Scientology sues Debbie Cook for breaking gag agreement

[Sponge]

Celebitchy.com keeps the story alive........
(although nothing new, it is a informative link-rich summary and a good excuse to bump the thread).

Scientology higher-up Debbie Cook gives details of torture, the Voice calls out Tom Cruise
24th Feb 2012
http://www.celebitchy.com/210646/scient ... om_cruise/

[Sponge]

Heads-up from ESMB on some Australian TV newsmedia coming up: http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.p ... post664481

Miss Pert

27th February 2012 08:24 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Current Affair Doing Another Story

A Current Affair is advertising a story on Scientology, 6:30pm tomorrow, looks like it's on Debbie Cook.

Nothing on the ACA NineMSN website yet.
http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/


Also Scooter on ESMB is reporting that rival programme TodayTonight on 7 is also doing a Debbie Cook piece at the same time.

Updates later, with videos.

[Dorothy]

CoS tries to intimidate people who donate to Debbie's legal fund and discourage further donations, via church lawyers (according to Marty):

http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... -update-2/

Miscavige had his attorneys in on Saturday churning out juvenile threats in emailed letter form to Debbie and her counsel. One in particular is of interest to all who donated to the defense. George Spencer Esq of San Antonio Texas has warned that Debbie must preserve documentation of the amounts donated to her defense fund along with the names of all donors. (more in link)

[Sponge]

Double-barrel Australian TV media aired tonight:
Firstly, The Seymour....


'Cult of abuse and torture'
February 28, 2012, 6:18 pm Bryan Seymour. TodayTonight, 7News
A Scientology insider has turned on the religion, taking on its global leader on the witness stand to reveal what goes on inside the secretive cult.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/ ... nd-torture
Official TodayTonight Youtube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNtCJVGwQI [running time 4min37s]
zhent's youtube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlSBDldlpDQ

Debbie Cook was once responsible for promoting Scientology around the world, but now she's changed sides, and other Australian former members are backing up her story.

[...more in article link(transcript)...]

Then....

Scientology head under fire
She's the woman who turned the Church of Scientology on its head with claims of beatings and forced detention.
Now, in an Australian TV exclusive, Debbie Cook has laid the blame squarely at the feet of the church's most senior official.
Broadcast Feb 28, 2012. A Current Affair, 9 News.
Official Video now available: http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/article/84271 ... under-fire
['church' of scientology statement also on that link]
Youtube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpEMfJQKH7k [Running Time 5m47s]

[triumph]

cult claims the Cooks can no longer call themselves Scientologist...delusional fascist twits...

they can call themselves what ever they want....whenever they like...and theres not a damn thing you can do about it...

[bubbler]

"...delusional fascist twits..."

I like that. Alliterative.

[Sponge]

DEBBIE COOK COUNTERSUES SCIENTOLOGY: We Have Her Counterclaim, and the Church's Legal Salvos
by Tony Ortega, Village Voice. 29th Feb 2012
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninsca ... tology.php

The Voice has learned that Debbie Cook filed a counterclaim against the Church of Scientology Monday afternoon, the first significant development since her stunning victory against the church in a Texas courtroom on February 10.

In her counterclaim, Cook is aiming directly at Scientology's ultimate leader, David Miscavige, by attempting to add two of the church's most powerful entities to the lawsuit that was filed against her by Scientology's Flag Service Organization, her former employer.

Besides Cook's filing, we also have several other documents sent back and forth between the opposing parties which provide a revealing look at how this case is being litigated behind the scenes.

This new information emerges as, this morning, the church's lawsuit against Cook finally hits America's major national mainstream media -- she's scheduled to appear on ABC's Good Morning America this morning and Nightline tonight.


[...much more, plus legal dox, in article link...]

abc "Nightline" is on tonight at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT
See Triumph's post below for the pre-broadcast article on that.

If anyone sees the Good Morning America segment this morning [from 7am ET] before any online video is available then please feel free to give us a review.

[triumph]

ABC News Another PR Crisis for Scientology
By DAN HARRIS (@danbharris) and MARY MARSH
Feb. 29, 2012


http://abcnews.go.com/US/pr-crisis-s...3#.T04Hk3nZWSo

The Church of Scientology, known for celebrity and controversy, is now in the middle of another public relations crisis as a former high-ranking official has created a firestorm, first with an email to church members and then testimony in a Texas state court alleging she saw the church's leader punch another executive in the face, and that at his direction she herself was slapped.

For 17 years Debbie Cook ran the church's spiritual mecca, the so-called Flag Base in Clearwater, Florida, where she ultimately rose to the title of Captain. But Cook testified this month that beginning in 2005 she saw behavior exhibited by church leader David Miscavige that disturbed her deeply.

"I witnessed Mr. Miscavige physically punching in the face and wrestling to the ground another very senior executive at Scientology International level," Cook testified in court.

A few weeks later in an interview with ABC News, Cook repeated that assertion. She also said -- as she had testified -- that Miscavige never hit her, but that he ordered his assistant to slap her, and that slap was so hard that Cook was knocked down.

In numerous letters to ABC News, Scientology officials have denied that David Miscavige ordered Debbie Cook to be slapped, or that he punched a fellow executive. In addition, the church sent ABC News a letter signed by that executive in which he wrote, "This alleged incident did not occur and I would remember it if it had."

Cook also testified that in 2007, while doing work at the Scientology International Base in Southern California, she was taken to a pair of double-wide trailers she called 'the hole.' She testified that she was held in the "hole" for seven weeks, that there were bars on the windows and security guards posted at the door, and that the food was "was like leftovers, slop, bits of meat, soupy kind of leftovers thrown into a pot and cooked and barely edible." She also testified that the trailer was infested with ants, that they slept in sleeping bags on the floor, and that on several occasions, the electricity was cut and the temperature reached 106 in the trailers.

In a letter to ABC News, a lawyer for the Church of Scientology flat out denies that the "hole" exists, or that there was ever a place known as 'the hole.''"

The letter states that Ms. Cook and certain other Scientology executives and staff members "did participate in religious discipline, a program of ethics and correction entered into voluntarily as part of their religious observances," but insists, "the idea that the church held her or anyone else against their will [is] denied."
read more at the link

[triumph]

ABC NEWS

VIDEO Good Morning America



Former Scientology Official Criticizes Church
Debbie Cook speaks exclusively to ABC News about her email that went viral.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/sciento ... h-15815353

Video!!

ABC LINK IS TOP story ON DRUDGE REPORT...
New Crisis for Scientology...

High-Ranking Official Breaks Ranks...

.time to wet your depends undergarments Davey
http://www.drudgereport.com/

[Mod edit: Since the Drudge Report is a scrolling headline page, here's a screengrab @ 3:30pm UTC: smileforever/2rgflt5.jpg :) ]

[Demented LRH]

Debbie appeared on Good Morning America this morning. She told Dan Harris that she saw DM physically abusing a senior CoS executive (in his letter to ABC News he denies that this happened). She also said that DM ordered his secretary to slap her on the face, which he did. The blow was so strong that she fell down on the ground. She described her 7-week experience in the “hole”. In their letter to ABC News CoS say that the hole does not exist.

This is a summary of her interview. It is already on the Internet, as Triumph says.

[Sponge]

The abc GMA TV report which Triumph posted above is now also on Yahoo News:

A former high-ranking official in Scientology says she saw abuse
29th Feb 2012
http://news.yahoo.com/a-former-high-ran ... abuse.html
Comments open.
also Cananda yahoo: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/video/news-267 ... 62400.html

Also at Religion News Blog:
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/26600/f ... cientology
UPI feed....
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/02/ ... 330544902/
...and more of the same all across the web.

Here's a Youtube version of this morning's abc Good morning America report:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYjM2ogGAN8

[Smurf]

If anyone sees the Good Morning America segment this morning [from 7am ET] before any online video is available then please feel free to give us a review.

The only good thing about the interview is that, because it aired on GMA, it aired to a larger audience. Debbie didn't offer anything new, and the reporter in the piece, said at the end of the segment, that throughout their interview that Debbie reiterated that she was a "faithful Scientologist" and still believed in it's goodness.

The segment was a repeat of what has already been reported in the media, with exception to the cult denying the existence of "the hole." As long as Debbie keeps reiterating she's a Scientologist and that Scientology is all things godly & great, with exception of DM running the show, it does little to expose what's wrong with the cult. It focuses on a personality war.

[Sponge]

Top Scientologist repeats claims that she was 'beaten and tortured while imprisoned for 7 weeks in the desert'

• Debbie Cook 'held with other Scientology managers in a large trailer'
• She claims Scientology chairman David Miscavige punched another senior executive in the face and wrestled him to the ground
• Miscavige 'ordered his secretary to slap Mrs Cook'
• Publicity is embarrassing for Church, which took legal action to prevent her from revealing details of their practices

[/b]Daily Mail (UK) 1st March 2012
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... esert.html

[triumph]

ABC News ...cults official statement
http://abcnews.go.com/US/page/csi-abc-s ... k-15818173

Nightline Video Is Here
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/vide...aylist=1887643

[Sponge]

^Triumph, your 2nd link is broken.

There is a link here:
http://abcnews.go.com/watch/nightline/S ... speaks-out (running time: 17min42s which probably also includes a short unrelated segment on something else)
but that is not available to viewers outside the USA.


There's video on the abc Nightline youtube page but it seems awfully short at 6min35s (not much longer than than the Good Morning America report which was just over 5min).....

Nightline from ABC News: Former Scientology Exec Speaks Out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feVFjmt9T9w

Uploaded by ABCNews on 29 Feb 2012

Debbie Cook claims she was physically mistreated inside the church.

I can't seem to extract direct permalinks but currently on this Nightline page: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/ there are a two related videos.....
One that is 6min 34s as above, titled: "Former Scientology Exec Speaks Out" [Edit: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/s ... s-15822467 ]
then one at 5min 42s, titled: "Scientology Church on Cook's Allegations" [Edit: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/s ... s-15822390 ]

edit#2: Someone has posted up an unofficial video capture of the whole abc Nightline segment on Debbie Cook here on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWWIHcxMLTA [Running time 14m14s)

Here is a plaintext copy of scientology's official statement to abc, which Triumph posted the link to the pdf earlier....

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL

February 28, 2012

STATEMENT FOR ABC ON DEBBIE COOK BAUMGARTEN

The Church rejects Ms. Cook's unsupported allegations. The real story ABC fails to tell is the explosive growth of the Church of Scientology with 25 new Ideal Churches in the past five years with our most recent, last Saturday, in Greater Cincinnati.

This growth coincides with the departure of Ms. Cook and her self-proclaimed "legal consultants" who are now using her to front the same story about the Church already proven inaccurate in 2009. Ms. Cook failed to reveal:

• • That she left the Church more than 4 years ago and was provided considerable assistance in her new life;
  • That she began threatening the Church and demanded "quid pro quo" to continue honoring her agreements;
  • That she had joined a heretical group (called a "squirrel" in Scientology).

Ms. Cook and her husband were sued for violation of their legal covenants. Her sensationalistic and revisionist stories of "experiences" in the Church are belied by her numerous written and video statements in the Church's possession, as well as accounts provided to ABC from Church officials who were present when the incidents purportedly took place. Each statement Ms. Cook or her husband make in violation of their agreements will only increase the damages they ultimately will have to pay.

It is a well known fact, documented by renowned scholars, that apostates invent and embellish their experiences to justify their departure. Such is the case here. Ms. Cook and her husband are bitter, defrocked apostates, attempting to spread falsehoods for personal gain. They have been expelled and are prohibited from calling themselves Scientologists or entering one of our Churches.

Since 2007, the Church has been enjoying unprecedented expansion with new Ideal Churches of Scientology in cities throughout the country from Los Angeles, California to Tampa, Florida. Similarly we've opened new Churches in cities as diverse as London, Rome, Brussels, Moscow, Melbourne, Quebec and Hamburg - the latter opened January 21st. In 2012, there are an additional 10 new Churches scheduled for opening, including our spiritual mecca in Florida -a 375,000 square-foot facility to minister to Scientologists from all over the world.

Additionally, in 2009 the Church established two state-of-the-art all-digital publishing houses, dedicated to the production of our Founder's Scripture. Since then, the facility has disseminated 97 million books and lectures (on compact disc). In 2010 the Church further established the largest printing and manufacturing plant in the U.S. dedicated to the production of humanitarian materials. Consequently, the Church's Truth About Drugs and United for Human Rights programs are now reaching tens of millions each year.

Accurate information about Scientology and its leadership is available for anyone to see by visiting our website: Scientology.org.

Karin Pouw
Media Relations
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
INTERNATIONAL

6331 Hollywood Blvd., Suite 1200, Los Angeles, CA, 90028-6329 Phone: (323) 960-3500 . Fax: (323) 960-3508/09