On Tuesday, police in the Yucatan resort town of Playa Del Carmen found two Canadians, a man and a woman, dead in a condo. Both had their throats slashed. Police initially wouldn’t identify them, but said that the two were not tourists.
A day later, Montreal media reported that the man, Raphaël Huppé, 44, had been in Mexico for at least four years, apparently fleeing various criminal cases in Quebec. For years, Huppé had been described as a scammer who had run fraudulent investment schemes.
He was also a Scientologist.
In 2006, Maclean’s magazine wrote about two local Scientologists who were behind an $11 million class-action lawsuit against a Quebec school board over ritalin. One of them was Huppé, who was calling himself the head of research for the Montreal-based “National Parents Association.”
“The NPA is a fledgling, two-man operation with a number of volunteers. George Mentis, the NPA’s president, works alongside Huppé. Both men are open about being Scientologists when asked, although they deny the church has anything to do with the NPA. Scientology, they say, is simply their religion,” Maclean’s said in a well-researched story that explained Scientology’s long war with psychiatry.
By 2014, Huppé was getting press for criminal convictions as a fraudster, and he’d been ripping people off apparently for years.
“Huppé is described in several court decisions as a man who pretended to be a successful investor, but serious questions concerning whether he was legitimate emerged as early as 2008,” the Toronto Sun reported.
Most recently, a warrant for his arrest had been issued in 2016 when he failed to appear for a case that had him facing 15 criminal charges, “including five counts of fraud, following an investigation by the RCMP,” the Toronto Sun said.
A year later, in 2017, a snapshot of Huppé’s personal website was stored at archive.org. “An accomplished entrepreneur from the Montreal area, Raphael Huppe is a rare find indeed: somebody who puts all of his passion in everything he does, with an ultimate goal of improving the world around him and creating a positive change that can be felt far and wide,” the website states. The site appeared to have no updates newer than 2016.
Huppé was found in Mexico with a 38-year-old woman named Fannie Lorrain, whose throat had also been cut. Lorrain appeared to be a fitness instructor who described herself as a travel blogger. A report in the tabloid Sun says that local police claim that Huppé and Lorrain had gotten involved in local weapons and drug trafficking in an area plagued by violent gang crime.
Valerie Haney’s case in court today
Over the last few days we’ve been updating you on the latest in Valerie Haney’s derailed lawsuit against the Church of Scientology. Valerie is suing over the abuse she received as a Sea Org worker and afterward, when she says she was surveilled and libeled following her escape from the church. Scientology, however, convinced Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Burdge that contracts Valerie had signed obliged her to take her grievances to Scientology’s own brand of “religious arbitration,” and he denied her right to trial more than two years ago. Valerie has tried to have that decision overturned in numerous tries, but they have all failed, and so today’s hearing is to update the court on why no arbitration has taken place.
Judge Burdge has moved to another courthouse, so Valerie’s case will be heard for the first time today in the courtroom of Judge Gail Killefer. We told you earlier that Valerie’s attorneys are hoping Judge Killefer reconsiders Burdge’s ruling in light of a January decision in a similar case, the lawsuit brought by Danny Masterson’s accusers, that overturned a similar arbitration order. Scientology countered that Judge Killefer isn’t in a position to reconsider Burdge’s ruling.
Both sides say they haven’t made progress on arbitration because of a stalemate of communication. Scientology says Valerie has to personally communicate with the church’s “International Justice Chief,” Mike Ellis in order to get the process going. But Valerie considers Scientology to be her abuser; her attorneys say they have tried to get information on her behalf, but the church refuses to work with them. We’ll be interested to see if Judge Killefer finds that Valerie not only has to submit to Scientology arbitration, but also has to do it without the help of her attorneys.
Scientology is asking Judge Killefer to dismiss the lawsuit for Valerie’s failure to make any progress on the arbitration.
On Wednesday, Valerie’s attorney Robert Thompson made a last-minute filing to describe the current situation for Judge Killefer. We thought you’d went to see it in some length:
First and foremost, Mr. Forman conveniently ignores that Plaintiff’s fundamental First Amendment rights are at stake if this court ultimately forces her to participate in religious arbitration with a religion she now rejects as a condition of receiving civil justice. His recitation of the history presumes that courts can be co-opted by religious organizations to enforce a jerry-rigged system where believers are permanently trapped. Miss Haney’s efforts to avoid being coerced into religious services are derived from her bedrock fundamental rights that would inflict such a religious services arbitration, causing irreparable harm.
Per the Bixler decision made clear, religious believers, including Plaintiff, have fundamental rights to reject and escape a religion and a court violates the First Amendment by coercing a plaintiff back into the religious fold.
Pursuant to its response to Plaintiff’s writ, the Court of Appeal encouraged reconsideration of the order forcing religious arbitration in light of the Appellate Court’s constitutional conclusions expressed in the Bixler opinion.
Even so, Plaintiff, through counsel, has attempted multiple times to communicate with Mr. Ellis, the “International Justice Chief” for Defendants and Defendants’ attorneys about commencing this religious arbitration. To date, Mr. Ellis has never once responded to our communications.
When Plaintiff’s counsel attempted to determine the scope and specific procedures governing this forced religious arbitration through Defendant’s counsel, Mr. Foreman directed us to Mr. Ellis, who again, refuses to communicate with us.
Plaintiff, through counsel, has asked for the procedures that will take place during the arbitration, not merely how many arbitrators will be there. Contrary to what Mr. Foreman believes, Plaintiff does not know the procedures and rules governing this forced religious arbitration. She has not been a part of Defendant’s religious organization for several years after escaping from them.
Plaintiff has asked for information concerning, for example, will there be a court reporter or videographer, where will this so-called arbitration take place, who can be present, what witnesses can be called, will there be opening remarks by counsel etc. All of these questions remain unanswered.
Mr. Foreman repeatedly claims that Plaintiff has not expressed in writing her desire to engage in forced religious arbitration. She has not because it is a violation of her First Amendment Rights, but through her attorneys, she has expressed a potential willingness to engage in religious arbitration and has repeatedly ask for information in order to commence same.
In summary, Plaintiff understands that she has been court ordered to forced religious arbitration. Plaintiff, through her counsel, has attempted to get the procedures and protocols to commence same from Defendants numerous times. Instead, Defendants have refused to communicate with Plaintiff. Despite Defendants insistence on Plaintiff’s claims being religiously arbitrated, Defendants are demanding she go through the process blindly whether she “wants” to go through it or not.
Why are Defendants doing this? Because if this religious arbitration commences, Defendants will:
a. Deny her the ability to bring her lawyers with her;
b. Not allow the arbitration to be under oath;
c. Not allow the arbitration to be audio, video and/or in any other way recorded;
d. Plaintiff will be held in an non-neutral location;
e. Plaintiff will be forced to enter a Scientology building, many of which are surrounded by armed guards, without anyone accompanying her (in other words being forced to walk into the lion’s den where she was held captive and abused for years);
f. Forced to be interrogated by the very people who harmed her and are trained to treat her as an enemy per their doctrine; and g. Forced back into a religion she is no longer part of; just to name a few.Plaintiff is not a member of Scientology. Plaintiff has never participated in forced religious arbitration in Scientology. Plaintiff has never seen a forced religious arbitration in Scientology or elsewhere. In other words, despite Mr. Foreman’s Declaration to the contrary, Plaintiff knows nothing about the process for this religious arbitration despite repeated requests for same. To recite language that says one arbitrator will be appointed or potentially two, does nothing in the way of informing the Plaintiff or her counsel of what will take place during this forced religious arbitration. In facts, Defendants have not even responded with how to commence the arbitration process, yet now they want Plaintiff’s case dismissed because it has not commenced to date.
Again, counsel for the Defendants still refuses to answer the most basic of information which neither the Plaintiff nor her counsel know the answers to:
a. Where the religious arbitration will be held;
b. Who will be present;
c. Is a court reporter/videographer permitted;
d. Are counsel allowed to be present or participate;
e. Proposed dates for said arbitration;
f. Length of said arbitration;
g. Process/rules/procedures by which the religious arbitration will be conducted.
Lots for Judge Killefer to consider today. We’ll have a correspondent on the scene, and we hope to get you a report as soon as possible. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 8:30 am Los Angeles time.
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
And today: A new Scientology TV series is coming out, and we have the trailer.
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Scientologist scammer, long on the run, ends up murdered in Mexico
Huppe and the woman's death are gruesome.
That somewhere in there lives years earlier, they'd been swayed away from whatever lead to their horrible deaths, is what ought have happened.
Scientology is a lode of bad quackery everyone everywhere on earth ought not become involved with for solutions to live a better life.
I used to think when lawyers threw in the "irreparable harm" two word phrase, that they were exaggerating.
I don't think so in the use in the quoted part above is wrong. It is irreparable harm.
I know that when you have before you a lawyer for Scientology's crafted legal document, you feel completely trapped. You think there is NO way out of signing.
That absolutely is "irreparable" that is the intent of that legal document, to cut off ALL avenues to ever fight back using a country's legal system.
That is no exaggeration, that making ANYONE coming out of Scientology to sign these legal documents, that truly is "irreparable" harm being inserted into the ex Scientologist's life.
That intent of those legal docs, and then the law enforcing those docs, is legally irreparable.
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The only way out of those docs, is violate them, and suffer the consequences, but never succumb to your mistake of having signed them.
Telling what happened in your life, despite you signing that you never will publicly tell what happened in your Scientology life, I chose to just violate my docs signed.
It is fundamentally anti human to stifle someone's own life history telling.