From: bob@minton.org (Bob Minton)
Subject: The persecution of Jeff Schmidt by scientology
Date: 18 Aug 1999
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology

Who is Jeff Schmidt and why is he being attacked by scientology?

Jeff Schmidt is a close and dear friend of mine as well as a former business partner. In scientology jargon, those are his crimes and why he should be utterly destroyed. For the last two years scientology has been trying to do just that.

Jeff does not want this story told and I have for a very long time agreed to keep this information quiet. But scientology is effectively destroying Jeff, his family, his marriage and all of his friendships. scientology has harassed and intimidated everyone known to Jeff. Like me, most all of his friends have washed their hands of him because he is a marked man by scientology. His friends do not wish to incur the wrath of scientology. Jeff has pleaded with and at their behest urged me to sign a settlement agreement with scientology as recently as yesterday.

Scientology needs to understand that I am in this fight to the death--theirs or mine I will not settle with these scum until the fraud of hubbard is dead and buried. And, I swear scientology will die by the sword which they have wielded for far too long.

Back to Jeff.

When Peter Franks, the scieno London based pi, first got onto Jeff in London in late 1997, Jeff thought the best way to deal with him was to meet, talk, answer his questions and hope Franks would eventually leave him alone. Such was not to be the case and many months of talks took place. Jeff and his family (I might add that his family includes his wife and children, his parents who live in Clearwater, a brother who lives in a house on Jeff's estate in New Hampshire and his in-laws who live in Brunei) have been subjected to picketing at homes and offices, flyers, interference in business activities and constant harassment. I will not go into the details of this type of behavior by scientology because here on ars we seem to have allowed ourselves to become desensitized to the savagery of scientology's lack of moral standards. Instead, for the sake of brevity, I will broad brush the main harassment.

Jesse and I went to London in November, 1998 and met with Jeff. Peter Franks had been caught in a criminal act involving trying to obtain information about offshore financial matters in the Channel Islands related to Jeff. The detectives we had worked with in the US were workin with ex-Scotland Yard detectives and had unearthed this information. Scotland yard was willing to prosecute Franks but needed Jeff's full cooperation. He would not help us. He wanted nothing to do with scientology or this fight.

Sometime in late December or early January when Jeff was away from his office in London, someone broke into his office and copied every file he had--file cabinets full of stuff. In early March 1999, Peter Franks tells Jeff that his company and he personally will be audited by Inland Revenue - the IRS equivalent in England. The very next day, a letter arrives from Inland Revenue commencing a tax audit. Late March, Inland Revenue informs Jeff that someone has delivered anonymously 16 boxes of copies of files, which were in fact from Jeff's office (more files have been delivered to Inland Revenue since). I wonder who. The tax audits continue to this day.

In the meantime, Jeff's wife who at one time, while in Law school in London, took courses at the Tottenham Court Road Org, was being followed constantly. Jeff too was being followed but did not know it. Jeff was being told his phone was tapped, their house was broken into and that maid and children were held by armed robbers. His wife was scared. She was afraid of Scientology because of what she knew about them and because of what was happening to them she preceived that Scientology was responsible. Clearly they were responsible for some--maybe all--but she was afraid. She convinced Jeff that to be safe they should move to her father's house in Brunei. In early April, they took their kids from school in London and moved to Brunei.

Safety in Brunei? Not likely! Somehow, scientology pi, Peter Frank got the phone and fax numbers of Jeff and his father-in-law. Now, Jeff's father-in-law is the Minister of State for, I believe, Internal Security in Brunei to the Sultan of Brunei and before that was in the same position for the current Sultan's father. In other words a long time confidant to the powers that be in Brunei. Daily faxes went and still go to the father-in-law about Jeff and his ties to religious bigotry in the form of Bob Minton, criminal activities involving Jeff, Jesse Prince and me in money laudering operations and of course Jeff's criminal activities involving rape and pillaging of third world countries while Jeff, Selwyn Lewis (another former partner who lives in South Africa) and I were partners together. Since the files from Jeff's office had been copied, everybody Jeff was doing business with were contacted and told the same load of crap.

Some of you may remember the 14 page DA pack delivered by Peter Franks through the DC Org of Scientology in October, 1998 to Jeff and the Nigerian delegation at the IMF meeting in Washington D.C. In case you don't, I'm reposting it concurrent with this message. Part of the DA pack had the following comments about me and Selwyn Lewis as it relates to Nigeria:

Mr. Minton, along with Mr. Selwyn Lewis, accumulated his wealth through businesss transactions with Nigeria while it was under the tight grip of military dictatorship. This same dictatorship has actively prevented Nigeria from creating a democratic system in the country and has siphoned billions of dollars from its people through criminal deals.

Although one to the richest nations in Africa due to its petroleum output, Nigeria yet suffers from economic repression because of the greed and blatant financial mismanagement by its rulers and their international banker friends. The economic plight of the Nigerian people was created through a crushing debt to foreign banks as a result of the criminal actions of foreign capitalist who sought to exploit the people of Nigeria.

Persons such as Mr. Minton and Mr. Lewis later profited handsomely from Nigeria’s economic woes by further manipulation of the financial situation, creating a secondary market to trade the huge debt of the country. These secondary market financial dealings has not brought about an increase in prosperity for the citizens of the country and the economic crisis is acute. However, Minton and Mr. Lewis profited nicely and got out “while the going was good.”

Those who had the inside knowledge, and connections to government controlled financial institutions, benefited in the foreign debt trading business. But as events and statistics show, while millions of dollars were siphoned off in “commissions” and lenders were forced to write off huge losses, the leaders of Nigeria ignored the human suffering and misery of its average citizens. Minton’s money, made originally through dealings with corrupt government officials in Nigeria now pays to create an aura of hatred and an agenda of bigotry against minority religious groups.

Since October 1998, scientology and its pi's have been trying to “utterly destroy” Jeff’s reputation and business in Nigeria. PI’ S and scienos have visited Nigeria at least 6 times this year to cozy up to the newly elected civilian government. And, most importantly to paint scientology as the good guys and Jeff as some evil person who has looted Nigeria of money for years.

In the last couple of years, Jeff helped a European company who was sitting on several hundred million dollars of Russian trade debt on which Russia had defaulted a couple of years ago and worked out a deal with the Russian government so that the Russians gave the European company several hundredmillion dollars of debt owed to Russia by Nigeria. Therefore, the European company had eliminated its receivable from Russia and now had a receivable from Nigeria. Jeff invested heavily in the Nigerian debt with the European company and tied up a substantial amount of his net worth. Being the expert in the world in Nigerian debt trading, Jeff has to work out a way to get Nigeria to buy-back their debt at a discount. However, Jeff did not count on Scientology getting between him and the Nigerian government. And they have..

There is a huge amount of detail about what scientology has done in Nigeria to ruin Jeff and about the transaction in question, but the bottom line is that Jeff now stands to lose several tens of millions of dollars given the newly installed Nigerian government attitude towards him. It will wipe him out financially. It will also destroy much of his life and Scientology knows it.

Jeff has not lifted a finger to do anything to help me fight scientology. He has always been one of the most courageous and ethical known. Yet he is persecuted and near the brink of ruin because Scientology wants him to supply information to utterly destroy me.

I can assure you and Jeff that it is very hard to continue to fight scientology while this is happening to such a close friend. His family hates me and blames everything on me. Jeff blames me and pleads for me to stop. But, it is because of the pure unadulterated evil perpetuated by scientology that I cannot. For me, it will be a fight to the death---Scientology has truly turned me into a dedicated warrrior for a lifetime.

I am posting this chapter of scientology's Mafia and SS tactics so that media will take an interest in what scientology really does to critics and especially innocent bystandars in order to suppress free speech. If there is media interest, I hope I can convince Jeff to go public with the full ugly story of the type of tactics used by Scientology that landed the old GO scientologists and Mary Sue Hubbard in jail in the 70’s. Scientology continues to use these tactics and follow the GO policies today.

Just ask Jeff Schmidt!

Bob Minton