On Wednesday, a hearing is scheduled in the Bixler v. Scientology lawsuit, the one filed by Danny Masterson’s victims against the imprisoned Scientology celebrity and against the church itself.
This lawsuit was originally filed in 2019, before Masterson was charged criminally in 2020, and it was originally about the harassment these women say they’ve been through since coming forward to the LAPD in 2016, and not about the sexual assaults themselves.
But since Masterson was put away last year and a stay was lifted on the Bixler lawsuit, the women are attempting to bolster it with allegations of sexual battery, they want to bring in an additional plaintiff (actress Tricia Vessey), and they want to add racketeering allegations and prove that Scientology itself is a criminal enterprise.
We told you that Scientology, not surprisingly, is opposed to allowing a new amended complaint with all of those additional allegations. In particular, Scientology pointed to the fact that Judge Upinder Kalra has yet to rule on the church’s anti-SLAPP motions and their attempt to gut the lawsuit. Without that ruling, they argued, the Jane Does should not be allowed to amend the lawsuit.
Now, with a few days to go before the hearing, the Jane Does have answered that with a reply from Simon Leen, one of their attorneys, that says Scientology is making arguments that aren’t backed up by case law.
In fact, Leen points out, previous cases are on their side: While Judge Kalra is still making up his mind about Scientology’s attempt to anti-SLAPP some of their allegations, there’s nothing preventing the court from allowing in new allegations that have nothing to do with the ones he’s mulling over. And in fact, Leen says, if Scientology doesn’t like the new allegations, they can always file additional anti-SLAPP motions to try to get them removed. (And knowing Scientology, they probably will.)
As for Scientology’s whining in their opposition that the court shouldn’t allow amendments to a lawsuit that was filed almost five years ago, Leen points out the obvious: There was a pandemic that slowed down litigation, there was a years-long stay on the case as the Masterson’s criminal case went through two trials, and in all that time new allegations became known to them which should be allowed in the lawsuit.
Plaintiffs have sought leave to amend shortly after the case was unstayed, while the parties are in the very initial stages of discovery (which remains stayed
due to Defendants’ anti-SLAPP motions), and with approximately two years remaining before trial. Under these circumstances, courts routinely grant motions to amend.
So once again, Scientology’s gnashing of teeth is answered by what appears to be a pretty calm recitation of logic. Will the judge see it that way?
As we said before, Judge Kalra has a lot to decide in this case, and on Wednesday we are interested to find out which way he’s leaning.
PARIS HAS A DATE
Alex Barnes-Ross has been keeping an eye on the Paris situation, where Scientology leader David Miscavige had promised to open a new Ideal Org in January, and before three others that did open recently in Austin, Mexico City, and Chicago.
Finally, Alex says, a date has been set and Miscavige will preside over the Paris Ideal Org opening on…
Saturday, April 6.
How confident is Alex? “It's from a very well placed source inside the IAS, and Paris is ‘IAS-sponsored’,” he says.
That’s a reference to the fact that there are so few Scientologists in France, Miscavige couldn’t squeeze enough money from them to pay for the new facility, and so he had to pay for it from the donations of the International Association of Scientologists, the membership organization that fuels Miscavige’s giant slush fund and legal defense reserve.
Ooh-la-la! We can’t wait to hear how Miscavige angles his speech to praise the French, that have for so long made things tough for Scientology in that country. And who will the French shills be who speak at the ceremony?
We can hardly wait.
Saint Hill on fire?
Alex Barnes-Ross shared another fun find on social media with us, a flier claiming that Scientology’s UK headquarters, Saint Hill, is defying the notion that things have been dwindling for David Miscavige’s operation…
What do our former Scientologists think about these numbers?
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 material for subscribers. Or, 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.
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
Here’s the link to 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.
Paid subscribers get access to two special podcast series…
Up the Bridge: A journey through Scientology’s actual “technology”
Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s news
1632 Purif delivery hours is 23 people.
SRD hours there is No way to calculate how many people that might be. We can get a minimum by estimating max hours a week on SRD for a team. About 29 people. 15 teams.
903 Scientologists on services: a person shows up for 5 mins and does a paid service can count for this.
42 auditors made sounds awesome, but in actual fact any of the small short courses that teach an auditor a specific rundown can count for this. So you can have one trainee (not even a public, could be staff) do stacks of these small courses and each counts as an “auditor made”. 42 auditors made is not a number of people. It could be accomplished by 5 people.
90 OTs made is kinda the same. Each OT level completed counts as one level. 90 OT’s is also not 90 different people. You could have 30 people doing OT I-III and each completes 3 levels and that’s your 90.
Yeah, earth will be cleared in No time with these embellished ridiculously low stat numbers.
ETA: our org is not totally empty! We have a few people in here doing these services! Ignore that most of them are probably staff members and can be just ordered to do services to move these stats to look good. But they aren’t that good.
No Saint Hill Special Briefing Course graduates - at the Old Saint Hill! Like no Big Macs sold at the McDonalds.
Just as well though, when the current stable of Class XIIs ages out it will be impossible to do the upper levels inside Scientology. All the True Believers will have to quit.