RVY has explained the difference between brevet and non-brevet ranks on the newsgroup; here he explains it to the court. I took just a small excerpt.

http://www.whyaretheydead.net/lisa_mcpherson/bob/_06_17_AM.htm

11             THE WITNESS:  What this page is, this is a
12        portion of the application for tax exemption that
13        Scientology had filed with the IRS to get their
14        exemption in the '90s.  And this was filed under, of
15        course, penalty of perjury.  And I happened to find
16        this in D.C.  And there's, of course, a few other
17        pages from it.  And so this is what they told the
18        IRS in this particular document.
19             And it explains it right there above all the
20        names.  There's a paragraph in the middle.  It says,
21        "Brevet ranks are assigned to certain positions
22        within the church and have the purpose of equating
23        rank and ecclesiastical authority.  One holds the
24        brevet rank so long as one holds the rank to which
25        the brevet rank applies."

68
 1             Next paragraph, "The highest ranking officers
 2        in the Sea Organization are as follows."  And then
 3        it gives a column of named rank, earned rank.  And
 4        you notice at the top it says, "David Miscavige,
 5        captain, rank; earned rank, captain."  And then
 6        you'll notice there's a whole series of names, other
 7        captains.  There's commanders.  And all of them have
 8        the word "brevet" after their rank.
 9             In fact, if you go down you'll notice at the
10        bottom, Barbara Widmore, W-i-d-m-o-r-e, she's a
11        petty officer third class, and yet she's been given
12        the brevet rank of commander, which is the second
13        highest officer rank within the Sea Organization.
14        Well, that doesn't mean that she is an actual
15        commander.  This is brevet.
16             But what's interesting is that David Miscavige
17        is the only one that the Church of Scientology told
18        the IRS -- so this is why this was important,
19        because this is not based upon my experience; this
20        is based upon what they told the IRS -- David
21        Miscavige is the only one that holds an actual rank
22        of captain within the Sea Organization.
23             THE COURT:  This -- by the way, this document,
24        I have seen before, this is already in evidence.
25             MR. DANDAR:  That particular page is.

69
 1             THE COURT:  Right.  And so this is -- this is
 2        what I was referring to when I said I didn't exactly
 3        understand.  So I've seen this before.  But now that
 4        you've explained it, I think that perhaps it's --
 5        it's a little more helpful.
 6             I suppose that if -- if one of these folks over
 7        here that is in a high position ecclesiastically
 8        fell from grace, so to speak, or whatever, that they
 9        would be removed from their brevet rank.
10             THE WITNESS:  Yes, ma'am.
11             THE COURT:  But would maintain, as long as they
12        stayed in the church, their actual rank?
13             THE WITNESS:  Their earned rank.
14             THE COURT:  Their earned rank.  Okay.
15             Also, I don't know -- ensign up here,
16        Mr. Rathbun and Mr. Ingberg -- ensign isn't a very
17        high rank either, is it?
18             THE WITNESS:  No, ma'am.  It's -- it's sort of
19        the bottom of the officer's scale.
20             THE COURT:  Okay.
21        A    And also, part of this -- this was drawn up
22   because part of this declaration contained affidavits from
23   Scientology in the Wollersheim case, which they were trying
24   to represent that Mr. Miscavige was just one of many
25   captains.  And I was trying to point out, as far as I was

70
 1   concerned, that was false testimony; that according to their
 2   own documents what they told the IRS was a different matter.
 3   And so there's other documents in here to further
 4   substantiate it.
 5             The purpose in the Wollersheim case was because
 6   they were claiming that one corporation alone was involved,
 7   and Mr. Leipold was trying to show that there was a senior
 8   corporation, a senior command structure that would also be
 9   responsible, as far as what he was trying to put forward.
10   And when he asked me about it, I said, "Well, of course
11   that's how it works.  This is how the --"
12             In fact what's the irony about this, is the Sea
13   Organization is very proud of this.  We never hid this
14   internally.  We're very proud that we were what we were.  It
15   was just when it came to external authorities, governmental
16   agencies asking about it, that's when you came up with
17   another story.  "Oh no, no.  We're just a fraternal
18   organization.  We're loose-knit.  We just sit around like a
19   bunch of Shriners and have fun, you know; crank back and
20   have a couple of beers."  You try to make it seem very
21   benign, when really, internally, we --
22             Hubbard said and he built the thing, and that was
23   our attitude -- we got things done.  We had the ability to
24   go into any organization, send in, remove people, put new
25   people in, take over bank accounts.  But that was to get the

71
 1   job done.  Internally, we were very proud of this.
 2             And so some of the material that's attached to
 3   this is -- are portions of Sea Org publications where they
 4   boasted about this.  You know, "We went into the Munich
 5   organization and we turned it around and got them back and
 6   going."  So it was always a point of pride -- and you'll see
 7   this in some of the attachments -- a big point of pride.
 8             But as soon as -- as soon as somebody else from
 9   the outside says, "Well, is this --"  "Oh, no.  No, no."
10             MR. WEINBERG:  Your Honor, would it be possible
11        to have questions and answers rather than just a
12        narrative here?
13             THE COURT:  True.
14             As a matter of fact, I know that we have had
15        little breaks as I've gone in and out.  Would this
16        be a good time to take a morning break?
17             MR. WEINBERG:  Yes.
18             MR. DANDAR:  That would be fine.
19             THE COURT:  We're going to go ahead and be in
20        recess for 15 minutes.





-- 
Tilman Hausherr  [KoX, SP5.55]  Entheta * Enturbulation * Entertainment
tilman@berlin.snafu.de          http://www.xenu.de

    Resistance is futile. You will be enturbulated. Xenu always prevails.

Find broken links on your web site:  http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
The Xenu bookstore:                  http://home.snafu.de/tilman/bookstore.html