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When Haggis read this, he immediately assumed that the church had gotten its
information from auditing sessions. 7 He was inamed. “A priest would go to jail before
revealing secrets from the confessional, no matter what the cost to himself or his
church,” he wrote. “You took Amy Scobee’s most intimate admissions about her sexual
life and passed them on to the press and then smeared them all over the pages of your
newsletter!…This is the woman who joined the Sea Org at 16! She ran the entire
celebrity center network, and was a loyal senior executive of the church for what, 20
years?” He added that he was aware that the church might do the same to him. “Well,
luckily, I have never held myself up to be anyone’s role model.”
Haggis concluded:
The great majority of Scientologists I know are good people who are genuinely interested in improving conditions on
this planet and helping others. I have to believe that if they knew what I now know, they too would be horried. But I
know how easy it was for me to defend our organization and dismiss our critics, without ever truly looking at what
was being said; I did it for thirty-ve years.… I am only ashamed that I waited this many months to act. I hereby
resign my membership in the Church of Scientology.
AT THE TIME Haggis was doing his investigation, the FBI was also looking into
Scientology. In December 2009, Tricia Whitehill, a special agent from the Los Angeles
oce, ew to Florida to interview former members of the church at the bureau’s oce
in downtown Clearwater, which happens to be directly across the street from
Scientology’s spiritual headquarters. Tom De Vocht, who spoke to Whitehill then, got the
impression that the investigation had been going on for quite a while. He says that
Whitehill conded that she hadn’t told the local agents what the investigation was
about, in case the oce had been inltrated. Amy Scobee also spoke to Whitehill for
two full days, mainly about the abuse she had witnessed.
Whitehill and Valerie Venegas, the lead agent on the case, also interviewed former
Sea Org members in California. One was Gary Morehead, who had developed the blow
drill. He explained how his security team would use emotional and psychological
pressure to bring escapees back; but failing that, physical force has been used. 8
Whitehill and Venegas worked on a special task force devoted to human tracking.
The laws regarding tracking were built largely around forced prostitution, but they
also pertain to slave labor. Under federal law, slavery is dened, in part, by the use of
coercion, torture, starvation, imprisonment, threats, and psychological abuse. The
California Penal Code lists several indicators that someone may be a victim of human
tracking: signs of trauma or fatigue; being afraid or unable to talk because of
censorship or security measures that prevent communication with others; working in
one place without the freedom to move about; owing a debt to one’s employer; and not
having control over identication documents. Those conditions resemble the accounts of
many former Sea Org members who lived at Gold Base. If proven, those allegations
would still be difficult to prosecute given the religious status of Scientology.
Marc Headley escaped from Gold Base in 2005; he says this was after being beaten by
Miscavige. 9 His defection was especially painful for the church, because Marc says he