Subject: Church pays $8.6M in suit
Camera staff and wire

The Church of Scientology of California has agreed to pay a former member and former Boulder resident more than $8.6 million to resolve a lawsuit filed 22 years ago.

Lawrence Wollersheim, 53, said the church's mind control tactics — including food and sleep deprivation — made him develop bipolar disorder and contemplate suicide. He commented on the case through www.factnet.org, the Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network, and could not be reached directly.

Linda Simmons Hight, spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology, said the courts ordered the church to pay Wollersheim $2.6 million in a 1994 ruling, but that figure bloomed to $8.6 million because the church couldn't figure out how to pay Wollersheim without financial risk. She called the man a "con artist" and said his multiple debtors could have targeted the church if the church paid Wollersheim and he didn't pay his debts.

On Thursday, the church paid the court directly, and the payment became a matter of public record.

Wollersheim said thousands of people in the world have been "destroyed by this cult and then intimidated into silence," and that he hopes his win in court gives them voice.

"Do not be intimidated into silence," he wrote. "Do not let the wealth or the size of your opponent dissuade you."

In 1995, Scientologists and federal marshals seized thousands of dollars of computer equipment and data from Wollersheim's Boulder home and that of another former Scientologist, Bob Penny of Niwot. The church claimed the men were violating copyright law by releasing to the public the church's "sacred scriptures."

A judge ordered the materials returned after a lengthy legal battle.

The Associated Press reports that Wollersheim now lives in Nevada.

May 12, 2002

Boulder Daily Camera

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