Scientology said Leah Remini inspired his 'crime.' Now he's talking.

Apr 08, 2024

It was a stunning allegation that came out in Leah Remini’s lawsuit in December, and was repeated in last week’s Los Angeles Times investigation of Scientology interference in the Danny Masterson criminal case. The accusation? Last year, Scientology attorney Kendrick Moxon had tried to tamper with a criminal prosecution to frame Leah Remini.

The allegation stems from a 2022 incident involving a man named Armando Garcia who had been told to stop leafleting Scientology’s LA headquarters by a security guard. The guard then claimed that Garcia had tried to hit him with his car before driving away. Garcia was facing felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon (the deadly weapon being his vehicle).

According to Garcia’s attorney Adella Gorgen, she was approached by Kendrick Moxon, a longtime Scientology attorney and Scientologist himself, who said if Garcia would say on the record that he had been motivated to leaflet Scientology by watching Leah Remini’s A&E series Scientology and the Aftermath, the church would persuade the district attorney’s office to change the charge to a misdemeanor or drop it altogether.

Gorgen said this in open court to the judge handling Garcia’s case. A transcript of what she said about Moxon offering the quid pro quo was included by Leah Remini’s attorneys in her lawsuit as an example of the lengths Scientology will go to try and smear her. Moxon himself then filed a sworn declaration saying that the allegations were untrue because Garcia’s previous attorney, Justin Page, had told him that Garcia had been, in fact, motivated by watching Leah’s show.

Last week, Justin Page told the Los Angeles Times that Moxon’s description of that conversation was “baseless.”

And now, for the first time, Armando Garcia himself has spoken to us about the incident and about what happened in court.

Garcia is 52, and speaking to us by phone told us that he grew up in the Stanton area of Orange County and today is unemployed and homeless. He was raised Catholic, and says that the more he had read about Scientology and looked into its history, the more he was alarmed by it.

“I started reading up about it and learning more of the history of it, and the connection between [Scientology founder] L. Ron Hubbard and [British occultist] Aleister Crowley and [Pasadena rocket scientist and occultist] Jack Parsons,” he says. I read a book that kind of details some of the things that went on, and it became clear to me that Hubbard was not the person he said he was, and was probably a practicing Satanist and had created Scientology as a mockery of religion.”

Garcia says he made occasional visits to Hollywood to visit friends, and had been approached by Scientologists with their E-meters, trying to recruit him. He says he was alarmed that more wasn’t being done to publicize the organization’s roots.

He put together a black and white flyer with information about Hubbard and Crowley and began distributing it around the Scientology properties on Hollywood Boulevard and also at the Celebrity Centre on Franklin Avenue, as well as the big headquarters compound on Fountain Avenue and L. Ron Hubbard Way near a large Kaiser Permanente medical center.

“I had started making it like a pattern to hit them up on the weekends. I had done it for three weeks prior to that,” he says, referring to the February 7, 2022 incident.

“On that night I had finished flyering the Celebrity Centre and on Hollywood Boulevard, and was going to the final target by the hospital,” he says. “I flyered around the neighborhood first, then I had put some around the compound.”

Often referred to as “Big Blue” by non-Scientologists, church members themselves call the campus “PAC Base” for “Pacific Area Command.” It’s a former Cedars of Lebanon hospital that Scientology purchased in 1977, along with several other nearby structures, and painted all in the same light blue shade. The small north-south street that runs through the compound was renamed in 1997 from Berendo Street to L. Ron Hubbard Way, just one sign of the influence Scientology has had on local political leaders and law enforcement.

Garcia describes his version of what happened next.

“One of the security guards approached me. He had some of the flyers in his hand, and he asked me to pick them up. I refused, and I drove away. And then I went to the other side of the compound, and I was deciding whether to continue to put up fliers, and I decided I would leave. I turned around to go up L Ron Hubbard Way, and I saw the security guard coming the opposite way. He was flashing his light at me, and I thought he might want me to pull over. So I drove up to him. He seemed startled and had pulled his bike up on the driveway. When I realized he wasn’t signaling me, I just drove away. And that’s it.”

Scientology saw it differently, telling police that Garcia had tried to ram their security guard, and the district attorney’s office was convinced enough that it filed charges.

“I fought the case for around six months, maybe closer to a year. And eventually they showed the video to the judge, And my lawyer asked them to drop the case because I clearly came to a stop and drove way, I wasn’t trying to hit anybody,” Garcia says.

Page, his first attorney, was then replaced by Gorgen, who was approached by Scientology’s attorney Kendrick Moxon.

“The lawyer from Scientology approached her and made the quid pro quo offer. If I would implicate Leah Remini, in my flyering activity, if I was to say that my reasoning was that I had decide to do this flyering all because of Leah Remini, they would drop it. My lawyer was kind of shocked. She said, I think the judge should know, and she told the judge.”

This was Gorgen’s testimony, from a court transcript:

The individual, Mr. Kendrick Moxon, approached me on I believe Thursday when we were sent here for trial. He approached me individually outside of the court doors, and he told me that he, in his capacity as the attorney for what he called the victims in this case, which he said was the Church of Scientology as well as the main complaining witness or the security guard, he indicated if my client, Mr. Garcia, were to go on the record in some form or fashion to either state to the Court during a plea or put in writing, he initially asked my client apologize for being present and also to indicate that he was present on the date of the incident at the Church of Scientology grounds, and did what he did because he was “inflamed” by documentaries and a potential reality TV show that is currently airing or has aired on Netflix.
The specific individual who is producing or responsible for these documentaries is a celebrity by the name of Leah Remini, and Mr. Moxon wanted my client to state on the record that the documentary is responsible for his actions and the Church of Scientology would be able to go ahead and take these documentaries off the air.
Moreover, Mr. Moxon indicated that if my client were to make these statements on the record, he would then ask the D.A.’s office to reduce this to a misdemeanor or even less. He indicated multiple times that he did not believe that my client wanted to do what he did, but he was completely brainwashed or under the influence of these documentaries.

Garcia tells us he was never interested in the offer that Moxon was offering.

“The judge rolled his eyes. He gave me the lowest possible offer, to plead guilty and get probation, and stay away from Scientology and I wouldn’t be in trouble,” he says. “There was a part of me that wanted to fight it because I really hadn’t done anything wrong, but I had to think about my mother, and I accepted the plea deal and that ended the whole case. I was more interested in putting it behind me.”

So, we asked, is Moxon’s allegation true? Were you, in fact, motivated to protest Scientology after watching Leah Remini’s show?

“No. No, she didn’t inspire me at all in that regards. It was all my own intention.”

And Moxon’s claim, that he got that impression from your first attorney, Justin Page, that you were inspired by Leah?

“No, no I never said that to Justin Page, my first attorney,” Garcia says. Page himself told the LA Times last week that Moxon’s version of this conversation was “baseless.” Moxon did not respond to an inquiry by the Underground Bunker.

Garcia points out that when he was first trying to familiarize Page with the background of the incident, of Scientology and its history, it was Page who had brought up Remini and her series, not him.

But Garcia insisted that his research of Scientology had not been from watching Leah, but instead from reading websites like Operation Clambake (Xenu.net).

“I read that site all the time,” he says.

Garcia adds he was glad that his case was mentioned in the LA Times last week as an example of the lengths Scientology will go to smear its enemies.

“I hope more people find out about Scientology. It’s really not what people think it is,” he says. “My feeling is it shouldn’t be a church anymore.”

So now, Garcia and both of his attorneys are on the record disputing Kendrick Moxon’s version of events, and Moxon stands accused of attempting to tamper with a criminal case by having an alleged suspect lie and say he was inspired by Leah Remini, so Scientology could presumably then use that allegation in its ongoing harassment campaign of her.

Will Moxon face any consequences for this?

Will Scientology face any consequences for these practices?

Ever?

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