Marty Rathbun 
Mike Rinder 
Yvonne “Spanky” Taylor 
Marc Headley 
Jason Beghe 
Tom DeVocht 
Sara Goldberg 
Paul Haggis 
Hana Whitfield 
Graham Berry 
Garry Scarff 
Jesse Prince 
Mark Fisher 
Karen de la Carriere 
Ervin Scott ALEX GIBNEY & HBOThe Prison of Propaganda
The Truth About Lawrence Wright and Alex Gibney’s Sources
Lawrence Wright and Alex Gibney scraped the bottom of the barrel to assemble a cast of disgruntled ex-Scientologists still bitter at having been expelled from the Church, some as long as three decades ago, led by a wannabe guru that formed a small anti-Scientology hate group he now admits was a failure.
This cast of misfits were given a free pass by Wright and Gibney, who failed to disclose these sources have (1) admitted to lying under oath (2) been called liars by judges (3) admitted to suborning perjury and destroying evidence in a court case (4) admitted to being on the payroll of contingency fee lawyers suing the Church (5) admitted to lying to the media (6) admitted to costing the Church millions of dollars through their malfeasance (7) admitted to a host of criminal acts, from battery to selling stolen Church equipment on eBay.
HBO and Gibney’s film, which uses Wright’s book as a foundation, relies on these individuals directly or their characterizations of a Church they have either been expelled from or were never a member of in the first place. Whether in the film or in the book it was based upon, the question is how Producer/Writer Lawrence Wright and Producer/Director Alex Gibney could fail so miserably to properly vet the credibility of these sources.
The lynchpins of Gibney’s documentary are two individuals, Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder. Both are obsessive zealots and admitted liars who have financial incentives to spread falsehoods about the Church.
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Marty Rathbun: Guru in Handcuffs
This video will leave no doubt in your mind that Rathbun more than deserved to be expelled.
Meet Marty Rathbun, put on a pedestal by Alex Gibney. Only problem is Rathbun is an unstable individual and self-admitted liar whose honeymoon suite was the New Orleans City Jail. Then there was the time he admitted he suborned perjury and obstructed justice. Not exactly sterling material. More important, he’s a self-proclaimed leader of a handful of zealots expelled from the Church years ago for malfeasance. Lawrence Wright knew all that before publishing his book. So did Alex Gibney, who also looked the other way. Rathbun’s financial motives include using his wife to sue the Church. Rathbun was removed from an external affairs position a decade ago following malfeasance that he estimated cost the Church $43 million. In a deposition just this past December 22, Rathbun was asked “Did you lie under oath in declarations?” and “Did you lie under oath in affidavits?” His answer to both questions: “Probably.” Making Rathbun a perfect source for Alex Gibney. Leave it to Producers Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney, Kristen Vaurio and HBO’s Sheila Nevins to bet their credibility on a self-confessed liar. We’re just glad to be rid of him.
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Mike Rinder: The Wife Beater
Mike Rinder makes a lot of wild claims about the Church. He’s also a liar, misogynist and spousal abuser, qualities that must have been enticing to make him a primary source for Alex Gibney’s film. Rinder was expelled for lying and malfeasance which cost the Church millions of dollars to correct. He has a history of domestic abuse and abusive behavior, including toward women. He is “best good buddy” to Marty Rathbun, and is named as a co-conspirator in Rathbun’s self admitted acts of coaching witnesses to lie. In a deposition this past January 6, Rinder admitted under oath that he gets a substantial amount of his income from plaintiffs’ attorneys suing the Church, who pay him $175 an hour. But hey, a professional anti-Scientologist for hire who says “I have had a totally criminal moral code” makes Rinder the perfect source to fly to a film festival on HBO’s tab.
These two individuals have gathered about them a self-proclaimed “posse” of bitter, disgruntled anti-Scientologists, all of whom are interconnected, who corroborate each other’s lies and who are the core sources relied upon by Alex Gibney, Lawrence Wright and Sheila Nevins:
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Marc Headley: The Soulless Sellout
Marc Headley is who Lawrence Wright hung his reputation on. He was expelled from the Church a decade ago after he was caught selling Church audiovisual equipment on eBay and pocketing funds. Even though his absurd claims of “human trafficking” were dismissed by a federal court judge in 2010 and it was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit in 2012 with the Headleys ordered to pay the Church $42,000 in court costs, Wright regurgitated those claims in his book, knowing full well that federal courts found them to be without merit. Headley has a sideline occupation selling stories about the Church to the tabloids, including the defunct News of the World, all of which makes him a perfect source for HBO, Wright and Gibney.
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Jason Beghe: The Raging Bully
Jason Beghe, an expelled former Scientologist and Rathbun’s first client for his South Texas “failed” cult-experiment. Beghe turned his departure from the Church into a dramatic self-promotion complete with emotional outbursts, extortion demands and threats. He even encouraged a young man to sue the Church so Beghe could get a 25% cut for himself. He has a history of violence and arrests that include pleading no contest to battery after he pummeled an officer of the court, sending his victim to the hospital. Los Angeles County Sheriffs were called to Beghe’s home after he assaulted a young man doing gardening chores on his property. Look for him to put his acting talents to work by crying on command. All of which make him a perfect source for Lawrence Wright and Alex Gibney.
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Tom DeVocht, expelled a decade ago for financial malfeasance which per his own admission was in the range of eight digits and for being a self-professed liar. Marty Rathbun named him as a co-conspirator in suborning perjury and destroying evidence in a Church court case. In 2013, he was one of eight “deprogrammers” who held a young Scientologist against her will in a locked room. Frightened for her life and in tears, the young woman escaped. The perfect ingredients for Alex Gibney’s stew of discredited sources.
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“Spanky” Taylor: The Drama Queen
Spanky Taylor, a woman who was removed from her volunteer Church staff position 38 years ago (that’s right—during Jimmy Carter’s presidency). Her lies about conditions in the Church then, including the treatment of children, are refuted by the sworn testimony of her former husband. Ms. Taylor was involved in “deprogramming” with a now-defunct anti-religious group, making her a perfect source to showcase as a “new” source for stale and previously disproven allegations.
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Sara Goldberg, an expelled former Scientologist with ties to Rathbun and Rinder. She is on record for having lied to the FBI during an investigation into illegal acts committed in 1979 at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. Goldberg deflected attention from her conduct and lies with self-serving crocodile tears, which we could only imagine she provided to Alex Gibney, too.
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Sister Offers “Crash” Course in Paul Haggis Lies
Paul Haggis, a self-promoter who “left” the Church as a publicity stunt for his films even though he had not been an active member in three decades. He took advantage of his connections to be paid for scripts that were never produced.
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Hana Whitfield: Can You Spare a Billion?
Hana Whitfield, a woman expelled more than 30 years ago, who once had delusions of “taking over” the Church through a frivolous $1 billion class-action lawsuit tossed out of federal court six times and called “incomprehensible” by a judge. In the 1960s, Whitfield changed her name and fled her native South Africa following a family plot to murder her father for which her brother went to prison. Is it any wonder she later complained of a “shattered mental state?” Even Mike Rinder, source and promoter of Alex Gibney’s HBO film, has said Whitfield is driven by financial motives to “spread venom.” Nonetheless, HBO producer Lawrence Wright and Alex Gibney chose her as a credible source, never disclosing her history nor her motives.
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Graham Berry and Garry Scarff, a discredited attorney and his even less credible client. HBO producer Wright kept Berry as anonymous in his book because the man’s credibility is toxic. This bankrupt lawyer was suspended from the California Bar for 18 months for misconduct in Church cases, assessed $123,000 in sanctions for filing frivolous claims against the Church. His client, Garry Scarff, is an admitted perjurer who once lied on TV about having had family members killed in the tragedy at Jonestown in 1978 (Scarff later admitted he made it all up) and who went on to participate in a hate group’s “deprogramming” activities. Wright even credited Scarff with telling a story about a Scientologist, a bank teller, who was told to comply with a robbery to pay off his debt, supposedly to the Church. Scarff never was a Scientologist and there never was such a robbery. The story is a complete fabrication. Like numerous Wright sources, Berry and Scarff have no credibility. Any documentary like Alex Gibney’s that is based on a book filled with sources as unreliable as Graham Berry and Garry Scarff can’t be trusted.
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Jesse Prince: A Liar for Hire
Jesse Prince, expelled more than 20 years ago, was a perfect source for Lawrence Wright’s discredited book, on which Alex Gibney based his film. Prince’s blatant dishonesty regarding the Church and its ecclesiastical leader has been condemned by two judges, one of whom once stated that Prince “would tell you under oath that he wouldn’t care if he was under oath or not, he’d lie … I’m just quite flabbergasted. I don’t know that any court has ever seen the likes of him.” If he will lie under oath, his lies know no limits. Factor in a nasty past of incest and sexual deviancy he admitted to before joining the Church. Prince is someone who called himself a “normal American boy.” His new normal doesn’t match anyone else’s definition.
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Mark Fisher: The Sex Tripperr
Mark Fisher, who last set foot in a Scientology Church a quarter of a century ago, promotes sexual tourism to Thailand when he isn’t lying about the morality of his former Church. Yet HBO producer Lawrence Wright used him as paragon of virtue and moral character worthy of trust.
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Karen de la Carriere: The World’s Oldest Professional
Karen de la Carriere, an expelled anti-Scientologist who has been known to use more than a dozen different names/aliases and is presently involved in a lawsuit with a former accountant who has charged her with failing to repay a $175,000 home loan. In her own sworn statement she was a “paid mistress,” while 30 years later she had no problem with innumerable pictures of herself in various states of disrobe floating around the Internet. Now in her 70s, she rants on the Internet under different pseudonyms and peddles stories to tabloids, seeking to spread bigotry and hatred against the Church of Scientology. Yet she was cherry picked by HBO producer Lawrence Wright for his book to help him carry out his anti-religious agenda.
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Ervin Scott, an individual twice expelled from the Church with a history of lying who invented the most bizarre story in Wright’s 365-page diatribe: something medically impossible according to a leading physician. Scott’s then-wife testifies under oath that Scott made up this and many other tall tales.
