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2001 - Judgements and Departure from Clearwater

On February 21st, the court issued its judgement in the TRO hearings.
Robert Minton and another protester, Tory Bezazian, were found guilty
of having violated the injunction. Minton was sentenced to a $ 500
fine and a 6-month probation.

In a side note the judge also criticized the presence of off-duty
police officers that were hired by the Church of Scientology as
security guards. Using police officers, private investigators and
their own security staff, the Church of Scientology had kept the LMT
and its staff under constant surveillance [Exh. No. 70].

In March Minton went on a trip to Europe where he attended court
hearings in his libel cases against Scientology organizations in
France and Germany. While his court case in Paris remained unsolved,
Minton reached a verdict against the Scientology Church in Germany on
March 27th. Among other things the organization was enjoined to
declare that Minton had stolen billions of dollars from the republic
of Nigeria [Exh. No. 71].

Two months later Minton's friend and vice-president of the LMT, Jesse
Prince had to stand a criminal trial due to a marijuana possession
charge. The court declared a mistrial after a hung jury and the
prosecution dropped the charges on the following day. During the trial
the jury learned that a Scientology-hired private investigator had
infiltrated Prince's private life and provided him with marijuana
while at the same informing a narcotics officer about an alleged drug
abuse by Prince.

The different trials and court hearings put also an additional
financial strain on the LMT, which operations were almost entirely
financed by Minton. Up to that point the LMT had spent $ 150,000 in
legal fees for the defense of its employees on three different
misdemeanor charges [Exh. No. 72].

In June Minton and some LMT representatives traveled to Leipzig,
Germany to attend the presentation of the human rights award with
which he was awarded the previous year. On this occasion the film "The
Profit" was presented to members of the audience. "The Profit", a
parody on Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard, had been
financed by Minton and was planned to be shown in commercial theaters
in the United States and Europe.

Upon his return from Europe Minton displayed the first rifts within
his entourage when he accused on the Internet the former LMT board
member Patricia Greenway and Ursula Caberta of a conspiracy against
the LMT [Exh. No. 73].

In August the film "The Profit" was shown at a small movie theater in
Clearwater. During an interview with the local press the director of
the movie, Peter Alexander stated that the film had cost $ 2 million.
He denied that it had anything to do with Scientology or Hubbard.
Despite Alexander's affirmations a local Scientologist denounced the
movie as a "hate propaganda film" [Exh. No. 74].

Then in November Minton publicly declared that the LMT was closing its
doors and would leave Clearwater. Minton's girlfriend, Stacy Brooks
stated that the trust would continue to operate but through a more
"amorphous type of entity [Exh. No. 17]."

The "Saint Petersburg Times" article from November 3rd which announced
the departure of the LMT detailed the legal difficulties that Minton
and the LMT had encountered since the organization was established in
Clearwater and in particular since Minton was ordered by the court to
be deposed in May of 2000:

" [ … ] The trust can't close its offices yet because a judge has
granted a church request for an independent review of trust records as
part of a civil wrongful-death lawsuit that McPherson's estate filed
against the church.

"Even though Minton is not a party in the suit, both he and the trust
have been drawn into the case, in part because Minton helped fund the
lawsuit. Minton and trust staff have been deposed by church lawyers
for hours.

"Minton and the trust have faced other legal blows. The courts ordered
him to turn over all of his personal Florida bank records, now in the
hands of Scientology.

"And recently, the church named Minton and the Lisa McPherson Trust as
co-defendants with the estate of Lisa McPherson in a lawsuit
Scientology has filed against the estate. [ … ] "

Following the announcement of the departure, Stacy Brooks dissolved
the LMT on November 28th [Exh. No. 16].

On December 9th another article on Minton in the Saint Petersburg
Times appeared. It discussed the recent developments in the Lisa
McPherson civil suit and Robert Minton's involvement in the case [Exh.
No. 75]. A judge who at that time was presiding over the case was
cited saying:

" [ … ] ‘It's hard to distinguish the trust, Mr. Minton and the
plaintiff in this case,' Judge Beach said during a September
deposition. ‘They're so intertwined, as a matter of fact, it almost
appears that Lisa McPherson has been overshadowed by the activities of
the trust and Mr. Minton in pursuing this case against the
Scientologists.' [ … ] "

On April 2nd Scientology's "Office of Special Affairs" in Germany
began to distribute the newest edition of its newsletter "Freiheit."
The journal accused city official Ursula Caberta of having been bribed
by Robert Minton when she had accepted the private loan from him.

On the first page of the journal a copy of a $ 75,000 check was
pictured. Apparently the check was drawn from a personal account of
Minton and written out towards Caberta. The article also mentioned
that the criminal complaint that the Scientology organization had
filed against Caberta in September was still under revision by the
District Attorney's office [Exh. No. 76].

2002 - Turnaround

On April 20th the Tampa Tribune reported about a dramatic change in
the so-called "breach of contract" case that the Church of Scientology
had filed against the estate of Lisa McPherson and its attorney Kennan
Dandar in April 2000.

The article described a recent court hearing where Minton had
testified on behalf of the Scientologists and where he had accused
Dandar of having him advised to lie under oath and to write false
affidavits [Exh. No. 5]. Minton was cited stating that because he had
been afraid to go to jail for having committed perjury he had recanted
his prior testimony. Additionally he had accused Dandar of being "a
lying thief."

The turnaround of Minton did set off a series of lengthy court
hearings in the "breach of contract" case and in the McPherson civil
case. The Church of Scientology immediately moved forward by using
Minton's testimony to have Kennan Dandar dismissed from the McPherson
case and ultimately to have the case as such dismissed altogether
[Exh. No. 77].

Various witnesses were then called to testify in court about the
manner the estate had conducted the suit and how Minton had influenced
the litigation process. Minton himself and his girlfriend Stacy Brooks
had to endure a lengthy examination by the court and the attorneys
during the month of May.

On May 18th another article on Minton appeared in the Clearwater
press. It listed the various financial contributions Minton had made
over the past seven years to critics of Scientology in order "to nail
the church" and which added up to the final amount of $ 10 million
[Exh. No. 78]:

" [ … ] He dumped more than $ 2-million into a now defunct
anti-Scientology organization in downtown Clearwater called the Lisa
McPherson Trust, named for a Scientologist who died in 1995 under the
care of fellow Scientologists. Minton testified that he put up nearly
$ 2.5-million for the movie The Profit, made in the Tampa Bay area by
two Scientology critics.

"His cash went into the bank accounts of Scientology critics and their
lawyers around the country. Minton said he gave $ 700,000 to Lawrence
Wollersheim, a former Scientologist who recently collected an $
8.6-million settlement from Scientology, ending one of the
longest-running lawsuits in California history. And he funded lawsuits
against Scientology in places as distant as Germany and France.

"But the focus of his anti-Scientology efforts was the Pinellas County
wrongful death lawsuit that blames the church for Lisa McPherson's
death. Minton gave $ 2-million to fund the litigation. [ … ] "

The article also cited Kennan Dandar's suspicion that Minton was being
blackmailed by the Scientology organization and that he was being
forced by the Scientologists to turn against Dandar.

The court hearings continued through June. On June 13th a newspaper
report by the "Saint Petersburg Times" indicated that Minton's legal
problems had indeed increased after he had come to court to evade even
more troubles and to "set the record straight."

The article cited judge Susan Schaeffer stating that she would turn
over a report to the State Attorney's office as soon as the hearings
would be completed. Commenting on Minton she said that he was
apparently not only in trouble in the current court case but also with
the State Attorney's Office and with the Internal Revenue Service
[Exh. No. 79].

Meanwhile in Hamburg Ursula Caberta had to face the legal consequences
of her acceptance of Minton's loan during June of the year 2000. On
June 27th the "Hamburger Abendblatt" reported that a district court of
the city of Hamburg had issued a fine of € 7,500 against her, as it
deemed the Minton loan as improper due to Caberta's position in a
public office [Exh. No. 80].

At the time of the writing of this affidavit the court hearings in
Clearwater have not been concluded. Nevertheless the turnaround of
Minton has left the critics of Scientology deeply polarized. While for
some Minton has become a "traitor" and "collaborator" of Scientology's
"Office of Special Affairs", for others he is a "victim" who
eventually has given in after being under attack by the Scientologists
for almost five years.

Minton and the Church of Scientology had repeatedly accused each other
as human rights violators and criminals, while never questioning but
stoically defending their own positions. Both sides claimed to be
morally right with their actions, while relentlessly pursuing their
individual agendas to harm the other side. The evidence presented in
this document will show that in fact both sides did repeatedly
overstep the mark that separates legal from illegal and criminal
activity.