After Cruise, Moss, and Shelly noms, Valerie Haney called ‘obstructionist’ by Scientology
In advance of Thursday’s court hearing in Valerie Haney’s kidnapping and harassment lawsuit, Scientology’s attorney William Forman has filed a declaration accusing Valerie of “obstructionist tactics and bad faith selection of unavailable arbitrators.”
Valerie filed her lawsuit in 2019 accusing Scientology of keeping her against her will for years as a Sea Org worker at Int Base, near Hemet, California. She said she had to escape her tenure there by literally hiding in the trunk of a car driven by an actor who was on the base to film something.
After her escape, Valerie went to work as an assistant to actress Leah Remini, and Valerie’s story became the subject of the premiere episode of the third and final season of Remini’s A&E series, Scientology and the Aftermath.
Valerie alleged that after she had left Scientology, she had been subjected to surveillance, intimidation, and also libelous attacks on the Internet by Scientology.
But the church successfully convinced Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Burdge that Valerie had signed employment contracts which obliged her not to sue in court and to submit any grievances to Scientology’s own internal brand of “religious arbitration.”
After trying unsuccessfully multiple times to convince Judge Burdge to reconsider his ruling, and with a new judge, Gail Killefer, assigned to the case, Valerie was told to start the arbitration process or risk having her lawsuit dismissed.
That first step in Scientology’s arbitration would involve Valerie nominating an arbitrator who had to be a member of Scientology in good standing. (Scientology would then choose a second arbitrator, and those two arbitrators would choose a third. All three would have to be church members.)
Objecting to the process, Valerie cheekily nominated Elisabeth Moss, Tom Cruise, and Shelly Miscavige in succession. After all, they were all Scientologists in good standing, right?
Forman let Judge Killefer know that the church is not amused.
In between July 2022 and now, Plaintiff has acted only to obstruct the arbitration, as shown by her bad faith selections of arbitrators. On July 1, Plaintiff named as her arbitrator Elisabeth Moss. Ms. Moss is a famous film and television actress and producer, known for her starring roles in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and “Mad Men.” She has won two Emmy awards, two Golden Globes, and appeared in over 50 films. A quick internet search would reveal that she resides in New York and is often filming and producing throughout the world.
On August 11, 2022, the International Justice Chief (“IJC”) of the Church of Scientology wrote to Plaintiff informing her that Ms. Moss had declined to serve as her arbitrator. The IJC instructed Plaintiff to select another arbitrator within 15 days. Plaintiff immediately shared this letter with an anti-Scientology blogger, announcing Ms. Moss’ decision to decline to serve as an arbitrator.
On August 23, 2022, Plaintiff, through her attorney, sent a letter nominating two arbitrators: Tom Cruise and Shelly Miscavige. As with her other correspondence with the IJC, she circulated this letter to an anti-Scientology blogger, resulting in world-wide press.
These “nominations” were patently ludicrous. Shelly Miscavige is the wife of David Miscavige, who is not only the ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion but also a named defendant in this lawsuit and in Plaintiff’s arbitration demand. Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint (which she also submitted as her arbitration demand) even contains allegations concerning Mrs. Miscavige. And Plaintiff could not have thought for a moment that Tom Cruise would be available to serve as an arbitrator of her claims.
…On November 23, 2022, the IJC responded to Plaintiff, informing her that Mr. Cruise and Mrs. Miscavige were not available to sit as arbitrators of her claims….It has been over two months, and Plaintiff has never responded to this letter, or otherwise indicated a selection of other arbitrators. But there is one thing she had done promptly: she immediately shared the IJC’s November 23, 2022 letter with the press.
Imagine that, world-wide press resulting from something posted by a scurrilous anti-Scientology blogger on the fringes of the Internet. By Xenu’s ghost!
Anyway, as to that last assertion, that Valerie hasn’t submitted anything in the last two months, we don’t know what’s up with that. And we don’t know yet what her attorneys are going to say in Thursday’s hearing.
Has Valerie given up on this legal farce? Do her attorneys have something else up their sleeves? We’ll keep an eye on it.
Observer reaches Blue Whale Kha-Khan status!
In 2018, we decided to have some fun with Scientology’s obsession with “status levels” for large donors. So we created our own whimsical status levels for our commenters over at the dot org site, and based them on the coin of the realm: upvotes.
We call Scientology’s big donors “whales,” so we appropriated that motif for our own statuses. And hence, the Underground Bunker’s whales were born.
Every once in a while, you may see us give updates as commenters reach new plateaus as their upvotes pile up. They might start out as Minnow Champions, and progress through Marlin Straightwire, Great White Shark Super Power, and Narwhal Humanitarian, to mention just a few.
But one status level was above all the rest: Blue Whale Kha-Khan, representing 500,000 upvotes to achieve. We originally put it there thinking of it as a sort of impossible final goal. No one would ever get that many upvotes, would they?
Well, today we’re recognizing Lynette “Observer” Waggoner for being the first Underground Bunker regular to reach this stupendous level of achievement.
Hip, hip, hooray! Not only is Lynette a great commenter at the Bunker, she’s our resident illustrator, and also a member of the Group Therapy podcast.
And now she’s Blue Whale Kha-Khan and has a license to kill!
Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. 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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Religious arbitration is a F’n joke. You’re going to sit with the accused, you have 1-3 arbitrators from the church/cult you escaped and then this is going to go in your favor. Like scientology is going to for the first time in decades say, you’re right Valerie we did violate, abuse and keep you against your will. Not going to ever happen! Also, I don’t care who she picked? Why is it cheeky that she named her abitrators. Tom finished a movie; available. Kate Moss who can make her own schedule if she’s that much of a bad ass (I haven’t seen her in shit) then she can do it. Shelly Miscavige has been publicly known to be a kept woman of the abusive COB of COS. I wish Valerie the best of luck and I hope this judge won’t be a P***y!
All I can say about being called obstructionist is “it takes one to know one.”