At home: Critics public and private keep pressure on Scientology

http://www.sptimes.com/News/32999/Worldandnation/At_home__Critics_publ.html

At home: Critics public and private keep pressure on Scientology

Scientology leaders say they want peace. They say they want to stay out of court. But with both foes at home and foes abroad, that goal may be elusive.

St. Petersburg Times, March 29, 1999
By Lucy Morgan

Leaders of the Clearwater-based Church of Scientology say they hope the years of heavy legal expenses are over.

That may not be a realistic hope.

While the number of cases Scientology is currently pursuing is down in the United States, a survey of the cases still under way shows a persistence and bitterness on both sides that make it hard for either to walk away.

Take, for example, Keith Henson, a 56-year-old computer consultant who has taken up picketing to protest the death of Lisa McPherson, a Clearwater woman who died after being held by Scientologists for 17 days.

Unlike many of those who regularly picket Scientology in Clearwater, Boston, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and England, Henson has never been a member of the church. He simply took exception to Scientology's efforts to stifle criticism of the church on the Internet and was outraged at McPherson's death.

To counter his pickets, Scientology has accused him of being a dangerous, crazed man who is capable of cutting off human heads and exploding bombs like the one that blew up the federal courthouse in Oklahoma. Henson says the allegations come from the days he worked with a cryogenics program that takes the heads from dead bodies to be frozen in hopes that medical science will one day find a cure for whatever caused their death. His experience in bombmaking dates back to a job for the mining industry in the Arizona desert where he used dynamite and other explosives.

At one point, Glen Barton, a Scientologist, made a citizens arrest, accusing Henson of battery and violating a court order in Los Angeles. In another instance Scientology tried to get a judge in Riverside, Calif., to stop Henson from picketing at all. After a hearing, the judge tossed Scientology's case out of court, saying Henson has a First Amendment right to picket.

Scientology failed to block his pickets or win a criminal conviction against Henson, but did succeed in winning a $75,000 judgment against him in federal court in San Jose because he posted a copyright Scientology document on the internet.

Henson, now in bankruptcy, is appealing and continues to picket Scientology centers whenever he has time. He, like other Scientology critics, chronicles his efforts on the Internet.

Scientology reacts to the pickets by sending staffers out to confront them and take pictures.

Increasingly, Scientologists go out and picket critics' homes or offices, distributing fliers that accuse them of being "religious bigots." Some pickets say Scientologists have frightened elderly family members with visits and questions about their picketing.

Robert S. Minton, a Boston financial consultant who has spent more than $2.2-million helping Scientology critics involved in lawsuits, has been a primary target. Scientologists have picketed his homes in Boston and New Hampshire, distributed literature accusing him of religious bigotry and adultery and had him arrested while he was picketing outside the Boston Scientology center. The assault charges filed by a Scientologist who came out to confront Minton were later dropped.

Twice in 1998, Scientology sought injunctions to stop Bruce Pettycrew from picketing its center in Mesa, Ariz. Pettycrew, an outspoken critic who pickets with a sign condemning McPherson's death, was accused by Scientology of harassment by yelling at the staff and passers-by. Pettycrew, Scientology alleged, was unstable and "likely to commit a violent act at any time."

The courts initially issued temporary restraining orders without notice to Pettycrew, but after a hearing decided to allow Pettycrew to picket as long as he moderates the volume of his speech while outside the center.

Pettycrew is often joined on the picket line by Jeff Jacobsen, a Phoenix critic who has caused no end of problems for Scientology. In early 1996 Jacobsen and other critics were planning a trip to Clearwater to picket when he took a look at Clearwater's home page on the World Wide Web. On the city's police site, Jacobsen noticed a request for help in solving a "suspicious death" that occurred at 210 S Fort Harrison Ave., the address of the Fort Harrison Hotel operated by Scientology.

Jacobsen mentioned the notice in a newsletter he sends to other critics and sent it to newspapers, where it quickly got attention and escalated into one of the Scientology's most significant problems. In December, criminal charges were filed against Scientology in Clearwater in connection with the death.

In England pickets travel with a toy dog that wears water wings. They carry signs suggesting that Duke, the dog of Los Angeles Judge Ronald Swearinger, drowned at the hands of Scientology. The church has vehemently denied any responsibility for Duke's death.

[NOTE: It's important to point out that nobody at that time -- certainly not the Judge in the case -- even claimed that the Scientology organization was responsible. Detailed information on the drowning can be found on the Internet and that information certainly shows that the Scientology cult apparently did murdered that dog. Even so, nobody in the legal case ever made that allegation or felt that it was even part of any on-going case -- and yet for some very mysterious reason the cult started yapping about how they weren't responsible - flr]