Declaration of Andrew Wilson
Armstrong 4ANDREW H. WILSON, ESQ., SBN 063209 WILSON CAMPILONGO LLP 115 Sansome Street, Suite 400 San Francisco, California 94104 (415) 391-3900 (415) 954-0938 (fax) KENDRICK MOXON, ESQ., SBN 128240 Attorneys for Plaintiff/Judgment Creditor |
FILED
FEB 19 1997 JOHN P. MONTGOMERY, |
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF MARIN
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL, a California not-for-profit religious corporation;
Plaintiff, vs. GERALD ARMSTRONG, et al., Defendants. |
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Case No. 157 680 [CONSOLIDATED] DECLARATION OF ANDREW H. WILSON IN SUPPORT OF EX PARTE APPLICATION FOR ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE RE CONTEMPT Date: [Handwritten:] 2-18 for 3-14-97 Time: 9:00 AM Place: D-1 |
I, ANDREW H. WILSON, declare as follows:
1. I am a partner of the law firm of Wilson Campilongo LLP and am an attorney admitted to practice in the State of California. I am one of the attorneys responsible for the representation of the Plaintiff/Judgment Creditor in this action. As such, I have personal knowledge of the facts set forth below and, if called upon to testify on such matters, would and could do so competently.
2. In December of 1986, Armstrong entered into a Mutual Release of All Claims and Settlement Agreement (the "Agreement") pursuant to which CSI paid Armstrong $800,000.00.
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In exchange for his receipt of such funds, Armstrong promised, in essence, to cease disseminating "information" concerning CSI and to cease assisting others pressing claims against CSI and related entities.3. I am informed and believe that, beginning in approximately 1990, Armstrong fraudulently transferred substantially all of his assets and began repeatedly breaching almost every covenant he made in the Agreement.
4. As a result of Armstrong's conduct, CSI brought an action for breach of the Agreement seeking, inter alia, a permanent injunction preventing Armstrong from further breaching the Agreement. Armstrong filed various claims against CSI for breach of the Agreement.
5. The Honorable Ronald Sohigian entered the Preliminary Injunction in late May, 1992. Less than a month later, I was questioning Mr. Armstrong at a deposition when he testified on his intention to ignore the settlement agreement and Judge Sohigian's Order:
A. When, I mean, I have, I have absolutely no intention of honoring that settlement agreement. I cannot. I cannot logically. I cannot ethically. I cannot morally. I cannot psychically. I cannot philosophically. I cannot spiritually. I cannot in any way. And it is firmly my intention to not honor it.
Q. No matter what a court says?
A. No court could order it. They're going to have to kill me.
6. A true and correct copy of page 124 of the Deposition of Gerald Armstrong taken Wednesday, June 24, 1992, in which Mr. Armstrong made this statement, is attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference as Exhibit A.
7. Shortly thereafter, in a declaration of February 2, 1993, Armstrong stated, "I do not believe such non-assistance, covenants or orders are legal or do anything but obstruct the administration of justice and attempt to destroy men's souls." A true and correct copy of pages 1, 9-11 and 29 of said declaration is attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference as Exhibit B.
8. On August 15, 1993, Mr. Armstrong wrote to me, declaring that his breaches of the settlement agreement and of Judge Sohigian's Preliminary Injunction continued unabated, even
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in Armstrong's sleep. A true and correct copy of the letter which I received from Mr. Armstrong, dated August 15, 1993 is attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference as Exhibit C.9. On October 17, 1995, this Court granted an Order of Permanent Injunction against Armstrong (the "Order") following certain motions for the Summary Adjudication of Issues by CSI's. Such Order was later incorporated into the judgment ("Judgment") entered against Armstrong on May 2, 1996. Attached hereto is Exhibit "D" is a true and correct copy of the Judgment, to which the Order is an exhibit. The Order and the Judgment are collectively referred to hereinafter as the "Injunction.")
10. Since its entry, there has been no successful challenge to validity of the Order by Armstrong. Armstrong, representing himself in pro per, has filed a Notice of Appeal regarding the Judgment and Order which has yet to be briefed. The Preliminary Injunction which preceded the Order was affirmed following Armstrong's petition to the Court of Appeals.
11. Armstrong's counsel appeared at the hearing pertaining to the Order and I am informed and believe that he received notice of entry thereof. Armstrong further received notice of entry of the Order.
12. On Thursday, January 30, 1997, I learned of actions by Mr. Armstrong which I believe are clear violations of the Injunction. Attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference as Exhibit E is a cover letter and accompanying declaration (the "Declaration"), without exhibits, which I am informed and believed was sent to the Hon. Ronald M. Whyte, the United States District Judge presiding over three cases in which the plaintiff is Religious Technology Center ("RTC"), a Beneficiary of the Injunction - RTC v. Ward, Action No. C96-20207 RMW, Northern District of California, RTC v. Henson , Action No. C96-20271 RMW, Northern District of California, and RTC v. Erlich, Action No. C9520091 RMW, Northern District of California.
These cases all involve publications over the internet by the defendants of various literary works in violation of RTC's intellectual property rights.
13. In RTC v. Ward, Mr. Ward has moved to preliminarily enjoin RTC from engaging in what he terms "harassive conduct." In support of that motion, Mr. Ward has put before the
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Court wild, unsupported allegations of wrongful conduct by RTC, including the wholly false allegation that RTC's Chairman, David Miscavige, sent an e-mail to Ward threatening his children.14. Armstrong's Declaration consists of a verbose regurgitation of every imagined wrong done to Armstrong, and a host of other "victims," by CSI and its affiliates since the late 1970s. In it, Armstrong states that he is sending the Declaration to Judge Whyte directly so as not to violate the Injunction. Declaration at ¶10. Armstrong has concluded that he can properly send the Declaration to Judge Whyte because he is only prohibited from assisting persons litigating against CSI and affiliates, and that the Declaration is provided to assist Judge Whyte to assist him in "judging litigations involving the orders 'beneficiaries'." Id.
15. This was not Armstrong's first violation of the Injunction. On October 7, 1996, Armstrong drafted a letter to the Los Angeles City Council containing various disparaging statements against CSI, purportedly with the purpose of dissuading the City Counsel from re-naming a street after L. Ron Hubbard (the "Letter"). A true and correct copy of the Letter is attached as Exhibit F. He then disclosed the Letter so as to facilitate it being posted on the World Wide Web to receive the broadest publication. The Letter consists of over one thousand (1,000) words, not including its lengthy attachment. The Letter is dated October 7, 1996, and contains a string of attacks against CSI, the beneficiaries of the Order and the Scientology faith. Attached hereto as Exhibits G and H is correspondence between myself and Mr. Armstrong concerning the Letter. Because it was so ineffectual and because CSI wishes to avoid disputes with Armstrong where humanly possible, CSI decided not to bother the Court with this violation.
16. While the preliminary injunction which preceded the Order was in effect, Armstrong willfully disobeyed it on numerous occasions. This gave rise to an earlier Order To Show Cause Re Contempt, which was heard in December 1994 by the Honorable Diane Wayne. I represented CSI at that hearing. Armstrong admitted the violations and pled for mercy from the court. Judge Wayne discharged the contempt but admonished Armstrong to conduct himself appropriately in the future.
17. Armstrong successfully discharged the approximately $300,000.00 awarded by this
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Court in damages to CSI in his bankruptcy proceedings. Armstrong failed in his effort to have Bankruptcy Court discharge him from the contractual obligations upon which the Order is based.18. On February 14, 1997 at approximately 11:30 a.m. I telephoned Mr. Armstrong at 456-8450 and left a message on his answering machine that I would be making this Application on February 18, 1997 at 9:30 a.m. in Courtroom H of the above-entitled court.
I declare under penalty pursuant to the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this 14th day of February 1997 at San Francisco, California.