Scientology’s favorite LAPD shill now in hot water over Les Moonves ‘allegiance’

[Cory Palka]

One of the interesting things we heard from Jane Doe 2 during her testimony yesterday at the Danny Masterson trial was that she and the other victims were very suspicious of the LAPD detective who was initially assigned to their case. She testified that the detective’s behavior was so strange, they suspected she might be “corrupt.”

In our end-of-the-day video that we put out yesterday at the courthouse for subscribers, and that we’re releasing below, we reminded viewers that this was a theme going back all the way to 2017 and our story that first broke the news that Danny Masterson was under investigation. In that initial story, we quoted from a letter written by Jane Doe 3 (we called her “Victim A” back then) complaining to then-Chief Charlie Beck of the LAPD about how badly the probe was being handled. And our previous stories have included allegations that the LAPD itself knew that its Hollywood Division, for example, was hopelessly compromised by its relationship to the Church of Scientology.

But surely, all these allegations about LAPD corruption are just overblown, right?

Well, the notion of the LAPD being compromised received a huge confirmation yesterday, as Gene Maddaus explained in a terrific new piece for Variety that lays out how an LAPD captain tipped off CBS executives just hours after a woman made a sexual assault report in November 2017 against CEO Les Moonves, and that the captain, now retired, worked behind the scenes to help kill the investigation and make sure it never became public.

That retired captain is none other than Cory Palka, the subject of several stories here at the Bunker about his Scientology-promoting ways, and he’s also a person Leah Remini has in the past accused of being corrupt.

Gene’s story is pretty much a textbook for how police corruption actually works, with Palka literally pledging his “allegiance” to Moonves while he worked to kill the investigation, which was successful. Eventually, however, Ronan Farrow interviewed the woman who had made the sexual assault report, Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb, for a 2018 New Yorker article, and Moonves resigned the day it came out.

Two days later, Palka wrote a note to Moonves: “Les — I’m deeply sorry that this has happened. I will always stand with, by and pledge my allegiance to you. You have embodied leadership, class and the highest of character through all of this.”

Keerist. Will Palka face criminal charges? We’ll be watching.

In 2020, we published similar mash notes from Palka to Scientology officials, which had become public in a records request made by an advocacy group. Emails to and from Palka showed a chummy relationship between the Hollywood Division’s top cop and the church.

In that 2020 story, we pointed out that when the Danny Masterson accusers came forward to the LAPD in 2016, “they were told that the investigation would be handled downtown because the Hollywood Division had been hopelessly co-opted by the Church of Scientology.”

In other words, the LAPD itself knew that the Hollywood Division, under Capt. Cory Palka, had been corrupted by its relationship to Scientology.

But even with that precaution, the women who went to the LAPD with their allegations about Danny Masterson found that going downtown was still a risk, as they soon had problems with the woman assigned to their case, Det. Esther Reyes. Masterson’s defense has based much of its case on Det. Reyes being right about things and these women going against her recommendations.

We are more interested than ever to see Det. Reyes testify in this trial. And it may come as soon as today.

Here’s the video we made from the courthouse yesterday afternoon. We’ll have more reports coming at you from the court later today.

---

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

Here’s the link to today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning…