Criminal law, International, Religion, Society

Senior Scientology Figure Criminally Charged After Allegedly Telling Minor To Lie About Abuse

One of the most senior figures in Australia’s Church of Scientology has been criminally charged in a case of sexual abuse. Jan Eastgate is accused of encouraging a young girl to lie and deny allegations of sexual abuse in the church. In the meantime, another leading Church figure, Tom Cruse, is being sued in an action unconnected to the cases in Australia by ex-Scientologist, Peter Letterese, for $250 million under a RICO claim that includes allegations of bribing a judge.

The involvement of Eastgate is notable because she is the head of the church’s “International Commission on Human Rights” and was given the Church of Scientology’s Freedom Medal for her work against psychology treatments.

The mother and young girl, 11-year-old Carmen Rainer, said that Eastgate told the girl to provide false statements about sexual abuse by her stepfather. Rainer also said that senior Scientology members told her that the abuse was punishment for being bad in a previous life.

Another leading Scientologist, Carly Crutchfield , who is a television personality as well as developer, is under fire for alleged shady dealings in Australia. Her business seminars were previously criticized as fronts for recruiting people into Scientology.

The allegations against Eastgate have been cited by critics of the Church as a byproduct of the Church’s elevation of its own laws over those of society. The Church has its own legal system and includes such legal personalities as Fox News’ Greta Van Susteran.

Eastgate denies the allegations, which could present some challenging questions if the prosecutors are going to pursue allegations of other church leaders encouraging false testimony or discouraging cooperation. There is obviously a close analogy to the allegations of such misconduct in the Catholic Church.

The lawsuit against Cruise has a troubled history. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit previously rejected Letterese’s claims that the Church of Scientology used a business book, “Effective Sales Closing Techniques,” as part of its teachings in violation of his copyright. The court found the use was fair use. One is always a bit leery of lawsuits that pull in celebrities in this fashion who appear a bit tangential to the original claims. Indeed, Cruise features prominently in the video below that celebrates the filing and promise to share the proceeds with other ex-scientologists. The chances of that lawsuit appear quite low given the prior legal history.

Source: Australian

16 thoughts on “Senior Scientology Figure Criminally Charged After Allegedly Telling Minor To Lie About Abuse”

  2. In all honesty, the Letterese case is unimportant and probably not going anywhere.

    There are so many more important things for which Scientology could be exposed to a RICO prosecution. The Jan Eastgate case is just one of many such cover ups of sexual abuse. In the case of a cover up, unless one is talking about lying or criminally withholding info from the police, one is not necessarily talking about an actionable charge.

    Scientology specifically, by policy says “do not talk to the police, do not tell them the truth”. Jan Eastgate was implementing policy. There are many other crimes that stem from policy from the central command going out all over the world, not just with regard to sexual abuse but with regard to fraud, unlawful imprisonment, forced abortions, child labor, human trafficking, and much more.
    There is specific policy to lie and to destroy all attackers. There are multiple documented evidence of acts in futherance of the overall conspiracy, especially of following and harassing critics.

    There are many articles on the subject. But here is an interesting article from last year from someone who admitting to his part in the overall conspiracy.
    http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/919-l-ron-hubbards-dystopia-on-earth-a-scientologist-speaks-out.html

  3. @MK, agreed that there is nothing new under the sun in this respect. The difference between the church of scientology and the catholic church at the moment is that the catholic church appears to have learned its lesson with respect to formally trying to protect the church’s reputation at the expense of justice while the church of scientology has not.

    The concept of protecting the church at the expense of justice is however far more ingrained in to the church of scientology than the catholic church though because they have actual formal doctrines that promote and encourage the practice, the catholic church does not; the church of scientology sets itself up above all other considerations to a degree the catholic church has not done for hundreds of years if ever.

    I should point out I have no love for the catholic church, their doctrines are causing a lot of issues still, most notably in Africa with the AIDS epidemic.

  4. “The Church has its own legal system …”

    just like the catholic pedophile church centered in Rome…

    the beat goes on….. the beat goes on….

    nothing knew under the sun.

  5. Eastgate is one of the most senior scientologists in the world, not just Australia.

  6. The RICO case is unlikely to come to anything. As regards the cult of scientology it is unwise to under estimate them. They have an estimated $7000 million in cas reserves around the world. They also have zealous devotees who will put the cults agenda above any other oath or obligation; this is how the cult pulled off the largest infiltration of US Government ever. Cult adherents will break confidentialities and oaths for the cult because the cult justifies this as the greatest good for the greatest number of “dynamics”.

  7. As much as I believe the Church of Scientology is nothing more than a financial scam, my instincts reject the notion that the church is powerful enough to bribe a federal judge, a state court judge and a bankruptcy judge, particularly as part of a single conspiracy. On the other hand, I likewise find it difficult to believe that attorneys would publicly jeopardize their careers by making such allegations unless they had amassed a substantial amount of supporting evidence in advance. This may prove to be a very interesting case to follow.

  8. I agree with Tom that the RICO case is going to be a tough one, perhaps why it’s a private suit and not a public prosecution. Not saying it didn’t happen, circumstantial evidence suggests it or something like it did for all that’s worth (nada), but it’s going to be very hard to prove anything. I doubt the cult of scientology is loosing any sleep over it.

  12. This Australian case sounds unsurprising – potentially just an example of human nature and the nature of human organizations at work.

    But this Letterese/RICO/judicial bribery case sounds over-the-top. Proving RICO-style actions sounds difficult, but throwing in the idea that several judges accepted bribes and made decisions based on those bribes seems to set an impossibly high bar to get over. I wonder if Mr. Letterese’s lawyers are the serious-type or more PR/hype driven. (Given the claims and the one particular defendant, the latter seems more likely…)

  13. Just a final thought why would anyone suggest that other organised religions are up to fraud, extortion and conspiracy? Just because one organisation is guilty of such things doesn’t mean all organisations of the same type are doing it. That’s like saying all humans are guilty of murder just because some are. I do know however that the church of scientology is pushing the if you investigate us you might as well investigate all religions because we’re all the same trick. Way to win freinds and influence people.

  14. The RICO law suit is a red herring and doesn’t reflect on the merits of the charges against Eastgate whether the charges against Eastgate become the start of a wider investigation in to the cult of scIentology remain to be seen; in is not of the plan or is it?

    The affects such actions on the dangerous cult of scientology will largely depend on the cult itself, this has always been the case.

    It’s a huge conspiracy theory leap to think such actions will result in the end of organised religion. Just plain silly and not worth addressing further.

    The RICO case and the Eastgate charges are unconnected and certainly not part of some global action. The church of scientology is big enough and powerful enough that it shouldn’t be worried about such things but they are; their own paranoia and their own actions will be their undoing.

  15. BIL – you may be on to something there, if governments ever started prosecution churches for fraud, conspiracy and extortion it could be the end of all organized religion.

    I’d expect the wingnuts to try and repeal RICO if we started down this path.

  16. As seamus might say, “Xenu is not amused.”

    If the Catholic’s God can protect child molesters unpunished, why shouldn’t he be able to get the same deferential treatment?

Comments are closed.