Scientology hopping mad after Mike Rinder and Claire Headley help out Leah Remini
Last week, we told you that Mike Rinder and Claire Headley had filed new declarations with the Los Angeles Superior Court to help Leah Remini keep Scientology’s Religious Technology Center (RTC) from wriggling out of her lawsuit against the church.
Leah is suing two Scientology entities — the Church of Scientology International (CSI) and RTC — as well as RTC’s chairman, church leader David Miscavige.
But at a hearing we attended on January 16, RTC’s attorney Robert Mangels complained that Leah had not actually connected RTC to the harassment and intimidation she says she’s been going through.
Judge Randolph Hammock pointed out that at this early stage in the lawsuit, Leah only needs to allege that connection between RTC and her harassment, and he gave her time to have supplemental declarations entered in the record to make those allegations.
As we said last week, Mike and Claire were more than up to the task, as they drew on their years at the highest levels of Scientology to describe how no retaliation campaign like the one Leah is going through would happen without the planning and oversight of Miscavige and RTC.
Now, however, Scientology is firing back, and we knew you’d want to see how worked up they are over Mike and Leah’s sworn statements.
The response is written by RTC attorney Matthew Hinks, who has cranked up some rifferific outrage which was no doubt run by Captain Miscavige before it was filed (and emphasis is definitely in the original)…
At the January 19, 2024, continued hearing on Defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion, the Court gave Plaintiff another opportunity to do what she failed to do originally: provide some evidence that RTC has any responsibility for the things that she is suing over. She failed again. The declarations of Mike Rinder and Claire Headley provide no evidence whatsoever that RTC had any role in the acts alleged in the First Amended Complaint (“FAC”). There is no evidence that RTC uttered a single word; no evidence that RTC ever once posted on Twitter; no evidence that RTC maintained a social media account; no evidence that RTC uploaded a video; no evidence that RTC interacted with Plaintiff’s contractors, advertisers, or media; and no evidence that RTC even said the name Leah Remini during the time period at issue. Nothing.
Leah can only offer the statements by her “defrocked” pals, Mike and Claire, who Hinks calls Leah’s “partners in bigotry.”
This stuff is just too much, really.
Hinks then digs into Rinder, saying that he was an employee of CSI not RTC (which, actually, Mike points out himself in his declaration), and that he’s been out of the church for 17 years, so what does he know about how it’s run today?
Even better, Hinks then starts quoting previous statements made by Mike about how actually CSI and RTC are separate and independent, which is not how he describes them in his declaration today.
However, these are quotes that Mike uttered in 1999, when he was still in Scientology!
Come on, you think Judge Hammock won’t do the math on that?
Hinks then turns to Claire, who did, in fact, work for RTC. So the best smear he can dream up for her is that she sued Scientology and lost after she escaped from the Sea Org, and that she was subsequently a guest on Leah and Mike’s television show. And that’s it.
Hinks then asserts that RTC had nothing to do with the harassment of Leah Remini, and he adds that suppositions by Mike and Claire to the contrary, even if based on what they observed while they worked in the church, is not sufficient evidence to keep RTC in the lawsuit.
Well, Matt Hinks certainly earned his (no doubt hefty) paycheck for this filing. But we are looking forward to Judge Hammock applying some of his common-sense cogitation during the resumption of this hearing on Tuesday.
Simply based on how often we saw Judge Hammock refer to the “minimum merit standard” that he says Leah has to meet at this early stage in the lawsuit, we have a feeling he’s going to accept these declarations as sufficient to keep RTC in the case. But what do we know.
East Grinstead council buries public questions about Scientology
Tuesday we observed an East Grinstead Town Council meeting on Zoom, and watched as four members of the public asked pointed questions about the council’s chummy relationship with Scientology.
We described how Mayor Frazer Visser quickly dealt with each of them, saying it wasn’t “the right forum” for that kind of discussion. But we gave praise to the people who spoke up, particularly Danielle Chamberlin, who spoke about being locked in the yacht Apollo’s chain locker as a child, and also being sexually assaulted at the Stonelands dorm for Scientology children.
Alex Barnes-Ross let us know, however, that when the video from the call was posted to the council’s YouTube channel, that initial period with public questions was left off, with this disclaimer:
Please note that the public question section of this meeting has been redacted due to the sensitive nature of the conversations and to protect any person in respect of any potential allegations that could result in legal action in the future.
“It's a public meeting on the public record so they are not allowed to redact or censor it,” Alex says.
The council implies that it’s protecting the people who spoke up, but it seems pretty clear that it’s Scientology which benefits.
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The Scientology corporate structure is a rats nest of deflections to protect itself from taking responsibility for its criminal activities. Leah continues through her activities to keep exposing David Miscavige and his dangerous, criminal organization. I respect her bravery and Mike and Claire’s support of her lawsuit. These legal battles are not fun. They are draining. Leah is an actress and I am sure this has made it more difficult to get work with the constant controversy she has to engage.
Leah, Mike and Claire deserve our support.
Even when I was in, the majority of documents were signed by a post not a person. Sad but true, the title held meant so much more than the person holding it. Hubbard’s vaunted “org board” was never fully staffed even then. People had 7 or 8 job titles and most times they signed with their job title and the initials HFA (held from above) after it. So basically you were top boss and did the job of all your non existent underlings as well.
With the sprawling reorganization, there are probably thousands of overlapping job titles, probably between organizations even. There are simply not enough people to even put a skeleton staff in place to keep all these organizations separate. I’d be interested to see a few internal documents with signatures these days.