In writing a 365-page book targeting the Church of Scientology,
Lawrence Wright sought out a tiny group of disgruntled ex-members
led by this man:
expelled from the Church for financial misconduct, deception,
ineptitude and violence.
Nearly all of Wright's sources
were dismissed from the Church for similar offenses,
including: embezzlement, financial wrongdoing, sexual misconduct,
physical abuse and severe violations of Church doctrine.
Yet these are the individuals Lawrence Wright uses to impugn the
character of the Church and its leader,
a man responsible for a worldwide religion
and its unprecedented expansion…
…and under whose stewardship,
the Church’s social betterment programs have become
the largest non-governmental anti-drug and
human rights campaigns on Earth.
But in writing his "so called" expose on Scientology,
Lawrence Wright’s sources were far from credible and Wright knew it.
Their allegations so far-fetched that a federal judge and an appeals court
dismissed them as baseless.
Lawrence Wright ignored that.
And when the Church provided thousands of pages of evidence
documenting the falsehood of those claims -–
Lawrence Wright continued to present the allegations as fact.
When asked in a journalist forum,
“Do you believe that journalism can lead to truth?”,
Wright had this to say:
"Truth is one of those subjective terms
that are pointless to get too tied up about."
Wright's book was released in January 2013
but failed to generate reader interest.
Still, it found itself immediately steeped in controversy
about the veracity of its claims.
So much so that the book’s publisher would not release it in Britain,
Ireland, Canada or Australia because of their libel laws.
The chances of losing a lawsuit were simply too great.
Now, documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney has taken Lawrence Wright’s
book at its word without question or examination:
“I utterly trusted Larry. I wasn’t looking for holes in his story.”
Over the two years Gibney quietly worked on his documentary,
he never once contacted the Church, visited a Church
or spoke to any of its members.
His documentary was in the can before he even mentioned it to them.
And to this day, Gibney refuses to reveal his allegations to the Church.
Let’s take a closer look at Wright and Gibney's sources:
Meet Garry Scarff, spokesperson of the now defunct Cult Awareness Network,
a criminal deprogramming group, many of whose members were arrested
and convicted of assault, battery and kidnapping.
Garry Scarff has admitted to his participation
in the seizure, forcible detention,
imprisonment, beatings and traumatization of 42 separate individuals.
What's also been documented as fact is that Gary Scarff is a serial liar.
He once claimed in a lawsuit his mother was born in Israel.
She was born in Missouri.
He also maintained he was Jewish when he admitted later to being… Catholic.
In media interviews, Gary Scarff professed to have been a member of the People’s Temple,
where, he said, he lost his family in 1978 in the mass tragedy at Jonestown.
"...She went to Guyana, as well as did my young son.
And my father of course went down to Guyana -
they all perished, all three."
He repeated this story over and over to the press for nearly ten years.
"I had a sexual relationship on going with Jim Jones himself
because Jim demanded it of me."
Ultimately, Garry Scarff was forced to admit in a court declaration
that his entire Jonestown story was an elaborate hoax:
“I was never in Jonestown. I lost no relatives there.
And my father is still alive. The entire story was a fabrication.”
But these and other lies finally caught up with the Cult Awareness Network,
which was forced to declare bankruptcy and no longer exists.
Even after his Jonestown hoax was exposed,
unbelievably Garry Scarff next invented another story:
that he was a Scientologist and a Scientology staff member.
He never was.
But, he used this story to sell a series
of false and defamatory tales to the tabloid media…
…so that he could become a “paid witness" in court cases.
He provided testimony for a now-disgraced attorney by the name of Graham Berry.
This time it did not take long for Scarff’s lies to be exposed.
In fact, Lawrence Wright’s chief corroborator,
a known suborner of perjury named Mike Rinder,
had already exposed Scarff’s lie, when he wrote to a reporter:
“Scarff was never a Scientologist or a staff member of the Church
any more than Scarff’s wife and child died at Jonestown…”
Nevertheless, enter Lawrence Wright in 2011.
In rounding up his sources,
a collection of what’s been reported as “a posse of lunatics,”
Lawrence Wright dusts off Garry Scarff,
apparently without so much as a background check.
Wright credits Scarff as the source of a tale about being a bank teller
who was forced to comply with a robbery in order to pay off his debt to the Church.
But Garry Scarff not only never was a Scientologist,
there was no debt and there never was such a robbery.
In fact, Garry Scarff himself recanted his story under oath as a complete fiction…
Admitting that he had: “never been a member of the Church…"
Yet Lawrence Wright presents Garry Scarff as a “credible source.”
Even when the Church publicly exposed
Lawrence Wright’s journalistic irresponsibility
in repeating Gary Scarff's false tales, Wright defended himself by saying
he believed the man because his attorney was sitting next to him.
Attorney, if you can call him that...
That would be the aforementioned Graham Berry,
whose license to practice law was suspended
by the state of California for making fraudulent allegations about the Church…
… and all as sworn to by his client Garry Scarff:
"I provided 17 days of sworn deposition testimony...
manufacturing one lie after another for Berry's use
against the Church of Scientology."
“I made up a story that I had conspired with [church] lawyers
to murder CAN’s executive director…
I completely fabricated the story with the knowing participation of Mr. Berry …“
“When I became concerned about my perjury,
Berry assured me not to worry, he said he would take care of it.”
So Lawrence Wright "trusted" Garry Scarff because his attorney was present--
the attorney that coached Scarff to lie under oath.
By negligence or design,
Lawrence Wright has chosen to conceal the truth about Garry Scarff –
even after Garry Scarff has admitted the stories he fed Wright were utter fiction.
So here's what we have:
Garry Scarff —violent deprogrammer and self-admitted serial liar to the media,
to the courts, and to the public.
Presented as fact by Lawrence Wright, swallowed whole by Alex Gibney
and greenlit by Sheila Nevins,
HBO’s head of Documentaries and Family Programming...
…who seems to know what to do with bad television:
“And HBO is a great place to sweep your mistakes under the carpet.”
In future segments,
we’re going to show you more of Lawrence Wright’s “sources"...
Remember this guy – the ringleader of that tiny group Lawrence Wright
befriended and used to tell false stories about his former religion?
“Shut the fuck up. I’m tellin’ you something right now…”
He was dismissed and expelled from the Church for criminal activities --
that's criminal, as in felony.
His résumé also includes episodes of shoving, kicking,
punching and extreme violence.
And a honeymoon night spent in jail.
But Lawrence Wright doesn’t reveal any of that,
or any other sordid detail about this man.
You’ll also meet those this man calls his "posse":
Such as the guy he nearly killed, who he now calls his "best good buddy".
This guy deserted his children and ruthlessly attacked his estranged wife…
…the thief who used to ride shotgun with the ringleader on his punching sprees.
Admitted accomplices in a scheme to suborn perjury –
getting others to lie under oath.
And another Lawrence Wright source, the "lady" expelled from the Church
for having sexual relations with someone she was ministering to,
a violation of professional conduct in any church. You'll meet her, too.
…the paid tabloid source and his wife, whose frivolous lawsuits
were repeatedly thrown out of Federal Court
and the couple ordered to pay the Church $40,000.
... and the writer who took advantage of his Scientology connections to
take $5 million for writing scripts he never completed.
Lawrence Wright and Alex Gibney could have shown you
the truth about Scientology.
For this is Scientology today:
A rapidly expanding religion with new churches opening, by the month,
throughout the world...
But instead of showing you this,
Wright and Gibney have chosen to give you this man...
Shut the fuck up…
And his tiny group of followers.
That’s right – this guy is the leader of all Lawrence Wright's "sources."
They are interconnected, each of them corroborating the other’s
false stories and lies, some for big bucks.
All of them handpicked to populate the story
Lawrence Wright and Alex Gibney want to sell.
Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney
and executive producer Sheila Nevins know full well who these people really are.
But you won’t see that on HBO.
Shut the fuck up…