PODCAST: Jesse Prince is here to shake up your understanding of Scientology
If you've been a Scientology watcher as long as some of our stalwarts at the Bunker, you will remember a time when our guest today was as electric a campaigner against Scientology's abuses as anyone who had come out of the organization's upper ranks.
At one point in the early 1980s, Jesse Prince was just a couple of rungs below founder L. Ron Hubbard himself, and he was even David Miscavige's auditor. But then, around the turn of the century, Jesse became one of Scientology's biggest headaches and a major target for its retaliation campaigns.
We've kept in touch with Jesse since he put out a memoir a few years ago, and we were thrilled when he agreed to come on the podcast. We knew we'd be in for a bumpy ride. We enjoyed hearing his surprising takes on things like Scientology's victory over the IRS and also about his personal relationship with David Miscavige. We figured we'd be in for some surprises, and we were right.
Today, we’re releasing the thirteenth episode of The Underground Bunker Podcast to our paid subscribers at Substack. You should receive it presently at your email inbox if you’re on the list.
Not a paid subscriber? Well, we have something for you, too. Last week’s episode was with Paulette Cooper, who has been exposing Scientology's controversies for more than 50 years and who was the subject of our book 'The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.' In the weeks before, we talked to Michelle 'Emma' Ryan, Jefferson Hawkins, Marc Headley, Patty Moher, Geoff Levin, Pete Griffiths, Sunny Pereira, Jeffrey Augustine, and Claire Headley.
Those first twelve episodes are now free to all of our subscribers, paid and unpaid. All of our podcast episodes can be found here.
New York chiro and Scientology donor Jeff Spina gets a sentencing date
In April 2021 we attended a sentencing hearing at the federal courthouse in White Plains, New York, and watched as Judge Kenneth Karas said the case before him made his “blood boil.”
He was sentencing Middletown, NY chiropractor Jay Spina to nine years in state prison for masterminding an elaborate scheme to defraud the Medicare system that, investigators testified, added up to about $80 million. Jay and his brother Jeff both pleaded guilty, and the judge expressed his revulsion at the details: That the Spina brothers had set up sophisticated sham businesses and phantom ownerships in order to hide their fraud, and Jay had encouraged the use of dangerous injections that resulted in the death of at least one patient.
When the patient’s son tried to complain, Jay set out to target him for harassment for speaking up. This was one of the details that seemed to incense Judge Karras the most.
We were interested because Jay and Jeff Spina were also big Scientology donors and longtime members, and had helped underwrite some of Scientology’s sneaky front operations.
After his brother went to prison, Jeff Spina has been awaiting his own sentencing date and in the meantime has, after asking permission from the court, made several trips to Europe to spend time with his son. But that cushy schedule is about to end.
Judge Karas has now set a date of October 28 for Jeff Spina’s sentencing. That also happens to be when the Danny Masterson rape trial will likely still be going on in Los Angeles after its scheduled start on October 11, and Rizza Islam’s fraud trial will be starting in the courtroom right next door to Masterson’s.
So it looks like we won’t be able to attend Jeff Spina’s sentencing, which is disappointing. We have a feeling it won’t be quite as entertaining as Jay’s day in court. Not only did it seem apparent that Jay would be getting the longest sentence, but when he was given the opportunity to address the judge, he actually quoted L. Ron Hubbard (but not by name). We were stunned, and tried to ask him afterwards if that’s who he had quoted, but he ignored our question. He turned himself in to prison authorities a few weeks later.
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
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Jesse was massively underappreciated by media, in my opinion.
I wished/wish to heck Samuel Jackson could have taken Jesse out for the afternoon, and interviewed Jesse. Samuel Jackson I believe would have clearly seen that Samuel ought to have made a movie of Jesse's life.
Jesse to me was the Samuel Jackson of Scientology history, honestly. Samuel would have understood and liked to have portrayed Jesse's life, if you ask me.