Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(124)
Marc Headley escaped from Gold Base in 2005; he says this was after being beaten by Miscavige.9 His defection was especially painful for the church, because Marc says he was the first person Tom Cruise audited. In Scientology, the auditor bears a significant responsibility for the progress of his subject. “If you audit somebody and that person leaves the organization, there’s only one person whose fault that is—the auditor,” Headley explained. Later that year, Marc’s wife, Claire, also escaped. In 2009, they sued the church, claiming that the working conditions at Gold Base violated labor and human-trafficking laws. The church responded that the Headleys were ministers who had voluntarily submitted to the rigors of their calling, and that the First Amendment protected Scientology’s religious practices. The court agreed with this argument and dismissed the Headleys’ complaints, awarding the church forty thousand dollars in litigation costs.
In April 2010, John Brousseau also fled. He, too, represented a dangerous liability to the church. He had been a Sea Org member for decades; he had worked personally for Hubbard; and he knew Miscavige intimately. But what was of most concern to the church was the fact that he had worked on or overseen numerous special projects for Tom Cruise. None of these unique and costly gifts come anywhere close to the millions of dollars that the star has donated to the church over the years, but they do call into question the private benefit afforded a single individual by a tax-exempt religious organization.
Brousseau knew the lengths to which the church would go in order to find him and bring him back. He drove to Carson City, Nevada, and bought a netbook computer at a Walmart, along with an air card, then set up an encrypted e-mail account. He sent a note to Rathbun, saying, “I just left and I’m freaked out, and I’ve got nowhere to go.” Rathbun invited him to South Texas. Expecting that the church would have hired private detectives to stake out key intersections on the interstate highways, Brousseau stuck to county roads. It took him three days to make it to Texas. He was driving a black Ford Excursion, much like the one that he had fashioned into a limousine for Cruise.
Brousseau and Rathbun met at a Chili’s restaurant near Corpus Christi. They decided to hide Brousseau’s truck at a friend’s house. Rathbun then checked Brousseau into a Best Western motel under a different name. Despite the precautions, two days later, at five thirty in the morning, when Brousseau went out on the balcony to smoke, he heard a door open nearby and footsteps walking toward him. It was Tommy Davis and three other church members.
“Hey, J.B.,” Davis said. “You got yourself in some shit.”
Brousseau turned and walked away.
“Where are you going?” Davis demanded.
Brousseau said he was going to get some coffee. Davis and the Scientology delegation followed behind him. The Circle K across the street wasn’t open yet, so Brousseau went into the motel lobby. He told the receptionist, “Call the police. These guys are stalking me.”
She laughed in disbelief.
“We’ve got a room here, too,” Davis said.
Brousseau said he needed to go to the bathroom. As soon as he got back to his room he bolted the door and called Rathbun. “Marty, they came for me,” he said.
After calling 911, Rathbun jumped in his truck to go to the motel, but four cars filled with Scientologists blocked his way. He says they were led by Michael Doven, Cruise’s former personal assistant.
Brousseau waited in his room until the police officers arrived. Davis and the others left empty-handed.10
Brousseau talked to Whitehill and Venegas at the FBI. He was under the impression that the federal agents were considering a raid on Gold Base. Brousseau says he was shown high-resolution photos of the base taken from a drone aircraft. He says he was told that they had even gathered the tail numbers on Tom Cruise’s aircraft, in case Miscavige tried to escape. Brousseau and others claim to have discouraged the idea, saying that such a raid would turn Miscavige into a martyr; and, in any case, no one would testify against him. Rinder told the agents it would be a waste of time, because everyone would tell them their lives are all “seashells and butterflies.” The investigation was reportedly dropped.11
[page]AFTER SENDING COPIES of his resignation letter to his closest friends in Scientology, Haggis wasn’t surprised when he came home from work a few days later to find nine or ten of them standing in his front yard. “I can’t imagine why you’re here,” he joked, but he invited them to sit on the back porch and talk. Anne Archer and her husband, Terry Jastrow, an Emmy-winning producer for ABC Sports, were there. Mark Isham, a composer who worked with Haggis for years, came with his wife, Donna. Sky Dayton, the founder of EarthLink and Boingo Wireless, joined them, along with several other friends and a representative of the church that Haggis didn’t know. His friends could have served as an advertisement for Scientology—they were wealthy high achievers with solid marriages who exuded a sense of spiritual well-being.
Scientologists are trained to believe in their persuasive powers and the need to keep a positive frame of mind. But the mood on Haggis’s porch was downbeat and his friends’ questions were full of reproach.
“Do you have any idea that this might damage a lot of wonderful Scientologists?” Jastrow asked. “It’s such a betrayal of our group.”
Haggis responded that he didn’t mean to be critical of Scientology. “I love Scientology,” he said. Everyone knew about Haggis’s financial support of the church and the occasions when he had spoken out in its defense. He reminded his friends that he had been with them at the Portland Crusade, when he had been drafted to write speeches.