Scientology Espionage Exposed

CORPUS CHRISTI — For a struggling videographer, the offer was too good to pass up: $2,000 a week to help document the activities of a former high-ranking member of the Church of Scientology.

Bert Leahy said the phone call came from David Statter, who said he was with Falcon Industries, doing a reality TV show about Ingleside on the Bay resident Mark "Marty" Rathbun.

Leahy agreed to meet to learn about the project. Leahy suggested Pier 99, near the Lexington Museum on the Bay. Halfway through the meal, Statter got a phone call.

"The caller says Marty's at the aquarium — not even 50 yards from where we were at," Leahy said.

"Do you have your gear?" Statter asked him.

Leahy chewed his shrimp. He thought the situation was weird. But $2,000 a week?

"I jumped in the Squirrel Buster van," Leahy said. "I haven't even met the guy 15 freaking minutes, he's driving my wife and daughter in his car and I'm sitting in the back of the Squirrel Buster van. I'm like what the (expletive) did I just do?"

Church Defector

Leahy spoke publicly for the first time since his brief stint in June with the Squirrel Busters, the group that has been following and filming Rathbun since April. Rathbun says the Squirrel Busters were sent by the Church of Scientology to harass him for speaking out about abuses in the church and for being one of the most vocal members of a growing group of independent Scientologists. Squirrel is the Scientology term for a heretic.

Leahy corroborates Rathbun's assertions, saying Squirrel Busters crew members told him their purpose was to make life miserable for Rathbun, turn neighbors against him, force him to relocate and goad him into violence so they could press charges against him.

Statter did not respond to requests for interviews at the phone number and email address Leahy provided.

Squirrel Busters producer John Allender did not respond to multiple messages seeking a response when the Caller-Times began covering their activities more than a month ago. When told more than a week ago that Leahy had spoken to the newspaper, Allender rejected a request for a telephone interview, saying he was too busy working on his production.

In responses to emailed questions, Allender said Leahy's statements that the crew was there to harass Rathbun are false.

Allender said the crew is following and filming Rathbun for a documentary because Rathbun is harming the other Scientology defectors who come to him for help. Rathbun's visitors who were interviewed for this article said he had helped them readjust to life outside the church after their friends, associates and family members still within the church stopped associating with them, part of what critics say is a disconnection policy within the church.

The church says there is no such policy and that members who disconnect from friends and family do so of their own free will.

Allender said Rathbun has bullied his crews, not the other way around, though Oscar Rivera, chief deputy of the San Patricio County Sheriff's Office, has said the crews are harassing Rathbun.

Allender, in an email, described Rathbun as a master of distorting the truth to foster a "hate campaign against his former religion."

But the accounts of Leahy, visitors to the Rathbun home, the police and neighbors suggest Rathbun and his wife were living quietly in Ingleside on the Bay until the Squirrel Busters arrived in April.
Rathbun's criticisms of the church stop short of an outright attack on the whole religion. Rathbun said he adheres to Scientology's underlying philosophies and, through his blog, he maintains communication with other independent Scientologists who have broken away from the organized church.

The Church of Scientology denies a connection to the Squirrel Busters. Meanwhile, the church has placed an ad to hire a reporter based in South Texas for its news publishing arm, Freedom Magazine. The church says the magazine focuses on human rights and social betterment, but recent stories have been devoted to debunking statements made by former church members and the journalists who write about them.

In confrontations documented in multiple videos and police reports, the Squirrel Busters have interrupted Rathbun and his wife at restaurants, confronted him at his doorstep while wearing head-mounted cameras and filmed him from a paddleboat in the canal behind his house. They routinely film in front of his home.

Allender confronted Rathbun at a rental car stand at a Los Angeles airport in June in an incident that both parties recorded. Rathbun said he hadn't informed anyone about his travel plans.

When Rathbun went to Lake Livingston in East Texas for a reunion with independent Scientologists from around the world, the Squirrel Busters took out ads on area radio stations calling Rathbun a squirrel.

FOR THE REST OF THIS IMPORTANT STORY GO TO:
http://www.caller.com/news/2011/aug/06/former-scientology-film-crew-member-de...

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• money
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• L. Ron Hubbard

[qigong1001]

Is Rathbun still practicing techniques taught by scientology? Why? 

[Scientologee]

@qigong1001 Because he is still a scientologist.

[anon8109]

Scientology never fails to entertain with its transparent schoolyard bullying tactics.

[FreedumbFighter28]

You know...you should edit the 2 vids together.

I know what happend, so when they are explaiing it, I kinda wandered off, and said to myself....if someone else does that....it would help to see that this dude was the guy taping. My 2 cents.

Its nice to see some people still have a sense of morals.

[qigong1001]

@Scientologee Why bother? Techniques co-opted and redesigned by a professional liar. Whats the point? Is it that hard to let go? 

[Premiess80]

@anon8109 Thats how I feel too.

[theanonwolf]

This guy deserves a medal for coming forward and exposing the nonsense of ALLENDER and his morons.

[NotSoOldHippy]

The Scientology crime syndicate is organized crime. Period. That's all the insane crims running the cimimnal enterprise are: insane criminals.

It's amazing that rubes, marks, and suckers still give these insane criminals money.

[jStevieO]

very high /otherwise why all this effort & money private eyes ..surveillance daily and then the showroom top models BiG OTs viii performance ,turning out to be a complete &utter motley crew of debilitates !....plus the huge ripple effect this is creating in itself ..storm in a T cup turned into to a turd in a Mug ! but ...anyway for a man who's worked with cameras and passes himself ( öooeps got part ii &ii mixed ) BTW the Truth Remix was a clog buster ! i

[jStevieO]

for a videographer ...well check out his body language and eye contact [or lack of it ] ..untersturmBahnFurher Allender seems to be missing whats in plain sight for all ,the complete debacle ensueing daily on IotB and all the human negitivity that is only giving M mucho gusto ,logically and portraying $cientology in an even Whackery state that its already earned itself ! just sayin ....perhaps not even the paranoia-hang up -threat goes much higher to the meglaextraordinaire himself! iii