II) Characteristics Of The Reported Organizations and Individuals

Church of Scientology International (CSI)

The Church of Scientology (CSI) is a non-profit corporation from Los Angeles, California. It was originally incorporated on November 19th, 1981 [Exh. No. 6]. The official address of CSI is 6331 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028.

CSI's corporative agent is its in-house attorney Jeanne M. Gavigan from the law firm Moxon & Kobrin, 3055 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 900, Los Angeles, CA 90010.

On its website CSI portrays itself as the "mother church of the Scientology religion" which exercises "ecclesiastical" control over its subordinate organizations, so-called "Scientology churches" and "missions" [Exh. No. 7]. The website states specifically:

"CSI provides ecclesiastical guidance to organizations, missions and groups and the broad planning and direction needed to advance Scientology around the world. [ ... ] As the mother church for the religion, CSI ensures that all Scientology churches [ ... ] operate in a coordinated manner to achieve the broader aims of Scientology."

For a further explanation of the functions and activities of CSI and other Scientology organizations I refer to my affidavit from February 25th, 2002 that describes in detail the structure of the organization, its activities and the belief system of Scientology in general.

Church of Scientology of Boston, Inc.

The "Church of Scientology of Boston, Inc." is registered as a religious corporation in Boston, Massachusetts [Exh. No. 8]. The organization was originally incorporated on December 1st, 1969.

The official address of the organization is 448 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02115. It has listed as its president Gerard Renna, who is at the same time a member of the "Office of Special Affairs" network.

The organization in Boston is part of the hierarchical, "ecclesiastical" system of Scientology. As a so-called "Class V organization" it is subordinate to CSI, the "mother church", and receives orders from its various management units in California. The Boston organization sells and delivers various basic Dianetics and Scientology courses to its public members. It also tries to attract new members and is disseminating via the Internet [Exh. No. 9].

While it is considered within the Scientology hierarchy as a "service organization," the "Scientology Church of Boston" also accommodates a unit of the "Office of Special Affairs" (OSA), which is responsible for all legal matters, public relations and investigations of its perceived enemies. The OSA branch of Boston is supervised by the "Office of Special Affairs International" (OSA Int.) in Los Angeles, which is part of CSI.

Michael Rinder

Michael Rinder is a corporate director of CSI and the "Commanding Officer" of the "Office of Special Affairs International" (OSA Int.), the intelligence unit within CSI [Exh. No. 10, Excerpt]. His official address is 6331 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 1200, Los Angeles, CA 90028.

As head of the OSA network Rinder is responsible for supervising and directing all public relations, legal and intelligence matters within the worldwide network of Scientology organizations [Exh. No. 11].

Elliot Jay Abelson

Elliot Abelson is an attorney from Los Angeles, California. His official address is 8491 West Sunset Boulevard # 1100, Los Angeles CA 90069 [Exh. No. 12].

Abelson has been a general counsel for CSI for several years, mostly working for the organization as a media spokesperson or for out-of-court matters [Exh. No. 13].

Before representing the Church of Scientology he had been a lawyer for the pornography industry since the early seventies. During the famous MIPORN investigation Abelson defended Louis and Joseph Peraino and other well-known and mob-affiliated pornography producers in the government-initiated racketeering cases.

Prior to working for the pornography industry he had been an assistant district attorney for the County of Los Angeles until 1971 (This information has been retrieved from a quoted article of "Parade" magazine, 1979).

Robert S. Minton

Robert S. Minton is a retired investment banker from New Hampshire. Since the summer of 1998 his official residential address is 137 Fremont Road, Sandown, NH 03873, prior to that time he principally lived at 39 West Cedar Street, Boston, MA 02114.

During the 1980s and until 1993 Minton worked in the field of debt trading for third world countries. From 1988 until 1992 Minton and his business partner Jeffrey Schmidt supervised a major debt buy-back operation for the government of Nigeria.

During the 1980s Minton founded together with Schmidt several corporations, including the Boston company "Triolet International" [Exh. No. 14]. Lisa McPherson Trust, Inc. (LMT)

The "Lisa McPherson Trust, Inc." (LMT), a for-profit and now defunct company, was set up by Robert Minton on October 18th, 1999 in Florida [Exh. No. 15]. Its initial agent and later president became Minton's girlfriend and former Scientologist Stacy Brooks. The official address of the LMT was 33 North Fort Harrison Avenue, Clearwater, FL 33755. During the year 2000 the LMT was manned with 5 full-time employees and about the same number of part-time staff members.

While honoring the name of Lisa McPherson, the former mentioned Scientologist who had died at Scientology's headquarters in Clearwater in 1995, the LMT was mainly established by Minton and Brooks to function as a clearing house to help Scientologists who thought about leaving the organization, to give ex-Scientologists advice in legal and financial matters and to inform the general public about the practices of Scientology.

Due to its increasing legal problems, Brooks dissolved the LMT on November 28th, 2001 [Exh. No. 16]. According to Brooks' statements given to the local press, the LMT was supposed to continue to exist as "a more amorphous type of entity" [Exh. No. 17]. After its official dissolution the organization continued solely to operate through its website until June of this year [Exh. No. 18], when it was finally closed down. At that point the domain name (http://www.lisatrust.net) was registered upon Stacy Brooks as the site's official registrant and contact person [Exh. No. 19].