For years we’ve been telling you about Scientology’s cynical strategy for derailing the lawsuits filed by former members: Force them into the church’s own brand of internal “religious arbitration.”

In several cases, we’ve documented how Scientology convinces courts that its former members are obliged to take their cases to these star chambers, which in no way resemble actual legal proceedings.

Repeatedly, judges have fended off complaints that Scientology arbitration is completely one-sided and unfair, and designed to frustrate former members and their pursuit of justice.

Now, a huge amount of new information has come out about the latest example of this, as Australian residents Valeska Paris and Gawain and Laura Baxter walked out after 15 days of unfair arbitration run by Sea Org official Cathy Fraser in Clearwater, and now seek relief from a Tampa federal court.

And they have something new that really seems impressive. For an opinion about what they’ve been put through, they sought the expertise of perhaps the country’s foremost expert on what “arbitration” is supposed to be, a South Carolina law professor named Dennis Nolan.

We think you’re going to find his sworn declaration to be pretty impressive, and perhaps the most brutal denunciation of Scientology’s brand of justice ever. Will this, finally, be what convinces a judge to do something?

Declaration of Dennis R. Nolan

1. My name is Professor Dennis R. Nolan. I offer this Declaration in the case of Gawain Baxter, et al. v. David Miscavige, et al., now pending in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. I am over the age of 21, and I have personal knowledge of the facts stated herein, which I declare are true and correct subject to the penalty of perjury. I understand that Plaintiffs are moving the Court to reconsider its order compelling arbitration under the purported arbitration system of Scientology. In support of the below, I reviewed: (i) Plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration and declarations in support thereof; (ii) the Weber Declaration filed previously in this matter (ECF 67-2), containing the purported arbitration agreements; (iii) Plaintiffs’ statement of claim submitted for arbitration and operative complaint; and (iv) this Court’s order compelling arbitration (ECF 188).

I. QUALIFICATIONS

2. I have been involved with labor and employment law since my graduation from law school 56 years ago. For almost all of that time, my focus has been on the arbitration and mediation of employment disputes. My resume is attached, but here are the main elements relevant to this case.

a. Before moving to South Carolina in 1974, I practiced labor and employment law in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On moving to South Carolina, I noticed that the South Carolina Bar did not have a section devoted to that field. I founded and served as first chair of what is now the labor and employment law section of the South Carolina Bar.

b. I began teaching at the University of South Carolina School of Law in the fall of 1974. From then until my retirement 34 years later, I taught a variety of courses, the vast majority of which were in the field of labor and employment law, with a special focus on employment dispute resolution. After several promotions, I became the Webster Professor of Labor Law and served in that capacity until my retirement in 2008. While at the University of South Carolina, I held visiting positions in the same field at the University of Washington, George Washington University, and at universities in Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia. Two of those visiting positions were the result of Fulbright grants.

c. While teaching, I also wrote eight books and about 47 articles, primarily involving arbitration and mediation. Among those books are ADR in the Workplace (West, 4th ed. 2020) and Labor and Employment Arbitration in a Nutshell (West, 4th ed. 2020). I also have lectured widely in the United States and abroad, delivering several hundred talks, mainly on employment law and dispute resolution.

d. While teaching and after my retirement, I served in many offices in relevant professional associations including the Association of American Law Schools (Chair of the Section on Labor and Employment Law); the International Society for Labor and Social Security Law (U.S. National Executive Board); the Labor Law Group Trust (Executive Committee); and the Labor and Employment Relations Association. Most importantly for this case, in 1985, I was selected for membership in the premier North American association of labor and employment arbitrators, the National Academy of Arbitrators. I held almost every leadership position in the Academy over the subsequent years, culminating in serving as President in 2006-07.

e. Beginning in 1976, I also have practiced labor and employment arbitration and mediation. I have handled over two thousand cases throughout the continental United States, in the United States Virgin Islands, and in Panama. I have served on the arbitration panels of the main appointment bodies, the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”), and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and on private panels created by many of the most important companies and unions in the country.

f. Additionally, I submitted a declaration similar to this one, opining on whether a purported arbitration procedure comported with the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), as it must. See Hooters of Am., Inc. v. Phillips, 173 F.3d 933, 935, 939 (4th Cir. 1999) (Wilkinson, J.) (holding company’s dispute resolution process “utterly lack[ed] in the rudiments of evenhandedness,” in part relying on my declaration that the company’s rules “do not satisfy the minimum requirements of a fair arbitration system”).

3. My many years of experience in the field qualify me as an expert on dispute resolution systems, including arbitration.

II. MY INTEREST IN THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS CASE

4. In all of my professional work in the last half-century, I have tried to advance the use of alternative dispute resolution in employment and related disputes. To do that, however, practitioners, scholars, and judges must guard against systems that use the term “arbitration” to disguise one-sided, sham systems designed to prevent fair decisions. Not every system bearing the label of arbitration deserves the deference reserved for actual arbitration. In my scholarly writing and lecturing, and in my work in professional associations such as the National Academy of Arbitrators, I have emphasized the importance of ensuring that arbitration provides a fair and ethical alternative to litigation. This declaration is another attempt to protect legitimate arbitration by depriving unfair and unethical systems of judicial backing. For this work, I am being compensated at a rate of $600/hour by Plaintiffs’ counsel.

III. THE PROCEEDINGS IN THIS CASE DO NOT BEAR THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A GENUINE ARBITRATION

A. Fair Procedures

5. Every complete dispute resolution system consists of a set of principles and procedures leading to a binding decision. Court procedures are an obvious example: everyone involved in a lawsuit knows just who has to do what at each stage, and how and when to do so. The crucial steps include a statement of claims and a response by the other party, time limits, discovery rules, evidentiary rules, and so on. It is impossible to imagine a fair judicial system that lacked those rules. To be of any use, the rules must be established before any case is brought and must be available to all parties.

6. So too with arbitration. All independent providers of arbitration services, most notably the AAA and JAMS (formerly known as Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, Inc.), have extensive rules that are readily available for all users. Employment Rules, Forms, and Fees, American Arbitration Association (May 1, 2025), https://www.adr.org/rules-forms-and-fees/employment/; Employment Arbitration Rules & Procedures, JAMS (June 1, 2021), https://www.jamsadr.com/rules-employment-arbitration.

7. Of course, arbitration systems can vary widely in form and procedure. That is one of its many advantages because parties can design a system that meets their unique needs. For instance, some use three arbitrators, others one. But every fair arbitration system includes clear procedures, provided in advance to all parties, that provide for claims and responses, enable participants to obtain evidence and provide their own evidence, and to challenge the other party’s evidence. Almost all of them permit an audio or video record and allow parties to use attorneys. Any dispute resolution procedure lacking fair procedures, and clear notice thereof, is inadequate.

8. Plaintiffs’ experience in trying to use the Scientology system demonstrates why that system is ruleless. Most importantly, despite repeated requests by Plaintiffs and their lawyers, Defendants never provided them with the rules under which the system purportedly operated. See Exs. 2–8. I have never before seen an arbitration where the parties were denied use of attorneys. Lack of meaningful access to counsel makes it impossible for someone to effectively vindicate their rights in a legal proceeding. Instead, the chair of the proceeding simply asserted various requirements or prohibitions as issues arose, often without any explanation whatsoever. The only conclusion an objective observer can reach is that the Scientology system either has no procedural or substantive rules or refuses to provide those rules, either of which is inconsistent with the basic principles of arbitration.

9. Second, fair arbitration procedures provide both parties with an orderly, convenient way to present testimony and other evidence and to refute the other side’s evidence. Here, the Scientology procedure denied Plaintiffs the ability to obtain evidence from Defendants, to schedule their own witnesses, to directly examine their own witnesses or cross-examine Defendants’ witnesses, and it refused to take testimony by video. Without the right to schedule their own witnesses—or specification of when the panel would call those witnesses—it was virtually impossible to arrange for and prepare for witnesses. Additionally, the Scientology procedure denied Plaintiffs advance (or even contemporaneous) copies of documentary evidence or records of testimonial evidence, so Plaintiffs could not effectively consult with their lawyers.

10. All of this falls well short of the procedural minimums required for an arbitration system.

B. Neutral Decision Maker

11. There can be no arbitration as the law knows it without a neutral decision maker. A system lacking a neutral decision maker is clearly not an alternative forum to a court, as such a system obviously could not provide effective vindication of statutory rights.

12. Plaintiffs’ experience using the Scientology system clearly shows that the supposed arbitration panel was not neutral. Unlike normal panels, all members had to be Scientologists in good standing, and thus were subject to pressure through Defendants’ channels, including the sole individual Defendant who enjoys plenary power over members of Scientology. Moreover, two panel members barely participated while the third, the chair of the panel (and Defendants’ nominee), acted as an advocate for Defendants rather than as a neutral. The participants’ declarations show that the panel would not permit Plaintiffs to participate effectively. The panel would not permit some questions and required that all others be rephrased by the panel chair; the panel chair misrepresented some of the evidence, called her own son as a fact witness, and more. Worse, the panel chair berated Plaintiffs and undercut their claims.

13. The Scientology system did not provide a neutral decision maker and thus prevented Plaintiffs from effectively vindicating their claims. C. Actual Consideration of Rights and Evidence Leading to a Final Decision

14. An arbitration is merely a system for the claimant to press their legal rights in a different forum. It hardly needs saying that a party cannot do so if the designated forum refuses to address the claimant’s statutory or constitutional rights. That is the case here.

15. Defendants and the Scientology panel initially declined to identify the law and procedures it was applying. They later stated that the panel would apply Scientology law, not federal or state law. E.g., Ex. 10 (L. Baxter Decl.) ¶¶ 29–31. This Court relied on the FAA to defer Plaintiffs’ statutory claims to a purported arbitration system with the clear understanding that the Scientology process would consider and rule on all of the Plaintiffs’ claims. The panel’s statements demonstrate that the Court’s expectation was not fulfilled. Because the Scientology system does not resolve Plaintiffs’ claims under applicable law, Plaintiffs cannot effectively vindicate their statutory rights through it.

V. CONCLUSION

6. I have carefully reviewed the available information about the Scientology dispute resolution procedure to which this Court deferred Plaintiffs’ claims. Over my half-century of research, teaching and practice in this field, I have never encountered a system less worthy of the title of arbitration. It possesses none of the elements of a classic arbitration and does not provide for basic guarantees of fairness. It lacks any apparent rules. It does not provide a fair procedure or a neutral decision maker. Its own panel clearly stated it would not consider or apply federal or state law. There is simply no way that system could provide an adequate alternative forum to resolve Plaintiffs’ legal claims.

April 9, 2026 | Dennis R. Nolan

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A HowdyCon update: The agenda!

If you were listening to the Group Therapy podcast Sunday, you heard Alex deliver the news about HowdyCon: We have an agenda! Here’s what he revealed…

The HowdyCon 2026 Agenda is Here!

The first wave of tickets have now officially sold out, but don’t worry, more will be released soon. In the meantime, we are excited to announce the agenda for this year’s event. The full list of talks is on view at the convention website!

You heard previously that this year’s guest speakers include Alex Barnes-Ross, Claire Headley, Phil Jones, Patty Moher, Chris Shelton. and of course, Underground Bunker author Tony Ortega. Now we can share what the weekend will entail. Here’s the brief rundown of what to expect:

FRIDAY 18th SEPTEMBER

Arrivals, registration a panel discussion and plenty of time to socialize. Two hours of bottomless pizza is included in your ticket price but you’ll have to get your own drinks.

SATURDAY 19th SEPTEMBER

Four keynote speeches and panel discussions from some of the world’s biggest SPs, a silent auction raising money for The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation and an after party packed with fun activities. A late buffet-style lunch will be provided, and is included in the cost of your ticket.

SUNDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

Breakfast and departures

HowdyCon will be taking place at multiple venues throughout New London, CT and in order to minimize potential interference from Scientology, the details will be shared exclusively with those who have purchased a ticket.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

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Once again we discussed the week’s revelations with our gang of jokers and degraders.

It’s all the enturbulation you could want!

— The Proprietor

Read more

Friday we finally began to get access to a large amount of information about what’s been going on in the labor-trafficking lawsuit filed against Scientology in Tampa federal court.

The plaintiffs, former Sea Org employees and Australia residents Valeska Paris and Gawain and Laura Baxter, sued in 2022 over allegations that they had been trafficked as virtual slaves aboard Scientology’s cruise ship the Freewinds as children and adults. But federal Judge Thomas Barber said his hands were tied by US Supreme Court precedent and he had no choice but to force the case into Scientology’s “religious arbitration.”

Valeska and the Baxters went through 15 days of arbitration in Clearwater that began on January 19 before walking out. They are now asking Judge Barber to consider a motion to reconsider, complaining that Scientology has harassed and intimidated them during its sham of an arbitration.

Friday we reviewed the basic points of that motion and then posted Valeska’s full declaration about what those 15 days were like. Yesterday we looked at the declaration by New York psychologist Dr. Chitra Raghavan, who was a witness in the arbitration.

Today, we have the declarations by the other claimants, Gawain and Laura Baxter. These are their statements in full.

Declaration Of Gawain Baxter

1. My name is Gawain Baxter, I am over the age of 21, and I have personal knowledge of the facts stated herein, which I declare are true and correct subject to the penalty for perjury.

2. I participated in a Scientology arbitration from January 19, 2026, to February 6, 2026, at the Atrium Building in Clearwater, Florida.

3. When we entered the building, a Scientology security guard directed us to take an elevator up to the second floor of the building, where the arbitration was going to be conducted. The Scientology security guard told us that the court reporter was not allowed to go upstairs with us.

4. After we went upstairs, we were told to go through a door where we encountered two more men who informed us that they were private security guards hired by Defendants’ counsel. They showed us a door that led to a room where the arbitration would be held and then several other doors that led to vacant offices where our attorneys and the attorney for Defendants would be located. The offices did not have walls that went up to the ceiling, so it was possible for the security guards and counsel for Defendants to hear conversations that occurred in the room where our attorneys were assigned.

5. We were told by the Scientology security guard we could enter the arbitration room only without our attorneys. Before we could enter the room, the private security guards used a metal detector and a device that we were told could detect electronic devices to scan our bodies and all the materials we carried into the arbitration rooms. The security guards even scanned my and Laura’s four-monthold baby and stroller. Each time we left the arbitration room to take a break or speak with our lawyers in the room next door, the security guards re-scanned us, our documents, and everything with us before we were permitted to reenter the arbitration room. This process was very time consuming.

6. When we entered the arbitration room for the first time on January 19, we were approached by Catherine Fraser, who told us where to sit. Several other people were also in the room. Valeska asked who they were and what entities they were with. Fraser said they were Philippe Peterson (representing CSI), Chelsea Graves (representing RTC), Peter Mansell (representing FSO), Claudia Abadia (representing FSSO), and Beatric Reichl (representing IASA). Fraser did not tell us anything else about the relationship of these individuals to the Defendants. We asked for their titles/positions, and the Defendant representatives and Fraser said it wasn’t relevant and refused to tell us.

7. Valeska asked how Fraser was nominated. Fraser told us that Defendants had nominated her as an arbitrator, and that she had been appointed as the panel chair. Fraser told us that she and Jeannine Van Locke, one of the arbitrators we nominated, had selected Richard Howd to be the third arbitrator.

8. Valeska asked if our attorneys could participate in the arbitration on January 19, and on every subsequent day of the arbitration. Ms. Fraser told us that our attorneys would not be permitted to participate in the arbitration. As a result, Laura, Valeska, and I, none of whom are trained as attorneys, had to try to argue complex legal concepts like the validity of the arbitration agreements, had to formulate our own questions for Defendants’ witnesses on the fly, and had to give our own testimony and answer questions from the Panel while deciding whether to object to any of the questions asked. This was made even more difficult by the fact that we were not provided with Defendants’ witnesses or evidence in advance, so we were not able to take time with our attorneys to prepare questions before the arbitration began.

9. Valeska also asked if the court reporter that was present outside the room where the arbitration was being conducted could attend the arbitration and make a record, but Ms. Fraser said the reporter was not permitted.

10. Ms. Fraser provided us with a non-disclosure agreement and an agreement to not record the proceedings electronically. She told us that the arbitration would not proceed unless we signed these documents. We asked for copies to take with us so we could review them in private and confer with our attorneys. Ms. Fraser refused, and told us that we were not permitted to remove these or any other documents from the room where the arbitration was being conducted.

11. Because we had no choice but to sign the documents to proceed with the arbitration, we each signed them but with the caveat that the non-disclosure agreement did not prohibit us from discussing what occurred in the arbitration in our court filings. I was not permitted to retain a copy of what I signed.

12. Ms. Fraser then provided us with copies of the Defendants’ responses to our Statement of Claim for the first time. Again, we were not permitted to take the responses out of the room to review or share with our attorneys. I attempted to copy out some of the responses onto my notepad, but I was not able to copy out all the Defendants’ responses in the time I had, especially while also keeping track of what was going on in the proceeding.

13. Valeska asked if the arbitration panel would be applying U.S. law, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Ms. Fraser said “No, we will not be. We are not attorneys.”

14. At the end of the first day of the arbitration, Valeska, Laura, and I gave statements under oath outlining the day’s events, including the statements that we each gave concerning our claims. This transcript is attached as Exhibit 11.

15. On January 20, 2026, Valeska asked the arbitration panel to provide us with the Scientology Ethics and Justice Procedures and any other substantive or procedural law that governed the arbitration proceeding. Valeska provided the arbitration panel with a copy of the letter from the IJC dated November 30, 2024 that stated that we would be provided an opportunity to review those procedures prior to commencing the arbitration. Fraser, the panel chair, refused. She stated that if the panel were to bring in all the data on ethics and justice it would take a week. She said that the applicable law and procedures were all the ethics and justice procedures in Scientology, without going into any more detail. Fraser did not give us copies of any law or procedures and said that none would be provided. Fraser told Laura that she should know what the procedures were since Laura was an “ethics specialist.”

16. I took a Scientology ethics course as part of Sea Org training (during a phase known as Estates Project Force, or “EPF”). There was no mention of Scientology arbitration process or procedure in this course.

17. Ms. Fraser provided us with copies of several documents that we had signed. I noted that none of the documents that I had been required to sign as a minor were included in these documents. I was familiar with some of these documents because I had seen them attached to Defendants’ brief moving the court to compel arbitration. However, I also noted that there were some documents that I had not seen before. Valeska asked if we could have a copy of these documents, or whether our attorneys could be provided a copy of these documents. Ms. Fraser said that we needed to request these documents from the IJC. We asked her where these documents came from. She said she had received them from the IJC weeks ago.

18. On January 20, 2026, we wrote a letter to the IJC requesting copies of these documents and other documentary evidence that was provided to the panel. In a letter dated February 3, 2026, the IJC responded that it forwarded documents from Defendants to the arbitrators, but did not retain any copies of the documents, and could not speak to what the arbitrators may or may have not said to us once the arbitration commenced. The IJC copied the arbitration committee on the letter for them to “take the matter up with [us] if they wish[ed].” Neither the IJC nor the arbitration panel provided us or our attorneys with copies of the documents we requested.

19. The panel first called Lise Cohee as a witness. Valeska asked the panel who gave them Ms. Cohee as a witness. Ms. Fraser said the IJC gave them her name and the panel chose her as a witness. Ms. Fraser then proceeded to ask Ms. Cohee questions about how long she had been in the Sea Org, life on the Freewinds, and the circumstances surrounding an agreement I had signed. Ms. Fraser stopped Valeska from asking Ms. Cohee questions. She said that Cohee’s testimony was not relevant to Valeska’s claims (even though her testimony concerned life on the Freewinds) and stopped Valeska from asking her questions.

20. Ms. Fraser chose which witnesses would be called each day. Valeska asked Ms. Fraser every day for a copy of the witness list so that we could prepare. She refused to give us a witness list and refused to give us advance notice of when witnesses would be called. Fraser repeatedly said she had a list of names, but did not know who she would call yet—giving us the impression someone else was making that decision for her. Defendants began each day with the same witness and document binders as the members of the arbitration panel. Security personnel also told us that the arbitration panel and defendants’ representatives ate lunch together during lunch breaks.

21. It appeared that the panel had given the Defendants advance notice of what witnesses would be called on what date because the Defendants’ witnesses were able to make travel arrangements in advance so that they could appear when called by the panel (for example, Ms. Fraser referenced needing to work around other witnesses’ flight schedules, including Defendants’ witnesses Roberto Toppi and Damien Anderson). However, the panel refused to give us dates when they would hear testimony from our witnesses. At the beginning of the arbitration, we provided the dates that our witnesses would be available and asked for confirmation of when they would be called so that they could make travel arrangements to appear. The Panel refused to give us an answer. Instead, Ms. Fraser kept insisting that the panel wanted all the evidence to come in but wouldn’t give us an estimate of when that would be so we could make travel arrangements for our witnesses. She kept saying she wasn’t giving us dates for our witnesses because she had to go through other testimony and evidence first so she knew what to ask our witnesses, but that did not appear to be a problem with scheduling Defendants’ witnesses. By the end of the first week of arbitration, we still did not have an answer as to when our witnesses would be called to testify. Since our witnesses had other professional obligations that they could not cancel on short notice to travel to Florida, we offered to make them available by Zoom, but the panel refused that as well. Therefore, we asked the panel to accept their written reports and declarations in lieu of their live testimony. During the second week of the arbitration, Ms. Fraser said that if our witnesses weren’t able to appear and give testimony and be questioned, their evidence would be worth significantly less.

22. Over the course of the first two weeks of the arbitration, Ms. Fraser called thirty-four Defendant witnesses who provided nearly identical testimony. Each witness that was or purported to be a signatory to one of the agreements we had signed was asked about our demeanor at signing and whether they had threatened us with any consequences for refusal to sign. Defendants’ witness Damien Anderson testified that he witnessed me signing an agreement, but this was not true. Each witness was asked about what life on the Freewinds was like when we were on the ship and each witness’ answer described the schedule for work, meal breaks and sleep; awards; times we were permitted to leave the ship including Christmas; and whether or not they had photos of the times we had some time off such as Christmas day. Ms. Fraser asked if we asked to leave the Freewinds or the Sea Org or whether we appeared happy to be there.

23. Several of Defendants’ witnesses lied about me in their testimony. For example, Daniella Merin testified that I went paintballing with her and even taught her how to paintball. This was simply not true. Callie Lekas also testified that she thought I went paintballing with them, leading me to believe they had both been prepared or coached to say this. Sean Mossing also lied that I could leave the “QI” (where I stayed as a minor when I was in the Cadet Org) whenever I wanted. This also was not true. Additionally, Shawn Mossing’s testimony about living and working conditions in the Cadet Org was not truthful, and was contradicted by subsequent testimony from other witnesses and Defendants’ exhibits, but since we had no notice of subsequent witnesses or exhibits we could not confront the witness with the testimony and exhibits.

24. Sometimes Ms. Fraser would add to a witness’s testimony. For example, Fraser added on to Claudia Wollitzer’s testimony and said that being sent to the engine room was “not punishment.”

25. Fraser also misrepresented facts in our Complaint and Statement of Claim to witnesses. Fraser told Damien Anderson and Callie Lekas that we claimed we never had a day off.

26. All subsequent witnesses were called by Ms. Fraser and were asked questions by Ms. Fraser. Ms. Fraser did not permit Laura, Valeska, or me to ask witnesses questions directly. Every question we asked had to first be cleared by Ms. Fraser. If Ms. Fraser did permit our question, she would usually rephrase the question to the witness to elicit information helpful to the Defendants. Often she would object to our questions outright and say our questions were not pertinent or relevant and tell the witness not to answer. Sometimes, Fraser would tell us that the person we were trying to question was not our witness, and that therefore we could not question them. For example, Defendants’ witness Evelyn Politakes testified about the safety of the engine room and there was not a harmful level of blue asbestos exposure on the Freewinds. Valeska attempted to ask Evelyn Politakes, “isn’t it true you’re not a trained engineer?” Fraser did not allow the question. I asked, “what is a safe amount of exposure?” Fraser wouldn’t permit the question. Sometimes Fraser answered questions herself that we had directed toward a witness.

27. The Defendants did not have this same restriction. Ms. Fraser permitted Defendants to directly ask both their and our witnesses questions and would permit witnesses to answer the questions as asked. When Defendants asked questions, Ms. Fraser did not rephrase their questions unless it was to guide them to phrase questions in a way to elicit information helpful to Defendants. She did not restrict the kinds of questions they asked.

28. Due to the lack of advance notice required to make advance travel arrangements for our witnesses to testify in person, only one of our witnesses (Dr. Chitra Raghavan) was able to travel to Clearwater to testify in person. During her testimony, Defendants were permitted to directly ask Dr. Raghavan questions, even though we were not permitted to directly ask any witnesses questions. These questions were often irrelevant and inflammatory. For example, Philippe Peterson (CSI) asked Dr. Raghavan if Laura, Valeska, and I could have just gotten together and made up the facts forming the basis of this lawsuit because we wanted to bring a false lawsuit and make money. Even though Dr. Raghavan was our witness, we were not allowed to engage in any sort of direct examination or ask Dr. Raghavan any questions directly. We were allowed to ask her questions through Fraser for only approximately 10 minutes.

29. Ms. Fraser verbally summarized previous witness testimony for Dr. Raghavan before asking Dr. Raghavan questions. Her summary of the previous testimony was cherry picked and inaccurate, and did not contain exact quotes. Ms. Fraser only included testimony in her summary that could help Defendants. For example, Ms. Fraser relayed to Dr. Raghavan that Tina Fugen testified that Valeska was “really happy” to be on the Freewinds, even though Tina Fugen had actually testified that she remembered Valeska saying that she did not want to be on the Freewinds.

30. On January 22, 2026, Ms. Fraser informed us that the panel had rejected our argument that the arbitration clauses were invalid for duress. They did not rule on whether there was fraud in the execution of the arbitration clauses, despite our repeatedly asking them to do so.

31. The next day, we asked if the panel had applied state contract law to reach the decision, the chair responded that it had not; rather, the chair said, the panel applied only the law of Scientology. The arbitrators provided no other explanation for their decision.

32. We later asked if the panel would apply the TVPRA to resolve the merits of our claims and Ms. Fraser again responded that it would only apply the law of Scientology and would not apply any state or federal law.

33. At one point, the arbitration chair called her own son Corwin Desimone as a witness. She did not disclose her relationship to Mr. Desimone or that she was related to a fact witness until Valeska pointed it out. Valeska was able to ask Mr. Desimone a few questions through Ms. Fraser until she stopped allowing her to question him. Valeska then tried to ask Mr. Desimone a question going to his credibility as a witness, and Fraser screamed at the top of her lungs that her question was irrelevant. She yelled at Valeska for nearly five minutes. The other two arbitrators, Ms. Van Locke and Mr. Howd, told Ms. Fraser to calm down.

34. Fraser also added on to the testimony Mr. Desimone provided. For example, Valeska asked Mr. Desimone if it was true that Defendants took her and Corwin’s identification documents when they went to RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force, a program for members of the Sea Org who have committed violations of Scientology’s policies) in Australia. Mr. Desimone testified that it was true. Fraser added to his answer that “as his mother, she has spoken with Corwin about how much he’s benefitted from the RPF.”

35. On January 26, after arbitrators Fraser and Howd repeatedly publicly demonstrated an inability to consider our claims impartially, we formally objected to their sitting as arbitrators and requested their recusal. We told the panel that this was based on Fraser calling her own son as a fact witness, a video published by 60 Minutes Australia and a story by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in which Fraser publicly called former Scientologists liars, and Fraser’s submission of a declaration in support of Scientology’s motion to compel arbitration in Haney v. Scientology, (Case Number 19STCV21210 in California Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, dated December 20, 2019), stemming from similar allegations of abuse by Scientology. We shared that our request for Howd to recuse himself was based on that fact that he has publicly referred to former Scientologists in derogatory terms. We provided the arbitrators with links to the referenced news sources and a copy of the declaration. Fraser responded “noted” and proceeded to conduct the arbitration.

36. Although the arbitration had initially been scheduled to last two weeks, Fraser began hinting at the beginning of the second week that the arbitration may go longer than two weeks. In order to conclude within two weeks, we offered to start as early and end as late in the day as necessary, but Ms. Fraser continued to start the arbitration proceedings at 10 am.

37. On January 28, we told the arbitration panel that we had entered all our evidence, except for Dr. Raghavan’s in person testimony, on the very first day of the arbitration, and had spent time since then hearing Defendants’ arguments and witnesses. We told the panel that now that Dr. Raghavan had been called, we rested our case, and that there was plenty of time for the arbitration to be concluded within two weeks.

38. At the end of the second week, Ms. Fraser informed us that the panel would need at least another week to conclude the arbitration, despite having already heard over a week of the Defendants’ case. We offered to continue the arbitration on the weekend or continue with a representative for us in our absence, but Fraser rejected these proposals. We scrambled to arrange for childcare and additional time off work, and incurred expense in changing our flights home to Australia and securing additional lodging and transportation, but we agreed to return for a third week of arbitration. We made it clear that in returning for a third week, we would expect the arbitration to conclude. We had presented our case in chief in two days.

39. The third week, Ms. Fraser turned the process into a full-blown inquisition into our personal lives. During this week, she did not present any testimony or evidence relevant to our claims or Defendants’ defenses. Rather, Ms. Fraser spent the entire week extensively questioning us about our social media posts, interactions with other former scientologists, and other personal matters unrelated to our claims.

40. At the beginning of the third week, the panel reviewed some documents from our ethics folders, the folders that serve as personnel files and disciplinary records in Scientology. We were not permitted to handle and look through these folders ourselves. Instead, Ms. Fraser would only permit one of us at a time to review our ethics folder, and she would turn each page for us when we were done reviewing it. We did not receive copies of these documents in advance, during, or after the arbitration. Having to review documents in this manner was inefficient and wasted time.

41. Large chunks of documents appeared to be missing from my ethics folder. Based on my experience in Scientology, I know that documents involving disciplinary actions taken against me would be included in my ethics folder. There was nothing in my ethics file concerning a letter I sent to Javier Martinez that said I was put in the Sea Org against my will and wanted to leave. I got in trouble with Danny Light for sending this letter. There was nothing in my ethics folder about trying to leave around 1998-1999. There was also nothing in my ethics folder about the time I was sent to the engine room for two months as punishment. Something about these incidents certainly would have been kept in my ethics folder. Fraser admitted that these were not our original ethics folders, and that new, renumbered folders had been made. She said that the ethics folders had come from the IJC.

42. At the end of the day on Monday, February 2, we again asked for the names of witnesses who would be testifying the next day. We were not given an answer. We objected to any more witnesses testifying, as Ms. Fraser had previously told us that review of the ethics folders would occur at “the end” of the arbitration, after all witnesses had testified. We requested that the arbitration be concluded.

43. On Tuesday, February 3, the panel continued to slowly review our ethics folders.

44. At the end of the day, Ms. Fraser said the arbitrators had more questions to ask us and more witnesses to call, but she did not identify those witnesses and said she did not know who those witnesses were.

45. The next day, on Wednesday, February 4, Valeska told the arbitrators that the arbitration needed to finish that day because we had rested our case the previous week and the arbitration panel had failed to identify any more witnesses it intended to call or any more evidence it intended to review. Valeska said that asking irrelevant or repetitious questions would be an unacceptable attempt to delay the conclusion of the arbitration.

46. Next, Ms. Fraser spent two whole days going over Valeska’s social media posts, comments, and pictures she had posted or been tagged in. She showed Valeska photos of herself as a baby, before she entered the Cadet Org, photos of Valeska with her children, and a Father’s Day Facebook post Valeska made saying she missed her Dad. Fraser asked if someone made her or paid her to create that Facebook post. She questioned Valeska extensively about news articles, media, public appearances, and podcasts she had been featured in or interviewed for as well. She asked how Valeska’s media statements came about, if she was paid to give any interview or to make any statement, and if anyone talked her into it. Halfway through this, Valeska said that she had never been induced to make a social media post and asked if she could move through this line of questioning faster, but Fraser ignored her.

47. Ms. Fraser asked me and Laura questions about an interview I did with the Tampa Bay Times after filing this complaint, as well as questions about other articles that used quotes from that interview.

48. Ms. Fraser also questioned us extensively about attorney-client communications and work product, including questions about how the lawsuit came about, how much money our lawyers said we were going to make, if we discussed the statute of limitations with our lawyers, if Valeska convinced Laura and me to sue, if our lawyers made us give an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, and if our lawyers told us not to worry about our arbitration agreements and confidentiality agreements that we had signed. We refused to answer these questions on the grounds of attorney client privilege, joint prosecution, and spousal privilege, though Ms. Fraser informed us that there was no attorney-client privilege under the law of Scientology. At one point, she said to us, “you have no privileges.” She asserted multiple times that we had no joint prosecution or spousal privileges. This was especially difficult because our attorneys were not in the room and we are not experts in when the attorney-client privilege applies. Fraser also asked if Laura and I spoke about filing the lawsuit.

49. Ms. Fraser also attempted to split me, Valeska, and Laura up so we each could be interrogated separately about “inducement,” but we refused to participate in any proceedings without each other present. She asked us numerous questions on this point, including whether we were paid to bring this lawsuit. During the “inducement” line of questioning, we were not allowed to leave the arbitration room together until the line of questioning was over. During this time, Ms. Fraser asked Laura if she knew her father-in-law was in the FSO, and that since she was suing FSO, she was also suing him. This inducement line of questioning went on for over four hours.

50. On Thursday, February 5, we again requested that the panel conclude the arbitration at the end of the third week.

51. At the conclusion of the third week, Ms. Fraser informed us that the “arbitration” was still not concluded and that we would be required to resume the arbitration the following Monday. We asked Ms. Fraser for a list of witnesses she wanted to call and evidence she wanted to enter into the record, but she did not have an answer. Ms. Fraser also would not give us a date by which the arbitration would end. She responded that these details “will come” and that the arbitration will take “as long as it takes.” At this point, with no apparent end in sight, we told the panel that we would not continue the next week. We elected not to subject ourselves to further harassment and returned home to Australia. Our house and pet sitter was unable to stay any further. I had a job to get back to that I had already pushed back once. Our children, who accompanied us to Florida, needed to get back to Australia for school and medical appointments. They had already missed a week of classes and extracurricular activities. We told the arbitration panel that we had already stayed for one additional week beyond the two weeks scheduled by the IJC, on very little notice and at great cost, and that we had to return to our employment and other obligations.

Signed, Gawain Baxter

Declaration of Laura Baxter

1. My name is Laura Baxter, I am over the age of 21, and I have personal knowledge of the facts stated herein, which I declare are true and correct subject to the penalty for perjury.

2. I participated in a Scientology arbitration from January 19, 2026, to February 6, 2026, at the Atrium Building in Clearwater, Florida.

3. When we entered the building, a Scientology security guard directed us to take an elevator up to the second floor of the building, where the arbitration was going to be conducted. The Scientology security guard told us that the court reporter was not allowed to go upstairs with us.

4. After we went upstairs, we were told to go through a door where we encountered two more men who informed us that they were private security guards hired by Defendants’ counsel. They showed us a door that led to a room where the arbitration would be held and then several other doors that led to vacant offices where our attorneys and the attorney for Defendants would be located. The offices did not have walls that went up to the ceiling, so it was possible for the security guards and counsel for Defendants to hear conversations that occurred in the room where our attorneys were assigned.

5. We were told by the Scientology security guard we could enter the arbitration room only without our attorneys. Before we could enter the room, the private security guards used a metal detector and a device that we were told could detect electronic devices to scan our bodies and all the materials we carried into the arbitration rooms. The security guards even scanned my and Gawain’s four-monthold baby and stroller. Each time we left the arbitration room to take a break or speak with our lawyers in the room next door, the security guards re-scanned us, our documents, and everything with us before we were permitted to reenter the arbitration room. This process was very time consuming.

6. When we entered the arbitration room for the first time on January 19, we were approached by Catherine Fraser, who told us where to sit. Several other people were also in the room. Valeska asked who they were and what entities they were with. Fraser said they were Philippe Peterson (representing CSI), Chelsea Graves (representing RTC), Peter Mansell (representing FSO), Claudia Abadia (representing FSSO), and Beatric Reichl (representing IASA). Fraser did not tell us anything else about the relationship of these individuals to the Defendants. We asked for their titles/positions, and the Defendant representatives and Fraser said it wasn’t relevant and refused to tell us.

7. Valeska asked how Fraser was nominated. Fraser told us that Defendants had nominated her as an arbitrator, and that she had been appointed as the panel chair. Fraser told us that she and Jeannine Van Locke, one of the arbitrators we nominated, had selected Richard Howd to be the third arbitrator.

8. Valeska asked if our attorneys could participate in the arbitration on January 19, and on every subsequent day of the arbitration. Ms. Fraser told us that our attorneys would not be permitted to participate in the arbitration. As a result, Gawain, Valeska, and I, none of whom are trained as attorneys, had to try to argue complex legal concepts like the validity of the arbitration agreements, had to formulate our own questions for Defendants’ witnesses on the fly, and had to give our own testimony and answer questions from the Panel while deciding whether to object to any of the questions asked. This was made even more difficult by the fact that we were not provided with Defendants’ witnesses or evidence in advance, so we were not able to take time with our attorneys to prepare questions before the arbitration began.

9. Valeska also asked if the court reporter that was present outside the room where the arbitration was being conducted could attend the arbitration and make a record, but Ms. Fraser said the reporter was not permitted.

10. Ms. Fraser provided us with a non-disclosure agreement and an agreement to not record the proceedings electronically. She told us that the arbitration would not proceed unless we signed these documents. We asked for copies to take with us so we could review them in private and confer with our attorneys. Ms. Fraser refused, and told us that we were not permitted to remove these or any other documents from the room where the arbitration was being conducted.

11. Because we had no choice but to sign the documents to proceed with the arbitration, we each signed them but with the caveat that the non-disclosure agreement did not prohibit us from discussing what occurred in the arbitration in our court filings. I was not permitted to retain a copy of what I signed.

12. Ms. Fraser then provided us with copies of the Defendants’ responses to our Statement of Claim for the first time. Again, we were not permitted to take the responses out of the room to review or share with our attorneys. I attempted to copy out some of the responses onto my notepad, but I was not able to copy out all the Defendants’ responses in the time I had, especially while also keeping track of what was going on in the proceeding.

13. Valeska asked if the arbitration panel would be applying U.S. law, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Ms. Fraser said “No, we will not be. We are not attorneys.”

14. At the end of the first day of the arbitration, Gawain, Valeska, and I gave statements under oath outlining the day’s events, including the statements that we each gave concerning our claims. This transcript is attached as Exhibit 11.

15. On January 20, 2026, Valeska asked the arbitration panel to provide us with the Scientology Ethics and Justice Procedures and any other substantive or procedural law that governed the arbitration proceeding. Valeska provided the arbitration panel with a copy of the letter from the IJC dated November 30, 2024 that stated that we would be provided an opportunity to review those procedures prior to commencing the arbitration. Fraser, the panel chair, refused. She stated that if the panel were to bring in all the data on ethics and justice it would take a week. She said that the applicable law and procedures were all the ethics and justice procedures in Scientology, without going into any more detail. Fraser did not give us copies of any law or procedures and said that none would be provided. Fraser told me that I should know what the procedures were since I was an “ethics specialist.”

16. I took a Scientology ethics course in approximately 2004 and studied ethics materials when I was training for my position as a publics ethics officer in approximately 2000. Even though I studied Scientology ethics procedures and policies, as far as I remember, nothing I studied contained anything about arbitration procedures or policies.

17. Ms. Fraser provided us with copies of several documents that we had signed. I was familiar with some of these documents because I had seen them attached to Defendants’ brief moving the court to compel arbitration. However, I also noted that there were some documents that I had not seen before. We asked if we could have a copy of these documents, or whether our attorneys could be provided a copy of these documents. Ms. Fraser said that we needed to request these documents from the IJC. We asked her where these documents came from. She said she had received them from the IJC weeks ago.

18. On January 20, 2026, we wrote a letter to the IJC requesting copies of these documents and other documentary evidence that was provided to the panel. In a letter dated February 3, 2026, the IJC responded that it forwarded documents from Defendants to the arbitrators, but did not retain any copies of the documents, and could not speak to what the arbitrators may or may have not said to us once the arbitration commenced. The IJC copied the arbitration committee on the letter for them to “take the matter up with [us] if they wish[ed].” Neither the IJC nor the arbitration panel provided us or our attorneys with copies of the documents we requested.

19. The panel first called Lise Cohee as a witness. Valeska asked the panel who gave them Ms. Cohee as a witness. Ms. Fraser said the IJC gave them her name and the panel chose her as a witness. Ms. Fraser then proceeded to ask Ms. Cohee questions about how long she had been in the Sea Org, life on the Freewinds, and the circumstances surrounding an agreement Gawain had signed. Ms. Fraser stopped Valeska from asking Ms. Cohee questions. She said that Cohee’s testimony was not relevant to Valeska’s claims (even though her testimony concerned life on the Freewinds) and stopped Valeska from asking her questions.

20. Ms. Fraser chose which witnesses would be called each day. Valeska asked Ms. Fraser every day for a copy of the witness list so that we could prepare. She refused to give us a witness list and refused to give us advance notice of when witnesses would be called. Fraser repeatedly said she had a list of names, but did not know who she would call yet—giving us the impression someone else was making that decision for her. Defendants began each day with the same witness and document binders as the members of the arbitration panel. Security personnel also told us that the arbitration panel and defendants’ representatives ate lunch together during lunch breaks.

21. It appeared that the panel had given the Defendants advance notice of what witnesses would be called on what date because the Defendants’ witnesses were able to make travel arrangements in advance so that they could appear when called by the panel (for example, Ms. Fraser referenced needing to work around other witnesses’ flight schedules, including Defendants’ witnesses Roberto Toppi and Damien Anderson). However, the panel refused to give us dates when they would hear testimony from our witnesses. At the beginning of the arbitration, we provided the dates that our witnesses would be available and asked for confirmation of when they would be called so that they could make travel arrangements to appear. The Panel refused to give us an answer. Instead, Ms. Fraser kept insisting that the panel wanted all the evidence to come in but wouldn’t give us an estimate of when that would be so we could make travel arrangements for our witnesses. She kept saying she wasn’t giving us dates for our witnesses because she had to go through other testimony and evidence first so she knew what to ask our witnesses, but that did not appear to be a problem with scheduling Defendants’ witnesses. At the end of the first week of arbitration, we still did not have an answer as to when our witnesses would be called to testify. Since our witnesses had other professional obligations that they could not cancel on short notice to travel to Florida, we offered to make them available by Zoom, but the panel refused that as well. Therefore, we asked the panel to accept their written reports and declarations in lieu of their live testimony. During the second week of the arbitration, Ms. Fraser said that if our witnesses weren’t able to appear and give testimony and be questioned, their evidence would be worth significantly less.

22. Over the course of the first two weeks of the arbitration, Ms. Fraser called thirty-four Defendant witnesses who provided nearly identical testimony. Each witness that was a signatory to one of the agreements we had signed was asked about our demeanor at signing and whether they had threatened us with any consequences for refusal to sign. Each witness was asked about what life on the Freewinds was like when we were on the ship and each witness’ answer described the schedule for work, meal breaks and sleep; awards; times we were permitted to leave the ship including Christmas; and whether or not they had photos of the times we had some time off such as Christmas day. Ms. Fraser asked if we asked to leave the Freewinds or the Sea Org or whether we appeared happy to be there.

23. Sometimes Ms. Fraser would add to a witness’s testimony. For example, Fraser added on to Claudia Wollitzer’s testimony and said that being sent to the engine room was “not punishment.”

24. Fraser also misrepresented facts in our Complaint and Statement of Claim to witnesses. Fraser told Damien Anderson that we claimed we never had a day off.

25. All subsequent witnesses were called by Ms. Fraser and were asked questions by Ms. Fraser. Ms. Fraser did not permit Gawain, Valeska, or me to ask witnesses questions directly. Every question we asked had to first be cleared by Ms. Fraser. If Ms. Fraser did permit our question, she would usually rephrase the question to the witness to elicit information helpful to the Defendants. Often she would object to our questions outright and say our questions were not pertinent or relevant and tell the witness not to answer. Sometimes, Fraser would tell us that the person we were trying to question was not our witness, and that therefore we could not question them. For example, Defendants’ witness Evelyn Politakes testified about the safety of the engine room and that there was not a harmful level of blue asbestos exposure on the Freewinds. Valeska attempted to ask Evelyn Politakes, “isn’t it true you’re not a trained engineer?” Fraser did not allow the question. Gawin asked, “what is a harmful amount of exposure?” Fraser wouldn’t permit the question. Gawain also attempted to ask one of Defendants’ witnesses if that person was punished by being sent to the engine room. Fraser said Gawain’s question was not relevant. Sometimes Fraser even answered questions herself that we had directed toward a witness.

26. The Defendants did not have this same restriction. Ms. Fraser permitted Defendants to directly ask both their and our witnesses questions and would permit witnesses to answer the questions as asked. When Defendants asked questions, Ms. Fraser did not rephrase their questions unless it was to guide them to phrase questions in a way to elicit information helpful to Defendants. She did not restrict the kinds of questions they asked.

27. Due to the lack of advance notice required to make advance travel arrangements for our witnesses to testify in person, only one of our witnesses (Dr. Chitra Raghavan) was able to travel to Clearwater to testify in person. During her testimony, Defendants were permitted to directly ask Dr. Raghavan questions, even though we were not permitted to directly ask any witnesses questions. These questions were often irrelevant and inflammatory. For example, Philippe Peterson (CSI) asked Dr. Raghavan if Gawain, Valeska, and I could have just gotten together and made up the facts forming the basis of this lawsuit because we wanted to bring a false lawsuit and make money. Even though Dr. Raghavan was our witness, we were not allowed to engage in any sort of direct examination or ask Dr. Raghavan any questions directly. We were allowed to ask her questions through Fraser for only approximately 10 minutes.

28. Ms. Fraser verbally summarized previous witness testimony for Dr. Raghavan before asking Dr. Raghavan questions. Ms. Fraser’s summary of the previous testimony was cherry picked and inaccurate, and did not contain exact quotes. Ms. Fraser only included testimony in her summary that could help Defendants. For example, Ms. Fraser relayed to Dr. Raghavan that Tina Fugen testified that Valeska was “really happy” to be on the Freewinds, even though Tina Fugen had actually testified that she remembered Valeska saying that she did not want to be on the Freewinds.

29. On January 22, 2026, Ms. Fraser informed us that the panel had rejected our argument that the arbitration clauses were invalid for duress. They did not rule on whether there was fraud in the execution of the arbitration clauses, despite our repeatedly asking them to do so.

30. The next day, we asked if the panel had applied state contract law to reach the decision, the chair responded that it had not; rather, the chair said, the panel applied only the law of Scientology. The arbitrators provided no other explanation for their decision.

31. We later asked if the panel would apply the TVPRA to resolve the merits of our claims and Ms. Fraser again responded that it would only apply the law of Scientology and would not apply any state or federal law.

32. At one point, Fraser called her own son Corwin Desimone as a witness. She did not disclose her relationship to Mr. Desimone or that she was related to a fact witness until Valeska pointed it out. Valeska was able to ask Mr. Desimone a few questions through Ms. Fraser until she stopped allowing her to question him. Valeska then tried to ask Mr. Desimone a question going to his credibility as a witness, and Fraser screamed at the top of her lungs that her question was irrelevant. She yelled at Valeska for nearly five minutes. The other two arbitrators, Ms. Van Locke and Mr. Howd, told Ms. Fraser to calm down.

33. Fraser also added on to the testimony Mr. Desimone provided. For example, Valeska asked Mr. Desimone if it was true that Defendants took her and Corwin’s identification documents when they went to RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force, a program for members of the Sea Org who have committed violations of Scientology’s policies) in Australia. Mr. Desimone testified that it was true. Fraser added to his answer that “as his mother, she has spoken with Corwin about how much he’s benefitted from RPF.”

34. On January 26, after arbitrators Fraser and Howd repeatedly publicly demonstrated an inability to consider our claims impartially, we formally objected to their sitting as arbitrators and requested their recusal. We told the panel that this was based on Fraser calling her own son as a fact witness, a video published by 60 Minutes Australia and a story by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in which Fraser publicly called former Scientologists liars, and Fraser’s submission of a declaration in support of Scientology’s motion to compel arbitration in Haney v. Scientology, (Case Number 19STCV21210 in California Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, dated December 20, 2019), stemming from similar allegations of abuse by Scientology. We shared that our request for Howd to recuse himself was based on that fact that he has publicly referred to former Scientologists in derogatory terms. We provided the arbitrators with links to the referenced news sources and a copy of the declaration. Fraser responded “noted” and proceeded to conduct the arbitration.

35. Although the arbitration had initially been scheduled to last two weeks, the arbitration chair began hinting at the beginning of the second week that the arbitration may go longer than two weeks. In order to conclude within two weeks, we offered to start as early and end as late in the day as necessary, but Ms. Fraser continued to start the arbitration proceedings at 10 am.

36. On January 28, we told the arbitration panel that we had entered all our evidence, except for Dr. Raghavan’s in person testimony, on the very first day of the arbitration, and had spent time since then hearing Defendants’ arguments and witnesses. We told the panel that now that Dr. Raghavan had been called, we rested our case, and that there was plenty of time for the arbitration to be concluded within two weeks.

37. At the end of the second week, Ms. Fraser informed us that the panel would need at least another week to conclude the arbitration, despite having already heard over a week of the Defendants’ case. We offered to continue the arbitration on the weekend or continue with a representative for us in our absence, but Fraser rejected these proposals. We scrambled to arrange for childcare and additional time off work, and incurred expense in changing our flights home to Australia and securing additional lodging and transportation, but we agreed to return for a third week of arbitration. We made it clear that in returning for a third week, we would expect the arbitration to conclude. We had presented our case in chief in two days.

38. The third week, Ms. Fraser turned the process into a full-blown inquisition into our personal lives. During this week, she did not present any testimony or evidence relevant to our claims or Defendants’ defenses. Rather, Ms. Fraser spent the entire week extensively questioning us about our social media posts, interactions with other former scientologists, and other personal matters unrelated to our claims.

39. At the beginning of the third week, the panel permitted us to look at some documents from our ethics folders, the folders that serve as personnel files and disciplinary records in Scientology. We were not permitted to handle and look through these folders ourselves. Instead, Ms. Fraser would only permit one of us at a time to review our ethics folder, and she would turn each page for us when we were done reviewing it. We did not receive copies of these documents in advance, during, or after the arbitration. Having to review documents in this manner was inefficient and wasted time.

40. Large chunks of documents appeared to be missing from my ethics folder. Based on my experience in Scientology, I know that documents involving disciplinary actions taken against me would be included in my ethics folder. There was nothing in my ethics file concerning punishment I received on the Freewinds related to an incident involving a celebrity visit. Something about this certainly would have been kept in my ethics folder. There was also nothing in my ethics folder relating to an “ethics handling” I received when I was sixteen in which I said I did not want to be there anymore, even though I received a write up for this. Fraser admitted that these were not our original ethics folders, and that new folders had been made with some documents renumbered. She said that the ethics folders had come from the IJC.

41. At the end of the day on Monday, February 2, we again asked for the names of witnesses who would be testifying the next day. We were not given an answer. We objected to any more witnesses testifying, as Ms. Fraser had previously told us that review of the ethics folders would occur at “the end” of the arbitration, after all witnesses had testified. We requested that the arbitration be concluded.

42. On Tuesday, February 3, the panel continued to slowly review our ethics folders.

43. At the end of the day, Ms. Fraser said the arbitrators had more questions to ask us and more witnesses to call, but she did not identify those witnesses and said she did not know who those witnesses were.

44. The next day, on Wednesday, February 4, Valeska told the arbitrators that the arbitration needed to finish that day because we had rested our case the previous week and the arbitration panel had failed to identify any more witnesses it intended to call or any more evidence it intended to review. I said that asking irrelevant or repetitious questions would be an unacceptable attempt to delay the conclusion of the arbitration.

45. Next, Ms. Fraser spent two whole days going over Valeska’s social media posts, comments, and pictures she had posted or been tagged in. She showed Valeska photos of herself as a baby, before she entered the Cadet Org, photos of Valeska with her children, and a Father’s Day Facebook post Valeska made saying she missed her Dad. Fraser asked if someone made her or paid her to create that Facebook post. She questioned Valeska extensively about news articles, media public appearances, and podcasts she had been featured in or interviewed for as well. She asked how Valeska’s media statements came about, if she was paid to give any interview or to make any statement, and if anyone talked her into it. Halfway through this, Valeska said that she had never been induced to make a social media post and asked if she could move through this line of questioning faster, but Fraser ignored her.

46. Ms. Fraser asked Gawain and me questions about an interview Gawain did with the Tampa Bay Times after filing this complaint, as well as questions about other articles that used quotes from that interview.

47. Ms. Fraser also questioned us extensively about attorney-client communications and work product, including questions about how the lawsuit came about, how much money our lawyers said we were going to make, if we discussed the statute of limitations with our lawyers, if Valeska convinced Gawain and me to sue, if our lawyers made us give an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, and if our lawyers told us not to worry about our arbitration agreements and confidentiality agreements that we had signed. We refused to answer these questions on the grounds of attorney-client privilege, joint prosecution, and spousal privilege, though Ms. Fraser informed us that there was no attorney-client privilege under the law of Scientology. At one point, she said to us, “you have no privileges.” She clearly meant that we had no joint prosecution or spousal privilege either. This was especially difficult because our attorneys were not in the room and we are not experts in when the attorney-client privilege applies. Fraser also asked if Gawain and I spoke about filing the lawsuit.

48. Ms. Fraser also attempted to split me, Valeska, and Gawain up so we each could be interrogated separately about “inducement,” but we refused to participate in any proceedings without each other present. She asked us numerous questions on this point, including whether we were paid to bring this lawsuit. During the “inducement” line of questioning, we were not allowed to leave the arbitration room together until the line of questioning was over. During this time, Ms. Fraser asked me if I knew my father-in-law was in FSO, and that since I am suing FSO, I am also suing hm. This inducement line of questioning went on for over four hours.

49. On Thursday, February 5, we again requested that the panel conclude the arbitration at the end of the third week. 50. At the conclusion of the third week, Ms. Fraser informed us that the “arbitration” was still not concluded and that we would be required to resume the arbitration the following Monday. We asked Ms. Fraser for a list of witnesses she wanted to call and evidence she wanted to enter into the record, but she did not have an answer. Ms. Fraser also would not give us a date by which the arbitration would end. She responded that these details “will come” and that the arbitration will take “as long as it takes.” At this point, with no apparent end in sight, we told the panel we would not continue the next week. We elected not to subject ourselves to further harassment and returned home to Australia. Our house and pet sitter was unable to stay any further. Gawain had a job to get back to that he had already pushed back once. Our children, who accompanied us to Florida, needed to get back to Australia for school and medical appointments. They had already missed a week of classes and extracurricular activities. We told the arbitration panel that we had already stayed for one additional week beyond the two weeks scheduled by the IJC, on very little notice and at great cost, and that we had to return to our employment and other obligations.

Signed, Laura Baxter

Alex, and Patty join us on Group Therapy!

Today at noon Eastern subscribers will receive Episode 164 of our special podcast series, “Group Therapy.”

We discuss the week’s revelations with our gang of jokers and degraders, including Patty Moher and Alex Barnes-Ross!

It’s all the enturbulation you could want!

We’re offering this series as thanks to our subscribers for helping to support the work we do here at the Underground Bunker.

A HowdyCon update: The agenda!

If you were listening to the Group Therapy podcast Sunday, you heard Alex deliver the news about HowdyCon: We have an agenda! Here’s what he revealed…

The HowdyCon 2026 Agenda is Here!

The first wave of tickets have now officially sold out, but don’t worry, more will be released soon. In the meantime, we are excited to announce the agenda for this year’s event. The full list of talks is on view at the convention website!

You heard previously that this year’s guest speakers include Alex Barnes-Ross, Claire Headley, Phil Jones, Patty Moher, Chris Shelton. and of course, Underground Bunker author Tony Ortega. Now we can share what the weekend will entail. Here’s the brief rundown of what to expect:

FRIDAY 18th SEPTEMBER

Arrivals, registration a panel discussion and plenty of time to socialize. Two hours of bottomless pizza is included in your ticket price but you’ll have to get your own drinks.

SATURDAY 19th SEPTEMBER

Four keynote speeches and panel discussions from some of the world’s biggest SPs, a silent auction raising money for The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation and an after party packed with fun activities. A late buffet-style lunch will be provided, and is included in the cost of your ticket.

SUNDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

Breakfast and departures

HowdyCon will be taking place at multiple venues throughout New London, CT and in order to minimize potential interference from Scientology, the details will be shared exclusively with those who have purchased a ticket.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

We’re fortunate to have appellate attorney TX Lawyer at the Underground Bunker to help us understand Scientology litigation.

We hope you enjoy this discussion with him!

— The Proprietor

Read more

Yesterday the dam burst and we finally got access to a large amount of information about what’s been going on in the labor-trafficking lawsuit filed against Scientology in Tampa federal court.

The plaintiffs, former Sea Org employees and Australia residents Valeska Paris and Gawain and Laura Baxter, sued in 2022 over allegations that they had been trafficked as virtual slaves aboard Scientology’s cruise ship the Freewinds as children and adults. But federal Judge Thomas Barber said his hands were tied by US Supreme Court precedent and he had no choice but to force the case into Scientology’s “religious arbitration.”

Valeska and the Baxters went through 15 days of arbitration in Clearwater that began on January 19 before walking out. They are now asking Judge Barber to consider a motion to reconsider, complaining that Scientology has harassed and intimidated them during its sham of an arbitration.

Yesterday we reviewed the basic points of that motion and then posted Valeska’s full declaration about what those 15 days were like.

During that period, Scientology called more than 30 witnesses to testify. Valeska and the Baxters called only one: A New York psychologist, Dr. Chitra Raghavan. (Valeska explained that Dr. Raghavan was their only witness who could make the trip to Clearwater.)

Although she was only in the proceeding for a single day, Dr. Raghavan provided some very interesting observations about what went on in that chamber, where even the attorneys on both sides were not given access. Here is her declaration in full.

I, Dr. Chitra Raghavan, declare as follows:

1. I am a licensed psychologist and was retained as an expert in this matter. I submit this declaration based on my personal knowledge and observations.

2. On January 28, 2026, I appeared at a Scientology arbitration proceeding in the Baxter et. al. v. Miscavige et. al. 8:22-cv-00986-TPB-JSS matter. I appeared as an expert witness for the claimants.

3. At the onset of the meeting, I signed an NDA. I verbally informed Scientology that while I would not discuss the arbitration publicly, I would fully communicate with the Claimants’ lawyers and the courts as appropriate.

4. Because the Claimants’ lawyers were not present, I could not have them review the language of the NDA. I therefore signed reluctantly in order for the proceeding to continue while insisting that the NDA did not preclude communications such as this.

5. I have testified in 42 Federal and State Court trials between 2016-2025.

6. The Scientology arbitration was unlike any proceeding in which I have previously testified. In sum, the composition of the members, the nature of questions asked, and the requirement that I conduct my own testimony and redirect were unusual and in some moments, unprofessional.

7. While I have appeared in court many times and have been aggressively cross-examined, such proceedings were always under the watch of a neutral judge and or counsel. When opposing counsel overstepped bounds, a judge or the lawyers have objected and successfully brought the proceeding to a professional tone. This was not a possibility in this arbitration.

8. I appeared in the arbitration from approximately 11:00 am to 5:15 pm with three breaks, including a lunch break.

9. During my appearance, there were eleven individuals in the arbitration room: four representatives, one for each of the Scientology entity Respondents; three arbitrators; three Claimants, and I.

10. The Claimants were outnumbered. To the best of my opinion — and later confirmed verbally spontaneously by the Claimants — the Claimants appeared highly distressed throughout the proceeding. They were repeatedly denied the opportunity to present their perspective, which appeared to be frustrating and stressful for them and verbally expressed their frustration several times to be so to the panel. For example, the Claimants were not permitted to provide context about the photos that were shown to me until I insisted that they be allowed to provide at least one line statements about the photographs. They were berated several times for speaking without permission and became visibly dysregulated. One Claimant was visibly trembling. In my professional opinion to a reasonable degree of psychological certainty, the conduct of the arbitration panel would have made any reasonable person feel intimidated and anxious. In fact, I myself had moments of intimidation despite my position and experience. Given their trauma history, the procedure itself was especially difficult for the Claimants, which in my professional opinion increased their trauma responses in the moment, leaving them feeling frightened and unprotected.

11. The fear, anxiety, and stress the Claimants appeared to be experiencing during the proceedings was visible and obvious. Claimants spontaneously revealed throughout the breaks that they felt anxious, unsafe, and that the breaks were reassuring so they could regather their energy.

12. Claimants’ attorneys were present in the building, but they were not permitted to attend or participate in the arbitration.

13. As a result, I did not have an attorney present to object to hearsay, lack of foundation, or improper questioning. I was required to raise my own objections, conduct my own redirect, and explain repeatedly why I could not respond to certain questions. For example, I am not an attorney and cannot opine on contracts. Similarly, the Claimants, do not have the skills or knowledge required to make appropriate objections.

14. One arbitrator, the panel Chair, Ms. Fraser, spoke extensively and appeared to control the questioning, Another arbitrator, Mr. Howd, interjected occasionally and the third arbitrator, Ms. Van Locke, did not speak at all during the proceeding. I understand that the silent, third arbitrator, was the arbitrator selected by the Claimants.

15. Two of the Respondents questioned me directly, though most of the questioning came from Ms. Fraser. At the end, a male Respondent posed a question and used a tone of voice and facial expression that conveyed hostility and what I experienced as contempt for me. The arbitration Chair did nothing to control his behavior. The Respondents’ hostility — while not necessarily dissimilar to aggressive court room questioning — left me shaken because the setup and atmosphere was inherently intimidating.

16. The arbitration panel appeared not to understand my role as an expert in these proceedings. The panel insisted that I make factual and legal determinations that are inappropriate for an expert, and outside the scope of my expertise. When I refused, they repeated the question over and over to obtain an answer. I was not permitted to explain or stop the inappropriate questions (which a judge or lawyer likely would have). As a result, the questioning felt pressuring and uncomfortable.

17. Witnesses were not sworn, and Ms. Fraser asked me to make immediate judgments based on unsworn statements and previously undisclosed evidence that I had not had the opportunity to review. While testifying, I was not given an adequate amount of time to review the materials.

18. The panel Chair read aloud extensive testimony from unnamed witnesses. I was then asked whether, having now heard from so many witnesses, I would change my opinion. I explained that I had not met, interviewed, or evaluated these individuals and that relying on such second-hand testimony does not meet psychological standards of expertise or methodology.

19. The panel also insisted on showing me 800 photos and videos of the Claimants, and I was asked to comment on them. These materials had not been produced in discovery, and therefore I had not had an opportunity to review them meaningfully independently or to obtain any contextual information from the Claimants. When I requested that the panel stop showing me the volumes of photos (because the photos did not add to data in meaningful way), Ms. Fraser said she were unable to stop and spent over an hour, possibly two, repeatedly asking me if the photographs depicted the Claimants as happy individuals, therefore negating allegations of harm. I repeatedly explained why I could not opine on this.

20. The Claimants were not provided access to these materials either. I explained that without proper access and context, I could not responsibly comment on or draw conclusions from such materials.

21. The Claimants were distressed by the photographs and commented that the contexts were not provided, leading to potential misinterpretation of the images. The Claimants also expressed distress that they could not defend or explain the contexts of the images; one Claimant was upset because although these were his childhood photos, his parent who remains in Scientology has never given him access to the photos.

22. I did not see evidence of the panel allowing the Claimants to provide their point of view. These sorts of experiences suggested that the procedure was biased or at the very least, flawed.

23. The panel also showed me approximately 20 letters and “success stories,” including documents written by the Claimants when they minors, and gave me approximately 30 seconds to review each document. The Claimants were children when they wrote the letters and stories, but the language in the documents appeared developmentally incongruent with the age of the author suggesting scripting and coaching. I stated that I would need additional time and context, including the Claimants’ explanations, to evaluate such materials responsibly.

24. When I asked about whether a Scientologist minor could disagree with teaching materials or objectives, the Chair explained that they could not; therefore, the only successful outcome was to write an essay describing how much they had benefited from the class. Writing any other essay would mandatorily return the student to retake the class. One of the Claimants recalled verbally during the proceeding how he had written the letter under duress, desperate to avoid retaking the class which broke him down. It is this kind of context that needs to be available to the fact finder.

25. The Claimants attempted to clarify factual inaccuracies or provide context of photos, videos, and letters, but were told to not speak unless allowed. The panel told Claimants that they could ask questions later, yet they were ultimately not permitted to do so.

26. Eventually, after many requests by the Claimants, I interceded. I asked the panel to permit the Claimants to provide some context and the panel permitted them to give a one-line clarification or rebuttal to each photo if relevant. However, with hundreds of photos (Scientology informed me that they had secured 800 photos), this procedure was chaotic. As best as they could, Claimants tried to explain the context of photos including that they looked so happy because they had not left the ship in a month, or that they were overjoyed to reconnect with friends for two hours after weeks of isolation, etc. In a properly run arbitration, the expert psychologist should not have to intercede on behalf of increasingly distressed Claimants. When Claimants did intercede, they could only hurriedly utter a sentence here or there, before the image vanished, and or, the arbitrator spoke over them. There was constant competition for time.

27. The process felt biased, unprofessional and clinically, I observed that it humiliated and intimidated the Claimants who had to scramble to process the photos as best as they could. Further, it appeared to retraumatize Claimants. Being shown 800 photos in quick succession of a past many Claimants allege is linked to abuse and not being allowed to explain, process, or access the photos was unhelpful to their mental distress. Claimants expressed to me that after that seeing the images but more so, being forced to listen to the panel insist that these were accurate reflections of pleasant experiences felt like bullying and gaslighting. One Claimant noted that she felt like she was back and trapped in Scientology and being forced to agree or be punished. While I do not know if the photos represented a time of happiness, a time of abuse, or both, what is more important here is that the procedure was unprofessional and potentially damaging with no real observable benefits towards discovery. I have observed many videos and painful photographs with other plaintiffs in the course of my forensic work. Some of these images/videos were humiliating, others violent or distressing including happy pictures with an abuser, videos of violent abuse, sexual assault, crime scenes of crimes they had committed, and other distressing images. Through all of this discovery, attorneys and evaluators plan for how to show these images, prepare their clients to view them, and most importantly, explained to clients why they had to view videos/images and allowed plenty of space and opportunity for clients to reject the experience or respond in the way they felt best represented their experiences in those images.

28. The Panel permitted the Respondents to speak any time they had something to say. However, it is my opinion that when they did, there was little procedural professionalism including acknowledging their statements and or questions to obtain more in-depth information. Indeed, from all the questions I heard, it appeared to me that the Panel was either disinterested in the possibility that former Scientologists may have suffered abuse. Instead, the panel presented “Data” and framed questions as if they had already decided that the allegations of abuse and associated harm were false or misinterpretations, and attacked the Claimants narratives, statements, opinions, and experiences. Rather than acting as unbiased arbitrators, I experienced the Panel as an adversarial party as one might in court.

29. This procedure was inconsistent with professional standards, and inconsistent with the procedures I am familiar with from prior trials. Further, the Claimants could not effectively represent themselves and even when they tried, their responses were not acknowledged. These elements further suggested to me that the process was not unbiased as an arbitration should be.

30. I repeatedly explained that I do not opine on facts or make credibility determinations reserved for the trier of fact. I have not and do not intend to offer an opinion on whether or not the alleged abuse occurred but only that the psychological harm I assessed is consistent with the reported abuse. Nonetheless, the arbitrators repeatedly asked me questions outside the scope of my report and outside my expertise.

31. The Panel Chair asked me to spend a significant amount of time reviewing and discussing contracts and I was pressured to agree with the proposition that because the Claimants agreed to participate in Scientology, they therefore could not claim harm. I explained that I cannot opine on the legal meaning or enforceability of contracts, nor on legal consent, as those are legal determinations outside my role as a psychologist.

32. When I refused, they argued that as this was a religious arbitration, the procedures were different and the same rules did not apply. This placed me in the difficult position of either declining to answer, thereby appearing uncooperative, or overstepping my professional boundaries as a psychologist. For example, I was asked questions about legal standards which I consistently refused to answer. However, after being asked the same question over fifteen times, I noticed that I started answering out of exhaustion and feeling harassed. For example, when repeatedly asked if the Claimants had signed a contract, and then asked to read the contract, particularly sections which specified unconditional acceptance of Scientology treatment, I began to answer “it appears so” after over ten or fifteen times of being asked the same question. In a court of law, this would not have been allowed to happen, or at least, in my experience, has never happened.

33. Shortly after I answered, a Claimant exclaimed that she had signed a contract at age six, a fact that had not been disclosed to me earlier.

34. Similarly, the Panel chair also asked me about the Headley case and asked me to read portions of a legal opinion during the proceeding. Considerable time was spent on this. I was then questioned on it and was demanded to agree publicly that the opinion was favorable to Scientology. Similarly, I refused to opine on legal matters. The questioning continued for some time with the same question being repeated. I refused to answer either way, as I was retained as an expert psychologist and am not an attorney.

35. Ms. Fraser also questioned me extensively about the work of Margaret Singer and a 1987 American Psychological Association (“APA”) report on coercive persuasion. I explained that my work concerns coercive control, which is distinct from coercive persuasion, though they may share some elements. I was asked to read portions of the APA report without being given adequate time to review it and was asked to accept characterizations of the report that I did not agree with. I noted that coercive control is recognized in the United Kingdom and is an established area of expertise in domestic violence and child custody contexts in the United States, and that professional understanding evolves over time. I was asked to opine on hypotheticals comparing religious practices such as Catholic communion to coercion.

36. Although I was at the proceeding for a full day, much of Ms. Fraser’s questioning was outside the scope of my report and expertise. Overall, much of the questioning was to request that I agree that the Claimants had voluntarily engaged in Scientology via contracts, was presented with unnamed witnesses who testified that the Claimants enjoyed their experience, and therefore their claims of abuse could not be credible. This is not in the scope of an expert.

37. In my opinion, the lack of basic procedural protections, inability to present or contextualize evidence, and pressure placed on myself as an expert to exceed professional boundaries compromised the fairness of the proceeding. It also created an unsafe and intimidating atmosphere rather than a fair and unbiased one.

38. I have been cross-examined many times. Ms. Fraser’s questioning—while mostly polite and calm—was bordering on nonsensical. Ms. Fraser did lose her temper a few times. At one point, I felt nervous for my physical safety. My fears are subjective but in all my years of being “grilled” in open court, I have never felt fear because I knew I had witnesses, court officers, a judge, and attorneys in the courtroom with me. Finally, I have certainly never experienced any questioning approaching this level of bias or poorly defined scope from a nominally neutral third-party like a judge or presumably an unbiased arbitrator.

39. I was left with the impression that the Panel had no idea of how nor any intention of taking my professional opinions into account in arriving at its decision. But even if it intended to consider my professional opinion, the Panel did not give me an opportunity to properly present it.

40. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

— Dr. Chitra Raghavan

TX Lawyer on the new documents in the trafficking lawsuit!

Today at noon Eastern subscribers will receive a special podcast episode featuring appellate attorney TX Lawyer.

We’re offering this podcast as thanks to our subscribers for helping to support the work we do here at the Underground Bunker.

A HowdyCon update: The agenda!

If you were listening to the Group Therapy podcast Sunday, you heard Alex deliver the news about HowdyCon: We have an agenda! Here’s what he revealed…

The HowdyCon 2026 Agenda is Here!

The first wave of tickets have now officially sold out, but don’t worry, more will be released soon. In the meantime, we are excited to announce the agenda for this year’s event. The full list of talks is on view at the convention website!

You heard previously that this year’s guest speakers include Alex Barnes-Ross, Claire Headley, Phil Jones, Patty Moher, Chris Shelton. and of course, Underground Bunker author Tony Ortega. Now we can share what the weekend will entail. Here’s the brief rundown of what to expect:

FRIDAY 18th SEPTEMBER

Arrivals, registration a panel discussion and plenty of time to socialize. Two hours of bottomless pizza is included in your ticket price but you’ll have to get your own drinks.

SATURDAY 19th SEPTEMBER

Four keynote speeches and panel discussions from some of the world’s biggest SPs, a silent auction raising money for The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation and an after party packed with fun activities. A late buffet-style lunch will be provided, and is included in the cost of your ticket.

SUNDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

Breakfast and departures

HowdyCon will be taking place at multiple venues throughout New London, CT and in order to minimize potential interference from Scientology, the details will be shared exclusively with those who have purchased a ticket.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

As we reported this morning, a huge amount of information suddenly became public yesterday in the labor-trafficking lawsuit filed against Scientology in Tampa federal court.

The plaintiffs, former Sea Org employees and Australia residents Valeska Paris and Gawain and Laura Baxter, sued in 2022 over allegations that they had been trafficked as virtual slaves aboard Scientology’s cruise ship the Freewinds as children and adults. But federal Judge Thomas Barber said his hands were tied by US Supreme Court precedent and he had no choice but to force the case into Scientology’s “religious arbitration.”

Valeska and the Baxters went through 15 days of arbitration in Clearwater that began on January 19 before walking out. They are now asking Judge Barber to consider a motion to reconsider, complaining that Scientology has harassed and intimidated them during its sham of an arbitration.

This morning we reviewed the basic points of that motion. Now here is Valeska’s full declaration that was attached to the motion which gives a lot of detail about what went on during those 15 days in Clearwater.

Declaration of Valeska Paris

1. My name is Valeska Paris, I am over the age of 21, and I have personal knowledge of the facts stated herein, which I declare are true and correct subject to the penalty for perjury.

2. I participated in a Scientology arbitration from January 19, 2026, to February 6, 2026, at the Atrium Building in Clearwater, Florida.

3. When we entered the building, a Scientology security guard directed us to take an elevator up to the second floor of the building, where the arbitration was going to be conducted. The Scientology security guard told us that the court reporter was not allowed to go upstairs with us.

4. After we went upstairs, we were told to go through a door where we encountered two more men who informed us that they were private security guards hired by Defendants’ counsel. They showed us a door that led to a room where the arbitration would be held and then several other doors that led to vacant offices where our attorneys and the attorney for Defendants would be located. The offices did not have walls that went up to the ceiling, so it was possible for the security guards and counsel for Defendants to hear conversations that occurred in the room where our attorneys were assigned.

5. We were told by the Scientology security guard we could enter the arbitration room only without our attorneys. Before we could enter the room, the private security guards used a metal detector and a device that we were told could detect electronic devices to scan our bodies and all the materials we carried into the arbitration rooms. The security guards even scanned Gawain and Laura’s four-month-old baby and stroller. Each time we left the arbitration room to take a break or speak with our lawyers in the room next door, the security guards re-scanned us, our documents, and everything with us before we were permitted to reenter the arbitration room. This process was very time consuming.

6. When we entered the arbitration room for the first time on January 19, we were approached by Catherine Fraser, who told us where to sit. Several other people were also in the room. I asked who the rest of the people in the room were and what entities they were with. Fraser said they were Philippe Peterson (representing CSI), Chelsea Graves (representing RTC), Peter Mansell (representing FSO), Claudia Abadia (representing FSSO), and Beatric Reichl (representing IASA). Fraser did not tell us anything else about the relationship of these individuals to the Defendants. We asked for their titles/positions, and the Defendant representatives and Fraser they said they weren’t relevant and refused to tell us.

7. I asked how Fraser was nominated. Fraser told us that Defendants had nominated her as an arbitrator and that she had been appointed as the panel chair. Fraser told us that she and Jeannine Van Locke, one of the arbitrators we had nominated, had selected Richard Howd to be the third arbitrator.

8. I asked if our attorneys could participate in the arbitration on January 19, and on every subsequent day of the arbitration. Ms. Fraser told us that our attorneys would not be permitted to participate in the arbitration. As a result, Laura, Gawain, and I, none of whom are trained as attorneys, had to try to argue complex legal concepts like the validity of the arbitration agreements, had to formulate our own questions for Defendants’ witnesses on the fly, and had to give our own testimony and answer questions from the Panel while deciding whether to object to any of the questions asked. This was made even more difficult by the fact that we were not provided with Defendants’ witnesses or evidence in advance, so we were not able to take time with our attorneys to prepare questions before the arbitration began.

9. I also asked if the court reporter who was waiting outside the arbitration room could attend the arbitration and make a record, but Ms. Fraser said the reporter was not permitted.

10. Ms. Fraser provided us with a non-disclosure agreement and an agreement to not record the proceedings electronically. She told us that the arbitration would not proceed unless we signed these documents. We asked for copies to take with us so we could review them in private and confer with our attorneys. Ms. Fraser refused, and told us that we were not permitted to remove these or any other documents from the room where the arbitration was being conducted.

11. Because we had no choice but to sign the documents to proceed with the arbitration, we each signed them but with the caveat that the non-disclosure agreement did not prohibit us from discussing what occurred in the arbitration in our court filings. I was not permitted to retain a copy of what I signed.

12. Ms. Fraser then provided us with copies of the Defendants’ responses to our Statement of Claim for the first time. Again, we were not permitted to take the responses out of the room to review or share with our attorneys. I attempted to copy out some of the responses onto my notepad, but I was not able to copy out all the Defendants’ responses in the time I had, especially while also keeping track of what was going on in the proceeding.

13. I asked if the arbitration panel would be applying U.S. law, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Ms. Fraser said “No, we will not be. We are not attorneys.”

14. At the end of the first day of the arbitration, Gawain, Laura, and I gave statements under oath outlining the day’s events, including the statements that we each gave concerning our claims. This transcript is attached as Exhibit 11.

15. On January 20, 2026, I asked the arbitration panel to provide us with the Scientology Ethics and Justice Procedures they had mentioned as governing the proceeding and any other substantive or procedural law that governed the arbitration proceeding. I provided the arbitration panel with a copy of the letter from the IJC dated November 30, 2024 that stated that we would be provided an opportunity to review those procedures prior to commencing the arbitration. Fraser, the panel chair, refused. She stated that if the panel were to bring in all the data on ethics and justice it would take a week. She said that the applicable law and procedures were all the ethics and justice procedures in Scientology, without going into any more detail. Fraser did not give us copies of any law or procedures and said that none would be provided. Fraser told Laura that she should know what the procedures were since she was an “ethics specialist.”

16. I received ethics training when I was an active Scientologist, starting when I was approximately six years old. I took a Scientology ethics course as part of Sea Org training (during a phase known as Estates Project Force, or “EPF”), when I was approximately fourteen years old. I also received auditor training when I was approximately twenty-four years old. There was nothing in my ethics training or studies about Scientology arbitration.

17. Ms. Fraser provided us with copies of several documents that we had signed. I noted that none of the documents that I had been required to sign as a minor were included in these documents. I was familiar with some of these documents because I had seen them attached to Defendants’ brief moving the court to compel arbitration. However, I also noted that there were some documents that I had not seen before. I asked if I could have a copy of these documents, or whether our attorneys could be provided a copy of these documents. Ms. Fraser said that we needed to request these documents from the IJC. We asked her where these documents came from. She said she had received them from the IJC weeks ago.

18. On January 20, 2026, we wrote a letter to the IJC requesting copies of these documents and other documentary evidence that was provided to the panel. In a letter dated February 3, 2026, the IJC responded that it forwarded documents from Defendants to the arbitrators, but did not retain any copies of the documents, and could not speak to what the arbitrators may or may have not said to us once the arbitration commenced. The IJC copied the arbitration committee on the letter for them to “take the matter up with [us] if they wish[ed].” Neither the IJC nor the arbitration panel provided us or our attorneys with copies of the documents we requested.

19. The panel first called Lise Cohee as a witness. I asked the panel who gave them Ms. Cohee as a witness. Ms. Fraser said the IJC gave them her name and the panel chose her as a witness. Ms. Fraser then proceeded to ask Ms. Cohee questions about how long she had been in the Sea Org, life on the Freewinds, and the circumstances surrounding an agreement Gawain signed. I started to ask Ms. Cohee questions through Ms. Fraser, but Ms. Fraser stopped me. She said that Ms. Cohee’s testimony was not relevant to my claims (even though it concerned life on the Freewinds) and would not allow me to ask questions. I was attempting to ask Cohee questions that went to her credibility as a witness and the reliability of her testimony.

20. Ms. Fraser chose which witnesses would be called each day. I asked Ms. Fraser every day for a copy of the witness list so that we could prepare. She refused to give us a witness list and refused to give us advance notice of when witnesses would be called. Fraser repeatedly said she had a list of names, but did not know who she would call yet—giving us the impression someone else was making that decision for her. Defendants began each day with the same witness and document binders as the members of the arbitration panel. Security personnel also told us that the arbitration panel and defendants’ representatives ate lunch together during lunch breaks.

21. It appeared that the panel had given the Defendants advance notice of what witnesses would be called on what date because the Defendants’ witnesses were able to make travel arrangements in advance so that they could appear when called by the panel (for example, I believe that Ms. Cohee lives in Los Angeles, and Ms. Fraser referenced needing to work around other witnesses’ flight schedules, including Defendants’ witnesses Roberto Toppi and Damien Anderson. However, the panel refused to give us dates when they would hear testimony from our witnesses. At the beginning of the arbitration, we provided the dates that our witnesses would be available and asked for confirmation of when they would be called so that they could make travel arrangements to appear. The Panel refused to give us an answer. Instead, Ms. Fraser kept insisting that the panel wanted all the evidence to come in but wouldn’t give us an estimate of when that would be so we could make travel arrangements for our witnesses. She kept saying she wasn’t giving us dates for our witnesses because she had to go through other testimony and evidence first so she knew what to ask our witnesses, but that did not appear to be a problem with scheduling Defendants’ witnesses. At the end of the first week of arbitration, we still did not have an answer as to when our witnesses would be called to testify. Since our witnesses had other professional obligations that they could not cancel on short notice to travel to Florida, we offered to make them available by Zoom, but the panel refused that as well. Therefore, we asked the panel to accept their written reports and declarations in lieu of their live testimony. During the second week of the arbitration, Ms. Fraser said that if our witnesses weren’t able to appear and give testimony and be questioned, their evidence would be worth significantly less.

22. Over the course of the first two weeks of the arbitration, Ms. Fraser called thirty-four of Defendants’ witnesses who provided nearly identical testimony. Each witness that was a signatory to one of the agreements we had signed was asked about our demeanor at signing and whether they had threatened us with any consequences for refusal to sign. Defendants’ witness Claudia Wollitzer testified that she witnessed me sign an agreement, but this was not true. Each witness was asked about what life on the Freewinds was like when we were on the ship and each witness’ answer described the schedule for work, meal breaks and sleep; awards; times we were permitted to leave the ship including Christmas; and whether or not they had photos of the times we had some time off such as Christmas day. Ms. Fraser asked if we asked to leave the Freewinds or the Sea Org or whether we appeared happy to be there.

23. Several of Defendants’ witnesses lied about me in their testimony. For example, Claudia Wollitzer testified that I was never sent to the engine room. This was simply not true. Tina Fugen also lied when I asked her if it was true that I was on “restricted” status and not allowed to leave the Freewinds. Pilar Saldariaga lied when she testified that David Miscavige didn’t send me to the Freewinds, even though she knew he did.

24. Sometimes Ms. Fraser would add to a witness’s answer. For example, Fraser added on to Claudia Wollitzer’s testimony and said that being sent to the engine room was “not punishment.”

25. Fraser also misrepresented facts in our Complaint and Statement of Claim to witnesses. Fraser told Damien Anderson that we claimed we never had a day off.

26. All subsequent witnesses were called by Ms. Fraser and were asked questions by Ms. Fraser. Ms. Fraser did not permit Laura, Gawain, or I to ask witnesses questions directly. Every question we asked had to first be cleared by Ms. Fraser. If Ms. Fraser did permit our question, she would usually rephrase the question to the witness to elicit information helpful to the Defendants. Often she would object to our question outright and say our questions were not pertinent or relevant and tell the witness not to answer. Sometimes, Fraser would tell us that the person we were trying to question was not our witness, and that therefore we could not question them. For example, Defendants’ witness Evelyn Politakes testified about the safety of the engine room and that there was not a harmful level of asbestos exposure on the Freewinds. I attempted to ask Ms. Politakes, “isn’t it true you’re not a trained engineer?” Fraser did not allow the question. Gawain asked “what is a harmful amount of exposure?” Fraser wouldn’t permit the question. I also attempted to ask one of Defendants’ witnesses if that person was punished by being sent to the engine room. Fraser said my question was not relevant. Sometimes Fraser even answered questions herself that we had directed toward a witness.

27. The Defendants did not have this same restriction. Ms. Fraser permitted Defendants to directly ask both their and our witnesses questions and would permit witnesses to answer the questions as asked. When Defendants asked questions, Ms. Fraser did not rephrase their questions unless it was to guide them to phrase questions in a way to elicit information helpful to Defendants. She did not restrict the kinds of questions they asked.

28. Due to the lack of advance notice required to make advance travel arrangements for our witnesses to testify in person, only one of our witnesses (Dr. Chitra Raghavan) was able to travel to Clearwater to testify in person. During her testimony, Defendants were permitted to directly ask Dr. Raghavan questions, even though we were not permitted to directly ask any witnesses questions. These questions were often irrelevant and inflammatory. For example, Philippe Peterson (CSI) asked Dr. Raghavan if Laura, Gawain, and I could have just gotten together and made up the facts forming the basis of this lawsuit because we wanted to bring a false lawsuit and make money. Even though Dr. Raghavan was our witness, we were not allowed to engage in any sort of direct examination or ask Dr. Raghavan any questions directly. We were allowed to ask her questions through Fraser for only approximately 10 minutes.

29. Ms. Fraser verbally summarized previous witness testimony for Dr. Raghavan before asking Dr. Raghavan questions. Ms. Fraser’s summary of the previous testimony was cherry picked and inaccurate, and did not contain exact quotes. Ms. Fraser only included testimony in her summary that could help Defendants. For example, Ms. Fraser relayed to Dr. Raghavan that Tina Fugen testified that I was “really happy” to be on the Freewinds, even though Tina Fugen had actually testified that she remembered me saying that I did not want to be on the Freewinds.

30. On January 22, 2026, Ms. Fraser informed us that the panel had rejected our argument that the arbitration clauses were invalid for duress. They did not rule on whether there was fraud in the execution of the arbitration clauses, despite our repeatedly asking them to do so.

31. The next day, we asked if the panel had applied state contract law to reach the decision, the chair responded that it had not; rather, the chair said, the panel applied only the law of Scientology. The arbitrators provided no other explanation for their decision.

32. We later asked if the panel would apply the TVPRA to resolve the merits of our claims and Ms. Fraser again responded that it would only apply the law of Scientology and would not apply any state or federal law.

33. At one point, Ms. Fraser called her own son Corwin Desimone as a witness. She did not disclose her relationship to Mr. Desimone or that she was related to a fact witness until I pointed it out. I was able to ask Mr. Desimone a few questions through Ms. Fraser until she stopped allowing me to question him. I then tried to ask Mr. Desimone a question going to his credibility as a witness, but Fraser screamed at the top of her lungs that my question was irrelevant. She yelled at me for nearly five minutes. The other two arbitrators, Ms. Van Locke and Mr. Howd, told Ms. Fraser to calm down.

34. Fraser added on to the testimony her son Mr. Desimone provided. For example, I asked Fraser if it was true that Defendants took my and his identification documents when we went to RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force, a program for members of the Sea Org who have committed violations of Scientology’s policies) in Australia. Mr. Desimone testified that it was true. Fraser added to his answer that “as his mother, she has spoken with Corwin about how much he’s benefitted from the RPF.”

35. On January 26, after arbitrators Fraser and Howd repeatedly publicly demonstrated an inability to consider our claims impartially, we formally objected to their sitting as arbitrators and requested their recusal. We told the panel that this was based on Fraser calling her own son as a fact witness, a video published by 60 Minutes Australia and a story by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in which Fraser publicly called former Scientologists liars, and Fraser’s submission of a declaration in support of Scientology’s motion to compel arbitration in Haney v. Scientology, (Case Number 19STCV21210 in California Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, dated December 20, 2019), stemming from similar allegations of abuse by Scientology. We shared that our request for Howd to recuse himself was based on that fact that he has publicly referred to former Scientologists in derogatory terms. We provided the arbitrators with links to the referenced news sources and a copy of the declaration. Fraser responded “noted” and proceeded to conduct the arbitration.

36. Although the arbitration had initially been scheduled to last two weeks, Fraser began hinting at the beginning of the second week that the arbitration may go longer than two weeks. In order to conclude within two weeks, we offered to start as early and end as late as necessary, but Ms. Fraser continued to start the arbitration proceedings at 10am.

37. On January 28, we told the arbitration panel that we had entered all our evidence, except for Dr. Raghavan’s in person testimony, on the very first day of the arbitration, and had spent time since that hearing Defendants’ arguments and witnesses. We told the panel that now that Dr. Raghavan had been called, we rested our case, and that there was plenty of time for the arbitration to be concluded within two weeks.

38. At the end of the second week, Ms. Fraser informed us that the panel would need at least another week to conclude the arbitration, despite having already heard over a week of the Defendants’ case. We offered to continue the arbitration on the weekend or continue with a representative for us in our absence, but Fraser rejected these proposals. We scrambled to arrange for childcare and additional time off work, and incurred expense in changing our flights home to Australia and securing additional lodging and transportation, but we agreed to return for a third week of arbitration. We made it clear that in returning for a third week, we would expect the arbitration to conclude. We had presented our case in chief in two days.

39. The third week, Ms. Fraser turned the process into a full-blown inquisition into our personal lives. During this week, she did not present any testimony or evidence relevant to our claims or Defendants’ defenses. Rather, Ms. Fraser spent the entire week extensively questioning us about our social media posts, interactions with other former scientologists, and other personal matters unrelated to our claims.

40. At the beginning of the third week, the panel reviewed some documents from our ethics folders, the folders that serve as personnel files and disciplinary records in Scientology. We were not permitted to handle and look through these folders ourselves. Instead, Ms. Fraser would only permit one of us at a time to review our ethics folder, and she would turn each page for us when we were done reviewing it. We did not receive copies of these documents in advance, during, or after the arbitration. Having to review documents in this manner was inefficient and wasted time.

41. Large chunks of documents appeared to be missing from my ethics folder. I know from my past in Scientology that OWs (Overts and Withholds, a Scientology process for documenting “mistakes,”) are supposed to be in ethics files, but they were not in there. Nor were any documents from when I was in the Cadet Org or RPF. Documents from when I contemplated cutting my wrist with a blade were also missing from my ethics folder. Some Knowledge Reports were missing from before I was sent to Australia. There was also nothing in the folder relating to David Miscavige sending me to the Freewinds, or anything in my file about David Miscavige at all. Fraser admitted that these were not our original ethics folders, and that new folders had been made with the documents renumbered. She said that the ethics folders had come from the IJC.

42. At the end of the day on Monday, February 2, we again asked for the names of witnesses who would be testifying the next day. We were not given an answer. We objected to any more witnesses testifying, as Ms. Fraser had previously told us that review of the ethics folders would occur at “the end” of the arbitration, after all witnesses had testified. We requested that the arbitration be concluded.

43. On Tuesday, February 3, the panel continued to slowly review our ethics folders.

44. At the end of the day, Ms. Fraser said the arbitrators had more questions to ask us and more witnesses to call, but she did not identify those witnesses and said she did not know who those witnesses were.

45. The next day, on Wednesday, February 4, I told the arbitrators that the arbitration needed to finish that day because we had rested our case the previous week and the arbitration panel had failed to identify any more witnesses it intended to call or any more evidence it intended to review. I said that asking irrelevant or repetitious questions would be an unacceptable attempt to delay the conclusion of the arbitration.

46. Next, Ms. Fraser spent two whole days going over what seemed like every social media (Facebook, Instagram, and X) post, picture, or comment I had ever made or had been tagged in. She showed me photos of me with my children and a Father’s Day Facebook post I made saying I missed my Dad. She asked if someone made me or paid me to create that Facebook post. She questioned me extensively about news articles, media, public appearances, and podcasts I had been featured in or interviewed for as well. For questions about my public statements, she asked how they came about, if I was paid to give any interview or to make any statement, and if anyone talked me into it. Halfway through this, I said that I have never been induced to make a social media post and asked if we could move through this line of questioning faster, but Fraser ignored me.

47. Ms. Fraser asked Gawain and Laura questions about an interview Gawain did with the Tampa Bay Times after filing the complaint, as well as questions about other articles that used quotes from that interview.

48. Ms. Fraser also questioned us extensively about attorney-client communications and work product, including questions about how the lawsuit came about, how much money our lawyers said we were going to make, if we discussed the statute of limitations with our lawyers, if I convinced Gawain and Laura to sue, if our lawyers made us give an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, if our lawyers told us not to worry about our arbitration agreements and confidentiality agreements that we had signed. We refused to answer these questions on the grounds of attorney-client privilege, joint prosecution, and spousal privilege, though Ms. Fraser informed us that there was no attorney-client privilege under the law of Scientology. At one point, she said to us, “you have no privileges.” She clearly meant that we had no joint prosecution or spousal privilege either. This was especially difficult because our attorneys were not in the room and we are not experts in when the attorney-client privilege applies. Fraser also asked if Gawain and Laura spoke about filing the lawsuit.

49. Ms. Fraser also attempted to split me, Gawain, and Laura up so we each could be interrogated separately about “inducement,” but we refused to participate in any proceedings without each other present. She asked us numerous questions on this point, including whether we were paid to bring this lawsuit. During the “inducement” line of questioning, we were not allowed to leave the arbitration room together until the line of questioning was over. This line of questioning went on for over four hours.

50. On Thursday, February 5, we again requested that the panel conclude the arbitration at the end of the third week.

51. At the conclusion of the third week, Ms. Fraser informed us that the “arbitration” was still not concluded and that we would be required to resume the arbitration the following Monday. We asked Ms. Fraser for a list of witnesses she wanted to call and evidence she wanted to enter into the record, but she did not have an answer. Ms. Fraser also would not give us a date by which the arbitration would end. She responded that these details “will come” and that the arbitration will take “as long as it takes.” At this point, with no apparent end in sight, we told the panel we would not continue the next week. We elected not to subject ourselves to further harassment and returned home to Australia. I needed to get back to my three children and job, having already taken three weeks off work by participating in this arbitration. We told the arbitration panel that we had already stayed for one additional week beyond the two weeks scheduled by the IJC, on very little notice and at great cost, and that we had to return to our employment and other obligations.

Signed by, Valeska Paris

A HowdyCon update: The agenda!

If you were listening to the Group Therapy podcast Sunday, you heard Alex deliver the news about HowdyCon: We have an agenda! Here’s what he revealed…

The HowdyCon 2026 Agenda is Here!

The first wave of tickets have now officially sold out, but don’t worry, more will be released soon. In the meantime, we are excited to announce the agenda for this year’s event. The full list of talks is on view at the convention website!

You heard previously that this year’s guest speakers include Alex Barnes-Ross, Claire Headley, Phil Jones, Patty Moher, Chris Shelton. and of course, Underground Bunker author Tony Ortega. Now we can share what the weekend will entail. Here’s the brief rundown of what to expect:

FRIDAY 18th SEPTEMBER

Arrivals, registration a panel discussion and plenty of time to socialize. Two hours of bottomless pizza is included in your ticket price but you’ll have to get your own drinks.

SATURDAY 19th SEPTEMBER

Four keynote speeches and panel discussions from some of the world’s biggest SPs, a silent auction raising money for The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation and an after party packed with fun activities. A late buffet-style lunch will be provided, and is included in the cost of your ticket.

SUNDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

Breakfast and departures

HowdyCon will be taking place at multiple venues throughout New London, CT and in order to minimize potential interference from Scientology, the details will be shared exclusively with those who have purchased a ticket.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

Yesterday, Tampa federal Judge Thomas Barber ruled that he would not allow a new motion and exhibits in a Scientology labor trafficking case to be filed under seal, and so all of that information suddenly became public.

We are scrambling to bring you a sense of the huge volume of information about the farcical 15-day arbitration that plaintiffs Gawain and Laura Baxter and Valeska Paris were put through in January and February that resulted in them walking out February 9 and refusing to participate further. Their motion, as well as multiple declarations and other documents, describe in detail what has been going on behind closed doors.

Just yesterday, we had reported some details about the arbitration that we learned from Scientology’s opposition to the motion, and we recorded a podcast in the afternoon with our appellate attorney expert TX Lawyer about the case as we understood it then.

Subsequent to that, the dam burst and we were flooded with court documents. We decided to send that podcast episode to subscribers this morning, but please keep in mind our discussion with TX Lawyer took place before all of these new documents became available.

And what a huge amount of stunning information is now available. For example, it turns out that it’s Cathy Fraser who is running Scientology’s brutal and farcical arbitration!

Yes, that Cathy Fraser. The Sea Org minion (“Director of Public Affairs for Golden Era Productions”) who told Louis Theroux he couldn’t film outside Scientology’s secretive Int Base in Southern California in Theroux’s 2015 documentary My Scientology Movie. It was the most hilarious scene in that very funny film.

Fraser had earlier distinguished herself as one of the “inch wives” who appeared on Anderson Cooper’s 2010 CNN program about Scientology. She had been married at one time to Jefferson Hawkins, one of the former church executives who came forward to reveal that they had been physically assaulted by Scientology leader David Miscavige. But Fraser and other former wives told Cooper that they each knew “every inch” of their former husbands and never saw any signs of abuse. Their robotic and identical responses were legendary.

And now, that very same Cathy Fraser is the lead Scientology panelist in the 15-day arbitration which took place from January 19 to February 6 in Clearwater, when Valeska and the Baxters refused to continue with it.

They have now filed the motion for reconsideration, complaining that the “religious arbitration” has been a ludicrous experience that has subjected them to harassment and intimidation, and in no way resembles a legal proceeding.

What a picture the new documents paint about what Scientology has put these three former Sea Org members through.

Plaintiffs for three weeks participated in an opaque process during which a panel of so-called arbitrators under Defendants’ control intimidated and harassed Plaintiffs while denying them a meaningful opportunity to present their case. Despite repeated requests, neither Defendants nor their arbitrators ever communicated to Plaintiffs the procedures or evidentiary rules that would be applied, subjecting Plaintiffs to the seemingly arbitrary whims of the panel. After Plaintiffs — who live in Australia — traveled to Clearwater, Florida, for two weeks of in-person arbitration and, in a good faith effort to conclude the procedure, extended their stay for an unplanned additional week, even then the arbitrators indefinitely extended the arbitration and refused to issue an award or final decision, depriving Plaintiffs a final award to challenge under 9 U.S.C. § 10. Reviewing the record, Professor Dennis Nolan, former President of the National Academy of Arbitrators, declared that, over his “half-century of research, teaching and practice in this field, I have never encountered a system less worthy of the title of arbitration.”

Ouch! What a brilliant idea, to seek out an opinion from perhaps the country’s top expert on what arbitration is supposed to be, and to include a sworn statement from him that this is farthest thing he’s ever seen from an actual arbitration.

The motion reviews the history of the case, that it was filed in 2022 under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, but that Judge Barber forced it into arbitration because of contracts that Scientology said the plaintiffs had signed while they were in the Sea Org.

They have tried to make a good-faith effort to go through that arbitration, but when they asked if their claims under the TVPRA would be heard, they were told by Fraser that instead they would be judged under “Scientology law.”

The plaintiffs are hoping that Judge Barber will find this to be a violation of his order that forced the case into arbitration.

The arbitration took place at The Atrium, a towering business office that Scientology acquired in 2017 for $13 million, during the period when it was rapidly doubling its footprint in Clearwater.

In the days leading up to the arbitration, the plaintiffs found it very difficult to get any information at all about it, because International Justice Chief Mike Ellis insisted that all communication had to be done by “snail mail,” and the plaintiffs were communicating from Australia.

To seat the arbitrating panel, the plaintiffs were asked to nominate a Scientologist in good standing. Scientology then nominated Fraser, and then those two panelists nominated a third. But Fraser has done almost all the talking during the arbitration itself, they say.

As in the case with the other arbitration we’re familiar with, in Valerie Haney’s lawsuit, the panel then runs everything, bringing in witnesses and posing questions to those witnesses and to the plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs have to pose any questions of their own through Fraser. The panel called more than 30 witnesses over the 15 days, but the plaintiffs only called one witness, a psychologist named Dr. Chitra Raghavan, who was the only witness for the plaintiffs who could make it to Florida for the proceeding. (Dr. Raghavan provided a fascinating declaration about her own observations of how Fraser was running the arbitration and how the plaintiffs were screamed at and intimidated and humiliated.)

Besides the three panel members, there were also four other Scientologists in the room, one each representing the four defendant organizations (church leader David Miscavige did not participate in the motion to force the case into arbitration and he wasn’t represented in the room).

As in the Haney arbitration, the panel here was totally in control.

When Plaintiffs attempted to question witnesses, the panel chair frequently cut them off and either completely reoriented their questions or refused to ask the witness the question at all (without articulating any basis for refusing to ask the question.)… The panel chair did not permit the Plaintiffs to question some witnesses at all. By contrast, when the Defendants’ representatives had questions, they were permitted to directly question witnesses…

The panel chair appeared to act as counsel for Defendants, developing the testimony of Scientology’s witnesses as an attorney would on direct examination. When Plaintiffs’ expert was finally permitted to testify, the panel chair played the role of an attorney conducting a cross-examination, beginning questioning of the witness by attempting to call into question the scientific acceptance of the expert’s opinions. The panel chair introduced documentary evidence in support of Defendants’ defenses.

As the first two weeks of testimony continued, it was clear that this was not an actual arbitration of the plaintiff’s claims, and nothing like a real court proceeding.

The first two weeks of the arbitration consisted of a long string of witnesses called by the panel chair who provided nearly identical testimony, seemingly read from the same script. At one point, the arbitration chair called her own son as a witness, though she did not disclose that she was related to him until one Plaintiff asked her about the relationship.

Then, the panel decided that the ordeal would continue on.

Although the arbitration had initially been scheduled to last two weeks at the end of the second week, the arbitration chair informed the Plaintiffs that they would need another week to conclude the arbitration, though by that point the panel had already called a staggering thirty-four fact witnesses. Plaintiffs scrambled to arrange for childcare and additional time off work, incurring expense in changing their flights home to Australia, but agreed to return for a third week.

And during that third week, like in Valerie Haney’s experience, the “arbitration” then simply became an unrelenting probe of the plaintiffs’ personal lives.

[Fraser] spent the entire week questioning Plaintiffs about social media posts, interactions with other former Scientologists, and other personal matters unrelated to their claims. She asked Plaintiffs improper questions about their confidential communications with their attorneys and with each other. Plaintiffs refused to answer those questions on grounds of attorney-client, common-interest, and spousal privilege, though the arbitration chair informed them that there were no such privileges under the law of Scientology. The arbitration chair also attempted to split the Plaintiffs up so each could be interrogated separately — despite the IJC having previously said they would proceed together — but Plaintiffs refused to participate without each other present.

At the end of the third week, Fraser announced that the arbitration was still not done and the interrogating would continue, but Valeska and the Baxters decided at that point they had had enough, and decided instead to inform the court of what was going on.

There is much more information to go over. We plan on posting Valeska’s entire declaration later today so you can see for yourself what she says the experience was like.

In their motion, the plaintiffs are basing their request to vacate the order to force them into arbitration on four points…

First, the Scientology proceeding is not an arbitration because it does not involve an independent adjudicator…. The IJC is an employee of Defendant. And the panel was selected from a pool controlled by Defendants, as Defendants determine who is a Scientologist in good standing. That resulted in a panel chair who clearly operates on behalf of Defendants, as illustrated by her past declaration in support of their motions to compel in similar matters and her repeated indications that she was taking direction from someone else. Not surprisingly, based on those connections, she was openly hostile to Plaintiffs, repeatedly encouraging Plaintiffs to dismiss their claims and admonishing them for seeking “secular” legal advice. She even called her own son as a fact witness hostile to Plaintiffs’ claims…

Second, as described above, Scientology arbitration does not apply the substantive legal principles applicable to Plaintiffs’ claims, including the TVPRA and the “background contract law” relevant to Plaintiffs’ formation challenges to the agreements…

Third, Scientology arbitration does not meaningfully consider evidence and argument. Plaintiffs were prohibited from questioning witnesses themselves, with the panel chair deciding which questions could be asked of the witnesses. Plaintiffs were not informed of any process for submitting written argument. They submitted a statement of claim with attached evidence on their own initiative, but it is not clear that the panel considered it, and they were not provided with Defendants’ response until the arbitration, when they were prohibited from taking it out of the arbitration room to review and share with their attorneys. Plaintiffs were not permitted assistance of counsel to argue during the arbitration, even as to technical legal issues like arbitrability. Plaintiffs were provided none of Defendants’ evidence or witness lists in advance, and even during the proceeding did not know what witnesses Defendants intended to call. Plaintiffs were only allowed to view the evidence presented against them in the arbitration room, denying them an opportunity to meaningfully review the evidence and make rebuttal arguments.

Fourth, Scientology arbitration does not render a decision that purports to resolve the rights and duties of the parties. Despite Plaintiffs’ repeated requests, the panel refused to issue a final decision, instead holding the proceeding “open” indefinitely, even though it had dragged the proceeding out for three weeks with irrelevant, harassing evidence and questions after Plaintiffs submitted their full case in just two days. Without an award, Scientology arbitration is not arbitration.

It’s a strong document. But will it move Judge Barber? Or will he say once again that his hands are tied?

Wow, what a case.

A HowdyCon update: The agenda!

If you were listening to the Group Therapy podcast Sunday, you heard Alex deliver the news about HowdyCon: We have an agenda! Here’s what he revealed…

The HowdyCon 2026 Agenda is Here!

The first wave of tickets have now officially sold out, but don’t worry, more will be released soon. In the meantime, we are excited to announce the agenda for this year’s event. The full list of talks is on view at the convention website!

You heard previously that this year’s guest speakers include Alex Barnes-Ross, Claire Headley, Phil Jones, Patty Moher, Chris Shelton. and of course, Underground Bunker author Tony Ortega. Now we can share what the weekend will entail. Here’s the brief rundown of what to expect:

FRIDAY 18th SEPTEMBER

Arrivals, registration a panel discussion and plenty of time to socialize. Two hours of bottomless pizza is included in your ticket price but you’ll have to get your own drinks.

SATURDAY 19th SEPTEMBER

Four keynote speeches and panel discussions from some of the world’s biggest SPs, a silent auction raising money for The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation and an after party packed with fun activities. A late buffet-style lunch will be provided, and is included in the cost of your ticket.

SUNDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

Breakfast and departures

HowdyCon will be taking place at multiple venues throughout New London, CT and in order to minimize potential interference from Scientology, the details will be shared exclusively with those who have purchased a ticket.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

We’re fortunate to have appellate attorney TX Lawyer at the Underground Bunker to help us understand Scientology litigation.

We hope you enjoy this discussion with him!

— The Proprietor

Read more

More detail has now emerged about what happened in the “religious arbitration” that labor-trafficking victims Valeska Paris and Gawain and Laura Baxter were forced into by a Tampa federal court.

After 15 days of the arbitration that began on January 19 in Clearwater, Florida, the three Australian residents and former Sea Org employees simply stopped showing up when the arbitration was set to resume on Monday, February 9.

They are now seeking permission from Tampa federal judge Thomas Barber to submit a motion for reconsideration with numerous documents of evidence under seal, apparently complaining about how the arbitration is unfolding.

In their motion, they acknowledge that they signed confidentiality agreements with Scientology about the proceeding, and so they are trying to abide by that by providing little public information about what is going on. But we have learned these additional details because Scientology itself is opposing the motion and has spelled out what took place to a certain extent.

This is the lawsuit filed in Tampa, Florida in April 2022 that alleges years of abuse aboard Scientology’s cruise ship, the Freewinds, as the Baxters and Valeska say they worked as virtual slaves as children and adults. Judge Thomas Barber ruled that contracts signed while they were Scientologists obliged them to seek arbitration rather than to sue in court. The plaintiffs have previously asked Judge Barber to reconsider his ruling, which he denied in 2024.

At that point, the plaintiffs had little choice but to go through with the arbitration, which required them to ask Scientology’s International Justice Chief, Mike Ellis, to make the arbitration happen. (And in Scientology’s communications, this is always pointed out — that the victims asked for the arbitration to happen, even though they had no other choice.)

Valeska and the Baxters initially proposed that the proceeding take place early last May, but Ellis pointed out that May 9 “is a major Scientology holiday as you well know.” (May 9, 1950 is the day that Dianetics was first published by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, one of the holiest days on the Scientology calendar.)

Both sides then agreed to begin the arbitration on June 30, but there’s nothing in the documents about why it was delayed until January 19.

According to a letter written by Ellis last year, the plaintiffs complained that Scientology could not provide any indication of how long the arbitration would last, but Ellis told them that it would last as long as was required.

I reject your assertion that there is an arbitrary length for the arbitration. There is none. The arbitration will take as long as necessary to hear all of your claims. All parties will have an opportunity to present evidence and witnesses will be heard.

You should set aside plenty of time for the arbitration. If more time is needed than has been allocated, you and the arbitrators may agree on mutually workable dates to continue the arbitration.

Scientology attorney Charles M. Harris Jr. tells the court in a declaration that the arbitration took place in Clearwater, that it went five days a week from 10 am to 6 or 7 pm each day, and that attorneys for both sides were present but were not allowed in the room with the arbitrating panel.

Counsel for the parties, including myself, were not permitted to be present in the arbitration hearing itself. No attorneys were present during the proceedings before the arbitration panel.

Although counsel were not permitted to attend the arbitration proceedings, a suite of rooms was made available throughout the entire three-week period for Plaintiffs’ counsel. Based on my observations, Plaintiffs’ counsel utilized those rooms to meet with their clients during the arbitration, and such meetings occurred multiple times each day. Also based on my observations, more than thirty witnesses entered the arbitration proceedings to give testimony over the three-week period.

Harris doesn’t say where this suite of rooms was located, but we suspect that it was at the Fort Harrison Hotel, Scientology’s most holy site. We’ll let you know if we hear otherwise.

So now we’ve learned that this arbitration involved some thirty witnesses, and testimony over fifteen days covering three consecutive weeks.

There have been only three court-ordered arbitrations in the 73-year history of the Church of Scientology. The first occurred in 2017 in a lawsuit brought by an Orange County couple, Luis and Rocio Garcia, and it lasted a single afternoon.

Valerie Haney’s 2019 lawsuit against the church was the second case forced into arbitration, and last November she completed 15 days of arbitrating that have taken place over a three-year period. She and her attorneys have alleged that it has taken that long because the arbitrating panel — made up of three current Scientologists — is wasting time and harassing Valerie with a lot of irrelevant questioning.

Now, we learn that Valeska Paris and the Baxters have also been put through 15 days of arbitration, which took place over three weeks. The proceeding was scheduled to continue on the morning of Monday, February 9. The arbitrating panel was there, and so were Scientology’s attorneys, but Harris says in his declaration that Valeska and the Baxters and their attorneys simply didn’t show up, and without a word.

The next day, IJC Mike Ellis sent the plaintiffs a sternly-worded letter.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Baxter and Ms. Paris,

You requested that an arbitration be convened, and an Arbitration Committee (“Committee”) was duly impaneled to hear your claims in Clearwater, Florida.

I have been informed by the Arbitration Committee that it devoted substantial time and attention to these proceedings and advised you that the arbitration was not complete and would continue until all evidence and testimony were fully reviewed. I am also informed that the Committee advised you that additional evidence remained to be entered and reviewed, further witnesses and testimony were to be heard, and questions remained for you, all of which were required in order for the Committee to complete the arbitration. I am informed as well that the Committee advised you that it intended to continue and complete the arbitration while you were in the United States so that it could be concluded without the need for a return at a later date. I am further informed that the Committee advised you that if at any time you made yourself unavailable before the arbitration was concluded, the arbitration would remain open until such time as it could be concluded in person, in Clearwater, Florida.

Notwithstanding this, when the hearings were scheduled to resume on Monday, you did not appear.

Accordingly, the arbitration has not been concluded and remains open.

Please advise whether you are withdrawing your request for arbitration.

If you are not withdrawing your request, please provide multiple dates on which you are available to return to Clearwater, Florida so that the arbitration may be completed. Upon receipt of your response, those dates will be provided to the Arbitration Committee so that arrangements may be coordinated.

Sincerely, Mike Ellis International Justice Chief

According to Harris, Ellis did not receive a response to his letter.

On March 2, Harris says, the attorneys for Scientology heard from Valeska’s lawyers that they were preparing to file a motion for reconsideration with the court. In further communications with the attorneys, Harris says they claimed there was “new evidence” which justified the motion, and that they were objecting about “due process” violations.

Scientology is telling Judge Barber, however, that he himself ruled that the court’s hands were tied, and that Scientology sets all the rules for the arbitration, and so the plaintiffs have no standing to file this motion for reconsideration. Scientology claims the choice for the plaintiffs is clear: Either schedule more days of arbitration or withdraw.

And as for the Baxters and Valeska filing their motion and exhibits under seal, Scientology says that it’s irrelevant and should be stricken from the record…

The Federal Arbitration Act bars interlocutory judicial review of an ongoing arbitration. For that reason, Plaintiffs’ Motion to Seal... should be denied as moot. Accordingly, the Court should direct the Clerk of Court to strike and expunge from the record Plaintiffs’ unredacted Second Reconsideration Motion and all exhibits thereto.

However, if the judge disagrees, and allows the plaintiffs to file the motion and exhibits, Scientology asks for permission to file their own exhibits, partially sealed.

So now we wait to see what Judge Barber thinks about all this. We, of course, are very interested to see what is in the sealed exhibits. We suspect that the Baxters and Valeska have had to go through a similar kangaroo court experience as what Valerie Haney has been put through, and after 15 days of it, they’d had enough.

And in a way this surprises us. We understand why Scientology is dragging out Valerie’s arbitration. It’s clear they’re trying to grind her down so she throws in the towel and gives up. And that’s because they know if the arbitrating panel ever concludes things and issues a finding, Valerie will then have the right to appeal the court ruling that forced her into arbitration, and her appeal will go to the 2nd Appellate District in California, an appeals court that has been very skeptical about Scientology’s arbitration scheme in the past.

But in the Tampa case, we expected that the arbitrating panel there might make quick work of the labor trafficking arbitration because if the Baxters and Valeska appeal that ruling, it will go to the conservative 11th Circuit federal appeals court based in Atlanta, which upheld Scientology arbitration in the Garcia case.

Well, who knows why Scientology is making that arbitration such an ordeal. But will Judge Barber do anything about it? We’ll wait to see how he rules, and in the meantime we’ll get some thoughts from TX Lawyer, our appellate attorney expert, for a podcast episode.

A HowdyCon update: The agenda!

If you were listening to the Group Therapy podcast Sunday, you heard Alex deliver the news about HowdyCon: We have an agenda! Here’s what he revealed…

The HowdyCon 2026 Agenda is Here!

The first wave of tickets have now officially sold out, but don’t worry, more will be released soon. In the meantime, we are excited to announce the agenda for this year’s event. The full list of talks is on view at the convention website!

You heard previously that this year’s guest speakers include Alex Barnes-Ross, Claire Headley, Phil Jones, Patty Moher, Chris Shelton. and of course, Underground Bunker author Tony Ortega. Now we can share what the weekend will entail. Here’s the brief rundown of what to expect:

FRIDAY 18th SEPTEMBER

Arrivals, registration a panel discussion and plenty of time to socialize. Two hours of bottomless pizza is included in your ticket price but you’ll have to get your own drinks.

SATURDAY 19th SEPTEMBER

Four keynote speeches and panel discussions from some of the world’s biggest SPs, a silent auction raising money for The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation and an after party packed with fun activities. A late buffet-style lunch will be provided, and is included in the cost of your ticket.

SUNDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

Breakfast and departures

HowdyCon will be taking place at multiple venues throughout New London, CT and in order to minimize potential interference from Scientology, the details will be shared exclusively with those who have purchased a ticket.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

Last week, we posted this photo, which was buried in Scientology’s slide show from its March 14 event celebrating founder L. Ron Hubbard’s 115th birthday in Clearwater, Florida. (Hubbard, actually born on March 13, 1911, died in 1986.)

You can clearly see that Scientology celebrities Tom Cruise and John Travolta were in the front row, cheering church leader David Miscavige, who presided over the nearly three-hour event.

But in other photos at the slide show that were more prominent, Cruise and Travolta were missing. Former London Scientology staffer Alex Barnes-Ross says he’s found evidence that Cruise and Travolta were scrubbed from the images.

So that left us with a question. We’ve seen Travolta numerous times at the Birthday Event in recent years, and Cruise was at the last big three meetings: the IAS gala in England in the fall, the New Year’s event in Los Angeles, and now the Birthday bash. (This is the first time we’ve seen them both at the same birthday event since 2019.)

Church leader David Miscavige clearly wants Travolta and Cruise at these events. But why wouldn’t he want the rest of the world to know it? Why scrub the church’s two most famous ornaments from the most visible slides?

Was it Cruise and Travolta who asked to be left out of the photos, and Dave went along with it?

We decided to ask an expert. Claire Headley worked closely with Miscavige when she was a high-ranking executive in the church. Here’s what she told us…

I think a reasonable justification for why Cruise and Travolta were photoshopped out of those photos likely falls under two responses:

1. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit that they asked not to be included and,

2. Miscavige likely went along with this, as including them could be classed as “out-security.” He would never agree to that just to placate them. On the contrary, I’ve heard him call celebs “out-ethics, off-purpose, and PTS” who asked not to be included in photos before.

In Scientology, “out-security” refers to anything that exposes internal operational information, invites scrutiny, or exposes contradictions between the internal reality and the external image they’re trying to maintain. It’s not about truth, it’s about control of optics.

Yes, Miscavige absolutely would have demanded that both Tom Cruise and John Travolta attend. Their presence still serves an internal purpose. It reinforces status, loyalty, and the idea that Scientology is supported by high-profile figures. Inside the event hall, that matters.

But outside that hall is a different calculation.

Both Cruise and Travolta are now extremely high-liability public figures when it comes to Scientology. Their long-standing, very visible endorsement of the organization ties them directly to its growing reputation as abusive and coercive. That creates risk, not benefit, in broader public-facing materials.

So removing them from publicly released photos can be understood as justified by the need for security. It limits additional scrutiny, avoids reigniting criticism, and prevents new media cycles focused on their involvement, and particularly would eliminate the justification of facing Cruise and Travolta with some really tough albeit important questions relating to their continued support.

All of that said, nothing happens without Miscavige’s approval, and if he agreed, it would be because it serves a broader strategic purpose.

Internally, their presence still signals endorsement. Externally, their absence helps reduce exposure. One version of reality for those inside, another for everyone else.

And to your broader point, events like this are not meant to rely on celebrities to draw people in. Scientologists are expected to attend because they are “on purpose,” not because of who else might be in the room. Celebrity involvement is more about internal influence than external promotion at this stage, in my opinion.

Last but not least, if Cruise is in the event photos, the “Cruise is leaving Scientology” headlines that always seem to surface right before he releases a new movie would lose any last remnant of efficacy in trying to convince the general public they should go watch his movie.

— Claire Headley

A HowdyCon update: The agenda!

If you were listening to the Group Therapy podcast Sunday, you heard Alex deliver the news about HowdyCon: We have an agenda! Here’s what he revealed…

The HowdyCon 2026 Agenda is Here!

The first wave of tickets have now officially sold out, but don’t worry, more will be released soon. In the meantime, we are excited to announce the agenda for this year’s event. The full list of talks is on view at the convention website!

You heard previously that this year’s guest speakers include Alex Barnes-Ross, Claire Headley, Phil Jones, Patty Moher, Chris Shelton. and of course, Underground Bunker author Tony Ortega. Now we can share what the weekend will entail. Here’s the brief rundown of what to expect:

FRIDAY 18th SEPTEMBER

Arrivals, registration a panel discussion and plenty of time to socialize. Two hours of bottomless pizza is included in your ticket price but you’ll have to get your own drinks.

SATURDAY 19th SEPTEMBER

Four keynote speeches and panel discussions from some of the world’s biggest SPs, a silent auction raising money for The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation and an after party packed with fun activities. A late buffet-style lunch will be provided, and is included in the cost of your ticket.

SUNDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

Breakfast and departures

HowdyCon will be taking place at multiple venues throughout New London, CT and in order to minimize potential interference from Scientology, the details will be shared exclusively with those who have purchased a ticket.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

We saw Tom Cruise and John Travolta giving church leader David Miscavige a standing ovation on March 14, the night he revealed Scientology’s new focus on children, the “Golden Age for a New Generation.”

We saw the books themselves, which Sea Org members are reportedly trying to get into major chain stores.

We saw Scientology staffers ecstatic about the new books arriving.

And now, it’s the kids’ turn. The success stories are starting to come in as children complete these new courses and, in the Scientology way, share their “wins and gains” as they are instructed to.

The girl you see above completed the A-R-C course at the Ideal Org in Chicago. Here’s her testimonial.

Today I finished the A-R-C Triangle course. This course was my favorite course that I’ve done in my life. This course was my favorite because it felt like it was really made for ME. Even though I have come across the A-R-C triangle once or twice before, this one had me dive down deeper into the details of it.

My favorite part about this course was the illustrations and when I got to draw.

If I had to tell a kid about this course I would tell them that they should DEFINITELY do it, and it would help them make new friends and help them have a much better life.

Overall, this was a fantastic course!

Six hours after that email was forwarded to us, we received this one from a different helpful reader, about a little girl at the new Ideal Org in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“Hello everyone, my name is Luna and I want all the kids to come and do ARC in the new courses. We have a new classroom for you and I want you to come see it because it is really good. Please come and do the new courses, they are the best because here it is incredible. We even have a place for the kids. Imagine, you finish your course and your mom cannot come yet, you can play and all of that. The best part is that ARC helped me a lot to communicate with my family and my friends. And not only that, Puerto Rico is the best. Come to Puerto Rico to do all the new courses. Come, it is the best. We even have a kids room for everyone. Come, come, come.”

Come to the Organization of Puerto Rico today to do the new courses!

Recruitment for the Church of Scientology has become very difficult. Adults are wary of it, the press is brutal, the church’s dismal reputation is well earned.

But kids are an easier target, and Miscavige is all-in. He’s throwing a ton of money at this initiative, and he very visibly has Cruise and Travolta on board.

We expect the testimonials to become a flood.

A HowdyCon update: The agenda!

If you were listening to the Group Therapy podcast Sunday, you heard Alex deliver the news about HowdyCon: We have an agenda! Here’s what he revealed…

The HowdyCon 2026 Agenda is Here!

The first wave of tickets have now officially sold out, but don’t worry, more will be released soon. In the meantime, we are excited to announce the agenda for this year’s event. The full list of talks is on view at the convention website!

You heard previously that this year’s guest speakers include Alex Barnes-Ross, Claire Headley, Phil Jones, Patty Moher, Chris Shelton. and of course, Underground Bunker author Tony Ortega. Now we can share what the weekend will entail. Here’s the brief rundown of what to expect:

FRIDAY 18th SEPTEMBER

Arrivals, registration a panel discussion and plenty of time to socialize. Two hours of bottomless pizza is included in your ticket price but you’ll have to get your own drinks.

SATURDAY 19th SEPTEMBER

Four keynote speeches and panel discussions from some of the world’s biggest SPs, a silent auction raising money for The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation and an after party packed with fun activities. A late buffet-style lunch will be provided, and is included in the cost of your ticket.

SUNDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

Breakfast and departures

HowdyCon will be taking place at multiple venues throughout New London, CT and in order to minimize potential interference from Scientology, the details will be shared exclusively with those who have purchased a ticket.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

It’s all smiles in London, as the Scientology staff there welcome the first shipment of the church’s new books aimed at children as young as 7 years old.

And who’s that on the right in this photo that was forwarded to us by former London staffer Alex Barnes-Ross? It’s none other than Alex’s former good friend and org stalwart, Charlie Wakley.

Seeing Charlie so ecstatic to be holding that box of “Scientology books for the new generation” really takes us back.

It was in 2019 that we prophetically warned our readers about how Charlie was aimed at indoctrinating your kids…

This was years before we knew Alex, of course. But it had become obvious to us that Charlie was something of a star at the London org who was making better use of social media in order to reach the general public in a way that his counterparts in the US were not. (Alex revealed to us that he himself was partly responsible for that.)

This is how we described him then…

The product of a Scientology family, Charlie has emerged as a notable fixture at Scientology’s London Ideal Org. He shows up frequently in the org’s promotional materials and videos. It’s his job to give the impression that Scientology is exploding in popularity in London. It isn’t, but he succeeds, at least, in appearing to be the org’s tireless cheerleader and its mascot.

At that time, we had been forwarded a creepy note that Charlie had sent out in which he claimed to be an expert at getting kids into Scientology courses…

Hey,

Sorry if this is a bit random but I have become a bit of an expert when it comes to getting kids & youth on the Bridge.

The reason I wanted to let you know is that if you or any Scientologists has children that they may be struggling to introduce to Scientology or get onlines or whatever maybe I can help.

Anyways if you want to know more or have someone this might be useful for let me know?

ML,

Charlie Wakley

In the years since, Charlie has stepped back somewhat from his days as a public spokesman for the London org, but Alex tells us that he’s still as important as ever, he just chooses to operate less visibly these days.

But we figure he still considers it his duty to rope in kids. And so imagine how excited he is to receive this new tool in his arsenal. The books have arrived!

Hip, hip, hooray!

And speaking of kids thoroughly indoctrinated into Scientology at a very young age, Alex also sent us this latest success story from the church’s UK headquarters, Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, England.

This kid’s well on his way to being a lifer, having now been through the quack vitamins-and-sauna treatment called the Purification Rundown.

I’ve been in Scientology my whole life and have been an IAS Lifetime Member since I was 9 months old. I have completed quite a few courses already. I am proud to say, this is my first major step on the Bridge. The wins I have achieved because of the Purif are unimaginable. I feel much more able, awake, and I am more aware. What I have achieved so far is unmatchable. I feel lighter and more energetic. I was quite surprised when I experienced certain reactions... like the one I had in my mouth from a teething gel, from when I was a baby, and a strange sensation in my face, which happened one day and then disappeared. I was also surprised with all the sunburn that came out! I can’t wait to move up the Bridge. Right now, I am doing the Fundamentals of Thought book course, and I will be on my Survival Rundown after that.

A HowdyCon update: The agenda!

If you were listening to the Group Therapy podcast yesterday, you heard Alex deliver the news about HowdyCon: We have an agenda! Here’s what he revealed…

The HowdyCon 2026 Agenda is Here!

The first wave of tickets have now officially sold out, but don’t worry, more will be released soon. In the meantime, we are excited to announce the agenda for this year’s event. The full list of talks is on view at the convention website!

You heard previously that this year’s guest speakers include Alex Barnes-Ross, Chris Shelton, and of course, Underground Bunker author Tony Ortega. Now we can share what the weekend will entail. Here’s the brief rundown of what to expect:

FRIDAY 18th SEPTEMBER

Arrivals, registration a panel discussion and plenty of time to socialize. Two hours of bottomless pizza is included in your ticket price but you’ll have to get your own drinks.

SATURDAY 19th SEPTEMBER

Four keynote speeches and panel discussions from some of the world’s biggest SPs, a silent auction raising money for The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation and an after party packed with fun activities. A late buffet-style lunch will be provided, and is included in the cost of your ticket.

SUNDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

Breakfast and departures

HowdyCon will be taking place at multiple venues throughout New London, CT and in order to minimize potential interference from Scientology, the details will be shared exclusively with those who have purchased a ticket.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

Once again we discussed the week’s revelations with our gang of jokers and degraders.

It’s all the enturbulation you could want!

— The Proprietor

Read more

One of the surprises we learned from the leaked audio of the March 14 L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Event was Scientology leader David Miscavige announcing that yet another shrine to Hubbard is about to have a grand opening: The villa in Las Palmas where Ron penned OT 3.

We understand Dave’s motivation for purchasing and renovating places where Scientology’s founder lived over the years, and creating shrines out of them in order to influence donors and “opinion leaders.”

But the Las Palmas villa in the Canary Islands? The place where Ron dreamed up the Xenu story? That seemed a bit outré to us. So we turned to a real expert, Jon Atack, to get his thoughts about what that place really means in Scientology history, information that visitors are likely not going to hear about…

I visited Las Palmas some years ago — though not to see the Hubbard shrine. It is in this vicinity that Hubbard fell in the street and would later claim to have broken his back through ‘research.’ Gerry Armstrong first told me of a letter from Hubbard to Mary Sue saying he was taking ‘pinks and greys’ — likely the opioid Demerol (a close cousin of heroin). I twice interviewed Virginia Downsborough, who answered Hubbard’s desperate call for help. When she arrived, he was incoherent, surrounded by reams of paper covered in scribbling — some of which made it to the Operating Thetan Section Three course. She said he had not eaten for days and was living off a ‘shelf of drugs.’ She indicated a shelf at least two feet long. He was a man of mighty appetites.

In 2013, I told David Mayo that Virginia had refused to name any of the drugs. He said she’d told him, but sadly he didn’t pass the information on. As we know from Ron’s recommendations in various books and lectures, the amphetamine Benzedrine had been his go-to for some time (Dianetics:MSMH p.363; p.389 in later editions). In Science of Survival (Book II, p.223), Hubbard said, ‘better effects … can be achieved by the administration of stimulants such as benzedrine.’ Then there is his admission in a lecture of 15 June 1950 to having been addicted to the hypnotic barbiturate phenobarbitol. Of course, in D:MSMH he also said: ‘Making one drug immoral and another taxable is a sample of the alcohol engram in society’ (p.365).

My video Never Believe a Hypnotist gives much more detail and many references.

It seems likely that Ron’s collapse in the street was a consequence of his multiple drug use. The shelf of drugs has probably not been reconstituted in his ‘cliffside landmark.’ This is also where the Sea Project (later Sea Organization) was bruited and Virginia Downsborough was the first person to turn down the offer to join.

— Jon Atack

Bonus items from our tipsters

You know you want to go!

A HowdyCon update from Alex!

The first wave of tickets to HowdyCon 2026 have officially sold out! This event has been a huge hit and there has been a lot more interest than we anticipated, which blows me away. With 5 months to go before we assemble in New London, Connecticut, we will soon be releasing the weekend’s agenda of activities. Ticket holders should have already received an email about hotels and will receive venue information closer to the event.

Due to extraordinary demand, we have set up a waitlist for those who missed out on the first round of tickets. There will be a limited number of additional tickets released in due course, so please sign up to be the first to know here: The first wave of tickets to HowdyCon 2026 have officially sold out..! This event has been a huge hit and there has been a lot more interest than we anticipated, which blows me away. With 5 months to go before we assemble in New London, Connecticut, we will soon be releasing the weekend’s agenda of activities. Ticket holders should have already received an email about hotels and will receive venue information closer to the event.

Due to extraordinary demand, we have set up a waitlist for those who missed out on the first round of tickets. There will be a limited number of additional tickets released in due course, so please sign up to be the first to know here: https://www.howdycon2026.com/tickets/

I also want to stress the importance of inclusion. We want HowdyCon to be open to all Bunkerites and, thanks to the generosity of our community we have a number of ‘Pay It Forward’ tickets available. If you’d like to attend HowdyCon 2026 but are facing financial hardship or can’t afford a ticket, please drop us an email and tell us about your circumstances. Similarly if you are an OSA agent, we’ve got you covered. Just let us know.

YEEHAW!

— Alex Barnes-Ross

Alex, Patty, and Phil join us on Group Therapy!

Today at noon Eastern subscribers will receive Episode 163 of our special podcast series, “Group Therapy.”

We discuss the week’s revelations with our gang of jokers and degraders, including Patty Moher, Alex Barnes-Ross, and Phil Jones!

It’s all the enturbulation you could want!

We’re offering this series as thanks to our subscribers for helping to support the work we do here at the Underground Bunker.

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

We want to thank Ian Rafalko, who recently sent us some images he found online showing some of Scientology’s biggest donors — Tom and Victoria Cummins, Elena Cardone, and Manuel Suarez — hanging out and dining with Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer of NatGeo fame.

We’re posting the most interesting of those photos. Here’s the full version of it (and click on it and it should enlarge.)

We see Tom and Victoria Cummins on the left side of the table. Cesar himself is on the right, sandwiched between Manuel Suarez and Elena Cardone.

Ian told us he wondered if these Scientology bigwigs were trying to get in with the longtime TV star.

Well, we told him, we have a story about that which we have never told!

Here’s what we know.

More than a decade ago, we were talking to someone close to Millan, and they told us a pretty amazing tale.

This person reminded us that it was Jada Pinkett Smith who first brought Cesar to the world’s attention. She was one of his first clients, hiring him to train her Rottweilers when the Mexican immigrant was working as a limo driver. That friendship helped Cesar to get his NatGeo Channel show, which debuted in 2004.

Meanwhile, Jada was herself a hardcore member of Scientology (which she continues to deny to this day, claiming that she was only dabbling in it). In 2007, she and her husband Will Smith invested $1,235,000 to fund a private school, the New Village Leadership Academy, which opened in Calabasas in 2008, and operated with a Scientology-based curriculum.

The money was meant to fund the school for three years (while their own kids were attending), but after that it would need to generate enough income on its own. It didn’t, and it shut its doors in 2013. We had the first interview with its former principal, Jacqueline Olivier, who told us that not only was the curriculum Scientology, but children at the school were also subjected to Scientology ethics procedures, and teachers were told to take courses at Scientology’s Hollywood Celebrity Centre.

Friends of Will Smith have told us that he really was only dabbling in Scientology, and that it was Jada who was the hardcore fanatic as their school opened in 2008.

Then, in 2010, Cesar Millan’s life nearly fell apart completely.

That February, his beloved 16-year-old pit bull “Daddy” died. In March his wife of 16 years, Illusion, filed for divorce. And in May, Millan revealed, he reached such a low point, he made a suicide attempt with a drug overdose that landed him in the hospital.

At one point during these troubled times, our source close to Millan told us, Cesar made a desperate call to Jada Pinkett Smith. And, to her credit, she immediately rushed over to counsel her good friend.

And with her, she brought along her trusty Scientology E-meter.

Our source, an eyewitness to this, told us that Jada used Scientology techniques to get Millan through that difficult period. And as a result, Cesar did become involved in Scientology himself and then tried to get his employees to take courses, and ran into opposition.

We tried to ask Cesar about this himself. We did get a response from a representative of his company, Cesar Millan Inc., who denied that any employee had ever been asked or pressured to take Scientology courses.

When we asked about Cesar’s own involvement in Scientology, this is the statement we got from the company…

“Cesar has always been interested in learning about different philosophies and ways of thinking. While he has taken one Scientology course in his life, he has also studied meditation and yoga and attended workshops taught by Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Tony Robbins and others. Since Scientology is not a focus for Cesar, an interview of this subject is of no interest to him.”

Without that interview, we decided not to write a story at that time. A couple of years later, in 2015, we got reliable word that Will and Jada had left Scientology. And they made it obvious themselves in 2018 when they had Leah Remini on Red Table Talk.

As for Millan, we only have that information about the period 2010-2013, and we had no information about whether he was still interested in Scientology after that.

But now, it appears that top Scientology donors are interested in him. Will they find a receptive audience? What do you think?

Bonus items from our tipsters

A HowdyCon update from Alex!

The first wave of tickets to HowdyCon 2026 have officially sold out! This event has been a huge hit and there has been a lot more interest than we anticipated, which blows me away. With 5 months to go before we assemble in New London, Connecticut, we will soon be releasing the weekend’s agenda of activities. Ticket holders should have already received an email about hotels and will receive venue information closer to the event.

Due to extraordinary demand, we have set up a waitlist for those who missed out on the first round of tickets. There will be a limited number of additional tickets released in due course, so please sign up to be the first to know here: The first wave of tickets to HowdyCon 2026 have officially sold out..! This event has been a huge hit and there has been a lot more interest than we anticipated, which blows me away. With 5 months to go before we assemble in New London, Connecticut, we will soon be releasing the weekend’s agenda of activities. Ticket holders should have already received an email about hotels and will receive venue information closer to the event.

Due to extraordinary demand, we have set up a waitlist for those who missed out on the first round of tickets. There will be a limited number of additional tickets released in due course, so please sign up to be the first to know here: https://www.howdycon2026.com/tickets/

I also want to stress the importance of inclusion. We want HowdyCon to be open to all Bunkerites and, thanks to the generosity of our community we have a number of ‘Pay It Forward’ tickets available. If you’d like to attend HowdyCon 2026 but are facing financial hardship or can’t afford a ticket, please drop us an email and tell us about your circumstances. Similarly if you are an OSA agent, we’ve got you covered. Just let us know.

YEEHAW!

— Alex Barnes-Ross

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

One of our readers spotted a clip at Facebook that features Elena Cardone giving a pep talk about the power of positive thinking.

This isn’t unusual in itself: She and her husband Grant Cardone make a lot of money in the motivational speaking racket, and so giving this kind of talk is just about all they do.

But our reader noticed a couple of things that were unusual about the clip. She knew that Grant and Elena are major donors to the Church of Scientology, and what Elena was explaining to her audience — “Be-Do-Have” thinking — comes straight out of L. Ron Hubbard’s mental “technology.”

And also, even though Elena was giving in essence a Scientology lecture, she wasn’t doing it in a Scientology setting.

You can see on the backdrop that this was a Turning Point USA event, and at the end it’s revealed that Elena is on stage with Erika Kirk, who proclaims about Elena’s talk, “It’s beautiful.”

This was, in fact, Elena’s appearance at the Young Women’s Leadership Summit put on by Turning Point USA in Dallas last June.

Here, watch her talk about Present Time and Be-Do-Have, without telling her audience that she’s giving them a lesson in Scientology…

Here’s what Scientology itself says about “Be-Do-Have”…

There are three aspects of existence that, when understood, can help you live more successfully.

In Scientology, we call these the Conditions of Existence. They help you to understand who you are being in life, what you are doing in life and what you can have in life. These conditions are called: Be, Do and Have.

The condition of BEING is defined as the choosing of a category of identity.

It could be said to be the role in a game. An example of beingness could be one’s own name. Another example would be one’s profession. Another example would be one’s physical characteristics.

Each or all of these things could be called one’s BEINGNESS.

The second condition of existence is DOING. By “doing” we mean action, function, accomplishment, the attainment of goals, the fulfilling of purpose or any change of position in space.

The third condition is HAVING. By “having” we mean owning, possessing, being capable of commanding, positioning, taking charge of objects, energies or spaces.

The game of life demands that one assume a beingness in order to accomplish a doingness, in the direction of havingness.

The three Conditions of Existence are the qualities of life itself. They help solve the mysteries behind failure and give you tools, which you can apply to live a successful life.

Charlie Kirk, Erika’s husband, also spoke at the event, and he was assassinated two months later in Utah.

Since then, former Turning Point USA employee Candace Owens has been “feuding” with Erika Kirk over the circumstances of Charlie’s death.

We wrote previously about Candace’s statement that a major Scientologist was funding Turning Point USA. That turned out to be a reference to Scientology megadonor Craig Jensen, and Joy Villa (who has left Scientology) showed us a stunning email revealing that Jensen not only was supporting Charlie’s efforts, but had also arranged a personal tour of the Flag Building in Clearwater, Florida for Charlie, and had given him a Scientology handbook that he claimed Charlie said “saved his life.”

Craig Jensen is still listed at Turning Point USA’s advisory board.

We’ve pointed out numerous times how wealthy Scientologists have been gaining influence with the current White House administration, and they’re also clearly trying to gain influence at Turning Point USA.

But teaching Erika Kirk Scientology lessons on stage? Wow, Elena, we’ll give you credit for some daring on that one.

In the time since we first drafted this story, a major new development impacting Scientology’s relationship with the White House dropped. You probably heard the news yesterday that President Trump has fired his Attorney General, Pam Bondi.

Bondi’s tight relationship with Scientology, going back years to when she was AG of Florida, was one of the reasons we’ve been saying that Scientology leader David Miscavige has little reason to fear federal intrusion, at least for the next three years.

Trump named Todd Blanche to be acting AG, and it’s assumed that he will nominate EPA head and former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin to be the next Attorney General. Zeldin is Jewish, and is a Trump loyalist. We don’t see that he’s said anything about Scientology in the past.

But even if David Miscavige is unhappy to see Bondi go, Scientology’s cozy relationship with the White House has been developed through a number of different avenues, and we suspect that the church can still count on its influence on Pennsylvania Avenue.

For example…

Meanwhile, at the White House

Trish Duggan, Scientology’s wealthiest donor, and a member of Trump’s Kennedy Center Board. Her caption: “Celebrating St. Patrick's Day with the Prime Minister of Ireland at the White House!!!”

A HowdyCon update from Alex!

The first wave of tickets to HowdyCon 2026 have officially sold out! This event has been a huge hit and there has been a lot more interest than we anticipated, which blows me away. With 5 months to go before we assemble in New London, Connecticut, we will soon be releasing the weekend’s agenda of activities. Ticket holders should have already received an email about hotels and will receive venue information closer to the event.

Due to extraordinary demand, we have set up a waitlist for those who missed out on the first round of tickets. There will be a limited number of additional tickets released in due course, so please sign up to be the first to know here: The first wave of tickets to HowdyCon 2026 have officially sold out..! This event has been a huge hit and there has been a lot more interest than we anticipated, which blows me away. With 5 months to go before we assemble in New London, Connecticut, we will soon be releasing the weekend’s agenda of activities. Ticket holders should have already received an email about hotels and will receive venue information closer to the event.

Due to extraordinary demand, we have set up a waitlist for those who missed out on the first round of tickets. There will be a limited number of additional tickets released in due course, so please sign up to be the first to know here: https://www.howdycon2026.com/tickets/

I also want to stress the importance of inclusion. We want HowdyCon to be open to all Bunkerites and, thanks to the generosity of our community we have a number of ‘Pay It Forward’ tickets available. If you’d like to attend HowdyCon 2026 but are facing financial hardship or can’t afford a ticket, please drop us an email and tell us about your circumstances. Similarly if you are an OSA agent, we’ve got you covered. Just let us know.

YEEHAW!

— Alex Barnes-Ross

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

At the L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Event on March 14, Tom Cruise and John Travolta applauded Scientology leader David Miscavige, who that night unveiled the church’s new initiative aimed at kids. Miscavige is clearly going all-in with this new effort, which includes books in many languages and courses aimed to produce a “Golden Age for the New Generation.” We wanted to get the perspective of a couple of former Scientologists who grew up in the church. Here’s Claire Headley…

First, as someone who was born into and grew up inside Scientology, I did not experience a childhood in the way most people understand it. It was structured, controlled, and ultimately taken from me before I had the awareness to question it. Starting at age 7, I was required to sign my first billion-year contract, something I could not possibly understand, being told this represented my purpose, my future, my eternity. At the time, it felt “normal.” Looking back, it is clear I was never given the ability to consent in any meaningful way. That loss is something I am still unpacking as I work on my memoir (coming out later this year!), because it is not just about what happened, but also what never had the chance to happen.

Second, as a parent of three boys, I now view these situations through an entirely different lens. I cannot imagine placing my children into environments where their autonomy is stripped away, their education is compromised, and their future is dictated by an organization demanding lifelong allegiance. The idea that teenagers can be funneled through a so-called “crash course” education, which we’ve received reports of happening currently, handed something resembling a “diploma,” and then pressured into signing a billion-year contract is deeply troubling. These are not informed choices. They are the result of grooming, indoctrination, and a lack of real-world context.

This new push to create and distribute Scientology materials specifically for children as young as seven, along with the set marketed to “ages 10 to 100,” and to attempt to place those materials into mainstream bookstores, is especially concerning. This is not simply about publishing. It is about normalizing the language and control of Scientology at an age where children are naturally trusting, impressionable, and unable to critically evaluate what they are being taught. I’ve no doubt the language in those books instills the deceptive and coercive control mechanisms I learned, that work to lock you into Scientology’s belief system. When those same children are later funneled into accelerated education tracks and recruitment pipelines, it becomes clear, to me, that these efforts are connected.

This latest initiative also reeks of desperation. When Scientology begins reaching into younger and younger age groups, packaging its beliefs in “child-friendly” formats, and seeking legitimacy through mainstream retail channels, to me it shows they are having difficulty attracting informed, consenting adults. Instead, they are now focusing on shaping belief systems early, before independent thought has fully formed. That is not organic growth. It is a strategy to secure long-term compliance by starting as early as possible.

Third, through my role as volunteer Board President of The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation, we continue to see the real-world consequences of this coercive system. We regularly hear from individuals who were pushed into the Sea Organization as minors or very young adults, often without a meaningful education, without financial literacy, and without the basic tools needed to function independently. This is not about preparing young people for life.

What makes this especially concerning is how normalized the language and control of Scientology becomes inside that environment. From the inside, it is falsely presented as “purpose,” often encouraged by the parents. From the outside, it is clear it is exploitation.

— Claire Headley

Chris Shelton, meanwhile, sent over this video with his thoughts about the history of children in Scientology…

Only a few tickets left!

Our Group Therapy listeners heard it first as we announced the big news: Patty Moher, Alex Barnes-Ross, and Phil Jones are organizing the return of HowdyCon!

It will take place from September 18-20 in New London, Connecticut, and we have a website. And tickets are now on sale!

News about speakers and other developments will go out first on our Group Therapy podcast, so please sign up as a subscriber if you haven’t already!

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

Thank you to Alex Barnes-Ross for spotting this alarming call to action by a Scientologist.

It’s an appeal for Scientologists to contribute money to an effort that will attempt to convince a major South African bookshop chain to begin carrying Scientology’s books, and in particular the new line of books for children that church leader David Miscavige revealed at the L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Event on March 14.

Posted in a social media forum for young Scientologists, the writer attached a photo of a bookstore with this message:

The Sea Org is working on a project of getting Scientology into one of the world’s major bookstore companies, and is in talks with their top executives to get Dianetics books, Scientology books, and now the new Children’s Release books into ALL their stores on the planet.

A campaign is being launched to get 20 sets of the release purchased as a donation, so that they can be given to the CEO, top execs, and key bookstore managers of Exclusive Books, to sell them on putting the new release in their stores, immediately!

With the key execs of the company closed on selling these books in their stores, ALL bookstores will then place orders from Bridge to sell Scientology titles to the public at the correct orders of magnitude.

If anyone has an amount they want to flow to make this a reality, this would be super helpful!

And then let us know if you do help with this so we can commend the bajeebees out of you

We suspect that if the Sea Org — Scientology’s most hardcore lifers who sign billion-year contracts — are working on this in South Africa, they are likely to be working on similar projects in Europe, the UK, Australia, and the United States.

Here’s a closer look at the titles Scientology has released. This set is for ages 7 and up…

And this set is for kids “10 to 100”

Our experts have told us that these books will be mainly aimed at the children of existing Scientologists, and it’s a sign of Scientology’s desperation that it is focused on indoctrinating those kids as recruitment of new people has become so difficult.

But an effort to get these books into major stores is a sign that Scientology thinks it can also rope in new young families. Will stores go along with it?

Only a few tickets left!

Our Group Therapy listeners heard it first as we announced the big news: Patty Moher, Alex Barnes-Ross, and Phil Jones are organizing the return of HowdyCon!

It will take place from September 18-20 in New London, Connecticut, and we have a website. And tickets are now on sale!

News about speakers and other developments will go out first on our Group Therapy podcast, so please sign up as a subscriber if you haven’t already!

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

The last time we were updating you on Valerie Haney’s legal odyssey, last November she had completed fifteen days of Scientology’s “religious arbitration,” most of which had nothing to do with the claims from her 2019 lawsuit.

Valerie was featured in Leah Remini’s A&E series Scientology and the Aftermath for her wild escape from the church’s Sea Organization, hiding in the trunk of an actor’s car in order to flee from the secretive Southern California base where, she alleges, she spent years in virtual slavery.

After her escape, she alleges that she went through scary harassment and intimidation by the church as she worked for Remini and appeared on the program.

A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ruled, however, that contracts Valerie had signed while a Sea Org employee obliged her not to sue Scientology but to submit her claims to its religious arbitration.

In the 73-year history of the Church of Scientology, only one other court-ordered case of arbitration has ever occurred, in a lawsuit brought by an Orange County couple, the Garcias, and their arbitration took a single afternoon in 2017.

In Valerie’s case, however, the panel of “arbitrators” — all Scientology employees — have put Valerie through 15 days of questioning over a three-year period. Valerie’s attorney Guy D’Andrea told us that at least 10 of those 15 days have had nothing to do with the allegations in her lawsuit. Valerie has had to sit before the panel, prevented from having her attorney with her or any recording device, while she’s asked about hundreds of her Instagram or TikTok “likes,” for example, and other endless and irrelevant minutiae.

We have suggested in the past that Scientology is simply trying to force Valerie to give up by never ending the “arbitration” and never delivering any kind of verdict.

Why? Scientology knows that as soon as it completes the arbitration and renders a ruling, Valerie can then appeal the court’s decision to force her into the arbitration, and that appeal will go to California’s 2nd Appellate District, which knows Scientology and its tricks very well. It was the 2nd Appellate District, for example, that overturned a similar ruling in the Danny Masterson civil lawsuit, finding that a trial judge had erred by forcing the case into arbitration.

Scientology knows how bad its treatment of Valerie Haney would appear to such a court. So, the alternative is to keep stringing her along, hoping she gives up.

After the 15 days were completed in November, Valerie heard nothing about what the panel was going to do next.

Her lawsuit, meanwhile, was removed from Judge Gail Killefer and ended up in the court of Judge Kevin Brazile.

Last week, there was a status hearing in the case before Judge Brazile, and for the first time Valerie’s attorneys heard that Scientology now wants two more days of arbitration.

Valerie’s lawyer Kristen Vierhaus objected, saying that Valerie had received no news of this and that it was the first they were hearing about it.

But Judge Brazile, like Judge Killefer before him, merely set another status hearing, this one for September 21, and Scientology can continue to run the arbitration as it sees fit, setting all the rules, and keeping Valerie from having an attorney with her.

Will those two days finally be enough? What would stop Scientology from asking for even more?

It’s incredible what Valerie Haney is being put through, and with the court claiming that it is powerless to do anything about it.

Bonus items from our tipsters

How to ruin a “little library”…

Only a few tickets left!

Our Group Therapy listeners heard it first as we announced the big news: Patty Moher, Alex Barnes-Ross, and Phil Jones are organizing the return of HowdyCon!

It will take place from September 18-20 in New London, Connecticut, and we have a website. And tickets are now on sale!

News about speakers and other developments will go out first on our Group Therapy podcast, so please sign up as a subscriber if you haven’t already!

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now

CORRECTION: We believe the person we previously identified as Elisabeth Moss was in fact Scientology celebrity Nancy Cartwright. See below.

The Church of Scientology has posted its slide show from this year’s L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Event, and it contains some real surprises.

Hubbard, Scientology’s founder, was born on March 13, 1911, and his birthday is Scientology’s most holy day on its calendar. (Hubbard died in 1986.) To celebrate his 115th birthday this year, current leader David Miscavige held the Birthday Event at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Florida on Saturday, March 14.

We’re always curious about which of Scientology’s celebrities show up to this thing. Elisabeth Moss was in the front row in both 2024 and 2025. Would she be there this year? John Travolta has often showed up at the Birthday Event — he’s a local, living in Florida. And Tom Cruise has made it a few times. In 2019, in fact, we saw both Travolta and Cruise in the front row.

Well, after looking closely at the photos posted by Scientology, we’re confident that 2026 was a banner year for Miscavige, as all three two of his biggest celebrities — Tom Cruise and John Travolta , and Elisabeth Moss — were in the front row giving him a standing ovation!

Now, this isn’t something that Scientology necessarily wants the rest of the world to know, so the images of these celebs are not perfect. But we think they’re good enough to conclude that these three were in attendance, along with a lot of other familiar faces.

Let’s take a look.

First, here’s a good view of Travolta and Cruise. You can see that JT seems a bit concerned that a photographer is aiming a camera their way. (Click on the image to embiggen it.)

In the front row, in the foreground, we see megadonors Alan Atkinson-Baker and Craig Jensen (Alan’s wife Sheila is between them.) Next to Jensen is rapper Doug E. Fresh, then Bodhi and Jenna Elfman.

Travolta is next to her, then a woman we can’t make out, and then Tom Cruise. We believe it’s Scientology’s wealthiest donor Trish Duggan on the far side of Cruise and then a shorter Elisabeth Moss. CORRECTION: This person on the other side of Trish Duggan is wearing a Freedom Medal, which Elisabeth Moss does not have. We think this is, in fact, Simpsons actress Nancy Cartwright.

Here’s our best angle on Moss, from the stage. It’s not the sharpest shot, but we’re confident it’s her.

Note the Freedom medal on who we now believe is Nancy Cartwright, not Elisabeth Moss.

What are they cheering about? We posted the leaked audio from this event yesterday afternoon, along with a complete transcript.

Miscavige outlined several new projects for the gathered faithful. First, that a new shrine to Hubbard has been established, a villa at Las Palmas in the Canary Islands where he spent time in 1967 putting together the notorious “Operating Thetan Level Three,” which contains the wild story about Xenu the galactic overlord.

Hip, hip, hooray!

Winners of the annual Birthday Game were also announced. These are contests between Scientology facilities to see who can take the most money from suckers.

For the record, the winners were Bergamo, Italy for missions, Eastern Cape (South Africa) for Ideal Orgs, AOLA for advanced orgs, and Europe for CLOs.

But perhaps the most important announcement from the event, and certainly the creepiest, is the new reveal about an increased focus on children. Miscavige is really going big with it.

“Golden Age for the New Generation”

So Scientology’s biggest celebrities were on hand to cheer on Dave as he revealed this creepy new initiative to groom kids for Scientology.

And speaking of creepy, take another look at that image of JT and Cruise…

Who’s that in the row right behind them, the person we’ve circled?

That’s none other than notorious quack Dr. David Minkoff, who lost his medical license for a year after his involvement in the 1995 death of parishioner Lisa McPherson, and who is currently being sued for his involvement in the grisly 2022 death of OT Scientologist Whitney Mills. (And yes, his daughter happens to be handbag designer Rebecca Minkoff, who recently had a stint on Real Housewives of New York.)

Horrific text messages have been revealed in the Whitney Mills case, showing Minkoff telling her to handle her extreme mental distress with quack Scientology methods, but he’s certainly still in the church’s best standing if he gets to stand so close to Dave’s chief ornaments, Travolta and Cruise. Amazing.

Also in attendance were this couple in the lower left corner. That looked to us a lot like Dr. Eric Berg, the YouTube chiropractor.

We checked with Berg’s son, Ian Rafalko, and he confirmed that it is indeed his father, and the woman next to him is Ian’s mother.

We told Ian that this was the first time we’d spotted Berg at a big Scientology event.

“They specifically ask for seats that are not recorded by the cameras so you have to really look, it’s like Where’s Waldo,” Ian said.

Grant and Elena Cardone were in the front row, next to the Elfmans. We also spotted actor Jason Dohring, who was standing next to Berg in the second row.

All in all, a pretty impressive showing of celebrity power for a Birthday Event.

Miscavige may be facing numerous challenges as far as dwindling membership and recruiting woes. But he’s still wrangling his big donors and his important celebrities.

That’s three years in a row that Elisabeth Moss has showed up for Dave, giving him an ovation. It’s a big step up in involvement for her, and a story that all of the other news media is ignoring.

Cruise was also in the front row at the New Year’s Event in Los Angeles, and he flew his helicopter to the IAS Gala last October in England. We can’t remember the last time Tom showed up for all three of the big events consecutively like this — IAS, New Year’s and the Hubbard birthday.

And yet you will no doubt hear sooner or later from the tabloids that Tom is giving up on Scientology. When the tabs publish those stories, they never cite our evidence that he’s showing up at these events and is just as dedicated as ever.

JT, Cruise, and Moss, all showing up for Dave. Wow!

Tickets going fast!

Our Group Therapy listeners heard it first as we announced the big news: Patty Moher, Alex Barnes-Ross, and Phil Jones are organizing the return of HowdyCon!

It will take place from September 18-20 in New London, Connecticut, and we have a website. And tickets are now on sale!

News about speakers and other developments will go out first on our Group Therapy podcast, so please sign up as a subscriber if you haven’t already!

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.

Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Subscribe now