Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Friday, March 4, 1983, P.36 Police seek documents in fraud investigations CP More than 100 police officers converged on a downtown Church of Scientology building Thursday in search of documents they say relate to an extensive fraud investigation.

Insp. Phil Caney said the search warrant relates to a two-year OPP investigation into fraud against the federal and Ontario governments "of corporate taxes lawfully payable but for a non-profit tax exemption obtained by Scientology by alleged misrepresentation."

Police also are investigating consumer fraud in the marketing of courses by misrepresentation by Scientology.

Police executed the warrant to gather evidence for their investigation, Caney said. He said no arrests have been made.

He said it is the first search of a Scientology building by the OPP during the investigation and he wasn't aware of any searches by other police forces.

Caney said more than 100 officers were necessary because of the size of the building located on Yonge Street, Toronto's main street.

"This is a large search and we're taking many documents," Caney said.

The church, founded in the 1950s by writer L. Ron Hubbard, blends space-age technology and mental self-improvement. It says it tries to make its members better people through a church-run counselling program that can cost members thousands of dollars.

The church, which claims five million members, has had a running battle with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service over its tax-exempt status.

In 1979, Mary Sue Hubbard, the wife of the church founder, was sentenced to five years in prison for conspiring to steal U.S.

government documents about the church.




Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Tuesday, March 8, 1983, P.5 Scientology church wins point in battle CP The Ontario Supreme Court ruled Monday that provincial police acted unlawfully when they refused to provide the Church of Scientology with a copy of the search warrant used to raid the premises, says the lawyer retained by the organization.

Clayton Ruby said Monday that after Mr. Justice Alan Linden's ruling, the organization was immediately given a copy of the search warrant.

The judge also ruled that 76 files containing confessional material be sealed, but declined to rule on other orders, Ruby said. However, Linden gave the church leave to appeal to quash the search warrant.

More than 100 OPP officers swooped down on Scientology headquarters last Thursday and took away 800 cartons of documents. They were seeking evidence in a two-year investigation into tax exemptions claimed by the group and its marketing of courses.

The warrant was shown to Scientology officials during the raid, Ruby said earlier, but no one was allowed to copy it. His attempt Friday to see the warrant at the office of the justice of the peace also was refused, the lawyer said.

Ruby filed the motion asking for access to the warrant, saying it being withheld was an unprecedented violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"This ruling (Monday) means that never again will the subject of search be kept in the dark about a search warrant and the information on which that warrant is based," Ruby said. "From no on, the warrant must be provided to the person as soon as the search commences."

He said the ruling that the 76 cartons containing parishioners' confessional material be sealed also was important because it was based on the freedom of religion clause in the charter.




Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Friday, May 22, 1992, P. D27 Scientology spies had many targets A Church of Scientology spy network extended far beyond four government agencies they're charged with infiltrating, a breach of trust trial involving church members was told Tuesday.

Scientology's Toronto organization and five former staff members are on trial on charges of criminal breach of trust.

Charges arise from the planting in the mid-'70s of "agents" in the RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police, Toronto police and Ontario attorney general's office.

But during his fifth day on the stand, a former top Scientologist admitted their "target list" of supposed enemies encompassed "probably a few dozen" agencies and individuals church officials wanted to spy on.

Testifying under a grant of immunity, Levman has admitted to overseeing numerous break-ins and intelligence operations against Scientology's enemies.

-- Scientology's gate is down. --
http://www.total.net/~wulfen/scn/
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/8412/

'It's doubtful anyone would heed a failed businessman with his own
"religion" and other failed sci-fi interests.'
-Dorsai666 (Toronto Scientologist)
http://www.deja.com/%5BST_rn=ps%5D/getdoc.xp?AN=668780006&fmt=text
------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Taylor said yesterday that so many officers were on hand because of the number of offices in the seven-story building that had to be secured and searched.

Many policemen were needed in case they had to protect people in the building who might have been upset at the large number of police officers present and taken some type of action, he added.

Mr. Taylor also said police were concerned documents would be destroyed.

The raid, aimed at seizing documents in the building, came after a two-year secret investigation of the organization's alleged involvement in consumer fraud and in tax fraud against the federal and provincial governments.

No charges have been laid.

Shortly after the raid occurred last Thursday, James Renwick (NDP-Riverdale) issued an open letter to Mr. Taylor.

"If there is any single obligation upon the police, it is to act appropriately and reasonably in the circumstances and this raid raises very serious questions in my mind about the capacity of the leadership of the Ontario Provincial Police to make these kinds of judgements."




Globe and Mail, Saturday, March 13, 1984, P. A10 Scientology papers returned by police The Ontario Provincial Police yesterday returned 41 boxes of material seized during a raid on the Toronto Church of Scientology last March.

Church of Scientology vice-president Earl Smith said that the material returned consisted of Scientology policies, directives, and course materials. To date, 89 of the 900 boxes seized to investigate tax exemptions claimed by the organization have been returned. No charges have been laid against the church. The remaining confessional material held by the OPP was ordered sealed three days after the raid, pending the outcome of a court case initiated by the Scientologists. That case will be heard June 18 in the Ontario Supreme Court.




Globe and Mail, Friday, September 29, 1995, P. A10 What's good for the Internet Disgruntled former members of the Church of Scientology recently tested the limits of the Internet as well when they posted documents, which the church had copyrighted, on their Boulder, Colo. bulletin board, called Factnet. The documents soon made their way to the Internet, and as a result the Usenet group alt.religion.scientology was suddenly the busiest newsgroup as the curious gathered to gawk at what Scientology charges so much money for.

The Church of Scientology responded, as it sooften does, with massive legal action, prompting U.S. federal marshals to seize Factnet's computers and several hundred computer disks. Scientology also launched similar legal battles in San Jose, Calif., and Arlington, Va.

Hysteria seized cyberspace as surfers protested against the apparent curtailing of freedom on the Net. Then last week Judge John Kane of the U.S. District Court ruled that "the public interest is best served by the free exchange of ideas" and ordered the return of the computers and disks to Factnet.

Internauts exulted. But should they have? The Internet community seemed more focused on its intensely negative feelings about the Scientologists than about the issue at hand, which is the right of individuals to protect copyrighted material, no matter how repugnant it may seem to be.

Judge Kane's court is, however, not high enough to set a legal precedent, so U.S. law will not suddenly turn against copyrighted work as a result. But the disposition of the case will influence Congress, which is already considering changes to the copyright law, which in turn will directly affect Canadians as well, in cyberspace at least.




Globe and Mail, Wednesday, May 20, 1996, P. A6 Scientologists had files on police AN Ontario Provincial Police officer testified yesterday she spent almost three years undercover as a Scientologist and wound up on the staff of the Church of Scientology's Guardian's Office.

Acting Sergeant Barbara Taylor told an Ontario Court jury that hile she was working between 1981 and 1983 for the Guardian's Office - an office set up by the Scientologists to handle the church's legal affairs - she had access to intelligence files denied regular Scientology staff and followers.

Among them were files on the OPP and the detective supervising Sgt.

Taylor's assignment. She said some of the information appeared to be from OPP personnel files, including references to job-performance evaluations.

The trial, in which five Scientologists have pleaded not guilty to breach of trust charges, continues today.




Globe and Mail, Tuesday, October 1, 1996, P. A12 French Scientologists on trial Reuters Twenty-three members of the French Church of Scientology ent on trial here yesterday in a case expected to provide a rare glimpse of the organization's inner workings.

The trial, expected to last seven days, was triggered by the 1988 suicide of a Scientology follower in the central city of Lyon.

A five-year investigation of his death, opened at the request of his widow, enabled examining magistrate Georges Fenech to carry out an in-depth exploration of the organization's beliefs, practices, global structure and finances.

Prosecutors accuse it of "exploiting the good faith and gullibility of its victims for commercial profit, through pseudo-scientific and paramedical means, to their financial detriment and at their medical and psychological risk."

The defendants face up to five years in jail and fines of up to $1.35-million on charges ranging from manslaughter to embezzlement, fraud and complicity.

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