Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (2016) s03e08 Episode Script

- If you talk to the staff they'll tell you it's a worker's paradise.
It couldn't be a better place to work.
- This is where we live.
- It's really extraordinary the amount of care that goes into making sure we're doing well, that we have everything we need.
- All the way down to a personal staff dentist.
- Everything is in-house.
Like, you have all these facilities that you need for production.
This really is a distraction-free environment.
- We've been reporting on allegations of physical abuse inside the Church of Scientology.
The allegations have been made by a number of former high ranking Scientologists against the church's leader, David Miscavige, himself.
- I was personally beat up on five separate occasions by the head of Scientology, David Miscavige.
- The veins are popping in his neck, and I am going, "What in the hell is going on"? - I had no idea what wrath and punishments would be levied on me if I even blinked the wrong way in dealing with the subject.
- They're watching every move of every person on the property so that nobody could get out.
- Scientology presents a public image to the world and even to Scientologists that the Gold Base is paradise on Earth.
It is the pinnacle of the technology of Scientology.
It isn't.
I know.
I lived there for 20 years.
- I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.
The aim and goal is to put man in a a mental condition, uh, where he can solve his own problem.
- Without any Scientology organization, things are not gonna change on this planet.
After years of slowly questioning Scientology Leah Remini and her very public break with Scientology - Scientology, what they do trying to destroy people, trying to destroy their families when they leave.
They create a lot of people who are willing to fight against them.
- Scientology takes tax-free dollars and ruins people's lives.
- This is not the life that I wanna live.
I wanted to end my life.
- Some people it takes a year, some people it takes ten years of just peeling that onion of how you were manipulated and made to think.
- This season we really needed to focus on the reason why Scientology is able to do the things that they do is because they have tax-exempt status.
- The people who have bravely come on and told their stories have not told those stories in vain.
They are having an impact.
- We're presenting our case to the world, to the FBI, to the IRS.
- The most important thing that has to be done is the persistent telling of the truth, and that's what you're doing.
- You have to continue to fight.
You have to continue to fight for what's right.
Hey, how are you? It's good to see you.
- So nice to see you.
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
Tonight we're gonna be talking to former executives at the Gold Base, who all experienced abuse themselves, but also witnessed abuse to others who are still there.
Amy Scobee, Jeff Hawkins, Marc and Claire Headley, and Mike Rinder, who were all there at the Gold Base.
We are obviously doing an episode about the Gold Base and the abuses that occurred there, but also the missing executives.
'Cause we all know that they're being held at the Gold Base.
- Yes.
- So, we wanted to talk about the Gold Base.
And, you know, it's funny because I was telling Mike on the way over here, like, "what" like, "What haven't we said? Like we've already said," and he goes, "We actually never told this story.
" And it's so crazy, 'cause we all believe that the story is out there and being told, and why isn't anybody doing anything about it? - In 1978, L.
Ron Hubbard shot a movie on the golf course at Golden Era Productions.
He decided it would be an ideal property to make the international headquarters of Scientology, so he bought it.
Even though he had been there to shoot the movie, he never lived there.
He did have a house A small house there that we was supposed to live in.
But nevertheless, it was established as an area that would be safe for him.
It had security measures put in, in the event that Hubbard did come there.
The fences were put up, a guard gate was established, all of these things to prevent people from being able to come onto the property unannounced or undetected.
That to this day remains a purpose of their security.
- While also being the international headquarters, though, public Scientologists were never allowed to know the location.
- Yes, it was a confidential location, and I just never knew where it was.
- In 1986, after L.
Ron Hubbard had died, Miscavige basically took over the Gold Base.
He moved there in 1987, he became the capo di tutti capo of Scientology, and he set up residence at Gold.
Miscavige now has stepped into the role of L.
Ron Hubbard - What what other security measures? Let's go through that.
- We used to have Every week we would have a thing called "renovations," which we did on on Saturdays, and we would install Ultra Barrier on all the fences, which is it's about a two to three-inch razor barrier.
So, if you were trying to get in from the outside or out from the inside, you would get sliced up by those.
We put microphones in the ground, outside of the property.
- There's also motion sensors on the fences, and there were floodlights installed all around the entire property so that they could light it up like a baseball stadium.
- It was lit up like the Berlin Wall.
- And then the security force that could be dispatched at any moment and they would drill that response time to make it faster.
- So, they have the security rover bikes, and they also have an SUV that can drive around all the roads.
So, if you do escape over the fence they're gonna know the instant it happens.
- And people ask, well, you know, "If you were out in the free world, "or you got over the fence, "what does it matter if there was a light on you? Like, you made it out.
" - Yeah, but there's nowhere to go.
That property is a 4- or 5-mile walk before you come to the first actual civilization that can do anything.
- Yeah.
Unless someone's waiting for you on the highway, they're gonna catch you because You can't write someone a letter, all mail ingoing and outgoing is opened and read.
- What are they looking for? - They wanna see if you're talking about leaving or meeting up with somebody or telling somebody, "Hey, David Miscavige "is is dealing out beat downs here.
Come rescue me.
" - Sometimes family members would send in phones, 'cause they would say, "Well, you never call.
Here's a here's a phone.
" And that would get confiscated.
- So, you guys had no access to telephones? No.
- Did you have access to 911? No.
- And how do you know that? - The internal phone system, you have to get a line out in order to call.
If you wanted to make a phone call out, you would have to call reception and say, "I need you to call a number for me.
" Tell her the number, then she would dial it, and then she would connect you with that person.
- I worked over staff training, staff morale, staff counseling, so I've witnessed so many stories about what measures would be gone to to make sure that staff did not have easy access to the outside world.
- There was a a thing at the at that base called "the perimeter council.
" - Yeah.
- And the perimeter council consisted of people like Claire and others who were in certain positions responsible for the security of the property, the well-being or the control of the staff.
And they met once a week and had this list - List.
- The perimeter list.
- Of threats.
It was called the Threat List.
- And the way you got on the perimeter list, Marc, would be something, like, in your personal, private "counseling" sessions in Scientology, you would admit that you had thoughts of leaving or that you were being beaten - Yep, anything.
- And you wanted leave.
- Anything.
- Any-thing.
- Disagreed with David Miscavige.
- If David Miscavige said, "That guy's got crimes.
" It doesn't matter what you've done, at the end of the day, you better have some crimes to give up, because you're just gonna get interrogated for For months until you say, "Okay, I did X, Y, Z.
" "Okay, good.
" And then that person who's interrogating you can say, "You were right, sir, he did X, Y, Z.
" - And I went on the perimeter council list for, like, two months, because my husband at the time attended an event that he shouldn't have.
I should have known and should have prevented that from happening, but I I had I never even saw him.
- As a Scientologist, and even as somebody who left Scientology and heard some of these stories, I'm still learning.
It's still mind-blowing to me.
Even today I'm going, "What"? What is the penalty for trying to get out and failing? What is the penalty? - When you get back you get put on the decks, and that is digging ditches, building block walls, pouring concrete.
- Heavy manual labor will force you to confront what you've done, and it's part of the beginning process of breaking down your - Will.
- Desire Yeah, your will to leave.
Exactly.
It is all about that.
- Yeah.
- They will reprogram you as an individual so that your desire to leave is does not exist anymore.
- On the few occasions that I did manage to run away, I was tackled and brought back physically.
Uh, I mean, one of the men that tackled me was a guy named Chris Guider, who was an ex-professional Australian football player.
He was big, and I I couldn't go up against that.
- Let's talk about these blow drills.
So, there's a drill in place that if somebody does penetrate the perimeter and get out, what happens? - There's a crew of about, I don't know, maybe 50 people on the property, and they each have an assigned task.
Certain people are assigned to go to the nearest bus station.
Certain people are assigned to go to the nearest airport.
Some people are assigned to call the taxi companies to find out if anyone's called for a taxi nearby.
They go to all of the local hotels.
They go to the local hospitals.
If the person does have a phone, they immediately login to that phone account and go through all the calls that person's made and then find out who those people that are called.
They'll send somebody to the mother's house in San Francisco to just sit outside the house and wait for you to show up.
When they find the person, they're usually gonna get somebody that that person knows or that's a good friend of that person.
Or if it's a family member of that person that's in Scientology, to then talk them back.
Like, "Oh, no, you don't wanna do this.
" - I would be the person that Miscavige would come to virtually every morning and say, "Have there been any blows?" Which is a unauthorized departure, it's - Wait, what's a "blow"? - A blow is an unauthorized departure.
Somebody escapes or takes off - They've blown.
- They're gone, they're blown.
We call it "blown.
" - Just like Marty said, every morning he and I would report to Miscavige sitting in his bath robe, drinking his first morning cup of coffee.
And the first question that he always asked was, "Who blew"? He was paranoid about who may have left the property, because that is where he was conducting his reign of terror.
The Gold Base was headquarters for Miscavige rules.
Anybody who left that base was aware of what was happening.
- If you want to leave, and you really, genuinely are like, "I'm gonna leave.
" You basically have to be willing to be a bum on the street.
Because you have no education, you have no cred You have no money, you have no resources to do anything.
So, when you drive off the property, or when you run Jump over that gate, you're basically saying, "I'm gonna try to make it from Starting with nothing and no one to help me.
" - I mean, living there for, you know, decades, you kind of get used to this as the security type of thing, but, um, after you leave and you think about it, you think about how crazy it is.
Like, every time you wanted to go anywhere at all, you had to write a petition.
It's called a completed staff work, but it's like similar to a petition to your superiors and get everyone's approval.
And if you had anything wrong they would just not okay it.
But and you always had to have a buddy or somebody to go with you.
It was that kind of a lockdown.
It's really discouraged and you also feel it's it's not worth leaving this important mission of what we're trying to accomplish frantically, to go and do anything with family.
So, it's it's very rare, but if you do, like, maybe a funeral or something like that, where it would be bad public relations for Scientology if you didn't at least show up, then you would do, uh, a petition to be able to go and sometimes have to have a buddy.
Like, when my father had a a heart attack, and he was in the hospital, I was gonna go, but it was disapproved, um, unless I paid for a fulltime buddy to come with me, you know, at the time.
- To supervise you.
- And the buddy is to watch you to make sure that you don't try and take off.
- Yeah, that's why.
- When my mother died it took me about five to seven days of security checks before I could leave the base to go to her memorial service.
And everybody was trying to dissuade me and saying, "Why do you need to go? She's already dead.
Why do you need to go?" You know, it's that kind of an attitude.
- Mm-hmm.
- Right.
With each escape Golden Era Production Scientology Changed the way they do business.
So, there was a time, when Marc and Claire were in, where Claire can go to LensCrafters, right? And get her glasses.
Well, since Claire left by going to LensCrafters and going out a back door and having a cab waiting for her, we don't go to LensCrafters anymore.
Now, you can go to whoever they pick, but a person, who's a trusted person, has to stand by your side while you're getting an eye exam.
So, they changed their policies on what they allow people to do.
Were you guys ever trained how to speak to authorities if they ever got onto the base? - Absolutely - Yes.
- Everybody on that base has to do a course.
- It's called the Int Base Security and PR Course.
And that's the very first thing you do when you get there.
- As soon as you arrive.
- And what is that? - It basically tells you how to lie to the authorities.
- It trains you what the story is.
So, you say, "I work at Golden Era Productions", we make movies for For Scientology.
" - Volunteer no information that That is beyond what you're actually asked for.
And when you're asked, answer in generalities.
- You work in paradise and you're wonderfully happy, and that's the beginning and the end of the story.
I was at the base for 14 years.
Eight of those years I worked in Religious Technology Center so that was David Miscavige's top organization.
Essentially we had the police role of enforcing his orders.
So, I attended hundreds of meetings, maybe even thousands.
I witnessed definitely thousands of instances of David Miscavige physically abusing staff.
He wanted to make sure everybody knew very well that's what was coming if they didn't step in line.
- It's about 15 times I witnessed where he physically assaulted people.
- I was at the Gold Base for 15 years, and I was physically abused by David Miscavige on five or six different occasions.
One of those times, I was supposed to script an infomercial for "Dianetics.
" - Mm-hmm.
- And I had done several of these, and they had been very successful.
So, I was going to do a new one to kind of revitalize that whole campaign.
And I was called up to a meeting in the big conference room where the hole was, and there was, like, about 30 people there, all the top execs of Scientology were there.
And he started reading off my script with a lot of sarcasm.
And he was like, "Can you believe this crap?" You know? Getting himself more and more worked up, and then he jumps up on the table with his feet and just runs across the table.
It's like that scene from "Elf.
" He gets up on the table, runs across, launches himself at me, and starts battering my face.
- The times I witnessed beatings were in the management conference room, that's where the hole is located.
And that's the other thing, almost all the people that he's given the beat down to are major executives of Scientology.
I don't remember him ever giving a beat down to any of the lower level staff members.
It was always the people that were the head.
- Guillaume is one of them who is still there.
Have you guys witnessed him receiving abuse? - I saw Guillaume get physically abused by David Miscavige at many different meetings, um, and it was for everything from something he had done wrong or David Miscavige did not like his response to a question.
And I saw punching, shoving, slapping, strangling, um, hundreds of times.
- One time David Miscavige went in a meeting, he took Marc Yager's head and Guillaume's head and he put his arms around just their heads, and he squeezed them together so much that he The veins in his face were popping out, and you could see him, his arms and his face were beet red from squeezing these guys' heads together, and their ears were bleeding after that.
- The very first time I ever witnessed Miscavige physically abuse a staff member was in the parking lot of the Sandcastle, actually, in Clearwater in March, '96.
And, um, David Miscavige attacked Ray Mithoff.
Punched him, shoved him, it was a culture of fear entirely driven and controlled by David Miscavige.
But also no way to reconcile or resolve that.
- Ray Mithoff's really tall, and David Miscavige is very short, um, so, he had Ray sitting at attention, and then he just boxed his ears and punched him and hit him, and I witnessed that.
- Norman Starkey, I probably witnessed hundreds of times of physical abuse where Miscavige would punch him, shove him.
He would Uh, Norman wore hearing aids, and Miscavige would turn the volume all the way up, so you could hear, like, a high-pitch screech coming out of Norman's ears.
Every single meeting I attended with Miscavige and Norman Starkey involved physical abuse.
- He attacked me, punched me, shoved me at many Many other times.
- And who witnessed this? - All of his entourage and all - I witnessed it.
- You witnessed this beating? - I was there, too.
- You were there.
- Amy was there.
- I was there.
- I was there on the In the conference room.
For that one, I was - Marc Yager was there, Guillaume was there, Ray Mithoff was there.
Everybody.
- Well, the reason I say this out loud is so that again, the FBI or the sheriff's department will maybe now have witness names that they can then go maybe interview.
And say, "You were witness to these crimes," because those people that you just mentioned are still there at the Gold Base.
- They consider it is the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.
What is good for David Miscavige is good for planet Earth, literally.
I was in the hole when there was a competition of sorts to write affidavits about what a wonderful guy David Miscavige was with the idea that if they did the best essay on what a wonderful guy David Miscavige was, they would get out of the hole.
- I think if law enforcement and whoever else really understood the mentality that when when you're in, you'll do anything to protect your religion.
You will lie, you will do anything, because it's the greater good, because it's the salvation of your church.
- We often said if you wanna know what Scientology did and them hiding crimes over the decades, all you need to do is conduct a raid like the FBI successfully did in 19 '77.
- 70 and and they received all kinds of information.
They weren't looking for All that information is is in the folders in Scientology.
- Every word David Miscavige says is recorded and written down and transcribed.
- Where would these things be? - No, they're all in building 50.
In the In the high density files in David Miscavige's office wing.
- Well, for and giggles, I'm gonna give that information to somebody, and by the time this airs I'm sure they'll be a card that said, "Nothing happened.
" - We gave that to the FBI.
- Oh, you gave that information to the FBI? - And so did I.
- We told them the location of building 50 files, the location of archive storage.
Um, every every single file location on the property we marked on a map and explained how to get to it.
- We watched aerial drone footage, I'm not talking about the drone you fly around with a little remote control, I'm talking about a plane that flies several thousand feet over the ground and takes pictures like they do in intelligence operations.
The FBI showed us drone footage of the property and was asking us, "Okay, who are these people? "Where are they coming from? Is this where the hole is at? "What are these guys doing over here? Why are there a lot of vehicles at building?" We saw footage of the property from a drone, from a government drone.
- A drone that you could identify the people.
- And nothing happened? - I was I was identifying people standing outside or walking outside.
- And nothing happened? - Nope, nothing happened.
Over the years, Miscavige has fished people out of the hole to go appear in the media.
They get dressed up, tidied up, and sent out the door with a buddy, escort, guard, and are tasked with the job of trying to prove how dedicated, loyal, and on the team they are in their presentation to the media.
I know this because I did it.
I did it probably more than anybody.
Those allegations are absolute, utter rubbish.
Absolute, utter rubbish.
- Our investigations began after some former high level members spoke to "The St.
Petersburg Times" in Florida claiming that Miscavige struck members of his staff on numerous occasions.
Allegations the church denies.
- In 2009 "The St.
Petersburg Times" published an extensive series of articles called "The Truth Rundown.
" Me, Marty Rathbun, and a whole bunch of other people who had been at Gold detailed all of what was happening at Gold.
Scientology responded, initially, saying, "This is all lies.
" As time kinda went on they changed that, because that was an unsustainable position, and they started saying that, well, there was violence at the Gold Base, but it was all done by Marty Rathbun and me, and the other people who had left.
- First of all, the allegations are absolutely untrue.
There was nothing of the sort, um, as they're describing, um, by Mr.
Miscavige - David Miscavige has never kicked somebody? - Absolutely not.
- Never punched somebody? - Absolutely not.
- Never strangled somebody? - No, never, never, never, never.
It was part of what led to, uh, Marty Rathbun's removal, because that is the kind of behavior that, actually, he was involved in.
- Then they roll out the wives, the wives of - Yeah, it was the ex-wives of me, Jeff, Marty Rathbun, and Tom DeVocht.
- Right.
- They all said the same thing.
- Your ex-husbands have made charges against David Miscavige, saying that they have seen repeated acts of physical violence perpetrated by Mr.
Miscavige.
Is any of that true? No.
- Not one ounce of it.
That's not the character of Mr.
David Miscavige.
I slept with Tom DeVocht for almost 20 years, I knew every inch of him.
I never saw one scratch, I never saw one bruise, I never saw one black eye, nothing.
Nor did he complain about anything personally.
- And Catherine, you were married to Mike Rinder for an awfully long time.
He says that he was beaten by David Miscavige some 50 times, and multiple people have also said that they saw Mike Rinder bearing the brunt of David Miscavige's wrath.
- Mike Rinder Mr.
Miscavige never laid a hand on Mike Rinder.
I lived with Mike Rinder for over 35 years, I know every square inch of Mike Rinder's body, and I certainly would have seen it.
- The shifting sands of Scientology's stories about everything is literally, they will tell a story over here in order to avoid a problem.
And then that story now becomes a problem, because it wasn't true, so now they tell another untrue story - That's what I'm saying, Mike.
- And that piles on top of the next one, and they have an unlimited ability to tell lies.
- These things aren't new.
This is decades of abuse all pointing at one person David Miscavige.
Can they all be liars? Are they all coming up with this? For what purpose? - Punched, grabbed by the neck, thrown to the floor, a number of international executives.
- He grabbed Mark's head with both his hands and swept him off his feet and smashed his head into the Into a cherry cabinet.
- I reached behind my head and my head was bleeding.
- Miscavige told me to beat the guy with a stick.
I looked at him, and I refused to do that.
He took that very severely on me.
- David Miscavige comes up, grabs him by the tie and starts bashing him in the filing cabinets.
Then he's thrown out in the street, his tie's ripped off.
- He threw Ray Mithoff against the wall and took his shirt and, you know, threw him up like this.
And made him get on his hands and knees and just humiliated him.
- I saw horrible things going on - Mm-hmm.
- Wholesale abuses.
- It just was not the Scientology that I joined.
- He said, "Where is the mother.
" And he just walked up and he hit me on the side of the head.
- I wanna talk about the hole, because Scientology has said repeatedly that the hole did not exist, never has existed, it was a figment of people's imagination.
I was in it and I know some of you here with me today were also present in that hole.
It was literally an office building that was the international management office building that consisted of two double wide trailers connected together that had the entrances and exits barred except for one, which was at the front where there was a 24-hour a day security guard.
All of the windows were screwed so that they could not be opened beyond this much so nobody could get out a window.
More than a hundred people were in that building 24/7, sleeping literally on the floor, being fed whatever was leftover from the dining room, and being allowed to go take a shower once a day unless David Miscavige happened to be on the base and he didn't wanna catch sight of anybody.
So if he was around, then nobody even took a shower.
- Now, Mike, you were You were obviously You've spoken about this before, but never on our program.
You were beaten how many times? Would you say estimate - Well, I've said often that it's 50 times by David Miscavige.
I think that that estimate is extremely conservative.
I was definitely a a target for a lot of Miscavige wrath.
- Now Now, you stayed, Mike, because like most of Scientologists, but also what what you guys have been through, Sea Org members, you believed that you deserved it at that time.
- I did.
I also believed that it would be catastrophic to my marriage, to my children, to my mother, to my father, to my brother, to my sister, everybody.
Nevertheless, I mean, I ultimately came to the point where I left.
I wish I had done so sooner.
Hey, I'm glad I went now, and I'm not still sitting up there, 'cause I could literally still be there with Guillaume and Ray Mithoff and all those other executives.
- After the hole incident, Mike, it happened again.
We have a current witness who says, "I was there where they were locked in rooms at Golden Era Productions, no one could leave.
" You guys have all gone to the FBI, and all they say to you is, "Well, the statutes have run out.
" - Well, they also said at one point they have to have overwhelming evidence.
- This is not overwhelming evidence, that it happened to all of you? - We both spoke to the FBI for months, we in detail about every single aspect of everything that goes on at that property.
- We were both interviewed for hours, individually.
It was all recorded, and I truly believe - Not just these guys, so was I, so was Amy, so was Jeff, so was Marty Rathbun.
- And truly it was the shining light, like, finally, somebody is going to do something.
Somebody's actually going to believe there are criminal acts being carried out at this property, and nobody is doing anything.
It was finally a hope that Oh, my gosh, we can we can save our friends even if they won't ever talk to us again, we can do something and reverse that hell environment we were a part of for so many years.
- Their own documents prove that they've been lying this whole time.
- And what happened? - The FBI said, "We need overwhelming evidence.
We need a testimony from everyone who was there.
" - This all seems so incredible.
Why didn't anybody do anything if all of these things were true? Well, in 2009, the FBI did have an investigation into Scientology and the abuses.
- You guys told the world what happened to you.
You told your own daughter, you told everybody, you told your own family.
Scientologists know it's going on.
That's why it just gets me crazy to say things, like, if people knew people know.
And Scientologists should be enough outraged to go, "I don't wanna be part of an organization that's doing this.
" I have to believe the former head of OSA - I know.
- Or the former this or the former that that were there I have to believe that So many of these stories.
You know, we call on you to come and do these shows, right? You don't get paid.
- No.
- You don't get you don't even what do we give you, brownies and? I mean Not even laced brownies, like, just regular brownies.
You don't get anything from being here.
Why do these people keep talking? - We do it for the hope that the crimes will stop, that maybe someday I will be able to see my mom again.
- Oh.
- Sorry.
- Don't apologize.
- Ugh, it's so frustrating.
- I know.
I know.
- I knew we weren't gonna make it through without crying.
I almost made it.
I almost made it.
Damn you, Claire.
Damn you, Claire.
Let me get you a tissue.
- Getting everybody.
- I'm sorry.
I didn't know that was coming.
- We spent the most Majority of our lives fighting for human rights thinking that we were doing the right thing - At tremendous sacrifices - At tremendous - For nothing.
- Yes.
- Well, not for nothing, to lose our entire families.
But no matter what, there I truly believe there is tremendous value in exposing the mechanics of it, how it works and everything else, because there has to be a way that law enforcement will realize what's going on.
And we'll eventually figure out how to do something effective to stop it.
It cannot keep going, and I've always felt that the people out in the world that don't know about Scientology would like to believe that this is not possible to be happening in today's world, but it is possible, and that's why we have to keep exposing it.
- These people have gone to the authorities, they have gone to the FBI.
The statutes have run out for some.
What we had hoped would happen, happened, somebody new escaped.
Because we were told, if you had a new person maybe that can help.
And we have that new person saying that "it was happening" "and it's still happening and I'm there and I saw it.
I saw it and I witnessed it.
" - I know the people you just saw.
I was there with them at Gold.
I saw what they saw.
There was a hole then and there was a hole when I left.
There were beatings then and there were beatings when I left.
It didn't stop when Mike and Marty left.
The only reason why all of that happened in the first place was David Miscavige.