A very happy winter solstice to our northern hemisphere readers, and to our antipodean friends, enjoy your summer! Once again it’s time to take stock of the year just past with our annual review, and there’s no doubt about it, this year really delivered!
A second criminal trial for Danny Masterson resulted in a conviction, and he’s been sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. And throughout the process, Scientology and its miserable policies of blaming victims really took a beating.
On the civil side, however, Scientology once again has befuddled American judges, and we go into 2024 with new lawsuits and more opportunities for the courts to wake up.
David Miscavige, meanwhile, finished the year by resurrecting the IAS gala in England and the New Year’s event in Los Angeles. So, no doubt from the church’s perspective, it’s been a banner year.
As usual, we covered a lot of different topics in the world of Scientology this year, and as is our custom, we’ll be reviewing a different month each day until December 31 when we wrap up our look back at November and December. At that point we’ll also reveal our picks for our favorite 20 stories of the year.
Of course, we won’t stop reporting the news over the next ten days, but we hope you enjoy our look through the archives. So here we go. First up, the stories of January 2023…
THE STORIES OF JANUARY
We started off the new year with a new project we called Group Therapy. Each week, we discuss the latest Scientology news with some of our favorite Underground Bunker denizens, and send it out to our subscribers to thank them for supporting the work we do here.
We said goodbye to Jerry Whitfield, who, with his wife Hana, had helped so many people leave Scientology and recover from its mind-warping indoctrination. He was 77.
Danny Masterson, hoping to get out of a second trial after his first criminal trial ended in a hung jury, moved to have charges thrown out, in part based on the interview we had done of the first jury’s foreman. It didn’t work.
In our podcast, Karen de la Carriere told us that her former husband, Scientology’s longtime nominal president and mouthpiece, Heber Jentzsch, is now in a nursing home somewhere. We still haven’t located him, however.
On January 10, Danny Masterson learned that the District Attorney planned to retry him in a second criminal trial, and we were in the courtroom. We immediately felt for the women, who would have to testify and go through cross-examination all over again.
Then, just two days later, the devastating news that Lisa Marie Presley had died. She had been willing to testify in Masterson’s initial criminal trial about how Scientology had asked her to dissuade Jane Doe 1 from going to the LAPD, but Judge Charlaine Olmedo had not allowed it. With Judge Olmedo allowing in more Scientology evidence in the second trial, would she have also changed her mind about Lisa Marie’s testimony? Sadly, we’ll never know.
At our podcast, we made public for the first time a recording of an interview we did with Ron Miscavige before he died about his daughter-in-law, Shelly Miscavige.
Meanwhile, in Florida, David Miscavige’s attorneys were turning themselves into pretzels trying to argue why the church leader shouldn’t be included in a labor trafficking lawsuit there, and Mark Bunker provided us an eyewitness account of it.
We always enjoy hearing from film reviewer Luke Y. Thompson, and in January we asked him what were the odds that Tom Cruise would get to take home an Oscar as a producer on Top Gun: Maverick.
And then on January 30, one of our biggest stories of the year: We revealed that in 2015 we had talked at length with Lisa Marie Presley about her involvement in Scientology, about her marriage to Michael Jackson, and so much more. She described in minute detail the battle she had gone through with David Miscavige and his sisters when she left Scientology for good in October 2014, and that she had definitely taken her mother Priscilla and her daughter Riley out with her. She was so fun to talk to, and what she had to say about Miscavige was simply amazing.
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2022: More proof of the “Chase Wave,” including a check. A bizarre Mannequin Challenge, filmed by members of the Miscavige family. Danny Masterson’s new lawyers were sending out aggressive process servers. We noted the passing of a journalist who had been outed as a paid agent for Scientology. An appellate court overturned a lower court ruling restoring the civil lawsuit filed by Danny Masterson’s accusers.
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2021: The Whales getting Scientology through the pandemic. We start up The Lowdown, a place to discuss politics. Never-before-seen photos of a celebrity-soaked mission opening. Danny Masterson pleads not guilty to rape charges and his case is assigned to Judge Charlaine Olmedo. Chris Owen goes deep on Scientology in Russia (part 1, part 2, part 3).
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2020: Scientology arch spy Henning Heldt died, and we looked back at his infamous career. Sonya Bianchi, the original ‘Clear,’ died at 92. Brian Statler’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit over his fatal shooting by Inglewood police. Cedric Bixler-Zavala accused Scientology of poisoning his dog. Judge Richard Burdge granted Scientology’s motion to force Valerie Haney’s lawsuit into “religious arbitration.”
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2019: Leah Remini’s ‘Aftermath’ series featured episodes on Paul Burkhart and Bert Schippers, Heather Ruggieri and Carol Nyburg, and a two-parter on the city of Clearwater. Scientology tried to pin a frightening stabbing death at the Advanced Org in Sydney on Leah. A new Advanced Org opened in South Africa. And Chris Shelton interviewed a new defector, Bree Mood, who said that Sea Org women are still being forced to get abortions.
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2018: Chris Owen delivered on the mysteries of L. Ron Hubbard and his parents. We printed revelations about Joy Villa from her ex-boyfriend and her ex-manager. We weighed in on Xenu or Xemu. Katrina Reyes finally got to tell her story of disconnection. Former Scientology spy Cierra Westerman came forward.
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2017: Brandon Reisdorf was featured on Aftermath. The LAPD snubbed Leah Remini. Marc Headley revealed that he was “bedsheet Jesus.” Billionaire Scientologist Trish Duggan made the scene at Trump’s inaugural. And Bernie Headley inspired us to start our ‘disconnected’ list.
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2016: A local police chief gets played by Scientology, but later thinks better of it. Researcher R.M. Seibert gets the lowdown on how Scientology is using ‘religious’ visas to bring in foreign workers. Karen de la Carriere gets a nasty letter from a Scientology attorney.
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2015: Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, and we were there. Scientology had taken out full-page ads in major newspapers attacking Gibney before the film debuted. And it made predictable attacks afterwards. And in a new release of old documents, John McMaster, the world’s first true “Clear,” revealed that L. Ron Hubbard expected to come back as his daughter Diana’s child.
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2014: We posted the Tommy Davis deposition from the Monique Rathbun lawsuit. Scientology’s own attorney discussed David Miscavige’s “black heart” in open court. Barbara Cordova Oliver went missing. Jefferson Hawkins wrapped up his series on Scientology “ethics.”
A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 2013: Lawrence Wright’s epic book Going Clear debuted, as did John Sweeney’s book, Luis and Rocio Garcia filed their federal fraud lawsuit, and Atlantic magazine screwed up big time.
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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
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When will the courts see that $cieno 'contracts' that require their 'arbitration' are null and void? It will take some deliberate footwork to get any court to see the abuse of the arbitration system and boil the wily clam.
I don't know how Tony finds all of his stories, but keep up the good work. The ASC needs its scribe and per-emininit researcher.
Tony, I applaud your consistently high quality reporting for yet another year. I intend to re-up my subscription. You are more than a journlist you are a creative writer with a caring, altruistic purpose. I’m grateful that I stumbled onto you at the Village Voice 12 years ago. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.