Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (2016) s01e02 Episode Script
Fair Game
1 Here's what the Church of Scientology has to say about Mike Rinder.
The church disputes many of the statements made by Mike Rinder.
Rinder's dishonesty and malfeasance caused the church numerous problems that took years and millions of dollars to correct.
Ultimately, the intervention of the ecclesiastical leader was needed to clean up Rinder's final and greatest mess, resulting in his removal in disgracein 2002.
Years later, he ramains bitter and angry for the humiliation he endured as a result and refuses to accept personal responsibility for any of his actions.
Subs from explosiveskull This is your daughter.
Mm-hmm.
"I'm utterly mortified and disgusted to see what you've been doing, attempting to stop Scientology, something that helps so many people.
" "You're not worried about me.
You don't care about me or Benjamin or Mom or anyone.
You hate other people and you hate us, too, and that couldn't be clearer.
You don't respect anything I believe, and luckily, I didn't turn out like you.
" Woman: Wow.
"I help people and feel good when I do.
I'm a caring person, a Scientologist.
You cannot deal with the truth and you negate it due to your own crimes, crimes of not doing your job and instead being lazy and incompetent.
It was embarrassing.
It was so embarrassing being your daughter.
" [Sniffles.]
I don't even want to read this.
I wish I had a dad like you, Mike.
I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.
The aim and goal is to put man in a-a mental condition, where he him can solve his own problems.
Scientology is the belief that you can better your mind, but you're also helping this planet be a better place.
Without any Scientology organization, things are not going to change on this planet.
Woman: After years of slowly questioning Scientology Man: Leah Remini in her very public break with Scientology I didn't want to find out that what I had done my whole life was a lie.
[Doorbell rings.]
[Cheers and applause.]
Fight for your family.
Fight for your daughters, your sons.
Get them out of this thing.
You're not going to continue to lie to people and abuse people and take their money and their lives.
If I can stop one, then I'm going to do it.
Thank you so much.
- How are you doing? - Good, you? - Good.
- Good, thank you.
It's interesting to be here.
Clearwater is like the Mecca of Scientology.
Anybody I meet here, so far, like, I'm like, is this person a Scientologist, like, our sound guy, he's from Clearwater.
I'm like why is he from Clearwater? Who does he know here? Does he have a cousin? Does he have a wife? Does he have a sister who is in Scientology? You know, that's what I'm thinking.
Well, we'll find out in a minute.
[Laughter.]
Oh, my God, this is so weird.
I mean, you know they can see us, right? They've got cameras beyond belief.
These are all little Sea Org members, you know.
These young kids, and that's what I was.
I was younger than that girl.
You know what I mean? I want to, like, save these people.
I want to, like, go, "Come with me now.
" Right now, we're going to Mike Rinder's house.
So far, my involvement with Mike on this project has been as a consultant.
What stories are we going to tell that make people understand how people get involved in Scientology? Why they stay? Why people disconnect from their children? To Mike's personal story.
My name is Mike Rinder.
I was a Scientologist for 46 years.
I was the International Spokesperson for Scientology for more than 20 years until I left in 2007.
Please welcome Mr.
Mike Rinder.
[Applause.]
Part of my job was to discredit and destroy critics who spoke out against the Church.
If the Church believed that someone was an enemy and needed to be silenced or destroyed, it was my job, and I did it.
If I was told to follow someone, I made it happen.
If I was told to discredit someone, dig up dirt on them, get their backgrounds investigated, I made it happen.
Everything from following them 24 hours a day to having people camped outside their home to people knocking on their door Woman: Okay, I'm going to say it one more time.
You are on my property.
You can leave now.
to being vilified on the Internet to following them wherever they travel.
- I was the guy.
- You can't do that.
Mike: I feel bad about the people that got hurt as a result of my actions, but I feel it's important to tell the truth of what really goes on behind the scenes, what really is happening in Scientology.
Whoo.
How are you? - Hi, honey, I'm here.
- Hi.
- You made it.
- Hi, gorgeous lady.
Christie: Good to see you.
Did you always know you were going to speak out? No, I didn't know that I was going to speak out.
It took me a while to to decide that it was the right thing to do.
- The rea Well - Why? was the Because after I left, my mother stayed in touch with me, and she was pretty old.
She had had a heart transplant already, and I was worried that if I spoke out publicly, it might literally kill her.
Mike: I grew up in Australia.
My parents got into Scientology when I was about six years old.
They were very early adopters of Scientology.
Back then, there were governments around the world who were investigating and going after Scientology as a cult.
When I was growing up, there was an inquiry that was held in Australia.
The ultimate conclusion of it was the practice of Scientology is harmful.
It's detrimental to society.
So, therefore, it's banned.
You know, I look back on it and I think it sort of was the foundation of this this mind-set in Scientology of it's us against the world.
That was ultimately why I joined the Sea Organization when I was 18.
I joined with the idea that I was going to be trained as an executive in Scientology, to defend Scientology, to help it grow.
I wanted to go and be where L.
Ron Hubbard was, which, at the time, was on the Apollo, the ship that was in the Mediterranean.
The Apollo is a ship that L.
Ron Hubbard purchased in 1968 to be his floating headquarters for Scientology.
He was under heavy attack in the United Kingdom, which is where he was living at the time, and decided that the safest place to be was at sea where you can raise your anchor and sail out into international waters and nobody has any jurisdiction over you.
I gradually sort of progressed up the ranks to various different positions, and ultimately, I became the head of the Commodore's Messenger Org.
Commodore's Messengers are the people who work directly for L.
Ron Hubbard, so the messengers became his personal assistants and ultimately became the people that ran Scientology.
I was one of the first 8 or 10 people, and I gradually became the head of the Office of Special Affairs for the world.
The Office of Special Affairs had the responsibilities of dealing with legal cases, dealing with government relations, dealing with public relations, and dealing with enemies of the Church.
The objective of that part of the Church that deals with "enemies" Mm-hmm.
also, which I used to be the head of Mm-hmm.
is to get rid of "attackers.
" A policy called Fair Game.
Nobody knows the policy of Fair Game better than the one who used to enforce it, and that's Mike Rinder.
Fair Game is the idea that anybody who is an enemy or a critic of Scientology may have anything done to them with the idea that the ends justifies the means.
And there was a bunch of writings by L.
Ron Hubbard that described how you get rid of an attacker.
It basically says that you can do anything Yeah.
to a critic or an enemy of Scientology Mm.
and not be subjected to any form of Scientology justice.
- Justice.
- Or ethics handling - Right.
- as a result.
Leah: But the Church claims that policy has been - Cancelled.
- cancelled.
It was cancelled for PR reasons.
Mm-hmm.
And that this does not change the treatment of SPs, Suppressive Persons.
Mike: The Church says the Fair Game policy was cancelled but carries on just as it did before.
The videos of the intimidation tactics, the cameras in people's faces.
And nobody gives a [bleep.]
about you.
That's the truth.
It's the smear sites that are on the Internet that are put up by the Church.
Man: It's actually illegal to picket residential premises.
You're committing suppressive acts.
Leah: The Church has definitely set up that the evil is anyone who opposes Scientology.
If you are attacking Scientology or criticizing Scientology, you are evil, period.
No grey area.
Mike: And nobody understands what goes on better than me because I was in that position of being the one that was responding on behalf of the Church.
Come on, Marty.
Got anything to say? Man: Nazi criminal, go back to Germany! Hi, we like freedom of religion.
Mike: So I knew that the minute that I spoke out, I'm someone to be destroyed.
- Hi.
- Shane brain.
- Hi.
- Hi, sweetie.
- Hi.
- Give me a hug.
- How was school? - Good.
Yeah? Hey, buddy, what'd you get? - Hi, bud.
- What's that? - Shane got a fist.
- This is Leah, Shane.
- This is Leah.
- Hi.
- You didn't meet her before.
- How are you? - Good.
- Good.
You know, I look at how I view my wife and family now.
There is nobody that could persuade me that anything is more important than my family.
But that's, I guess, is the difference in my mind-set and the difference in my attitude toward what's important in life now compared to what it was like then.
I met my ex-wife Cathy on board the Apollo.
I was 19, and then we got married in 1976 when we came here to Clearwater, and in January of 1978, our daughter Taryn was born.
I didn't have that much interaction with her.
She was in the nursery all day long.
Cathy and I worked.
We would see her for an hour a day and then at the end of the night.
Leah: The core belief of Scientology is that you are a spiritual being, that you have lived many lives and you will live many lives.
So your mother is really not your mother.
I mean, she's your mother this lifetime, but you're going to have many mothers.
So they put very little significance on interpersonal relationships between family members and the same with marriage.
Mike: Scientology teaches that you are doing something that is more important, and it is so important and so vital that nothing can distract you from it.
Benjamin was born in 1983, and by that time, we were in LA, and he too was raised in the Sea Organization.
My biggest regret and something that I can't change now is that I caused two children to be born into and raised in Scientology.
I effectively lost them because I brought them into the world and raised as Scientologists.
David Miscavige is the Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center.
He is the undisputed dictator of Scientology.
With David Miscavige, it is way less a spiritual activity than it is a money making activity.
Things at the International Base had degenerated.
It was very, very Stalin-esque, and in the year 2000, things really started to go downhill, and the conditions became incredibly oppressive, and then, a couple of years later, The Hole started.
The Hole is a building that David Miscavige designated at the International Headquarters of Scientology in Hemet where myself and eventually about 100 people were locked in two double-wide trailers, sleeping on the floor, eating slop 24/7 in a building that had a security guard at the front door and bars on the windows to prevent anybody from escaping, to beat one another up until they confess to their crimes.
People were put in The Hole because, for whatever reason, they displeased David Miscavige.
Honestly, the reasons for that could have been anything from answering a question wrongly, not answering a question, a facial expression that was inappropriate, falling asleep after being up for a couple of days.
I menything whim you're in The Hole.
In addition to that, I was one of the people that was a-a primary target of Miscavige, physical btings routinely.
The first time it happened, he called for me to come up to the the officer's lounge.
I walked up and was about to knock on the door, and he comes barreling out and punches me and then puts me in a headlock and throws me into the bushes and is beating away on me in the while I'm sprawled in the bushes.
I was stuck.
I had no idea that this was coming.
Of the years, anywhere from 50 to 100 times, he would assault me, attack me, hit me, punch me, kick me, whatever.
I look back and I go, yeah, so why just take it? And there's a few reasons why you just take it.
One is you believe that you did something wrong.
Two, you're in a mind-set that you go, well, I've caused upset to Mr.
Miscavige, and this is a-a-a terrible state of affairs.
He shouldn't be upset.
He's the leader of Scientology.
Understand that when you're talking about David Miscavige, to a Scientologist, you're talking to someone like the Pope.
It's like hearing the Pope slaps people around.
Mike: In 2006, BBC Panorama assigned a reporter, John Sweeney, to do a program about Scientology, and particularly the fact that the leader of Scientology, David Miscavige, was physically abusing people.
Leah: I was told a lot of information about John Sweeney by my Church.
He's attacking your Church.
He's attacking the leader of your Church, and when I asked Mike and my Church about it, they were like, "Oh, my God, this guy's an SP.
What do you give a [bleep.]
what he's saying? He's ridiculous.
He is an alcoholic.
Miscavige had me pulled out of The Hole and charged me with the responsibility of stopping the BBC from ever airing any program about Scientology and most particularly stopping them from ever airing any allegations that Miscavige had physically assaulted anyone.
This was an opportunity for me to get back in good graces, to get out of The Hole.
I mean, I'd been there for almost two years, that if I came out and I did a good job of this, I would be able to extricate myself from being a prisoner in The Hole and go back to somewhat normal life as a servant of the Sea Organization.
[Crowd cheering.]
John Travolta was having a premiere of his movie "Wild Hogs" in London, and the concern that Miscavige had was that John Sweeney would get into the Four Seasons Hotel, where they were doing the press junket.
So I to then quickly, alone, get on a plane to London and brief John Travolta and his PR people and security to be on the lookout for the bald lunatic that was John Sweeney.
John Sweeney showed up at the Tottenham Court Road Church facility.
John Sweeney started asking me, "I've been told that you personally were beaten.
" Those allegations are absolute, utter rubbish.
Absolute, utter rubbish! Standing in front of a camera and having someone say to you, "I've been told that you've been beaten by this man.
Is that true?" and denying it.
It was sort of another one of those moments of clarity that I eventually had.
I went, you know what? This is nuts.
Miscavige considered that I failed because the program ultimately aired.
He said, "You're a screw-up.
This is just another one of your failures, so you're going to be sent to Western Australia, and you're never seeing the rest of your family again.
I was now no longer doing anything that remotely resembled what I believed I had joined the Sea Org for, and the reason that I had stayed was because of my children, my wife, my mother, my brother, my sister, and that if I left, I would lose all of them.
It got to the point though now where the staying was becoming more and more like leaving.
In the consequences, I'm not going to be with my family in any way, shape, or form, and of being told you're going to be in purgatory forever.
And at that point, I went, you know what? I've got nothing to lose anymore.
I picked up my briefcase.
I walked out the front door and then started running to the tube station.
I looked around to see if they'd figured out that I had just walked out without an escort.
I bought a ticket for the tube, got on the train, and went I'm done, I'm out.
Mike: I went to an Internet café and I called Tom DeVocht, who I had known for a very long time and he had left the Sea Organization, and who I was responsible for monitoring because he was considered to be a potential threat.
So I knew where he worked.
And I called him at work and I said, "Tom, I'm in London, I don't have anywhere to go.
Can I come to where you're living?" And he said, "Yes, of course.
" I was prepared for the fact, at that time, that once I left, my children and my former wife would never speak to me again.
I hoped that they would follow, but I knew that there was a likelihood that they would not, but I just couldn't keep going.
I had been married to my wife for 31 years when I left.
I asked to be able to speak to her.
I didn't have the opportunity to.
She sent me a-a handwritten letter saying "[Bleep.]
you.
I'm filing a divorce.
" My children disconnected from me.
I understood why they did it.
I understood that they really had no choice.
They know no life outside of Scientology, and I feel a responsibility for having created that circumstance.
No church, no organization should have the power to break up a family.
A few other people had spoken already to the reporters from the "St.
Pete Times," and the Church was saying they're all liars.
And so my original compromise was I will sit down with you, and I will go over everything, but I don't want to be on the record.
But then there was a series of events that happened with Monique Yingling and staff coming and trying to tell me that I was, you know, doing wrong by confirming information that the "St.
Pete Times" had.
Monique Yingling, a lawyer, not even a Scientologist, started with, "Well, don't you ever want to speak to your children again? Don't you ever want to speak to your family again?" Which was kind of the last straw, and I said, "You know, Monique, both of my children disconnected from me when I left the Sea Org, so when you start thinking that you're going to use that to try and control what I do, [bleep.]
you.
Get on a plane, go back to wherever you came from, we're done.
" And that was when I went on the record in the "St.
Pete Times.
" The series of articles called "The Truth Rundown" came out in 2009.
It was the first time that former high-level defectors from the Church Jeff Hawkins, Marty Rathbun, me, Tom DeVocht, Amy Scobee, and a number of others had stepped forward.
It broke a lot of ground about what was really going on behind the scenes in Scientology.
Just before "The Truth Rundown" series went to print, I get a series of letters from all the members of my family my ex-wife, my children, my brother, my sister, nieces, nephews, and my mother.
At that point, I knew that there was not going to be any further nice Christmas cards or friendly letters from my mother with pictures of, you know, other family members or anything like that.
That that was it.
Parishioners are taught very early on, you do not question the Church of Scientology.
Questioning anything you've read about the Church of Scientology means you are an enemy.
You are You are taking on now the colors of an enemy to the Church.
When I spoke out in the "St.
Petersburg Times," I became public enemy number 1 or 2 in the world of Scientology.
I knew that if I started speaking out, I would have to go find other employment, too, because I was working at a car dealership.
I knew that if the Church wanted to go after me, the one thing that they could do was send picketers outside of this dealership.
So I left.
I ended up back in Clearwater because I got a job offer and there was an advantage to being in Clearwater, to me, which was I believed that if anybody was going to leave the Sea Org, it would be my son, and the fact that I am 15 minutes away from where he is is a factor in why do I continue to live there.
So, when you first moved into this house, you were "Fair Gamed.
" Yeah.
Mike: Hello? Don't Don't Hey - Hey, dude, don't touch him.
- Hey, don't touch me.
- Yeah, don't touch me.
- Hey, come on.
He's not touching you.
Take a picture of the Mike: I know that there is going to be people who will say things that are just outrageous, made-up lies in order to try and discredit me.
That's the standard policy of Scientology.
I know that there will be efforts to get inside my head and intimidate me into not speaking out by putting up websites.
They will take every little thing that I have ever said, they will find anything that I have ever done, and they will take that and expand it into, oh, this was some monstrous crime.
When I was in hospital, when I was getting married, when I was needing help on any part of my life in any situation, he was never there.
Now my daughter will say, oh, I was always lazy and she was embarrassed to be my daughter.
Well, it's funny that never came up when I was in the Church.
My own brother would say that I did anything if the Church tells him, "Oh, we know that Mike did X, Y and Z.
" Even though I grew up with him and I spent my entire life with him and he knows that that's not true, because the Church now tells him that that's the case, he will now say that.
Ultimately, he is who he is and that is someone who is quite evil.
And multiple people have also said that they saw Mike Rinder bearing the brunt of David Miscaviges' rage.
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.
I-I've been with him, we've been together all our lives.
They believe wholeheartedly that their eternity depends upon the well-being of Scientology, that if they don't follow the party line, they are forsaking their only hope at eternal spiritual salvation.
And then, at a very much more pragmatic level, they will have nowhere to live, no one feeding them.
They won't have someone to send them to the doctor.
They won't have anything because they rely on the Church to provide all of that for them.
For a long time, it was really nutty.
I was being followed everywhere I went.
One of them rammed into the back of my car.
- There's no damage to your car.
- Okay, go ahead and have the - You damaged our car - Tell the police I need - by tailgating us - a police report on a - all day long - on a, uh, accident.
and then ramming into our back.
I heard about Fair Game while I was in the church, then I was told that it that that policy didn't exist anymore.
And then they showed me the policy, that it was cancelled.
So that's enough to squash any fears that you have that Fair Game is in existence.
The garbage man came and knocked on our door and said, "I-I feel really bad but I need to tell you that I'm being paid by a private investigator to steal your trash.
" What?! Mike: The truck number is 309927.
Another guy is taking the garbage.
Hey, who're you getting that for? - Huh? - Who are you getting that for? That's my garbage.
- It ain't your garbage.
- Yeah, it is.
- Who are you? - Mike Rinder.
This came from my house.
- Oh, I don't think so.
- Oh, I sure so.
I video'd it.
Mike: I-I said, "What did they tell you?" And he said they told us what they were investigating us for having a drug-running operation out of our home.
What did they hope to find in the garbage? Phone numbers of people, who you've been talking to.
Travel plans.
- Right, anything.
- Anything.
Leah: The Church of Scientology will hire private investigators at $10,000 a week.
That's the [bleep.]
-up part of it.
Or maybe you don't smoke marijuana, or perhaps you do smoke marijuana.
It's sophomoric and vitriolic.
It's It's It's so many words I can't Like that a per a human being, a grown-up person claiming to be part of a Church that has all the answers and and are the epitome of morality.
This is what they're doing.
Mike: It was on the highway.
Why are you following me? Man: Get away from me, I'm calling the police! Good, go ahead.
Why are you following me? I'm calling the police.
Leah: You are allowing the bully to get away with behavior that shouldn't be coming from a Church.
It's not some little [bleep.]
kid behind a computer.
We're talking about a church.
I don't give a [bleep.]
what they do, but they shouldn't be doing that and hurting people and trying to destroy their lives.
You don't want to talk on camera? I I Well, why you got You're sending guys around with cameras all the time.
I'm not sending anybody around.
Mike: There is now evidence of you in two states using electronic surveillance.
You come around That's a violation of federal law.
Are you aware of that? You were Fair Gamed at at your job.
You were Fair Gamed at the other house, and what happened there? They showed up with video cameras across the street.
- You don't know who I am? - Say your name.
My name is Dave Lubow.
I'm a private investigator, and I'm investigating you on your actions against the Church of Scientology.
Now, are you saying we're too close to your house? Mike: I'm saying you're harassing me.
- Across the street.
- You're in front of our house.
- That's harassment.
- We're across the street.
We're not on your property.
We're across the street.
They would follow me and Christie wherever we went.
And And calling the cops means what? We called the police, and they said it's not against the law.
They were standing in the street, and they're allowed to film and there was nothing that could be done about it.
And then they showed up another time when we were at a doctor's office and I was inside with I had a doctor's appointment, and Mike was waiting for me outside in the car, and his his brother, his daughter, and a bunch of senior - Ex-wife.
- His ex-wife.
And Jinny Linson and Guillaume Lesevre and Dave Bloomberg and Sue Paquette all showed up, and I happened to be on the phone, and this was this was funny.
I happened to be on the phone with John Sweeney from the BBC, and he recorded it.
Just audio, but they show up, started screaming at me.
They were screaming at him so loud that I could hear it from inside and was starting to get worried, like, what's going on? Is that I hear Mike and I hear voices and so Unbelievable.
They Then they came into the doctor's office, and then the doctor was asking them to leave and then we called the police again.
Cathy, his ex-wife was doing this to me.
And like, "You little bitch.
You little bitch.
" And I was like, you know, "What do you want?" What did she want? - They wanted - I don't know.
They wanted to attempt to intimidate me.
Th What else happened? They had a house set up across the street with a woman who was a private investigator that they moved in there with a kid to befriend Christie who was spying on us and had cameras in her house.
Wait, so how long did this go on? Six months.
She - Yeah.
- I was, like, friendly with her.
Like, I-I invited her to my baby shower.
She brought me gifts.
She seemed lonely.
She was out on the street.
We'd be out walking the dog with Shane, and she'd be out there with her little kid who is the same age as Shane and What did you do when you found out? Well, I eventually started being really suspicious of this woman because I Because when we moved here, she moved.
And she moved to this neighborhood.
- What?! - Yeah, and then I was like, "Mike, there's something really wrong with this," and I said I think she's a plant.
I think she's been planted there by the Church.
And then she disappeared and we never saw her again.
So then you move into this house.
So then we moved into this house.
And then you find out that there's a bird There's a There's a camera in a birdcage in a bird box.
Well, that was after we got an anonymous letter in our mailbox Mm-mm.
saying you shouldn't be associating with your neighbor.
And I go, "Wait a minute.
Where are they watching from?" Mm-hmm.
So I walked up around the street, and I went, oh, right there.
There's a stupid birdhouse that I've seen 100 times, never even given a second thought to.
And so I went and got a ladder, and I walked over there and I opened the lid, and there's a camera inside of the birdhouse pointing at our house.
I'm going to zoom in here because you can see down the end, where I'm going to head to, is a pole with what appears to be a birdhouse on the top of it.
We're going to go down and investigate what's actually in that birdhouse.
And here is the camera inside of this funny birdhouse.
They're allowed to install cameras and take pictures, Mike, o-of private houses? - It's not illegal.
- It's not illegal? So I Mike, so I can come here in the middle of the night and put You can No.
You can say You can say that the camera was to watch the front of the house.
It's basically the same.
Everything is on the edge of - The law.
- what is legal but not on really on the edge of what's moral.
Right.
It's intended to create a negative effect.
Idea about you guys.
Like, so, even if one of your neighbors thought you were a wife beater or a child molester, - they've done their job.
- Right.
- Correct.
- Right.
[Bleep.]
you.
The whole game, like, that they've been running and been getting away with, it's done.
Like, your game is done.
You You You played your role, and now you're going to be exposed for the [bleep.]
that you did.
Leah: You fought for the church because you believed in what you were doing.
- Correct.
- You're fighting now against the church because you know, ultimately, the truth, and so you're on the right side of that fight now.
That's correct.
Yeah.
Leaving does weigh on me, of course, it does.
My mother's dead now, and when she died, nobody even told me.
My brother didn't tell me because he's disconnected.
My children didn't tell me.
I got it in an e-mail from somebody that I've never even heard of who said, you know, "I just want to let you know that your mother died.
" And whenever I've ever gotten to the point where I got, like, tired of the whole thing, and can we just stop talking it and just put it all away, and he says, "But I have my kids in there.
" - And it's like - That I put there.
- Right.
- And it's like he could - Like, that's part of it, too.
- Yeah.
As a mother, like, that really hits me.
- Yeah.
- So I'm like, "Okay.
I get it.
" I'm somewhat of an eternally idiotic optimist that I hope sometime that my brother or my son or my daughter will decide that something is wrong and reach out to me.
I think more likely to happen is that the Church of Scientology will implode and its implosion will be what will result in them eventually reaching out or contacting me.
If I didn't believe that that was possible, then I would be wasting my time doing this or anything else that I do.
So I believe that it's possible.
I mean, Mike, I-I've talked to you off camera, you know, and I've told you, "Stop all this [bleep.]
you know, and live your life.
" And you're like, "I can't.
These people need me.
" You know, I really admire it.
I want people to know that about you.
If I can help one person who I may have harmed in the past or prevent someone from being harmed in the future, a family from being harmed in the future, this'll all be worth it.
I'm sorry for what you guys have been through.
I really am.
It's just a lot, Mike.
I want you guys to - I know you do.
- He's not going to stop.
get your families back, you know.
He's not going to stop.
I mean, it's just I know.
I just want I want your families to, you know I just want for you to have what you deserve.
You don't deserve this, you know.
Nobody deserves to have their family torn apart because of a belief system.
- Bye, you guys.
- Bye.
Thank you again.
This is abusing people spiritually and robbing people of their lives.
Fair Game is something that I'm passionate about exposing.
This is not some little thing.
This Church is not just running around being annoying and hiring a few PIs.
These people are actively destroying people's lives or attempting to.
There's always a piece of me that just wants to move on.
I feel that, at times, it's too big of a mountain to climb, and I don't know if I can actually do anything about it.
But then I get, you know, incensed over it and I just hope that we do something good here.
You know, I really do.
I hope we do something good.
What I'm seeing is the Church continually trying to bully and discredit every single person who's telling their story that is true.
I'm saying now, I'm going to help these people have a voice, and so bully me and see how far you get.
O0 Mike: The other dark side of Scientology is taking people's money.
We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Paying someone $800 an hour to sit and interrogate you.
Leah: She has had her family destroyed because she stood up and said, "No, you have lied to me.
" They They'll close the doors.
- Yeah.
- And they won't let you out.
[Sobbing.]
Went through such mental brutality.
All the money we spent just trying to hang on to my family.
Let's just stop.
Let's stop for a minute.
Oh, my God!
The church disputes many of the statements made by Mike Rinder.
Rinder's dishonesty and malfeasance caused the church numerous problems that took years and millions of dollars to correct.
Ultimately, the intervention of the ecclesiastical leader was needed to clean up Rinder's final and greatest mess, resulting in his removal in disgracein 2002.
Years later, he ramains bitter and angry for the humiliation he endured as a result and refuses to accept personal responsibility for any of his actions.
Subs from explosiveskull This is your daughter.
Mm-hmm.
"I'm utterly mortified and disgusted to see what you've been doing, attempting to stop Scientology, something that helps so many people.
" "You're not worried about me.
You don't care about me or Benjamin or Mom or anyone.
You hate other people and you hate us, too, and that couldn't be clearer.
You don't respect anything I believe, and luckily, I didn't turn out like you.
" Woman: Wow.
"I help people and feel good when I do.
I'm a caring person, a Scientologist.
You cannot deal with the truth and you negate it due to your own crimes, crimes of not doing your job and instead being lazy and incompetent.
It was embarrassing.
It was so embarrassing being your daughter.
" [Sniffles.]
I don't even want to read this.
I wish I had a dad like you, Mike.
I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.
The aim and goal is to put man in a-a mental condition, where he him can solve his own problems.
Scientology is the belief that you can better your mind, but you're also helping this planet be a better place.
Without any Scientology organization, things are not going to change on this planet.
Woman: After years of slowly questioning Scientology Man: Leah Remini in her very public break with Scientology I didn't want to find out that what I had done my whole life was a lie.
[Doorbell rings.]
[Cheers and applause.]
Fight for your family.
Fight for your daughters, your sons.
Get them out of this thing.
You're not going to continue to lie to people and abuse people and take their money and their lives.
If I can stop one, then I'm going to do it.
Thank you so much.
- How are you doing? - Good, you? - Good.
- Good, thank you.
It's interesting to be here.
Clearwater is like the Mecca of Scientology.
Anybody I meet here, so far, like, I'm like, is this person a Scientologist, like, our sound guy, he's from Clearwater.
I'm like why is he from Clearwater? Who does he know here? Does he have a cousin? Does he have a wife? Does he have a sister who is in Scientology? You know, that's what I'm thinking.
Well, we'll find out in a minute.
[Laughter.]
Oh, my God, this is so weird.
I mean, you know they can see us, right? They've got cameras beyond belief.
These are all little Sea Org members, you know.
These young kids, and that's what I was.
I was younger than that girl.
You know what I mean? I want to, like, save these people.
I want to, like, go, "Come with me now.
" Right now, we're going to Mike Rinder's house.
So far, my involvement with Mike on this project has been as a consultant.
What stories are we going to tell that make people understand how people get involved in Scientology? Why they stay? Why people disconnect from their children? To Mike's personal story.
My name is Mike Rinder.
I was a Scientologist for 46 years.
I was the International Spokesperson for Scientology for more than 20 years until I left in 2007.
Please welcome Mr.
Mike Rinder.
[Applause.]
Part of my job was to discredit and destroy critics who spoke out against the Church.
If the Church believed that someone was an enemy and needed to be silenced or destroyed, it was my job, and I did it.
If I was told to follow someone, I made it happen.
If I was told to discredit someone, dig up dirt on them, get their backgrounds investigated, I made it happen.
Everything from following them 24 hours a day to having people camped outside their home to people knocking on their door Woman: Okay, I'm going to say it one more time.
You are on my property.
You can leave now.
to being vilified on the Internet to following them wherever they travel.
- I was the guy.
- You can't do that.
Mike: I feel bad about the people that got hurt as a result of my actions, but I feel it's important to tell the truth of what really goes on behind the scenes, what really is happening in Scientology.
Whoo.
How are you? - Hi, honey, I'm here.
- Hi.
- You made it.
- Hi, gorgeous lady.
Christie: Good to see you.
Did you always know you were going to speak out? No, I didn't know that I was going to speak out.
It took me a while to to decide that it was the right thing to do.
- The rea Well - Why? was the Because after I left, my mother stayed in touch with me, and she was pretty old.
She had had a heart transplant already, and I was worried that if I spoke out publicly, it might literally kill her.
Mike: I grew up in Australia.
My parents got into Scientology when I was about six years old.
They were very early adopters of Scientology.
Back then, there were governments around the world who were investigating and going after Scientology as a cult.
When I was growing up, there was an inquiry that was held in Australia.
The ultimate conclusion of it was the practice of Scientology is harmful.
It's detrimental to society.
So, therefore, it's banned.
You know, I look back on it and I think it sort of was the foundation of this this mind-set in Scientology of it's us against the world.
That was ultimately why I joined the Sea Organization when I was 18.
I joined with the idea that I was going to be trained as an executive in Scientology, to defend Scientology, to help it grow.
I wanted to go and be where L.
Ron Hubbard was, which, at the time, was on the Apollo, the ship that was in the Mediterranean.
The Apollo is a ship that L.
Ron Hubbard purchased in 1968 to be his floating headquarters for Scientology.
He was under heavy attack in the United Kingdom, which is where he was living at the time, and decided that the safest place to be was at sea where you can raise your anchor and sail out into international waters and nobody has any jurisdiction over you.
I gradually sort of progressed up the ranks to various different positions, and ultimately, I became the head of the Commodore's Messenger Org.
Commodore's Messengers are the people who work directly for L.
Ron Hubbard, so the messengers became his personal assistants and ultimately became the people that ran Scientology.
I was one of the first 8 or 10 people, and I gradually became the head of the Office of Special Affairs for the world.
The Office of Special Affairs had the responsibilities of dealing with legal cases, dealing with government relations, dealing with public relations, and dealing with enemies of the Church.
The objective of that part of the Church that deals with "enemies" Mm-hmm.
also, which I used to be the head of Mm-hmm.
is to get rid of "attackers.
" A policy called Fair Game.
Nobody knows the policy of Fair Game better than the one who used to enforce it, and that's Mike Rinder.
Fair Game is the idea that anybody who is an enemy or a critic of Scientology may have anything done to them with the idea that the ends justifies the means.
And there was a bunch of writings by L.
Ron Hubbard that described how you get rid of an attacker.
It basically says that you can do anything Yeah.
to a critic or an enemy of Scientology Mm.
and not be subjected to any form of Scientology justice.
- Justice.
- Or ethics handling - Right.
- as a result.
Leah: But the Church claims that policy has been - Cancelled.
- cancelled.
It was cancelled for PR reasons.
Mm-hmm.
And that this does not change the treatment of SPs, Suppressive Persons.
Mike: The Church says the Fair Game policy was cancelled but carries on just as it did before.
The videos of the intimidation tactics, the cameras in people's faces.
And nobody gives a [bleep.]
about you.
That's the truth.
It's the smear sites that are on the Internet that are put up by the Church.
Man: It's actually illegal to picket residential premises.
You're committing suppressive acts.
Leah: The Church has definitely set up that the evil is anyone who opposes Scientology.
If you are attacking Scientology or criticizing Scientology, you are evil, period.
No grey area.
Mike: And nobody understands what goes on better than me because I was in that position of being the one that was responding on behalf of the Church.
Come on, Marty.
Got anything to say? Man: Nazi criminal, go back to Germany! Hi, we like freedom of religion.
Mike: So I knew that the minute that I spoke out, I'm someone to be destroyed.
- Hi.
- Shane brain.
- Hi.
- Hi, sweetie.
- Hi.
- Give me a hug.
- How was school? - Good.
Yeah? Hey, buddy, what'd you get? - Hi, bud.
- What's that? - Shane got a fist.
- This is Leah, Shane.
- This is Leah.
- Hi.
- You didn't meet her before.
- How are you? - Good.
- Good.
You know, I look at how I view my wife and family now.
There is nobody that could persuade me that anything is more important than my family.
But that's, I guess, is the difference in my mind-set and the difference in my attitude toward what's important in life now compared to what it was like then.
I met my ex-wife Cathy on board the Apollo.
I was 19, and then we got married in 1976 when we came here to Clearwater, and in January of 1978, our daughter Taryn was born.
I didn't have that much interaction with her.
She was in the nursery all day long.
Cathy and I worked.
We would see her for an hour a day and then at the end of the night.
Leah: The core belief of Scientology is that you are a spiritual being, that you have lived many lives and you will live many lives.
So your mother is really not your mother.
I mean, she's your mother this lifetime, but you're going to have many mothers.
So they put very little significance on interpersonal relationships between family members and the same with marriage.
Mike: Scientology teaches that you are doing something that is more important, and it is so important and so vital that nothing can distract you from it.
Benjamin was born in 1983, and by that time, we were in LA, and he too was raised in the Sea Organization.
My biggest regret and something that I can't change now is that I caused two children to be born into and raised in Scientology.
I effectively lost them because I brought them into the world and raised as Scientologists.
David Miscavige is the Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center.
He is the undisputed dictator of Scientology.
With David Miscavige, it is way less a spiritual activity than it is a money making activity.
Things at the International Base had degenerated.
It was very, very Stalin-esque, and in the year 2000, things really started to go downhill, and the conditions became incredibly oppressive, and then, a couple of years later, The Hole started.
The Hole is a building that David Miscavige designated at the International Headquarters of Scientology in Hemet where myself and eventually about 100 people were locked in two double-wide trailers, sleeping on the floor, eating slop 24/7 in a building that had a security guard at the front door and bars on the windows to prevent anybody from escaping, to beat one another up until they confess to their crimes.
People were put in The Hole because, for whatever reason, they displeased David Miscavige.
Honestly, the reasons for that could have been anything from answering a question wrongly, not answering a question, a facial expression that was inappropriate, falling asleep after being up for a couple of days.
I menything whim you're in The Hole.
In addition to that, I was one of the people that was a-a primary target of Miscavige, physical btings routinely.
The first time it happened, he called for me to come up to the the officer's lounge.
I walked up and was about to knock on the door, and he comes barreling out and punches me and then puts me in a headlock and throws me into the bushes and is beating away on me in the while I'm sprawled in the bushes.
I was stuck.
I had no idea that this was coming.
Of the years, anywhere from 50 to 100 times, he would assault me, attack me, hit me, punch me, kick me, whatever.
I look back and I go, yeah, so why just take it? And there's a few reasons why you just take it.
One is you believe that you did something wrong.
Two, you're in a mind-set that you go, well, I've caused upset to Mr.
Miscavige, and this is a-a-a terrible state of affairs.
He shouldn't be upset.
He's the leader of Scientology.
Understand that when you're talking about David Miscavige, to a Scientologist, you're talking to someone like the Pope.
It's like hearing the Pope slaps people around.
Mike: In 2006, BBC Panorama assigned a reporter, John Sweeney, to do a program about Scientology, and particularly the fact that the leader of Scientology, David Miscavige, was physically abusing people.
Leah: I was told a lot of information about John Sweeney by my Church.
He's attacking your Church.
He's attacking the leader of your Church, and when I asked Mike and my Church about it, they were like, "Oh, my God, this guy's an SP.
What do you give a [bleep.]
what he's saying? He's ridiculous.
He is an alcoholic.
Miscavige had me pulled out of The Hole and charged me with the responsibility of stopping the BBC from ever airing any program about Scientology and most particularly stopping them from ever airing any allegations that Miscavige had physically assaulted anyone.
This was an opportunity for me to get back in good graces, to get out of The Hole.
I mean, I'd been there for almost two years, that if I came out and I did a good job of this, I would be able to extricate myself from being a prisoner in The Hole and go back to somewhat normal life as a servant of the Sea Organization.
[Crowd cheering.]
John Travolta was having a premiere of his movie "Wild Hogs" in London, and the concern that Miscavige had was that John Sweeney would get into the Four Seasons Hotel, where they were doing the press junket.
So I to then quickly, alone, get on a plane to London and brief John Travolta and his PR people and security to be on the lookout for the bald lunatic that was John Sweeney.
John Sweeney showed up at the Tottenham Court Road Church facility.
John Sweeney started asking me, "I've been told that you personally were beaten.
" Those allegations are absolute, utter rubbish.
Absolute, utter rubbish! Standing in front of a camera and having someone say to you, "I've been told that you've been beaten by this man.
Is that true?" and denying it.
It was sort of another one of those moments of clarity that I eventually had.
I went, you know what? This is nuts.
Miscavige considered that I failed because the program ultimately aired.
He said, "You're a screw-up.
This is just another one of your failures, so you're going to be sent to Western Australia, and you're never seeing the rest of your family again.
I was now no longer doing anything that remotely resembled what I believed I had joined the Sea Org for, and the reason that I had stayed was because of my children, my wife, my mother, my brother, my sister, and that if I left, I would lose all of them.
It got to the point though now where the staying was becoming more and more like leaving.
In the consequences, I'm not going to be with my family in any way, shape, or form, and of being told you're going to be in purgatory forever.
And at that point, I went, you know what? I've got nothing to lose anymore.
I picked up my briefcase.
I walked out the front door and then started running to the tube station.
I looked around to see if they'd figured out that I had just walked out without an escort.
I bought a ticket for the tube, got on the train, and went I'm done, I'm out.
Mike: I went to an Internet café and I called Tom DeVocht, who I had known for a very long time and he had left the Sea Organization, and who I was responsible for monitoring because he was considered to be a potential threat.
So I knew where he worked.
And I called him at work and I said, "Tom, I'm in London, I don't have anywhere to go.
Can I come to where you're living?" And he said, "Yes, of course.
" I was prepared for the fact, at that time, that once I left, my children and my former wife would never speak to me again.
I hoped that they would follow, but I knew that there was a likelihood that they would not, but I just couldn't keep going.
I had been married to my wife for 31 years when I left.
I asked to be able to speak to her.
I didn't have the opportunity to.
She sent me a-a handwritten letter saying "[Bleep.]
you.
I'm filing a divorce.
" My children disconnected from me.
I understood why they did it.
I understood that they really had no choice.
They know no life outside of Scientology, and I feel a responsibility for having created that circumstance.
No church, no organization should have the power to break up a family.
A few other people had spoken already to the reporters from the "St.
Pete Times," and the Church was saying they're all liars.
And so my original compromise was I will sit down with you, and I will go over everything, but I don't want to be on the record.
But then there was a series of events that happened with Monique Yingling and staff coming and trying to tell me that I was, you know, doing wrong by confirming information that the "St.
Pete Times" had.
Monique Yingling, a lawyer, not even a Scientologist, started with, "Well, don't you ever want to speak to your children again? Don't you ever want to speak to your family again?" Which was kind of the last straw, and I said, "You know, Monique, both of my children disconnected from me when I left the Sea Org, so when you start thinking that you're going to use that to try and control what I do, [bleep.]
you.
Get on a plane, go back to wherever you came from, we're done.
" And that was when I went on the record in the "St.
Pete Times.
" The series of articles called "The Truth Rundown" came out in 2009.
It was the first time that former high-level defectors from the Church Jeff Hawkins, Marty Rathbun, me, Tom DeVocht, Amy Scobee, and a number of others had stepped forward.
It broke a lot of ground about what was really going on behind the scenes in Scientology.
Just before "The Truth Rundown" series went to print, I get a series of letters from all the members of my family my ex-wife, my children, my brother, my sister, nieces, nephews, and my mother.
At that point, I knew that there was not going to be any further nice Christmas cards or friendly letters from my mother with pictures of, you know, other family members or anything like that.
That that was it.
Parishioners are taught very early on, you do not question the Church of Scientology.
Questioning anything you've read about the Church of Scientology means you are an enemy.
You are You are taking on now the colors of an enemy to the Church.
When I spoke out in the "St.
Petersburg Times," I became public enemy number 1 or 2 in the world of Scientology.
I knew that if I started speaking out, I would have to go find other employment, too, because I was working at a car dealership.
I knew that if the Church wanted to go after me, the one thing that they could do was send picketers outside of this dealership.
So I left.
I ended up back in Clearwater because I got a job offer and there was an advantage to being in Clearwater, to me, which was I believed that if anybody was going to leave the Sea Org, it would be my son, and the fact that I am 15 minutes away from where he is is a factor in why do I continue to live there.
So, when you first moved into this house, you were "Fair Gamed.
" Yeah.
Mike: Hello? Don't Don't Hey - Hey, dude, don't touch him.
- Hey, don't touch me.
- Yeah, don't touch me.
- Hey, come on.
He's not touching you.
Take a picture of the Mike: I know that there is going to be people who will say things that are just outrageous, made-up lies in order to try and discredit me.
That's the standard policy of Scientology.
I know that there will be efforts to get inside my head and intimidate me into not speaking out by putting up websites.
They will take every little thing that I have ever said, they will find anything that I have ever done, and they will take that and expand it into, oh, this was some monstrous crime.
When I was in hospital, when I was getting married, when I was needing help on any part of my life in any situation, he was never there.
Now my daughter will say, oh, I was always lazy and she was embarrassed to be my daughter.
Well, it's funny that never came up when I was in the Church.
My own brother would say that I did anything if the Church tells him, "Oh, we know that Mike did X, Y and Z.
" Even though I grew up with him and I spent my entire life with him and he knows that that's not true, because the Church now tells him that that's the case, he will now say that.
Ultimately, he is who he is and that is someone who is quite evil.
And multiple people have also said that they saw Mike Rinder bearing the brunt of David Miscaviges' rage.
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.
I-I've been with him, we've been together all our lives.
They believe wholeheartedly that their eternity depends upon the well-being of Scientology, that if they don't follow the party line, they are forsaking their only hope at eternal spiritual salvation.
And then, at a very much more pragmatic level, they will have nowhere to live, no one feeding them.
They won't have someone to send them to the doctor.
They won't have anything because they rely on the Church to provide all of that for them.
For a long time, it was really nutty.
I was being followed everywhere I went.
One of them rammed into the back of my car.
- There's no damage to your car.
- Okay, go ahead and have the - You damaged our car - Tell the police I need - by tailgating us - a police report on a - all day long - on a, uh, accident.
and then ramming into our back.
I heard about Fair Game while I was in the church, then I was told that it that that policy didn't exist anymore.
And then they showed me the policy, that it was cancelled.
So that's enough to squash any fears that you have that Fair Game is in existence.
The garbage man came and knocked on our door and said, "I-I feel really bad but I need to tell you that I'm being paid by a private investigator to steal your trash.
" What?! Mike: The truck number is 309927.
Another guy is taking the garbage.
Hey, who're you getting that for? - Huh? - Who are you getting that for? That's my garbage.
- It ain't your garbage.
- Yeah, it is.
- Who are you? - Mike Rinder.
This came from my house.
- Oh, I don't think so.
- Oh, I sure so.
I video'd it.
Mike: I-I said, "What did they tell you?" And he said they told us what they were investigating us for having a drug-running operation out of our home.
What did they hope to find in the garbage? Phone numbers of people, who you've been talking to.
Travel plans.
- Right, anything.
- Anything.
Leah: The Church of Scientology will hire private investigators at $10,000 a week.
That's the [bleep.]
-up part of it.
Or maybe you don't smoke marijuana, or perhaps you do smoke marijuana.
It's sophomoric and vitriolic.
It's It's It's so many words I can't Like that a per a human being, a grown-up person claiming to be part of a Church that has all the answers and and are the epitome of morality.
This is what they're doing.
Mike: It was on the highway.
Why are you following me? Man: Get away from me, I'm calling the police! Good, go ahead.
Why are you following me? I'm calling the police.
Leah: You are allowing the bully to get away with behavior that shouldn't be coming from a Church.
It's not some little [bleep.]
kid behind a computer.
We're talking about a church.
I don't give a [bleep.]
what they do, but they shouldn't be doing that and hurting people and trying to destroy their lives.
You don't want to talk on camera? I I Well, why you got You're sending guys around with cameras all the time.
I'm not sending anybody around.
Mike: There is now evidence of you in two states using electronic surveillance.
You come around That's a violation of federal law.
Are you aware of that? You were Fair Gamed at at your job.
You were Fair Gamed at the other house, and what happened there? They showed up with video cameras across the street.
- You don't know who I am? - Say your name.
My name is Dave Lubow.
I'm a private investigator, and I'm investigating you on your actions against the Church of Scientology.
Now, are you saying we're too close to your house? Mike: I'm saying you're harassing me.
- Across the street.
- You're in front of our house.
- That's harassment.
- We're across the street.
We're not on your property.
We're across the street.
They would follow me and Christie wherever we went.
And And calling the cops means what? We called the police, and they said it's not against the law.
They were standing in the street, and they're allowed to film and there was nothing that could be done about it.
And then they showed up another time when we were at a doctor's office and I was inside with I had a doctor's appointment, and Mike was waiting for me outside in the car, and his his brother, his daughter, and a bunch of senior - Ex-wife.
- His ex-wife.
And Jinny Linson and Guillaume Lesevre and Dave Bloomberg and Sue Paquette all showed up, and I happened to be on the phone, and this was this was funny.
I happened to be on the phone with John Sweeney from the BBC, and he recorded it.
Just audio, but they show up, started screaming at me.
They were screaming at him so loud that I could hear it from inside and was starting to get worried, like, what's going on? Is that I hear Mike and I hear voices and so Unbelievable.
They Then they came into the doctor's office, and then the doctor was asking them to leave and then we called the police again.
Cathy, his ex-wife was doing this to me.
And like, "You little bitch.
You little bitch.
" And I was like, you know, "What do you want?" What did she want? - They wanted - I don't know.
They wanted to attempt to intimidate me.
Th What else happened? They had a house set up across the street with a woman who was a private investigator that they moved in there with a kid to befriend Christie who was spying on us and had cameras in her house.
Wait, so how long did this go on? Six months.
She - Yeah.
- I was, like, friendly with her.
Like, I-I invited her to my baby shower.
She brought me gifts.
She seemed lonely.
She was out on the street.
We'd be out walking the dog with Shane, and she'd be out there with her little kid who is the same age as Shane and What did you do when you found out? Well, I eventually started being really suspicious of this woman because I Because when we moved here, she moved.
And she moved to this neighborhood.
- What?! - Yeah, and then I was like, "Mike, there's something really wrong with this," and I said I think she's a plant.
I think she's been planted there by the Church.
And then she disappeared and we never saw her again.
So then you move into this house.
So then we moved into this house.
And then you find out that there's a bird There's a There's a camera in a birdcage in a bird box.
Well, that was after we got an anonymous letter in our mailbox Mm-mm.
saying you shouldn't be associating with your neighbor.
And I go, "Wait a minute.
Where are they watching from?" Mm-hmm.
So I walked up around the street, and I went, oh, right there.
There's a stupid birdhouse that I've seen 100 times, never even given a second thought to.
And so I went and got a ladder, and I walked over there and I opened the lid, and there's a camera inside of the birdhouse pointing at our house.
I'm going to zoom in here because you can see down the end, where I'm going to head to, is a pole with what appears to be a birdhouse on the top of it.
We're going to go down and investigate what's actually in that birdhouse.
And here is the camera inside of this funny birdhouse.
They're allowed to install cameras and take pictures, Mike, o-of private houses? - It's not illegal.
- It's not illegal? So I Mike, so I can come here in the middle of the night and put You can No.
You can say You can say that the camera was to watch the front of the house.
It's basically the same.
Everything is on the edge of - The law.
- what is legal but not on really on the edge of what's moral.
Right.
It's intended to create a negative effect.
Idea about you guys.
Like, so, even if one of your neighbors thought you were a wife beater or a child molester, - they've done their job.
- Right.
- Correct.
- Right.
[Bleep.]
you.
The whole game, like, that they've been running and been getting away with, it's done.
Like, your game is done.
You You You played your role, and now you're going to be exposed for the [bleep.]
that you did.
Leah: You fought for the church because you believed in what you were doing.
- Correct.
- You're fighting now against the church because you know, ultimately, the truth, and so you're on the right side of that fight now.
That's correct.
Yeah.
Leaving does weigh on me, of course, it does.
My mother's dead now, and when she died, nobody even told me.
My brother didn't tell me because he's disconnected.
My children didn't tell me.
I got it in an e-mail from somebody that I've never even heard of who said, you know, "I just want to let you know that your mother died.
" And whenever I've ever gotten to the point where I got, like, tired of the whole thing, and can we just stop talking it and just put it all away, and he says, "But I have my kids in there.
" - And it's like - That I put there.
- Right.
- And it's like he could - Like, that's part of it, too.
- Yeah.
As a mother, like, that really hits me.
- Yeah.
- So I'm like, "Okay.
I get it.
" I'm somewhat of an eternally idiotic optimist that I hope sometime that my brother or my son or my daughter will decide that something is wrong and reach out to me.
I think more likely to happen is that the Church of Scientology will implode and its implosion will be what will result in them eventually reaching out or contacting me.
If I didn't believe that that was possible, then I would be wasting my time doing this or anything else that I do.
So I believe that it's possible.
I mean, Mike, I-I've talked to you off camera, you know, and I've told you, "Stop all this [bleep.]
you know, and live your life.
" And you're like, "I can't.
These people need me.
" You know, I really admire it.
I want people to know that about you.
If I can help one person who I may have harmed in the past or prevent someone from being harmed in the future, a family from being harmed in the future, this'll all be worth it.
I'm sorry for what you guys have been through.
I really am.
It's just a lot, Mike.
I want you guys to - I know you do.
- He's not going to stop.
get your families back, you know.
He's not going to stop.
I mean, it's just I know.
I just want I want your families to, you know I just want for you to have what you deserve.
You don't deserve this, you know.
Nobody deserves to have their family torn apart because of a belief system.
- Bye, you guys.
- Bye.
Thank you again.
This is abusing people spiritually and robbing people of their lives.
Fair Game is something that I'm passionate about exposing.
This is not some little thing.
This Church is not just running around being annoying and hiring a few PIs.
These people are actively destroying people's lives or attempting to.
There's always a piece of me that just wants to move on.
I feel that, at times, it's too big of a mountain to climb, and I don't know if I can actually do anything about it.
But then I get, you know, incensed over it and I just hope that we do something good here.
You know, I really do.
I hope we do something good.
What I'm seeing is the Church continually trying to bully and discredit every single person who's telling their story that is true.
I'm saying now, I'm going to help these people have a voice, and so bully me and see how far you get.
O0 Mike: The other dark side of Scientology is taking people's money.
We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Paying someone $800 an hour to sit and interrogate you.
Leah: She has had her family destroyed because she stood up and said, "No, you have lied to me.
" They They'll close the doors.
- Yeah.
- And they won't let you out.
[Sobbing.]
Went through such mental brutality.
All the money we spent just trying to hang on to my family.
Let's just stop.
Let's stop for a minute.
Oh, my God!