ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 1, 1996 TAG: 9612020072
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BARRINGTON, ILL.
SOURCE: LAURIE GOODSTEIN THE WASHINGTON POST
THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY was once the target of a suburban Chicago anti-cult group. Now the church owns the group and is in pursuit of its confidential files.
For 20 years, the Cult Awareness Network ran the nation's best-known hot line for parents who grew distraught when unconventional religious groups they neither trusted nor understood suddenly won the allegiance of their children.
From the network's offices here in a Chicago suburb, CAN answered more than 350 telephone inquiries a week, counseled relatives at conferences attended by thousands and gave news interviews to everyone from small-town daily newspapers to ``Nightline.''
As CAN's influence rose, so did the ire of its foes, who were furious at being depicted as dangerous cults. In particular, Church of Scientology members fought CAN with a barrage of lawsuits.
One high-stakes suit, handled by a lawyer who has frequently represented the church, succeeded, and a jury ordered CAN to pay as much as $1.8 million. The group filed for bankruptcy.
Last week its name, logo, post office box and telephone number were sold to the highest bidder: a Los Angeles lawyer named Steven L. Hayes, who is a Scientologist. Hayes says he is working with a group of people ``united in their distaste for CAN'' who plan to reopen the group so it ``disseminates the truth about all religions.''
``It kind of boggles the mind,'' said David Bardin, an attorney who has represented CAN in Washington. ``People will still pick up the CAN name in a library book and call saying, `My daughter has joined the Church of Scientology.' And your friendly CAN receptionist is someone who works for Scientology.''
Literature of the Church of Scientology calls CAN ``a hate group in the tradition of the KKK and the neo-Nazis.'' The Rev. Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, said in an interview: ``I just don't think a hate organization has a right to operate in America with impunity, and obviously the courts feel the same way.''
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Next up for auction could be 270 boxes of CAN files that former staffers say are stuffed with confidential information about current and former cult members, efforts to extricate them and private testimonies of anguish and abuse. Kendrick L. Moxon, a lawyer who frequently has represented Scientologists, is actively pursuing a purchase of these files, says the trustee handling the bankruptcy.
CAN took telephone inquiries from around the world about hundreds of controversial groups. Every request for help was logged and filed. Aside from satanic groups, more callers asked about Scientology than about any other group, according to a 1992 telephone log that CAN supplied to Congressional Quarterly.
CAN also gave some parents references to self-styled ``deprogrammers,'' whom CAN maintained were skilled at extricating devotees from cults by systematically challenging cult teachings and undermining beliefs. But there were repeated cases of deprogrammers being convicted for using force or other criminal means to wrest their targets away from the cults.
The CAN board articulated a policy advocating only ``legal methods'' of deprogramming, but the stigma of associating with criminals left CAN vulnerable to its detractors.
The Scientology magazine Freedom last year devoted a special issue to CAN, headlined: ``The serpent of hatred, intolerance, violence and death.'' A story called CAN's executive director, Cynthia Kisser, ``the mother of the serpent'' and purported to expose her past as a topless dancer, which she has denied. The magazine highlighted alleged deprogramming excesses and quoted scholars defending new religions such as Scientology.
``The time has come to do something about the Cult Awareness Network and its anti-religious crusade,'' Freedom concluded. ``This organization has plagued the American people for too long.''
Beginning in 1991, CAN and its local affiliates and staff were hit with a series of lawsuits filed by several dozen members of the Church of Scientology and others. In one week in 1992, Scientologists filed 12 suits against CAN, Kisser said. ``I'd open the door, a process server would hand me a suit, I'd say thank you, close the door, fax it to the attorney,'' said Kisser, a thin, intense woman who speaks at a machine-gun clip. ``Then another knock would come on the door. It was ridiculous.''
Most of the suits were civil rights claims, according to attorneys on both sides. People who identified themselves in the lawsuits as Scientologists alleged that the group denied them membership or participation in CAN conferences. Others sued because CAN would not allow them to volunteer in its national office here.
Some self-identified Scientologists sued after they attempted to form local CAN chapters and use the CAN letterhead, and the national CAN office refused to recognize them. Kisser said many of these were ``cookie-cutter lawsuits,'' in which only the plaintiff's name was changed.
Moxon, whose law firm filed many of the suits against CAN, said: ``What would you do if you had a religious belief and somebody was intentionally trying to destroy your church and destroy your belief and destroy your family?''
Many of these lawsuits were dismissed, but CAN was cannibalizing its $300,000 annual budget to defend itself, and the five-member staff (only one working full time) grew increasingly absorbed by the litigation, Kisser said.
What's more, she said, CAN's insurance carrier refused to renew its policy because of all the lawsuits, and no other insurer would agree to cover the group.
CAN struck back in 1994 with a counter-suit against the Church of Scientology, 11 individual Scientologists and the Los Angeles law firm of Bowles and Moxon. The group's ``malicious harassment'' suit alleged that the Church of Scientology orchestrated the filing of 45 unfounded and frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to drive CAN into bankruptcy.
CAN's suit was dismissed by the Cook County Circuit Court, but an appeal is pending in the Illinois Supreme Court.
* * *
The lawsuit that drove CAN into bankruptcy involved an 18-year-old from Bellevue, Wash., named Jason Scott. In 1991, Scott's mother hired a ``cult deprogrammer'' and two assistants in an attempt to get him to renounce his membership in the Life Tabernacle Church, a Pentecostal group.
Scott alleged in the suit that he was kidnapped for five days at a beach house, handcuffed, gagged with tape and forced to watch videotapes about religious cults. Scott feigned conversion, and when his deprogrammers took him to a restaurant, he ran off and went to police. In late 1993, the county prosecutor brought charges against the deprogrammer, who was acquitted.
But the case lived on in civil court. The lawyer who took the case on Scott's behalf was Moxon, a Scientologist and a frequent attorney for the church in high-profile cases, who has been sued by CAN for allegedly filing malicious lawsuits.
This time, Scott sued not only the deprogrammer and his two assistants, but also CAN. Scott maintained the woman who referred his mother to the deprogrammer did so as a local CAN volunteer.
A jury found all the defendants liable and awarded Scott more than $4 million in damages. CAN was ordered to pay as much as $1.8 million; the group has appealed.
Paul Lawrence, an attorney for CAN, acknowledges that Scott suffered an ``unfortunate'' deprogramming attempt. But CAN ``did not deserve to be swept up'' in the case because the volunteer who referred Scott's mother to the deprogrammer did so without CAN's knowledge, he said.
In the meantime, CAN filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 1995, hoping to develop a reorganization plan that would allow it to keep operating while pursuing the appeal.
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