Scientology scolds Valerie Haney for nominating Tom Cruise to be an arbitrator
In August Valerie Haney told the Church of Scientology that if she could not have Elisabeth Moss as an arbitrator in her dispute with the church, then she was nominating Tom Cruise, with Shelly Miscavige as a backup.
Once again, after the church demanded that Valerie turn in a nomination in short order, it has taken much longer for Scientology to respond.
It turns out that Tom Cruise and Shelly Miscavige are also not available, Scientology says. And the reason why? Well, that’s the interesting part.
Valerie, a former Sea Org officer who escaped from Scientology’s secretive “Int Base” in 2016 by hiding in the trunk of a car, filed her lawsuit against the church in June 2019, alleging that she had been held against her will as an employee at the base, and also that she had endured years of intimidation, harassment, and libel once she decided to speak out about her experiences.
After her escape, Valerie went to work for actress and former Scientologist Leah Remini as her assistant, and she was featured as the surprise subject to kick off the third and final season of Remini’s A&E series, Scientology and the Aftermath.
Scientology successfully derailed Valerie’s lawsuit when it convinced Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Burdge in 2020 that while Valerie was an employee she had signed contracts which obliged her not to sue Scientology in a civil court, but instead to take any grievance to Scientology’s own internal brand of “religious arbitration.”
She spent a couple of years trying to overturn Burdge’s order, but a new judge in the case, Judge Gail Killefer, found that Valerie needed to begin the arbitration process or risk having her lawsuit tossed altogether.
So on July 1 she submitted a letter to Scientology formally asking the arbitration process to begin. The first step in that process is to select a panel of three arbitrators, who must all be Scientologists in good standing. Valerie is allowed to propose an arbitrator, Scientology selects the second, and then those two arbitrators choose a third. All of this is overseen not by the court but by Scientology’s “International Justice Chief,” a man named Mike Ellis.
In that July 1 letter, Valerie, who has made it clear she objects to the entire process, selected as her proposed arbitrator Scientologist actress Elisabeth Moss.
In August, Ellis responded by telling her in a letter that “the arbitrator you designated to hear and resolve your claims in Scientology religious arbitration declined the nomination to serve as an arbitrator.”
In other words, Ellis was claiming that Moss was actually informed of Valerie’s choice, but turned it down. And Ellis added that Valerie had 15 days to reply with another nomination.
In her reply, written with her attorney Bobby Thompson, Valerie nominated actor Tom Cruise, and if he was busy, Shelly Miscavige, the wife of church leader David Miscavige who vanished in 2005 and has been seen in public only one confirmed time later, at the funeral of her father in 2007.
Nearly two months later, Ellis finally sent a response.
It starts out by complaining that Valerie’s letter was an insert in a cover letter from her attorney. Ellis chastises her for this, reminding her that according to “Scientology Ethics and Justice procedures,” she’s supposed to be communicating with him directly and without an attorney’s help.
After that whine, Ellis gets to the point:
Through the attorney letter, you provided the names of two prominent Scientologists to serve as your arbitrators. You (or your agents) provided that letter to the media, causing lurid coverage by tabloids and an anti-Scientology blogger.
Lurid coverage on the fringes of the Internet! The outrage!
After some more carping about how Scientology’s precious ethics procedures have been violated, Ellis once again gets around to the reason we’re all here:
Neither your second nor third choice of arbitrator are available, and given your penchant for leaking to the media I am not providing you with the reasons.
Oh, snap!
And just to put a fine point on it, Ellis pouts…
Nobody will be willing to sit as an arbitrator if he or she will be the subject of your publicity machinations.
Well, that’s just a shame, isn’t it?
We can hardly wait to see who Valerie nominates next. Who do you think it should be, gang?
Mark Bunker on David Miscavige’s lack of spine
In case you didn’t see it, Mark Bunker posted video of the message he gave the rest of the Clearwater City Council yesterday about David Miscavige’s inability to face him.
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
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John Travolta? Heber Jentzch? Tommy Davis? And Scientology will leak this on its own anyway. And then it will be the 4th person who "declines" or is "unavailable." And then Scientology will blame VH again. And then, hopefully, this new judge will see that the "arbitration" process is nothing short of horseshit.
It's almost like this "arbitration" by the criminal organisation known as the "church" of $cientology was never intended to fairly resolve disputes, but is just there to prevent justice from happening.
Good luck to Valerie, and here's hoping that one day the US legal system will stop the Co$ from using it to bludgeon everyone outside the Co$.