Q&A: Bob Minton and Steve Hassan

Before the Leo J Ryan Educational Foundation (CultINFO), 3/17/2000

Transcribed by Xenubat (Sue M.)

  
BOB MINTON: Steve and I would be happy to take any questions that anyone has.

STEVE HASSAN (off camera): How did you hear about Lisa McPherson?

BOB MINTON: Well, uh, Lisa--Steve asked about Lisa McPherson. Anybody who would prefer to write their questions, that's fine, or you can stand up and ask them openly if you don't have any problems with that.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN (off camera):Bob, we'd prefer to have the questions written.

BOB MINTON: Oh, okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: If that's okay--

BOB MINTON: Yeah, that's fine. Well, can I just go with that one?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Sure--

BOB MINTON: --just wanted to ask.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: [unintelligible]

BOB MINTON: Yeah. Um, as you know, the--there have been several interesting developments in the Lisa McPherson case. One of the--one of the interesting developments was a couple of months ago. Um, the local Scientologists in Clearwater gave to us the form letter that they were asked to complete by Kendrick Moxon. He was the one coordinating this thing, who is one of their in-house attorneys who handles, you know, any situation where they need a shady attorney (laughter). Well, Moxon sent out this form letter to Scientologists in Clearwater, said to basically start filling the blanks and sign an affidavit that as a result of the Lisa McPherson case, these, uh, these local Scientologists, their businesses were affected, their relationships with their families was affected, they were being persecuted as a result of the state of Florida prosecuting the Church of Scientology about the death of Lisa McPherson. Well, we got those early on, you know, we know that those things were also delivered to the prosecutor, we posted them on the Internet, um, and sure enough, last week, I guess it was, 200 letters were delivered to the prosecutor from Scientologists who have been damaged severely as a result of the prosecution over Lisa McPherson. So this was all part of the church's attempt to have the state of Florida drop its, uh, charges against Scientology because of the perse--the religious persecution that is occurring. Well, we'll see what happens on that. Nobody knows what will happen on that but I doubt that they're gonna drop their pros--their prosecution of the case.

The--the other thing of significance that happened was that, uh, Joan Wood, the medical examiner, changed her, um--the results of the autopsy. There were four possible causes of death to be listed on that autopsy; they were homicide, suicide, uh, accidental or unexplained. Those were the only four possibilities. Previously the, uh, autopsy report had said, "unexplained". Okay? It was changed to "accidental". That's really all--I mean, the, the, the dehydration question was somewhat put down on the revised autopsy report, but the--in terms of the major cause of death, but all of the tests that have been done subsequently at the request of the Church of Scientology have shown--have upheld the original medical results in terms of analyzing the vitreous fluid. And two subsequent tests were done and both of those were the same or slightly higher than the original tests. So the dehydration factor is still very clear there. You know, Scientology trotted out and called up its medical experts, one of which is a guy named Cyril Wecht, who was responsible for doing the autopsy on the alien in Roswell, New Mexico; you might remember he was also on the O.J. Simpson team. And basically, you can buy any medical opinion you want in this country if you're prepared to pay a high enough price to get 'em to look at it the way you want. And sure enough they did this and the medical examiner, after three years of being bombarded by the Church of Scientology and its medical experts, did change the, the opinion. Uh, not significantly, and I don't think it'll affect the criminal case--it certainly won't affect the civil case. So, you know, the civil case with any luck will go to trial some time this fall. So (reaching over and taking some notes handed to him) here are some more questions

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Some of those may be for Steve; I didn't know if he was coming in for the conference or not.

BOB MINTON: Okay. All right.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: [unintelligible]

BOB MINTON: Okay. Well, here's from our, uh, this could be from our psychology friends given the question, but it's a good question: "Why is the Lisa McPherson Trust a for-profit company?" It's a really good question. The Lisa McPherson Trust is a for-profit corporation in Florida because we do not wish to be transparent in terms of who supports our organization, and that's the basic reason. You know, we--how, how is it possible for us to make money? We don't even charge people that we help get their money back from the Church of Scientology for it. It's a pleasure to help them for free. So we don't want our donor list to be visible to the Church of Scientology. The Church of Scientology is already trying in court cases to have us--three times they've tried so far--to have us put forward our financials to the Church of Scientology's attorneys, and it hasn't happened and I doubt that it ever will.

STEVE HASSAN: I should just say that in the first printing of the book regarding [unintelligible] its second printing, I err--I made an error and wrote that it was non-profit. So the next printing it will be corrected, lest anybody accuse me of deceptively representing a--or representing the situation. It's just that time was before you were incorporating I thought it was gonna be non-profit [unintelligible]

BOB MINTON: Did you actually make a reference to it and say "non-profit"?

STEVE HASSAN: I did in the footnotes.

BOB MINTON: Oh, I didn't realize that and I actually--

STEVE HASSAN: I did--

BOB MINTON: I didn't realize that--

STEVE HASSAN: That's why I'm correcting it publically.

BOB MINTON: Okay--

STEVE HASSAN: My fault, my error.

BOB MINTON: Well, it's my fault, really, because our intentions were to make it a non-profit corporation but then when we got into all the intricacies of that and we saw what the filing requirements were, we decided that a for-profit would be a better way to keep intelligence away from the Church of Scientology.

STEVE HASSAN: Okay, there was also a typo in your e-mail address too. (laughter).

BOB MINTON: (putting his arm around Steve's shoulders) He's forgiven, all is forgiven! (more laughter)

STEVE HASSAN: The Lisa McPherson Trust, or lisamcpherson.org if you want more information about this case. There's a lot more Bob has to say, he supposed everyone knew about the substance of her being held for 17 days, that she repeatedly asked to be let out, wasn't let out, was given all kinds of treatment that they are saying were religious but in fact they were medical, when she was brought to the hospital they bypassed several hospitals. I mean, there's a lot of factual things here of great concern.

BOB MINTON: Well, I, I would hope that most people here know something about the Lisa McPherson case but one, one interesting aspect of this case is, that I've noticed recently, is the prosecutors and their most significant memorandum to the court--um, you know, the Church of Scientology has said all along that this woman was on the, the religious--she was getting religious services. Well, in the deposition that all the Scientologists first gave and then secondly changed after they were given immunity from prosecution that it admitted lying under oath, it now confirmed that Lisa McPherson was not under any sort of religious treatment of any kind. They were just trying to get her on to this Introspection Rundown, but she wasn't able to do any auditing and therefore they couldn't even start her on it, on this thing. So one of the interesting aspects of that is that the Church of Scientology tried to get the court to rule that Scientology was a religion. The court said, you know, "Well, what does that have to do with anything? We don't wanna--it's not our issue to, to decide whether you're a religion." And basically Mr. Dandar in the civil case has gone, you know, very hard on this with the help of attorneys in California to basically say that if she wasn't getting any religious services, what does the issue of religion have at all to do with this case? And I think that that will--the judge has seen that that is not a factor here and has declined to rule on that issue at all.

STEVE HASSAN: Okay. See if can use this mike here--

BOB MINTON: Sure.

STEVE HASSAN: I'm not gonna read the entire question because it's very long, but it's what, what can you offer to a family whose son is in a one-on-one domination relationship and such, and the family has tried a lot of different things. Well, one of the--one of the hallmarks of, of my approach that I'm, um, promoting is keeping a [unintelligible] approach is create a team of concerned people, whether it's other siblings, cousins, former high school coaches, ministers, whoever, that cares about the person, and educate them and encourage them to create a relationship or start up a relationship again with the individual. Sometimes, especially in small groups or one-on-one groups, uh, the whole family is cut off, but if there was a former co-worker or, or a friend or whatever, I mean, it's not perceiving to be attacking the relationship, something can take place. Um, I try to think very practically about what little steps can be taken to move forward to the goal, and the goal is to help empower people to have a choice and to, to grow and to learn. And, um, sometimes in protracted, in protracted cases, there are protracted cases that go on and on and there seems to be no movement, any movement was some movement. And I've actually suggested in some cases for a family member or a friend to approach whoever it is being the influence, whoever is the dominator or the controller, and ask for their help. Um, which is, you know, shocking, because they're the ones who are creating the problem. However, typically the person who is doing, doing the controlling, they think they're righteous in their control; they think they're justified in their control. And so if, if an approach is made, again it has to be done strategically but if an approach is made to say, "Hey, I know you care about him or her, help us. The family is having counseling, please come to the family counseling. Let's create a dialogue". Something that moves the case forward as opposed to just doing nothing and hoping. The other side of it is is what, there's call for action and you are intent of being someone who never had a cult problem yourself but you saw the, the destruction--

BOB MINTON: I've got one down in mind (laughter)

STEVE HASSAN: But, I saw the destruction, I've gotta do something about this and I can do something about it and therefore I will do something about it. Every cult member you ever meet is somebody's son or daughter, is somebody's brother or sister. Somewhere. And some family somewhere else in the world, maybe it's, uh, a Japanese family whose loved one was shipped over to the U.S. 20 years ago and, uh, and they're now inviting you to come to a Unification event--they're somebody's daughter. And you have a chance to talk to them at least--whatever moment you have, make a connection, let them know that the outside world isn't evil and everyone isn't against them, and talk with them and ask them about them, what they want and what their hopes and their dreams are. And, and do something that can create a bridge. And I'm hoping also for those families who are, don't know where their kids are and they haven't for years--with the Internet we can post pictures and we can keep our eye out; especially some, some of these cults where their names are changed and they disappear, the Garbage Eaters and such, the Jim Roberts group. We can try to create networks of people who are concerned, that are willing to make an effort to reach out and help. Those are a few problems [unintelligible].

BOB MINTON: Just, we're remodeling our building down in Clearwater and we're gonna have an all-glass front. On both sides of the building there's a central hallway and both sides will be all glass. One of the purposes of that is to allow particularly on one side for people to, to be able to see anybody who walks by the building. We'll have--we'll have a real L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibit (scattered laughter)--I don't know if anybody's ever seen the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibit in Los Angeles. But we'll tell the true story. We'll have original material from the Church of Scientology there. We are already building a substantial archive. If somebody wants to see a real document in L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting, we've got them. They can come look at them, they can find out what the truth is about this man that they so revere. Um, on the other side, you know, we'll have a whole multiMedia room where we'll have every video, every Real Video that's been on the Internet, every television show that's ever been produced anywhere in the world available for anybody to come in and see. We'll have books to lend out to people in the community; we already have a sizable library and it's growing, and we've got--we were fortunate enough to acquire 2,000 copies (holds up a copy of Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves by Steve Hassan) of this book right off the bat for our library (applause) and for--

STEVE HASSAN: And also for-- (laughter)

BOB MINTON: And for selling, too, even! But, you know, I can tell you, I had the pleasure of reading this book back in September, I think it was, and it was just--I was just overwhelmed by it and, you know, especially for a layperson like me who has, is learning, having never having been in a cult, and learning a lot about it and [???] learning stuff about it--this is a real, real help for me and it, it gave me a real insight into how people like Bill and Lauren, Bill and Lauren Goldberg, how they do their job, how Steve does his job and so many others who are out there, you know, extracting people from these organizations that--

STEVE HASSAN: Empowering people.

BOB MINTON: Empowering people, that's right. And in case, there are some more questions here. It says, "Can you elaborate on the circumstances of Lisa McPherson's death?" Um, I assume that--you know, I do make the assumption, maybe Steve is right, that people do know about, that I think that people do know about her death and the circumstances, but maybe some of you don't. Basically, what happened with Lisa McPherson was that, uh, she had--she went Clear in Scientology, I believe it was in, um, July of 1995. And this, of course, is sort of the ultimate, it's one of the ultimate steps in Scientology. There's always another ultimate step and of course each step costs money and therefore you've gotta keep the treadmill going. But this is a very important one within the organization.

And Lisa continued to have lots of problems from July 1995 through November. And the week before she was--on November 18, she was actually taken in to the Fort Harrison Hotel for a 17-day stay, but in the week before that, I'll tell you a little story that may give you some insight into how desperate this woman was and how potentially--and how clearly she was in Scientology as a major public relations risk Lisa went with four other people--three other people from the AMC Publishing Company, which is run by one of the most Nazi-like women I've ever seen, a woman named Bennetta Slaughter. And (clears throat) Bennetta runs and owns this company and she sent Lisa and these other three people down to a trade show in Orlando. And Lisa was having all kinds of emotional problems during the drive down there, during the stay, she couldn't sleep at night. She was, uh--she was saying weird things to people that she never knew, she was talking about, you know, the world coming to an end and, uh, that, you know, you had to read Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, you know, just walking up to people that she never met at this trade show. One night she was so desperate, uh, that at 3 o'clock in the morning she jumped on a friend of hers who she was staying in a room with--about 20 years, a girl that she knew from Dallas from the time she was like 16 years old. And she, she jumps on top of her at 3 o'clock in the morning and she's holding the girl's hands with her hands, holding her down on the bed--"Please help me, please help me, you've gotta help me get through this! I'm not going to make it!" Well, this girl decided with her two colleagues the next morning that they had to take Lisa back to Clearwater, that (clears throat) that she couldn't stay in Orlando for the weekend because she was--she was not in present time. She was--she was losing it; she was having some psychological problems, she was an embarrassment, they couldn't let her stay there. They drove her back, her friends, supposed friends--drove her back to Clearwater and delivered her into the hands of her Ethics Officer at AMC Publishing.

The next day she's taken into the Fort Harrison Hotel and stays for 17 days. She's held against her will. Well, here's the key thing--what happened is, the first--what happened is that Lisa got into a minor traffic accident. The theory is that Lisa escaped from the Fort Harrison Hotel after she was taken in earlier in the day. She got into this minor traffic accident. She wasn't hurt. The medics, you know, examined her but they wouldn't take her to the hospital even though she said she wanted to go to the hospital, and the reason she wanted to go was she needed to talk to somebody. But she wasn't hurt so they didn't, they wouldn't do it. So they get back in their ambulance and she begins to take off her clothes and starts walking down the street naked. Now this is a Scientology Clear doing this in Clearwater, Florida. Now can you imagine for the Church of Scientology how somebody who achieved the state of Clear going down a street naked in Clearwater must look as an embarrassment to this organization? Well, that's really what it was all about, and that's why she ended up staying for 17 days, or being put into the Fort Harrison Hotel again.

Now, one good question I get asked a lot is, "Okay, well she went to the hospital, they did take her to the hospital finally, but she voluntarily agreed to go back to the Fort Harrison with her friends from Scientology." Well, have you ever heard of an abused wife who gets the police on her husband, they come and "Oh, everything is fine", you know, "Oh, no, there's no problem, there's no problem." You know, it's this type of total control that, that an abusive organization has over an individual, that caused Lisa McPherson to voluntarily, without raising any objections whatsoever, to go back to the Fort Harrison Hotel and be held against her will for 17 days, to be dehydrated, to have cockroach bites all over her body. I mean, the, the medical experts now call these places on her body "cockroach feeding sites". Now imagine that this girl had to be in a coma while this was going on. I mean, how do you allow cockroaches to feed on your skin unless you're severely incapacitated? So those are the only things that I can elaborate on. There are a lot of autopsy photographs that have not been released. Um, they have been seen--there are people even in this room, or at least one person in this room who has actually seen those photographs, the ones that haven't been released. Uh, there's at least two other people I know of who have seen 'em going back two years ago. But they show some pretty grim conditions of this woman's body that, that Scientology does not want the public to see.

STEVE HASSAN: And she repeatedly asked to leave, did she not, at the beginning of her stay there?

BOB MINTON: She--

STEVE HASSAN: It was written in the records.

BOB MINTON: Yeah, she--not only at the beginning, but in the middle of her stay. But by the end of her stay, you know, they did lose the last three days worth of records. Um, they just--Scientology did some meticulous document keeping but they lose the last three days of records for her stay at the Fort Harrison Hotel. And it's just ludicrous.

(reading question)It says, "What kinds of threats did Scientology make to members of the Lisa McPherson Trust?" No, no direct threats, um, but they make it really clear that we're not welcome in their town. Um, I think it was in the paper, one of the interesting quotes--one day I came to Clearwater and these Scientology girls met me at the airport, "What are you doing in our town?" And I said, uh, "Maybe this used to be your town but we're here to help liberate it." (laughter)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Robert, you should tell them about what happened to Mark.

BOB MINTON: Well, yeah. Now, there are some--yes, I'm sorry. (pointing to camera Mark Bunker, who is the man behind that big camera there. Uh, Mark is--Mark really deserves some recog--special recognition here because Mark has been a leader on the Internet in putting video material on the Internet for all to see. Um, www.xenutv.com is his site.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: X-e-n-u TV.

BOB MINTON: Dot com, right. Mark has digitized every television show you can imagine that's ever, uh, been on about Scientology, and, and there are many other things on there that don't have anything to do with Scientology. For example, we put "The Wave" on there, too, so everybody could see it, and a few others, a few other classics. But, uh, Scientology has--Mark went up to Chicago about a month or so ago, six weeks ago, to interview two dentists who were scammed out of so much money that you couldn't believe it. And they were upset and they wanted to talk about it on video, in the process of getting their money back from the Church of Scientology. Well, there's--there are a few things that, you know, there are really a few things that Scientology hates really bad. Number one, getting money out of the organization and number two, getting a human being out of the organization. They go after you in a significant way in either area.

Well, Mark was going out there to get this story on film, along with many other original documentaries that he's done about people in Scientology or experiences in Scientology and let the American Dental Association or anyone else who wanted to see this on Xenu-TV have, have a look at what happened to these two fine people in Chicago. Well, Mark goes with these people to the Chicago org one night when they're going inside to collect some checks from Scientology. Mark's standing on a public sidewalk with the, the other two people--the two dentists, husband and wife--standing on the sidewalk in front of the Scientology property; Mark was actually back a little bit from the sidewalk. Well, as soon as he gets there and starts filming, these two as it turns out off-duty police officers from the Chicago Police Department, out of uniform, come running out of the Church of Scientology building, grab Mark's arms--one grabbed one arm, one grabbed his other arm with the camera in it--and throws him to the ground. And he gets arrested and rough him up! He gets arrested for criminal trespassing. He wasn't--I mean, the dentists have told their story on videotape on what happened there, it's nothing to do with Mark even remotely being on Scientology property.

Well, now you would think that would be something that, uh, that would eventually get dismissed by the prosecutors in Chicago. Mark had a videotape of the whole event of them running out of the place and here is the video and the audio of what happened to him. Well, Mark went to Chicago this week on Wednesday; he went for a pretrial hearing. He gets there and four Scientology attorneys, together with four Scientologists from the Chicago org, are lined up in the courtroom, who have been chewing the prosecutor's ear all morning, and the prose--the Scientology attorneys are lead by Elliott Abelson. Now, Elliott Abelson, for, for 20 years worked for the Mafia. He defended the Mafia in New York in the [???] investigation cases. His next client after the Mafia was the Church of Scientology. Well, Elliott is one of the nastiest guys they've got because of his connections in organized crime. So now he's in Chicago, all of a sudden he's the attorney helping the Church of Scientology get the prosecutor to add three more charges against Mark. You won't believe these charges--battery on a police officer is one of the charges. Uh, resisting arrest, causing a public disturbance.

I mean, what Mark has done for the world, really, is he has made--he has shown Scientologists being Scientologists. When I say that, what I mean is he has shown Sea Org people, OSA people being Scientologists. As I said, I would imagine that 90-95% of the Scientologists are good, decent people, but there is this element within Scientology that needs to be ousted, and those are the type of people running the types of operations that they did on Mark Bunker, uh, and others that, you know, cause us some degree of grief. So.

STEVE HASSAN: What I'd say is, but also just to say that, uh, you know, if you sign a billion-year contract, you know, to work for a group for this lifetime and a billion years ahead, you're gonna be very committed. And, um, um, I can tell you, I left the Moonies in 1976 but my reference point was 1976, and if I was told that, that, uh, Satan was trying to, you know, destroy the true family and I had to go after, so, I was trained in martial arts in the Moonies; it's the same kind of thinking of the ends justify the means, I think, um, a red flag. Um, I have three questions I'll try to combine. Um, one question about educating health professionals. The person writes, uh, they're very discouraged because they've never found a mental health professional who knows about cults. And with managed care, it's impossible to get even more people, mental health professionals, to take on, um, patients. And another question about, um, what if you have any tips on a church with a rigid, closed hierarchy that has abusive situations, how to try to deal with that so that they don't close ranks and it gets worse. And then someone, must be a friend, said, "How can we get the word out about the book" (laughter) I swear I didn't ask this question! (more laughter) but I had--I had to [???] and I thought, "How can I answer this question?".

The truth of the matter is, I wrote this book for several core audiences. One of them are family members and friends who have a loved one involved in a cult; but secondarily and primarily, mental health professionals and clergy and people helping, helping professionals, professions as well as academics. And, um, how can you get the word out about the book? I'd say, start by reading it and, and thinking about it is that I'm saying and what you like about it and what you don't like about it and what you agree with and what you don't agree with. And if you like it--Bob really liked it, I'm happy to say--get some copies, get them to mental health professionals, donate it to your libraries or, you know, start a--an awareness program. I'm certainly gearing up to do Media, so if you are aware of places for me to come and speak, I'll certainly, you know--I wanna go around the country and teach people about this approach, people wanna learn how to be an activist and, and what to say if they're on a picket line or whatever, um, and I'd like to, uh, encourage people, if you like the book, then tell people about it; if you're on the Internet, tell people on the chat rooms or Amazon.com, whatever. If you have a choice to buy or telling people to buy the book at Amazon or my site, please come to my site, freedomofmind.com, if you're on the Web. It'll help to defray some of the costs faster. Um, and, uh, my hope is that we get enough religious leaders to stand up together to say, look, you know, we need to uphold human rights, and we have to uphold additionally that people have a choice to belong to a group or choose not to belong to a group, and that any group, just because they say that they're a religion, um, need to be held accountable for their behavior. There needs to be checks and balances. There needs to be some, some organizations that people can, can turn to to say, uh, "Help". And I'm hoping that, after it's said, that Bob and other former members and they can be on the Leo J. Ryan Foundation, "yeah" to [???] (applause) And let's work together to create awareness. And that's, that's my response. Because I think that we will be able to, uh, exert pressure on any group that wants to keep their tax-exempt status or wants to have good PR, they're gonna have to reform if they hope to, to, uh, gain new members. Otherwise it'll be like Scientology losing members--losing, losing, losing, losing members.

BOB MINTON: There's one final question here that I'd like to answer. It says, "What help would you like from us? What can we do to help your organization increase awareness in Scientology?" Well, the first thing that I would like to say--and this is specifically aimed at the Leo J. Ryan Educational Foundation--putting on an org--an event like this is a really, really important thing. It is, from my own experience, and maybe some share that, it is sometimes lonely fighting these types of organizations. You, you become isolated and in fact in Scientology, one of their policies is to isolate you as an individual from all possible areas of support--emotional support, human support. Um, and all of us here, um, are kind of in the same type of, quote, business, of helping people. And I think what we can do to help each other best--and I am very bad at this, but, you know, this gives me the opportunity to challenge myself to reform--is that we need to be more in communication with each other. And, you know, I know that I, I think, especially last year when I came here to this conference, you know, all of us who are now with the Lisa McPherson Trust were part of FACTNet then. And, you know, we were in the middle of a long battle with Scientology. Um, we were being bashed on the Internet at that time. Um, we were involved--I, particularly, was involved--in the situation in terms of uncovering the Scientology spy that made the situation very uncomfortable for me, personally. Um, but meeting--or coming here with this group of people really made an incredible difference in my personal perception of how this community of, of people who are concerned about other human beings works. And it, it really recharged me last year, as I'm sure it will this year. And, you know, I, I thank everybody here for, for doing that for each other all the time and I think we just need to be in closer contact as the year goes on. Thank you. (applause).

STEVE HASSAN: Thank you. (more applause

UNIDENTIFIED MAN (on camera): There is absolutely nothing I can say to follow the incredible presentation that we just had. We want to thank both of those people for speaking tonight, tell you that we hope that you are aware that you are not alone. Um, and all the people here I think share that sentiment. Can we have a round of applause for these two? (applause) We appreciate all of you coming, for being here, and, uh, I think we've got a good lineup for you in the morning and, uh, I think the only thing I can say is we look forward to seeing you at 9 o'clock. Take care. (applause)

 

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