Scientology puts off racketeering charges by appealing ruling in Masterson victims’ lawsuit

[Defendant David Miscavige and Judge Upinder Kalra]

There is a hearing scheduled this morning in the Bixler v. Scientology lawsuit that we’d been very curious about as the Danny Masterson victims attempted to add a new plaintiff — actress Tricia Vessey — and also sexual battery and racketeering charges to a lawsuit that should be in a much stronger position after the conviction and imprisoning of Masterson himself.

But as ever, Scientology has thrown a wrench into things.

Last night, Judge Upinder Kalra posted a tentative ruling which indicated he plans to put the case on hold today because on May 22 Scientology filed notice of an appeal.

Scientology has informed the court that it plans to appeal Judge Kalra’s March 25 ruling that denied the church’s attempt to gut the lawsuit with motions to strike.

The ruling was such a thorough thrashing of Scientology’s motions, both Leah Remini and Jane Doe 1, who have lost judges they liked in their own lawsuits, filed requests with the court to have their cases also be handled by Judge Kalra.

So yeah, you had to figure Scientology was not happy with the ruling, and so they’ll try to get the appellate court to overturn it.

In the meantime, if Judge Kalra adopts his tentative ruling today, the Jane Does will just have to wait even longer to see if their new bolstered complaint, which they submitted back on December 27, can be adopted.

The Bixler lawsuit was initially filed in 2019, even before Danny Masterson was charged criminally, and it alleged that since they had come forward to the LAPD in 2016 with their allegations of sexual assault, the Jane Does had been harassed and intimidated in a campaign of surveillance by both the Church of Scientology and Masterson. The lawsuit was about the harassment campaign, not the alleged rapes themselves.

Scientology’s first strategy was to force the case into “religious arbitration” as they claimed that the women had signed contracts while they were in the church that obliged them not to sue, and the trial court agreed that the case could not proceed. But the California Supreme Court granted relief and had an appeals court look at that ruling again, and it was then overturned because the court found that the harassment the women are alleging happened after they had left Scientology, and so those contracts should not apply.

Masterson, meanwhile, was charged criminally with three counts of forcible rape in June 2020, and as that prosecution got going, with a preliminary hearing and then two trials, the Bixler harassment lawsuit was put on hold. After Masterson was convicted in the second trial last year, the lawsuit got going again, and Scientology filed its motions to strike, hoping to gut the case. The Jane Does, on the other hand, saw Masterson’s conviction as a way to beef up the lawsuit, and proposed to make it about much more than simply their harassment. With the proposed racketeering charges, they literally want to prove that Scientology is a criminal enterprise.

Judge Kalra denied Scientology’s motions to strike outright. And now the church is appealing that decision, so once again the proposed new amended complaint has to wait.

As ever with Scientology, it’s delay, delay, delay.

Meanwhile, in Jane Doe 1's separate, forced-marriage lawsuit, David Miscavige has also asked for a delay, but according to his filing, it's not for any real need on his part but because he says Jane Doe 1 is changing attorneys. The new attorney will need time to get up to speed, Miscavige says, so it makes sense to put things on hold for 30 days. When we hear more about that, we'll let you know.

Leah Remini's lawsuit is also on hold as Scientology appeals the ruling by Judge Randolph Hammock that removed some of her defamation claims but kept almost all of her causes of action intact before he was himself removed from the case. Neither side was happy with the ruling.

So, a lot of appealing and judge-changing going on. We stand by.

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