Ex-Scientology story #423, David Miscavige’s Secretary Climbs the Fence to Escape.

 

Here is another harrowing escape from the clutches of Scientology.  This time it was Tanja and Stefan Castle who got out.  This story, dated July, 6, 2013, is courtesy of ABC News, Los Angeles.

Los ANGELES (KABC) — The bombshell divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes has put Scientology back in the spotlight, with many people wondering what marriage is truly like inside the famously secretive church. One Southern California couple who spoke with Eyewitness News met, fell in love and married in the Church of Scientology.

Tanja and Stefan Castle were high-ranking insiders, devoting their lives to the church. But Tanja says she was pressured to divorce Stefan and never speak to him again — pressure she said was so intense, she felt trapped and took extraordinary steps to leave the church and its international headquarters near Hemet in the dead of night.

Tanja Castle grew up in Scientology and joined the “Sea Org,” Scientology’s elite religious order, where she met and married her husband, Stefan.

“When I went into the Sea Organization, I knew I was making sacrifices and I was happy to do so,” Tanja told Eyewitness News.

She spent 13 years working as executive secretary to top church leader David Miscavige, best friend and best man to Tom Cruise — and known to be a volatile, demanding leader.

Over time, Stefan says he fell out of favor with David Miscavige.

“It basically came down to Tanja was more his secretary than she was my wife,” said Stefan. “By miles.”

Tanja says over the years she was pressured by church officials to “disconnect” from Stefan and end their marriage.

“Why that had to be destroyed… you don’t have to destroy peoples’ marriages,” said Tanja.

Disconnection is the term the church uses to describe how some scientologists cut off communication with family members or friends who choose to leave the church. The church told Eyewitness News in a statement that disconnection is a “self-determined decision” and “voluntary.”

“Just relentlessly, for years and years, I was being told what a bad person he was, how suppressive and how evil,” said Tanja.

In 1999, Stefan was assigned to Scientology’s Rehabilitation Project Force (R.P.F.) for alleged financial misconduct and violations of the church’s moral code — charges he strongly denies. He was in for three years and nine months.

The church calls the  R.P.F. a voluntary program of religious retreat and rehabilitation and says Stefan agreed in writing to participate. But critics and some former Scientologists say the R.P.F. is a punishment program and have compared it to a labor camp.

“Work carried on overnight,” said Stefan. “For several occasions I was up for about five days straight.”

“We were first discouraged, and then not allowed to communicate with each other, or see each other, or be a married couple,” said Tanja.

Tanja says the still married couple defied those orders, staying in touch by cell phone.  But Tanja says when David Miscavige found out in the summer of 2004, she was demoted, their cell phones were taken away and Tanja was sent to live in near-isolation in a remote corner of Scientology’s sprawling International Base near Hemet.

“Somebody was watching me all the time and I got my meals brought to me by a security guard,” said Tanja.

The church denies this, telling us in a statement that Tanja “lived in an apartment in town or a house rented or owned by the church on a public street and traveled to and from work every day.”

“I was doing some sort of manual labor during the day,” said Tanja.

But Eyewitness News spoke with four former church members who all tell us they saw Tanja living in an old trailer in the “Old Gilman House” area of the base between 2004 and 2006.

In the fall of 2004, Tanja says she couldn’t take it anymore and she jumped the fence surrounding the Scientology base.

“There’s razor barrier along the top,” said Tanja, “but I managed to get myself over without hurting myself too much. I walked down Highway 79 — one of the security guards saw me.”

Tanja says that security guard alerted Scientology executives, two of whom she claims followed her down the highway in a van.

“She grabbed my arm,” said Tanja. “I started shouting and told them to leave me alone.”

But Tanja says the Scientology executives eventually convinced her to get in the van and return to the church.

“I was really concerned about getting into a situation where they would try to take me back,” said Tanja.

The church says any allegation Tanja was followed is a lie.

One month later, Stefan left the church.

“They wanted to put me back on the R.P.F. and it was sort of one of those moments,” said Stefan.

After Stefan left, the church offered him a $25,000 check. In return, Stefan had to sign a lengthy contract that prohibited him from ever contacting anyone in Scientology again. Stefan assumed that would include his wife, Tanja.

“There’s something here, why do they want to give me $25,000? I took the check, I signed the document, we did it on video,” said Stefan.

Stefan took that check and contract straight to an attorney.

“And he said, “Well look, this is actually illegal. They have your wife,'” recounts Stefan.

For the rest of the story go here: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news&id=8730424

Denise Miscavige Gentile Arrested for DUI, Pot possession

In the Saturday, June 29th edition of the Tampa Day Times reporter Joe Childs tells of the January 22nd arrest of Denise Gentile, a prominent Clearwater Scientologist and sister of Scientology leader David Miscavige.  The use of drugs, even certain medical ones, are anathema to Scientology so this news must have shocked the Scientology world.  Mrs. Gentile was, and still is as far as it is known, an employee of a Scientology school in Clearwater.  her mug shot is shown below.

Perhaps just as damning was the allegation made by the paper that property that she owned was considered by police to be a known place of durg activity; in other words a, “drug house.”  The paper backed that up with interviews of people who had lived there.  Here is an excerpt from the article:

“Small cigars called blunts are cheap, sold everywhere and easily converted into marijuana joints.

Currie was smoking one on the steps of his upstairs apartment when his landlord walked up.

“She asked me, did I have any more?”

“I told her, ‘Yeah.’ “

That night, Denise phoned him, Currie said, asking what he had been smoking. He told her.

“She was like, ‘Well, can you hook me up?’ “

Denise paid for blunts with rent money Currie handed her in an envelope, he said.

“She would sit in her car, count it. But then she’d say, ‘You got any cigs?’ ” She would give him $30 or $40 for a few blunts, he said.

He soon proposed a new arrangement. He’d pay the water bills with blunts instead of cash. A blunt was worth $10, he told her, so he’d give her 15 for a $150 water bill. He paid his bill with marijuana for months, he said.

Denise often called or texted to alert him she was coming by.

“I’d ask, how did she want it? Half money and half cigs?’

“She’d say, ‘Can I have it all in cigs?’ “

A couple of times, she bought hydroponic blunts. They were $20. Currie sold her just two or three at a time. He paid the rest of his water bill with regular pot.

Currie said he gave Denise 10 to 20 marijuana blunts nearly every month from summer 2011 until he was arrested and jailed in October 2012.

“It was a monthly thing,” he said. Weed for the water bill.

He said he never smoked marijuana with Miss Denise, but she once mentioned a previous batch hadn’t tasted good, he said.

“Denise is not a bad person,” he said. “She just came around to collect our rent. I don’t fault her. She helped me out.”

It must be noted that to the date of this breaking story Denise Gentile, through her attorney has stated that she is innocent of the criminal charges and that she rejects the accustions made by the Tampa Bay Times.  More will be posted in this blog as news becomes available.