Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath

- In 1975, Clearwater, Florida was chosen to be

the international headquarters of Scientology.

The plan was to turn Clearwater

into the first Scientology city.

- Slowly, it's coming out, this town is being taken over.

They have chosen us to be their spiritual headquarters

and they are going to buy up our town.

- And anybody who spoke out against that

was going to be neutralized.

- And these orders, very clearly,

stated, "Find out who your enemies are. Destroy 'em."

The orders, in effect, were occupation orders.

- What's really interesting is that it is the only city

that actually had hearings.

- The city of Clearwater was fighting back.

- We can't deal with this mafia-like organization

in our small town.

- It was a continuing fraudulent enterprise.

It still is to this day, as far as I'm concerned.

- You had people willing to stand up and fight

and they were fighting.

- The city then tried to enact an ordinance

designed to get Scientology out of Clearwater.

- Unfortunately, Clearwater lost.

- We would start hearing about additional properties

that they were buying,

and they stated cherry-picking the areas

so they could control, you know, the... the entire area.

- Today, Scientology has almost achieved its objective

of complete subjugation of downtown Clearwater

of taking over vast tracts of the city

and turning it into the first Scientology city on Earth.

- I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.

The aim and goal is to put man in a mental condition,

uh, where he, him, can solve his own problems.

- Without any Scientology organization,

things are not gonna change on this planet.

- After years of slowly questioning Scientology...

- Leah Remini and her very public break

with Scientology...

- Scientology, what they do. Trying to destroy people,

trying to destroy their families when they leave,

they create a lot of people

who are willing to fight against them.

- Scientology takes tax-free dollars,

and ruins people's lives.

- This is not the life that I want to live.

I wanted to end my life.

Some people, it takes a year.

Some people, it takes ten years

of just peeling that onion of how you were manipulated

and made to think.

- This season, we really needed to focus on

the reason why Scientology is able

to do the things that they do

is because they have tax-exempt status.

- The people who have bravely come on

and told their stories

have not told those stories in vain.

They are having an impact.

- We're presenting our case to the world,

to the FBI, to the IRS.

- The most important thing that has to be done

is the persistent telling of the truth,

and that's what you're doing.

You have to continue to fight.

You have to continue to fight for what's right.

You've heard the history

of how Scientology got to Clearwater

but what's really interesting is that it is the only city

that actually had hearings

to deal with the problem of Scientology.

Then the city, unfortunately, overreached

and lost...

To Scientology.

And that was kind of the end of this battle.

That all changed in 1995

with the death of Lisa McPherson.

We've always wanted to tell this story, Mark,

'cause I was just so always touched by what

you and Bob Minton had started

with the death of Lisa McPherson, and...

you know that I've been hounding you for years.

Like, how do we tell her story?

I'm so emotional today.

Yeah.

Sorry.

I was crying on the way here.

- I know. - Yeah, it's...

Yeah, yeah, you've shed a couple of tears too.

Yeah.

But I'm glad that we're finally telling it.

You know, originally we...

You know, we got so many messages

on social media about covering Clearwater

as a, uh, you know, "Hey they're taking over our town,"

and there's long history, but it's turned into something else

which I'm very thankful for that we are able to kind of

stop and tell Lisa's story.

- Lisa McPherson was a devout Scientologist

for 15 years.

She had been recently reconnecting with old friends

and saying that she had doubts

and she was thinking about coming back home,

and shortly after that, she got into a minor fender bender

in downtown Clearwater.

And by the time the police came and the ambulance,

she had stripped off of all of her clothes

and was walking down the street naked,

and a paramedic came up to her and said,

"Why are you doing this?"

And she said, "Because I need somebody

"to pay attention to me.

I need help."

So they took her over to the nearby Morton Plant Hospital

and they checked her in there.

Within an hour,

ten Scientologists came to the hospital

and talked her into leaving and going back with them,

against the doctor's wishes.

They had to release her

and then Scientology took her back to the Fort Harrison Hotel

in locked her in a room for 17 days.

On Scientology's introspection rundown,

where if somebody's having a psychotic break,

you don't talk to them,

you don't respond if they're talking to you,

there's all these rules.

- Unfortunately, Scientology's rules also don't include

having anybody trained to deal with someone in Lisa's state.

They literally grabbed anybody that could be spared.

They had no training;

they had no idea whatsoever what they were doing

and had no ability to effectively

deal with someone in her state.

- Every day, the caretakers would take logs

and you can see in the logs

that her condition is getting worse and worse

and worse every day.

The last three days of her life,

those records were destroyed by Scientology.

Marty Rathbun confessed to that.

He ordered them destroyed.

Well, hang on.

David Miscavige ordered those documents to be destroyed

through Marty Rathbun who, in fact,

admitted to destroying them.

Yes.

- You ordered those days of logs to be destroyed.

- Right. - All right,

could you explain, you know, why you did that?

To protect the organization.

One of them was talking about the witness in the case

pleading with the doctor, who was on staff,

to get Lisa to a doctor.

That was like a smoking gun incriminating

in terms of people knowing

that she was in a deteriorated physical condition.

- As a Scientologist at the time,

I never even heard of Lisa McPherson

or her death.

Scientology is so genius at having parishioners

not look at the news, not read newspapers.

This was a huge story.

- And then, uh, when they came down with the actual charges,

when our medical examiner, uh, Joan Wood,

uh, came up and... and found out that the cause of death

was... was, uh, not natural, it was not an accident,

um, but it was criminal in nature,

then Scientology once again showed its power,

showed its, uh, capabilities so to speak,

and they went after Joan Wood.

- The fact that Scientology was charged with

criminal neglect in the death of Lisa McPherson

was of enormous concern to David Miscavige

because it was the biggest threat

to the tax-exempt status of Scientology.

You cannot be engaged in illegal activities.

Miscavige spared no expense

to challenge the findings of Joan Wood.

We, Scientology...

Mm-hmm.

- Hired the foremost criminal pathologist in the world,

three of them who came and lived in Clearwater...

I mean, these were the guys that had just finished

the O.J. Simpson trial... To find credible explanations

that would place the findings of Joan Wood in doubt.

- And they went after Joan Wood and... with a vengeance...

And... and took her down, and ultimately she changed

the autopsy to cause of death as being an accident

and that gutted the state attorneys'...

- The prosecution? - Yeah, the prosecution,

state attorneys', uh, case

and they had to drop the charges.

- It was money to hire people who have great influence.

It was David Miscavige

personally contacting Joan Wood's lawyer

to persuade Joan Wood that she had no choice

but to change her testimony

based on the information that was coming forward