Lawyer claims Scientologists kept him from daughters
St Petersburg Times
July 16, 1991

By THOMAS C. TOBIN

CLEARWATER - A Los Angeles lawyer e: alleged in a lawsuit filed Monday that the Church of Scientolo- gy has inhibited him from visiting or talking on the phone with his teen-age daughters who are members of the sect.

Kenneth Wasserman, a former Scientologist, also claimed the sect owes him more than $15,000 for counseling sessions he paid for but did not use. The lawsuit - filed in Clearwater, the spiritual home of Scientology --- seeks repayment of the money, plus $5-million in damages from the sect.

Scientology spokesman Richard Haworth respond- ed to the lawsuit, which is filed in Pinellas-Pasco

Circuit Court, with a written statement.

"There is obviously no limit to the lengths that some people will go to to sensationalize in an effort to distort," the statement said. "As an attorney, Mr. Wasserman should know better. This filing is a prime example of trying a suit in the press. . . . Mr. Wasserman has no intention of trying to convince a court of law of the truthfulness of any of his outrageous allegations."

Wasserman, 42, said in an interview Monday that he was a Scientology member from 1971 to 1985. He -said his daughters by his first marriage were staying at his home about every other night when he told them in 1989 that he had left the organization.

"The next day they took their stuff and haven't spent a night in my house since," Wasserrnan said. His former wife, the girls' mother, also is a Scientologist, he said.

The girls are 14 and 17 years old and also live in California, according to the lawsuit.

"It is the express policy of the church to disallow any communications between their members and ex- Scientologists," the lawsuit states. "It is believed" the sect ordered Wasserman's daughters to stop all con- tact with him.

The lawsuit claims that Wasserman has had limited contact with his daughters since leaving the Church of Scientology, has not seen his daughters since Febru ary, "and has had only one telephone conference with one of his daughters despite continuous attempts."

The Church of Scientology is considered a bona fide religion by its members. It was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, the science-fiction writer who wrote Diane- tics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.

However, Scientology's critics view it as a harmful cult or a money-making group.

Regarding the $15,000, Wasserman said he paid the money to the Church of Scientology, but "subse- quently determined that I no longer wished to be involved."

"The merits of the refund claim can be determined and worked out separately," Haworth said in his statement. "Mr. Wasserman knows his other claims are outrageous and have no factual basis."

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