David Miscavige lives in Florida when he’s sued in LA, and in LA when he’s sued in Tampa

Scientology files pages and pages of confusing stuff to courts all the time, and that's the case again in the labor trafficking lawsuit in Tampa. Scientology leader David Miscavige had an attorney file a lengthy document this week in order to oppose a motion that is trying to get Miscavige declared an official defendant in the case.

Just as he has in the past, Miscavige is having his attorney whine that the plaintiffs have simply not done enough to serve him.

This dispute will get hashed out in a January 20 hearing, but we wanted to point out one very blatant example of Scientology lying its ass off to American courts in order to keep Miscavige out of lawsuits.

First, we want to remind you what happened just over a year ago in Los Angeles, where the Danny Masterson accusers had similarly tried in vain to get Miscavige served in their lawsuit, which they filed in 2019. In that case, Masterson's rape accusers are suing the That ‘70s Show actor, the Church of Scientology, and Miscavige not over the sexual assault allegations, but over what they say has been years of surveillance and harassment since they came forward to the LAPD In 2016.

In Miscavige's reply to the court, written by his bombastic attorney Jeffrey Riffer in January 2021, the Masterson accusers were ridiculed for looking for the Scientology leader at his official business address, 6331 Hollywood Boulevard, which is the Hollywood Guaranty Building and where the Religious Technology Center, which Miscavige is chairman of, has the top floor.

Riffer mocked the plaintiffs for being such dunderheads. Everyone was aware, he chided them just last year, that David Miscavige has been in Florida!

Plaintiffs staged repeated service attempts on Mr. Miscavige in Los Angeles at a time when it was public knowledge that Mr. Miscavige was thousands of miles away in Clearwater, Florida.

And it's true, Scientology's own publication Source magazine, a couple of months later, marveled at how, since November 2020, Miscavige was now appearing at weekly Friday night graduations at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater since he essentially moved there during the pandemic.

Here's what Source said about it in a magazine that we received a copy of in March 2021...

The audience was shocked and then awed the first time Chairman of the Board RTC, Mr. David Miscavige, walked on stage at Flag’s Graduation. It was a rare event — or so they thought — until it happened again and again and again. Since November 20th, Mr. Miscavige has thrilled those lucky enough to be in attendance at nearly a dozen Graduations.

Can you believe these idiotic plaintiffs, trying to serve David Miscavige in Los Angeles, when Scientology’s own magazine, and even Dave’s own attorney, confirmed that he's clearly become a fixture in Clearwater, Florida?

That was the message that came through quite clear in Scientology's court papers in 2021.

Ah, but now it's 2022, and in April a new labor trafficking lawsuit was filed in Tampa, Florida. The plaintiffs in that lawsuit have been trying diligently to serve Miscavige at several addresses in Clearwater. And now what is the message from Miscavige's attorney, Florida Bar past president William Schifino?

Why, he asks, are these idiots looking for Miscavige in Clearwater when he's been a resident of California for 40 years!

The allegations of the Complaint are false in many respects, most significantly for present purposes in that they allege that Mr. Miscavige is a Florida resident. He is not and has been a resident of California for the past several decades.

You see the game here. It's so blatant, and transparent, and a waste of everyone's time.

If Dave's sued in California, suddenly he's living in Florida and can't be served. If he's sued in Florida, he's always been at war with Eastasia and go fuck yourself with your process servers.

Look, we've seen this stuff so many times, and it's all based on a simple idea: The Church of Scientology, with David Miscavige as its leader, is simply not a good faith actor, and until courts start waking up to their methods and motivations, judges will continue to be snowed from California to Florida. We saw it with federal Judge James Whittemore in Tampa, Judge Richard Burdge and Judge Steven Kleifield in Los Angeles Superior Court, and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, just to name a few recent examples.

Scientology lies blatantly to courts and judges, and those courts simply never take the time to compare notes. If they did, the game would be up, right?

We hope at the January 20 hearing, Neil Glazer, the attorney for the labor trafficking plaintiffs, has an opportunity to point out that while Schifino ridicules him for trying to serve Miscavige in Florida, just last year Schifino’s predecessor Jeffrey Riffer was belittling the Jane Does because Dave was clearly a Clearwater resident.

Now, will Judge Thomas Barber see how he’s being lied to? Somehow, we doubt it.

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Continuing our year in review: The stories of September 2022

The month started out with news that Scientology had won a 9-year fight for tax exempt status in the Netherlands.

What a treat: We talked to Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan for a podcast episode about her years running the Ex-Scientologist Message Board, helping so many people cope with leaving the church.

And then a week later we talked to Paulette Cooper, Miss Lovely herself, about her new memoir.

An exclusive for us: Audio of Minister Louis Farrakhan accusing Rizza Islam, a Scientology/NOI figure, of a “horrible charge.”

And how’s this for a podcast: The inimitable Jesse Prince, who of course surprised us with his views.

On September 18 a bombshell that we would still like to see play out in the Danny Masterson case: Evidence of what legendary Hollywood fixer Marty Singer told a grand jury.

In Los Angeles, the mayor’s race became a contest to see who could denounce Scientology in the strongest terms. It was wild!

Hey, we then got out the first full-length review of Mike Rinder’s book “A Billion Years” published anywhere! And yes, we liked the book a lot.

A LOOK BACK AT SEPTEMBER 2021: Bruce Hines on his stunning cross-country run for freedom after ditching the Sea Org. Someone who worked on ‘The Ranch’ with Danny Masterson came forward with info about him. The Oregonian named Scientology’s expensive boarding school the Delphian to be the best small employer in the state. And a couple of Scientology OTs fell victim to the Covid pandemic after staunchly refusing the vaccine.

A LOOK BACK AT SEPTEMBER 2020: Dennis Nobbe, big time Miami chiropractor and Scientology donor, drops dead while awaiting trial on Medicare fraud. More spiked ‘Black Ops’ episodes showed up. Tommy Davis showed up in the book ‘Melania and Me.’ Leah Remini won her second Emmy for ‘Aftermath.’ Danny Masterson makes his first court appearance on rape charges. A Scientologist and former Sea Org figure ran for city council in Oregon. We discovered that Danny Masterson had filed nutty federal lawsuits over his Hollywood Hills home.

A LOOK BACK AT SEPTEMBER 2019: Miscavige was having even more success with donors, both the lesser whales and the big leviathans. New daily features: Source Code, Overheard in the Freezone, and Random Howdy. Michelle “Emma” Ryan announces she’s archiving the ESMB forum. The Islams try sovereign citizen craziness in court. Dream team files its third lawsuit, on behalf of a Jane Doe in Miami. The strange tale of how Mike Rinder ended up with Richie Acunto’s Scientology trophy.

A LOOK BACK AT SEPTEMBER 2018: Two upstate New York Scientologist chiropractors charged in an $80 million Medicare scam. We decoded David Miscavige’s chest ribbons. Jeffrey Augustine tangled with a Scientology PI. Jeffrey also detailed the history of the Freewinds. The US government adopted a Russian Scientologist as a ‘prisoner of conscience.’

A LOOK BACK AT SEPTEMBER 2017: On national television, Leah Remini and her mother Vicki Marshall exposed OT 8 for the shameful scam it is. And then we posted the actual New OT 8 materials for the first time to prove it. Clarissa Adams told us her disconnection story. John Brousseau, Karen Pressley, and Paul Haggis appeared on Aftermath, and Haggis answered Marty Rathbun’s smears. And we said goodbye to Bernie Feshbach.

A LOOK BACK AT SEPTEMBER 2016: Marty Rathbun goes on the attack against Ron Miscavige and Louis Theroux. The anonymous drone pilot begins premiering his footage of Scientology bases. Jason Lee ditches Scientology. And Steve Cannane’s excellent book Fair Game comes out.

A LOOK BACK AT SEPTEMBER 2015: We marked a full decade since Shelly Miscavige first vanished. Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear took home three Emmy awards. And we broke the news that Jim Carrey’s girlfriend, Cat White, was a Scientologist on the SRD when she killed herself.

A LOOK BACK AT SEPTEMBER 2014: Nancy Cartwright makes perhaps the creepiest Scientology ad ever. Jim Jackson remembers Lyman Spurlock. And Scientology crows about getting money from Google.

A LOOK BACK AT SEPTEMBER 2013: Scientology’s private dancer, live-blogging at the Monique Rathbun temporary restraining order hearing, and day two’s live-blog which set a then-record number of comments for a single blog post at the Bunker (3,442).

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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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