Florida Bar past president hired to stop court from serving lawsuit on David Miscavige

On Thursday, we brought you some of the language from a motion filed by Valeska Paris that is seeking to have a Tampa federal court declare Scientology leader David Miscavige an official defendant in a labor trafficking lawsuit that Valeska and two other former Sea Org workers filed against Miscavige and the church.

This was after months of painstaking effort by Valeska’s attorney Neil Glazer and his large legal team, who have been trying to find and serve Miscavige the lawsuit, to no avail.

Meanwhile, at a November 17 hearing, Mark Bunker described for us how the attorneys representing various Scientology institutional defendants were so loathe to associate themselves with Miscavige, they didn’t even correct Judge Thomas Barber when he mispronounced the Scientology leader’s name.

No attorney for Miscavige has come near the case, so total has Dave’s evasion of service been.

Until now. With the motion filed and Judge Barber likely to name Miscavige a defendant, on Wednesday attorney William J. Schifino Jr. filed a document with the court indicating that he is taking on the motion, but that he is only appearing on Miscavige’s behalf in a very limited way.

Just check out this language as Miscavige tries to have it both ways, with an attorney in court fighting against his being served, while pretending he’s still not involved in the case (emphasis ours):

William J. Schifino, Jr., Esq. of Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart, P.A., hereby files this Limited Notice of Appearance as counsel for Defendant David Miscavige in the above-styled cause, without submitting Miscavige to the jurisdiction of this Court, only to file a Motion to Quash Purported Service of Process and oppose Plaintiffs’ Motion for Order Declaring Defendant David Miscavige Served with Process and in Default, which will be filed pursuant to Local Rule 3.01 with the Court on or before December 27, 2022. Undersigned counsel makes this Limited Notice of Appearance solely to challenge service of process and reserves all rights to challenge, if necessary, (1) lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter, (2) lack of jurisdiction over the person, (3) improper venue, (4) failure to state a cause of action, (5) statute of limitations, and all other defenses available to Miscavige.

Did you get that? Schifino is there to try and stop all this nonsense about serving Miscavige, but that doesn’t mean that Miscavige is under the jurisdiction of the court! You don’t see the man behind the curtain!

And Miscavige isn’t messing around. He’s hired a lawyer, Schifino, who was the 2016 president of the Florida Bar. Hey, those piles of tax-free money can pay for the very best!

Meanwhile, on Thursday Glazer filed a request for oral argument on his motion, which could set up a showdown between these two powerful attorneys in Barber’s courtroom. (Pretty please?)

We remember that in a separate lawsuit when Miscavige’s evasion of service came up, one of his attorneys simply sneered that the plaintiffs weren’t trying hard enough to find him.

Will Schifino dare to make that argument in front of Judge Barber, after all of the work that Glazer’s team has documented about their attempts at service being blocked by Scientology security guards?

We can hardly wait to see what Schifino tries. Will he make the Florida Bar proud as he tries to keep a ‘religious’ leader from being named in a lawsuit that alleges horrific treatment of children trafficked as laborers?

As we’ve pointed out many times before, the high-priced attorneys Scientology hires never seem to pay a price for the horrendous positions they take and repugnant things they say and file in court.

Schifino is just the latest in a long line.

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Clearwater council trying to fire its city manager after only a year

Tracey McManus at the Tampa Bay Times reported the surprising news Thursday night that Clearwater’s city council voted 3 to 2 to fire new city manager Jon Jennings after only a year on the job.

Jennings has come under some criticism for his assertion that Clearwater would not move forward without working with Scientology leader David Miscavige as a partner.

But Mark Bunker, the city councilman who was so opposed to that statement, was actually one of the two members of the council who voted against firing Jennings.

Bunker explained to us last night that if he had been the only “no” vote, the firing would have gone through. But because another council member, David Allbritton, joined him, another vote is required that will take place on January 5.

And so in the time before that vote, Bunker tells us he’s going to appeal to the public to generate support for Jennings, hoping that one of the council members who voted yes might change their mind.

But why, we asked him, would he be supporting Jennings after Bunker had been so disappointed in the city manager’s statements about Miscavige?

Bunker explained to us that although he’s been disappointed by some of Jennings’ actions in regards to Scientology, he thinks the city manager has generally done a good job in his first year, and he thinks Jennings is being treated unfairly.

In other words, he told us, the vote to ouster Jennings really has nothing to do with Scientology at all.

Instead, as McManus indicated in her story, the council has been critical of Jennings regarding the handling of a contract to manage a 4,000-seat amphitheater in Coachman Park that is under construction. Jennings and Mayor Frank Hibbard had clashed over it, and Hibbard led the vote to ouster the city manager.

Bunker told us he feels for Jennings, who was asked to leave a job in Maine, bought a house in Clearwater, and is now facing the possible prospect of being fired after only a year.

With a recent referendum passed that will bring new development to some bluff properties and a huge move forward to revive downtown, Bunker says the city’s concerns about Scientology are being addressed, and he thinks Jennings should stay. We’ll see what happens between now and January 5 and whether the council will change its vote.

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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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