April 10, 2001 Ed and Tera Hattaway
Post Office Box 1171
Douglasville, Georgia 30133


Dear Mr. Hattaway, I am responding to your March 30 letter containing your carefully selected, but patently incomplete statement of Church policies applicable to refunds.

As you know, there is a time limitation on any request for a refund of donations. This has been unchanged as official Church policy since it was first written and published – approximately twenty years before you ever entered any Church of Scientology. It remained in existence, never revised, never modified, and broadly published, throughout the time you participated in Scientology services. And it remains in force today.

Furthermore, this policy appears prominently on the same page as one of the extracts you took out of context, so your failure to mention it was clearly intentional.

As you know, the policy reads:

"TIME LIMITATION "No refund may be applied for successfully after three months from the end of the last service rendered.

"This means that a refund applied for three months after the end of an intensive’s last auditing session or last day of attendance on a course may NOT be granted."

(HCO PL 1 August 1966, Refund Addition)

As you also know, but omit to mention in your efforts to mislead, you are not applying for a refund within three months, but more than six years later.

Since you and I both know these Church policies already, your efforts to mislead are obviously directed not at me, but at the various government agencies to whom you claim to have copied your letter. I am therefore noting that these are not your first attempts to mislead public officials. In my response to your complaint to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services I recommend that you be prosecuted for intentionally violating the "False Official Statements" warning on the Department’s complaint form. Since you attested to having read and understood the warning on the Department’s form, you know that it is a misdemeanor of the second degree to knowingly make a false statement in writing with the intent to mislead a public servant in the performance of his official duty. As noted in the Florida Statutes referenced on the Department’s complaint form, the penalty is "a definite term of imprisonment not exceeding 60 days" plus a fine of up to $500.

The enrollment application forms about which you made a false statement to the department of Agriculture and Consumer Services are further evidence that you do know Church policy on the return of donations and are therefore misrepresenting it intentionally. For example, one of several pertinent paragraphs clearly states:

9. I further understand, acknowledge and agree that the Church is under no duty whatsoever to return any portion of any religious donation receivefrom me. However, I further understand and acknowledge that under certain circumstances provided for in the published policies and procedures of the Claims Verification Board, refunds may be obtained through my strict Compliance with those published policies and procedures."

As each enrollment agreement was signed by you and witnessed by two others, and you acknowledged "intending to be legally bound hereby," your ongoing efforts to enforce unwarranted demands through threats, distribution of false statements including mischaracterization of your wife’s previous Church staff experience, your obscene and threatening letters to me and other Church representatives, and bogus complaints to government agencies, would appear to constitute extortion.

Extortion is defined in 836.05 Florida Statutes as follows:
836.05 Threats, extortion. – Whoever, either verbally or by a written or printed communication, maliciously threatens to accuse another of any crime or offense, or by such communication maliciously threatens an injury to the person, property or reputation of another, or maliciously threatens to expose another to disgrace, or to expose any secret affecting another, or to impute any deformity or lack of chastity to another, with intent thereby to extort money or any pecuniary advantage whatsoever, or with intent to compel the person so threatened, or any other person, to do any act or refrain from doing any act against her (sic) or her will, shall be guilty of a felony of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083 or s. 775.084." ["by a term of imprisonment not exceeding 15 years" and "in addition... a fine not exceeding $10,000]"

My original letter to you of March 22 contains the amount of unused donations that are available to be returned to you, and is an honest attempt to honor those agreements you made with the Church previously, notwithstanding your current frame of mind. That offer still stands, and as per the above policy that is what is available to you according to the current information that I have.

I will receive any reasonable discourse concerning additional information or data concerning this matter, and will consider that. If you have additional information that you want me to see on the amount you can validly claim, please send it to me.
Sincerely[sic], Glen Stilo


"...the internet [is] the true universal solvent-it works so good it even cuts the veneer of horse refuse off of the "Church" of Scientology..."

- Ed Hattaway -

This is fucking bullshit. Time to file a fraud suit, and name the IAS.

ptsc

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