington, D.C. at the Naval Hospital in 1923 when Mr. Hubbard was in D.C.
The point I can attest to is that each point that I knew about that Mr. Hubbard had said as far as Snake Thompson, we were able to obtain corroborative evidence either through a document or through his daughter.
Q And did his stepdaughter also give you a sketch of Commander Thompson that reflected something about his use of the nickname “Snake”?
A Yes.
MR. LITT: That will be 110, I believe, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Very well. 110.
Q BY MR. LITT: Showing you exhibit 110, is that a copy of an original sketch that Commander Thompson’s stepdaughter had?
A Yes. That was provided by her with the request that the original come back to her, which we have here in the court. But the reproduction of the charcoal sketch cuts off at the bottom exactly as you see it on this Xerox. And that is his name as he signed it on the bottom which is “Joe Thom” and then “S-O-N” which he used to make a play on it. And then he would do a snake on the end which would be due to his nickname, “Snake Thompson.”
Q This information has only been gathered in the last few days?
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A The last bit of this was gathered this weekend.
Q Was Mr. Armstrong made any efforts to find any of the information that you can determine?
A He never spoke to me about trying to obtain any information.
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Q The documents that you have shown us here, had Mr. Armstrong ever obtained any of those documents that you can determine?
A No as I said, I pointed out to him how I could do it and how we started on this was exactly how I told him he could do it. He could just begin with a list of officers in D.C., and that is what we did. We went to a list of offices and verified it.
Q When you said you talked to him about how he could do it, was that in a discussion that you had with him about trying to corroborate what Mr. Hubbard had said about Snake Thompson?
A Very specifically because the question about whether what Mr. Hubbard was saying would be true or false came up and this was raised, and this particular instance was raised, and I told him how he could verify it and nothing was done.
Q And what did you tell him he should do if he wanted to try to track it down?
A I said I’d be willing to help him. All we had to do was go to D.C. and start looking up Naval officers by the name of Thompson. There wouldn’t be that many, and find out which ones would be doctors, and there are also only a couple of Thompsons in the United States Navy that were doctors, so at that point it was very easy.
Q Is that basically the research efforts you tried to use?
A Yes, basically a few phone calls and a couple
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of trips to a couple of offices in Washington, D.C., and we were able to wrap it up, the point being that we wanted to verify what Mr. Hubbard said was true.MR. LITT: May I have a moment, Your Honor? I have no further questions.
THE COURT: You may cross–examine.
MR. FLYNN: Thank you, Your Honor.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q Mr. Young, have you read exhibit double I, letter to Cirrus Slaven by Gerald Armstrong, page 4, item 1: “Now to cover the various points. I recall from Norman’s report. Commander Thompson.
I never said this was a lie. I just said we don’t have any supporting evidence, so why use it? We just shouldn’t until we get the documentation.
Do you see that?
A Yes, I see that.
Q Did you see that back in 1981 before Mr. Armstrong left?
A No, this wasn’t provided to me. This was written on the 25th of November, which I think was approximately two weeks before he left.
Q It wasn’t provided to you, Mr. Young; right?
A No.
Q Now when you have been running all over to the
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Library of Congress and making telephone calls and doing everything you have been doing to find out about Snake Thompson, were you interviewing Captain Moulton at the same time?A No, Captain Moulton was — it is hard to get an overlap. There was a few times that we were trying to locate Captain Moulton and at the same time –
Q Have you ever interviewed Captain Moulton?
A Yes.
Q Now when you interviewed Captain Moulton, did he tell you about the machinegun bullets from a Japanese machinegun in Mr. Hubbard’s kidneys?
A He related the story in the court exactly as he related it to me.
Q Have you looked through all of the sealed documents on the Naval files of Mr. Hubbard with regard to his medical treatment from 1940 up to 1950?
A Yes.
Q Did you find anything about machinegun bullets in his kidneys?
A Specifically to that point, no.
Q And have you been trying to find those?
THE COURT: The bullets or his kidneys?
MR. FLYNN: Those medical records.
THE COURT: And I imagine you could find his kidneys if you looked in the right place.
THE WITNESS: Well, as I stated before, what we tried to find is the missing medical records which are
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alluded to in that file.Q BY MR. FLYNN: Oh, the missing medical records I see, let me ask you this: Did Captain Moulton tell you that Mr, Hubbard was having urinary difficulties in 1942?
A Yes.
Q Told you about that?
A Yes, I think he testified to that in the court,
Q And he told Captain Moulton who apparently told you that it came from the machinegun bullets from a Japanese machinegun?
MR. LITT: Object; asked and answered.
THE COURT: Sustained.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Did he tell you about Mr. Hubbard’s traveling 75 miles in a liferaft with the machinegun bullets in his kidneys?
A I don’t believe he got into the specifics with me as he did with the court.
Q Did he tell you about hiding up in the hills of Soerabaja in the jungle between December 8 and early January 1942?
A He mentioned he was up in the hills, yes.
Q Told you about that?
A Yes.
Q Did you reach the affirmations on file in Mr. Hubbard’s handwriting where he talked about the problems he had in 1942 with a social disease and his urinary problems?
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A Yes, but I don’t think your characterization of it is actually exactly what was said.
Q In Mr. Hubbard’s handwriting. Did you consult the affirmations, Mr. Young, about the machine gun bullets and –
MR. LITT: Objection; this is beyond the scope. Mr. Young has already testified. He hasn’t consulted anything on this subject and it is argumentative.
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THE COURT: Well, I’ll sustain the objection.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, I take it in 1923 L. Ron Hubbard was 12 or 13 years old?
A Yes.
Q That was before he had flunked out of two high schools?
A I don’t understand your –
Q Have you done any research on the high schools Mr. Hubbard flunked out of?
A There are various transcripts; there are other records that I haven’t spoken with the high schools about. I know the record of one school was burned up. I spoke with the people who tried to copy the records and the records of the entire school had gone down.
Q Did you read L. Ron Hubbard’s father’s letter to George Washington University about Mr. Hubbard’s poor academic record in high school?
MR. LITT: I’ll make the same objection. This is beyond the scope.
THE COURT: It goes to what he could have otherwise done if he hadn’t spent his time doing that.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Did you think his high school education was somewhat important in his educational development, Mr. Young?
THE COURT: From a biographer’s point of view?
THE WITNESS: Having education is important, I suppose.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Including whether or not he
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actually did graduate from George Washington University? Would it be important to Mr. Hubbard whether he graduated from George Washington University?MR. LITT: Objection. Calls for speculation.
THE COURT: I’ll sustain the objection.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: When you found this notation from Mr, McBean did you find any further notation about Mr. Hubbard’s attitude toward China?
A Well, there are the descriptions in the diaries. There are a number of points that you know and I know that he has talked about.
Q Such as, “The problem with China is there are too many Chinks here”; you saw that?
MR. LITT: Objection.
THE COURT: Overruled.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: You saw that notation?
A I believe that phrase was used.
Q Did you find any other pieces of philosophical anecdotes of that nature?
A You’ll have to give me specific references to what I remember.
I was trying to simply verify –
Q Thank you, Mr. Young.
A Thank you.
Q Now, you testified about processing files and admin files; do you recall that?
A Yes.
Q There is no doubt in your mind that a PC folder
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is a PC folder?
A That is what we call a tautology.
Q Exhibit JJJ says, “. . .this person’s PC folder. . .”; doesn’t it?
A That is what this document says.
Q Incidentally, are you familiar with the dictionary definition of processing?
A Yes.
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Q Auditing; right?
A Yes.
Q Now they make a note “several self-induced abortions”? is that the type of thing that goes in and [an] admin file?
A You could end up having that type of information in an administrative file if a person walked in, and I will tell you I have spoken with people who came in and would give you sometimes the most personal part of their life in which you try to avoid it because it is something that they should take up with a counselor.
Q But you’d write it down and put it into their file for everyone to see?
A If they are telling me, I am going to pass this on to someone else to handle or a person tells me, “I have got a serious drug problem. I am on heroin. What do I do?”
I’d write this down and pass it over to them. Clearly it is personal.
Q And their masturbation history, that is something that goes in with the invoices?
A You asking me?
Q Well you are the one who is the expert on the files; aren’t you, Mr. Young?
A You were asking whether or not I saw processing files as distinct from PC files, and I did and I handle them as an auditor.
Q And who the men that this person has been
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promiscuous with, that goes in with the invoices?MR. LITT: Objection, Your Honor, unless the witness states that he has some knowledge of this document.
THE COURT: All right. It is argumentative.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, Mr. Young, have you seen the list of misrepresentations that Armstrong says that Mr. Hubbard made about himself?
It is exhibit double V in this case.
A Yes, I have.
Q And there is a notation in there that, “This officer has no neurotic tendencies whatsoever.”
MR. LITT: There is a note in here, an exhibit double V?
MR. FLYNN: Correct.
Q That is in “My Philosophy”; right?
A If you will show me the exact passage.
Q Naval records state, “This officer has no neurotic or psychotic tendencies whatsoever.” That is the representation that Mr. Hubbard is making about himself that he says that is what the Naval records say; right?
A What you are showing me is a list of misrepresentations alleged by Gerry Armstrong, not Mr. Hubbard’s.
Q But are you familiar with the fact that Mr. Hubbard says that that is what his Naval records say?
A I missed you on that point. Is that what this documents says?
Q Have you looked through Mr. Hubbard’s Naval
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records?
A Yes, I have looked through the Veteran’s Administration records.
Q Have you looked through Mr. Hubbard’s representations about himself which are marked exhibits 500-A through 500-D?
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MR. LITT: Object; assumes facts not in evidence, that it has not been established that all of these documents are Mr. Hubbard’s representations about himself at all.
MR. FLYNN: Mr. Armstrong testified about this precise point.
THE COURT: I think there is evidence upon which you can infer that.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Have you read where Mr. Hubbard states about himself, saying that his Naval say, “This officer has no neurotic or psychotic tendencies whatsoever”?
Have you read where L. Ron Hubbard has said that about himself?
MR. LITT: What question is Mr. Young supposed to answer, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Have you seen that particular comment in any of Mr. Hubbard’s authorized biographies, biographies that have been authorized by Mr. Hubbard?
THE WITNESS: Something to that effect, Your Honor. But I still would prefer to have the exact exhibit.
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Q Well let me show you exhibit triple U dated October 15, 1947 where Mr. Hubbard says, “I cannot account for nor rise above long periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations.”
And he is requesting psychiatric treatment; do you see that?
A Yes, I see it.
Q Signed by L. Ron Hubbard; is that correct?
A Appears to be.
Q Now when you were running around looking up Snake Thompson, did you consider that to be more important than whether or not Mr. Hubbard is mentally ill?
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MR. LITT: Your Honor, assumes facts not in evidence.
THE COURT: I’ll sustain an objection.
THE WITNESS: I do know this –
THE COURT: There is no question pending.
MR. FLYNN: That is all I have, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Redirect?
MR. LITT: Very briefly, Your Honor.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LITT:
Q Mr. Flynn showed you a document, I believe, in which Mr. Armstrong wrote saying that he couldn’t determine whether or not what Mr. Hubbard said about Snake Thompson was true or not; that was exhibit –
A II, I believe it was.
Q On exhibit V, which is entitled “List of Misrepresentations made by L. Ron Hubbard,” does Mr. Armstrong include under EB that a misrepresentation is that Mr. –
A If I may read it, “A misrepresentation is that he studied under Commander Thompson, was a personal student of Sigmund Freud; studied with Thompson in 1920 in Washington, D.C.”
MR. LITT: Nothing further.
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RECROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q Have you found anything, Mr. Young, to show that Mr. Hubbard at the age of 12 or 13 studied the mind or psychiatry under Commander Thompson in 1923?
A As I say –
Q Have you found anything that he studied under him, studied psychiatry at the age of 12 or 13?
A “Studied under” would be a very narrow term. In this case that he actually was with him, we are getting those letters from the daughter and I was hoping to have them today.
MR. FLYNN: Thank you.
THE COURT: Okay. Well we will take a recess until 9 o’clock tomorrow. You can step down, Mr. Young.
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MR. LITT: Your Honor, may I raise a matter? I guess this is a good time.
MR. HARRIS: Probably tomorrow morning.
MR. LITT: Okay. Tomorrow morning.
THE COURT: All right. We’ll be in recess.
(At 4:03 p.m., an adjournment was taken until Tuesday, June 5, 1984; at 9:00 a.m.)
