Swiss authorities charge former Scientology donor, set trial date
On June 13, we described the bizarre situation we had learned was happening in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, where a former Scientology mega-donor named Ivan Gaspari was being held in jail in Lugano on accusations by a private party, who turned out to be the richest Scientology donor of all, Florida artist Trish Duggan.
In 2019, Duggan invested tens of millions in Gaspari’s steel-trading business which, he insists, was purposely set up to funnel profits to the Church of Scientology.
But in 2023, Duggan went to Swiss authorities, saying that Gaspari was stealing millions from the company they had set up, and he has been held under those charges of a “private accuser” for a full year as the public prosecutor, Veronica Lipari, investigated.
Yesterday we heard from Gaspari that Lipari has now charged him formally, and a trial has been scheduled in three months.
In the meantime, he continues to search through records to prove his assertion that he wasn’t stealing from Duggan, and that he was following the plan that they, and Scientology, had set up: To funnel millions to the church from the profits of their enterprise.
In an example of that, he says, he found a really remarkable artifact that he sent us. It was a hand-made book put together by Gaspari’s “registrar,” a Scientology salesman named Tyler Pirak who was assigned to getting millions out of donors, and had put Gaspari and Duggan together to begin the investment scheme.
We’ve never really seen something like this before, but it confirms so much about what we’ve been learning about Scientology’s reliance on wealthy donors, and how those donors are coddled and groomed and pushed to donate more and more and more. The scrapbook documents how the Gasparis went from “Patron Meritorious” ($250,000) to “Diamond Meritorious” ($5 million) in just a few years with their donations to the International Association of Scientologists (IAS), the church’s membership organization and a fund for Miscavige to use for litigation and real estate projects.
The booklet includes a “proposal” that Gaspari reach the next level, “Diamond Meritorious With Honors” ($7.5 million) and offers a discount in order to help him achieve it.
Ivan Gaspari maintains his innocence and says he will be fighting at trial to prove that he did not steal from Trish Duggan. We have made multiple attempts to get statements from prosecutor Lipari, Trish Duggan, and her attorney Steven Hayes, and have received no responses.
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That booklet is actually nauseating. The cause and effect comparisons are so off the wall that a person would have to really want to believe to get them to align. It also shows that it is probably commonplace to stat push a person to their next level. I wonder if it is only when they are just in the lower levels or that’s how people rise through the statuses all the way up.
Scientology will do their best to figure out a way to demand a takedown of this article.
"Hero's Award" = 25% discount. HA!