MR. FLYNN: The next witness is an individual named Robert Dardano, and he'll give a statement. And after that, we'll read portions of the Affidavit of Tonja Burden.

MR. LeCHER: Would you have Mr. Dardano sworn in, please.

Madame Clerk, swear the witness.

ROBERT DARDANO, a witness herei . having first been duly sworn by a Clerk for the City of Clearwater, was examined and testified as follows:

MR. LeCHER: Mr. Dardano, I want to ask you the same five questions: Are you appearing here today and testifying under oath voluntarily?

MR. DARDANO: Yes, I am.

MR. LeCHER: Have you been paid by anyone for your testimony, other than expenses for coming to the City of Clearwater?

MR. DARDANO: No, Sir.

MR. LeCHER: Do you have a lawsuit against the "Church" of Scientology?

MR. DARDANO: No.



4-289 MR. LeCHER: Does the "Church" of Scientology have a lawsuit against you?

MR. DARDANO: No, sir.

MR. LeCHER: Has anyone suggested to you that you should state anything but the truth or has anyone suggested that you change your testimony for any reason?

MR. DARDANO: No.

MR. LeCHER: Thank you.

Proceed however you want. Do you have a statement to read or do you have an outline or whatever?

MR. DARDANO: I'm working from an outline. I became a member of the "Church" of Scientology in '71, and was on staff as a staff member from '71 to '73. In 173, 1 left the "Church" because of family problems. And my mother had attacked the "Church" through the Better Business Bureau, so I was immediately taken off staff because of her legal threat to the "Church". During the summer of '73, 1 was working in Worcester, and I was shortly -- in August of '73, I was contacted by a member of the Guardian's Office and asked to do covert data collections.

MR. SHOEMAKER: Did you say "overt" or "covert"?

MR. DARDANO: Covert.

MR. SHOEMAKER: Covert.



4-290 MR. DARDANO: This was happening in Boston, Massachusetts.

The group that I joined was seven people. We were all assigned we all got our orders from the Boston "Church", directly from the Guardian's Office. And we had people in the Boston Public Library that would collect information and data on individuals that were attacking the "Church". That would be the overt data collections.

The covert data collections consisted of doing surveillances on people, such as newspaper reporters, other individuals that were attacking the "Church" at the time.

The covert data collections had made placements in various government offices, such as the Attorney General's Office, the Better Business Bureau, the Consumer's Council, and the Law Assistance -- LEAA, Law Assistance Law Enforcement Assistance Association.

During the year that we operated together, we were able to pull off quite a few operations on different people; some of them were successful. one of the more successful operations was stealing Paulette Cooper's medical files from her doctor's office in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Along with this, we also were to -- were able to 

4-291 interrupt the correspondence between the Boston Globe and the attorney's office. The law office was Bingham, Dana & Gould, and we placed an agent in the building to clean the law offices at night, and he was able to review the files daily to see what correspondence was going on between the Globe and the Scientologists. That was 197/4.

we also worked with letter-writing campaigns to smear people, individual, who worked on Project FreakOut, Operation Snow White. This was some of the Drograms given to -- the programs that were national and worldwide programs developed by the Guardian's Office for the protection of Scientology.

Paulette Cooper's file was -- we were able to find out what doctors she was seeing and locate the office that the files were in, and it was just a matter of walking in, taking it, xeroxing it, and bringing it back in, putting it back in the file.

There was a mistake made that we kept the file out of the office for a longer length of time than we should have.

Other than that, the file probably would have never been missed.

The group of people that I was with there were seven people, and we rented a house about thirty miles north of Boston. We operated like a -- like the "Church" would operate under the "Church" policies. Our deadline 

4-292 our week ended on Thursday at two o'clock, as the "Church" did. We all kept statistics on particular products that we were supposed to produce. our products were connections and instances.

For instance, if there was someone who was attacking the "Church", we would try and find as many connections they had to other individuals, other groups, what they did on a daily basis. And those would all be counted as statistics and sent, first, into Boston and then up lines, eventually, to Flag.

The file was -- Paulette Cooper's -file was stolen on a Saturday afternoon. It was just a matter driving down to the office. A couple of people got out of the van, went into the office. They were able to jump over a small partition wall and get into the office and look her name up in the file, pull the file, and just walk out of the building. There was no great security.

.. Most of the files and most of -- in fact, just be-ing in these offices, it's very easy t o pull anything you want out of this office. It's security people don't realize what Scientologists are after or why they may be after it in the first place. And it's very easy just to walk into most places and get any information that they want because it's not considered valuable and it's 

4-293 not very well protected.

David Grace was the agent who was placed at the cleaning company at the lawyers' -- the Boston lawyers' office.

He. was in the lawyers' office at Bingham, Dana & Gould, and he was able to go in the file, take the information that he wanted, use their Xerox machine, xerox it, bring it back 'in the morning, and we could send it up lines to the GO in the Boston Chu rch.

Any money that we needed for things that needed to be done, such as xeroxing or travel-ing expenses, the "Church" would give us to use what we had The people that were in the Better Business Bureau would interrupt complaints coming from public people about the "Church". And, basically, it was turned right around and sent right back to the public with no satisfaction,,,although the public felt they were being satisfied because they had reached someone in the Better Business Bureau.

The Attorney General's Office agent was -- he had uncovered a couple of attacks coming from public people. And his cover was finally blown by the fact that he requested information on the "Church" from the Justice Department. This - Mr. Mayer mentioned Bill Foster's name before. Bill Foster was the head of this -- he was 4-293 not very well protected.

David Grace was the agent who was placed at the cleaning company at the lawyers' -- the Boston lawyers' office.

He. was in the lawyers' office at Bingham, Dana & Gould, and he was able to go in the file, take the information that he wanted, use their Xerox machine, xerox it, bring it back 'in the morning, and we could send it up lines to the GO in the Boston Chu rch.

Any money that we needed for things that needed to be done, such as xeroxing or travel-ing expenses, the "Church" would give us to use what we had The people that were in the Better Business Bureau would interrupt complaints coming from public people about the "Church". And, basically, it was turned right around and sent right back to the public with no satisfaction,,,although the public felt they were being satisfied because they had reached someone in the Better Business Bureau.

The Attorney General's Office agent was -- he had uncovered a couple of attacks coming from public people. And his cover was finally blown by the fact that he requested information on the "Church" from the Justice Department. This - Mr. Mayer mentioned Bill Foster's name before. Bill Foster was the head of this - 

4-294 the captain of this particular group, and he had been there since 1971. He was operating the overt data/covert data collections from. '71 to 176 in Boston. And it. wasn't until George Bristol's cover was blown at Attorney General's Office that the line was disbanded and the group of seven people were sent to different parts of the country.

Nancy and Bill Foster went to New York; George Bristol went to Canada; two other people went cut to California;

and a couple of others, David Grace and his wife, Nancy Grace, went- to the Sea Org. in LA. So, the "Church" has just an ability to move people around very quickly to get them out of sight.

We used code names and our reports were written in code names, normally. It- could have been at the point where we were or where we were coming from.

The letters that were written in the smear campaigns -- the typewriters were stolen and usually used just for a short time and then the typewriters were destroyed and new typewriters were gotten. Everything was done with plastic gloves so that there wouldn't be any fingerprints or things like this.

My position on the line was -- initially, it was I was the head of the overt data collections and I 

4-295 handled, roughly, five people in the Boston Public Library. We'd use all different sources to gather information on pub lic officials, senators, whoever the "Church" we would get a list from the Go's office of who we had to investigate that particular week, and we would go ahead and get as much information as we could on those people.

Shortly after that, the rest of the people in overt data collections understood the -- what they were doing, so I was able to train someone and they took over that particular post. And I moved into covert data collections.

From the covert data collections -- this is where I would handle people like George Bristol, who was in the Attorney'General's Office, Nancy Foster, Consumer Affairs, Nancy Grace was in the Better Business Bureau. And each week these people would file reports of what went on on a daily basis in each one of these offices.

The -- it was very difficult for a public person in Boston to make a complaint about the "Church" and have it go anywhere. We had all the bases covered. They couldn't -- if they called the Attorney General's Office, George Bristol was sitting there and he's handling all Scientology cases. So, it was just "Fine, ma'am, we'll take care of it," and it wouldn't go anywhere from there.



4-296 Anything that was even a hint or a mention of Scientology was brought out, as much information as -- we would immediately look into that individual that brought up the issue of Scientology and he was completely investigated to find out what he did. We put people under surveillance .to find out where they were going and what they would do.

MR. FLYNN: Oh, incidentally, I think I said this before but it's rather an amusing anecdote from my point of view: My old law firm was Bingham, Dana & Gould - and it was burglarized, and my present law firm has just surrendered some eight thousand documents to the same organization.

MR. DARDANO: The one thing about Scientologists is that they are there because they think they are buying.

themselves spiritual freedom, and they are totally committed to--the organization and to their goals. it takes an individual a long time after he's left the "Church" to be able to have the freedom to believe that he's going to be okay without Scientology.

You've got to -- as a Commission, you are going to have a tough job in trying to decide what to do with this group.

That's about all I have to say.

MR. LeCHER: In the interest of time, I'll only ask 

4-297 you one question: Do you feel that there is now in the City of Clearwater, or has there been, a smear or cover up, either of any civil officials -- city officials or by any city officials with respect to Scientology?

MR. DARDANO: A cover up by a city official or - MR. LeCHER: By city or county or state or any local officials, if you know of any?

MR. DARDANO: No, I don't know of anything like that. But Scientology operates standardly with every org and every mission, and it's certainly going on; it's just that it hasn't been uncovered.

MR. LeCHER: Well MR. DARDANO: There are probably undercover agents here now from the "Church".

MR. LeCHER: Since you had your -- you had every act -- your act covered in Boston, I wonder if the act is covered here, too.

MR. DARDANO: There's a good possibility, but it's very hard to tell.

MR. LeCHER: I will,-- again, because of time, I will yield to the next Commissioner. Is that Mr. Hatchett?

MR. HATCHETT: I haven't any questions.

MR. LeCHER: Do you have any questions, Mr.



4-298 Shoemaker?

MR. SHOEMAKER: Mr. Dardano, how did you leave the or-what made you decide to come to Florida to testify?

MR. DARDANO: Well, I had been -- I have been in contact with Mr. Flynn for almost two years now, so it was just a matter of knowing*that.

MR. SHOEMAKER: Why did he come to see -- why did you go to see Mr. Flynn?

MR. DARDANO: I wanted some way out of the -- that I was really trapped and not being able to live my life -freely the way that I had been before I got into Scientology. You're brainwashed. A Scientologist is a person that's been brainwashed.

it was very difficult to get back into the mainstream of life, and there's usually a lot of things that bother the individual just as far as our own personal life is concerned.

MR. SHOEMAKER: Did they attempt to use the informa- tion that you were involved in covert activities against you to try to keep you in the organization or to keep you quidt or - MR. DARDANO: No.

They -- I had to sign as all Scientologists, if 

4-299 you're causing any sort of flap, you have to sign documents saying that you will not attack the "Church" in any way.

MR. SHOEMAKER: Have they interfered since you've left with your life in any way that you're aware of?

MR. DARDANO: No, not that I'm aware cit.

MR. SHOEMAKER: To be clear on this: What, in fact, you're stating is that you have firsthand knowledge of criminal activities occurring in the City of Boston against -.-arious people; is that correct?

MR. DARDANO: Yes, sir, that's correct.

MR. SHOEMAKER: And you -- so, you actually saw it; it's not something that somebody told you about MR. DARDANO: We did it - MR. SHOEMAKER: on that basis.

MR. DARDANO: -- as a group. We were a conspiracy formed by the "Church" against the Boston Globe, the Attorney General's Office, the Better Business Bureau. We considered every -- anyone and everyone an enemy of the "Church".

And Paulette Cooper.

Paulette Cooper was a major -- a major task to work on for a long time. Beside -- just -- not just the fact that we had stolen her medical files, but a lot of other types of operations were done against Mrs. Cooper.



4-300 MR. SHOEMAKER: You had indicated that the captain of the group was Foster, Bill Foster -- MR. DARDANO: Yes MR. SHOEMAKER: -- who had been alluded to earlier.

Who was over him?

MR. DARDANO: He was run by Deac Finn, who was head of B 1, Bureau 1.

MR. SHOEMAKER Bureau 1.

And could you explain what you know of Bureau 1 to be?

MR. DARDANO: Right.

Bureau 1 is -- B 1, it's the collections -- the Information Bureau of the Guardian's Office.

MR. SHOEMAKER: And who was over that person?

MR. DARDANO: That would be the AG in Boston, the Assistant Guardian.

MR. SHOEMAKER: And do you know where they went after they left Boston?

MR. DARDANO: The individuals?

MR. SHOEMAKER: Yes.

MR. DARDANO: You're going to love this. Deac is down he - re working in Florida. I don't -- he's not in Clearwater, but he's within one of the missions close by.

MR. SHOEMAKER: He's here in Florida --