THE ARSCC
LIBRARIAN
WE LOVE THE ARSCC LIBRARIAN!
5 December 1997:
Public Research Foundation Press Release:
HIDDEN TIES BETWEEN IRS AND SCIENTOLOGY REVEALED
This press release prompted the very first post to alt.religion.scientology by The Librarian. It was also the first broad public exposé of former Assistant to Commissioner of IRS Meade Emory’s involvement in founding Scientology’s senior corporation, known as “Church of Spiritual Technology” (CST). CST is not a church. It is a corporation organized under IRS Code 501(c)(3). Yet it owns all of the copyrights and has controlling interest in all the trademarks related to Scientology. The Librarian’s first post to a.r.s.—and many of her later posts as well—came in response to questions people had raised about facts contained in the release. Here is the release as it was received by a media organization that wishes to remain unnamed, and as it is reported to have been received by the Wall Street Journal and by Senator William V. Roth, Jr., head of the Joint Committee on Taxation—the same committee to which Meade Emory had been “Legislation Attorney” from 1970 to 1972. It bears observing that within three weeks of Roth and the Wall Street Journal receiving this press release, WSJ somehow got hold of and published for the first time the secret “Closing Agreement” between IRS and CST.
N A T I O N A L
(ALSO LOCAL FOR: D.C., LOS ANGELES, SEATTLE, TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG)
ATTN: ASSIGNMENT DESK
CONTACT:
DIRECTOR OF PRESS RELATIONS
DIRECTOR OF INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCH
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HIDDEN TIES BETWEEN IRS AND SCIENTOLOGY REVEALED
Meade Emory, former Assistant to the Commissioner of the Internal
Revenue Service, co-founded Scientology’s most senior
organization–Church of Spiritual Technology–according to recently
uncovered records of the United States Claims Court. Emory is
currently Director of the Washington State University Law School’s
Graduate Program in Taxation in Seattle.
The Emory-co-founded Church of Spiritual Technology (CST), doing
business as the “L. Ron Hubbard Library,” now controls the copyrights
for all of L. Ron Hubbard’s intellectual properties–once valued at
close to $100 million. CST also enjoys ultimate authority over all
Scientology-related trademarks, including the name “L. Ron Hubbard.”
Emory was Assistant to the Commissioner of the IRS from 1975
through 1977. Strangely, those were the same years in which an IRS
employee, Gerald Wolfe, was covertly passing IRS documents to
Scientology’s Guardian’s Office. In 1976, Wolfe even provided forged
federal I.D. to a Scientology staff member, Michael Meisner, and
together they used the forged credentials to pilfer copies of
documents from the IRS and other federal agencies. Wolfe and Meisner’s
activities ultimately resulted in federal criminal convictions against
high-level Scientology executives. Most notable among those was L. Ron
Hubbard’s wife, Mary Sue Hubbard.
The fact that she was Hubbard’s wife tended to overshadow more
important facts: Hubbard himself had disappeared in February of 1980
under mysterious circumstances still not satisfactorily explained, and
Mary Sue Hubbard–with the aid of the Guardian’s Office–had been left
with the duty and the power to safeguard his copyrights and
trademarks.
But in July of 1981, Mary Sue Hubbard was overthrown, losing her
long-held control over Scientology’s copyrights and trademarks. Soon
after, the Guardian’s Office was disbanded. Then by May of 1982–less
than a year later–Emory had helped to set up CST, the corporation
that eventually assumed control of all rights to L. Ron Hubbard’s
works.
According to the June 29, 1992 ruling in U.S. Claims Court case
No. 581-88T, CHURCH OF SPIRITUAL TECHNOLOGY v. THE UNITED STATES, “CST
was founded in 1982 by Lyman Spurlock, Meade Emory, Esq., Leon
Misterek, Esq., and Sherman Lenske, Esq. CST..subsequently sought
tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code.”
That tax-exempt status was granted on October 1, 1993, in a
sealed, secret, 4″-thick agreement with IRS. None of the terms of the
agreement have ever been made known, either by CST or IRS. The only
clue to any of the terms came at the event celebrating the exemptions,
when David Miscavige, head of Religious Technology Center (RTC) and
Scientology’s highest-ranking spokesperson, said, “There will be no
billion-dollar tax bill that we cannot pay!” Oddly, while proclaiming
the long list of Scientology entities that had received exempt status,
Miscavige made no mention of CST’s inclusion–even though that is the
senior-most corporation of all, and the one that benefitted most from
the sudden IRS change of heart.
Other oddities have also surfaced:
1. According to the U.S. Claims Court ruling, “None of the
founders of CST, with the exception of Mr. Spurlock, has any stated
religious connection with Scientology.”
2. The October 1993 IRS tax-exempt blessing on CST was granted
just months after Norman F. Starkey, executor of the estate of L. Ron
Hubbard, had finally secured control of every intellectual property
ever produced by L. Ron Hubbard.
3. On November 29, 1993, scarcely two months after CST had been
granted tax exemption, Starkey transferred the rights for all 7,730 of
L. Ron Hubbard’s intellectual properties to CST.
Many questions remain regarding Meade Emory’s possible role in
bringing about the tax exemption for CST, but questions also surround
Emory’s fellow CST co-founder, attorney Sherman Lenske.
According to court records, “Lenske and two other
non-Scientologists have the status of Special Directors of CST.” The
two others are Lenske’s brother, attorney Stephen Lenske, and another
attorney, Lawrence Heller.
But Sherman Lenske’s involvement goes all the way back to 1981. In
a sworn declaration, Lenske says he was hired in April 1981 to be
attorney “in all aspects of estate planning” for L. Ron Hubbard.
Therein lies another strange coincidence: Lenske appeared on the
scene only after Hubbard had disappeared, and only three months before
Mary Sue Hubbard was overthrown, then became a key figure in every
step that led to CST’s take-over of the multi-million-dollar
intellectual properties she had previously controlled, and to which
she was rightful heir:
1. Lenske drafted all wills and trusts having anything to do with
final distribution of Hubbard’s assets and intellectual properties.
2. Lenske was a consultant in the corporate restructuring that
created CST.
3. Lenske represented Norman F. Starkey, the executor of Hubbard’s
estate, right up through the point when Starkey transferred the
intellectual property rights to CST.
4. In addition to his role as a Special Director of CST, Lenske is
its Registered Agent, is Registered Agent for Religious Technology
Center (which currently licenses the trademarks under CST’s aegis),
and is Registered Agent for Author Services, Inc., which represents
Hubbard’s fiction works.
5. Lenske created the fictitious business name, “L. Ron Hubbard
Library,” filing it first for Norman F. Starkey’s use as executor,
then filing it again in 1993 for CST, right after CST received all the
intellectual property rights from Starkey.
How did an attorney who does not even subscribe to the religious
philosophy of Scientology become its most influential figure, with
ultimate authority over the entire body of work?
What role did Meade Emory’s inside-the-Beltway connections have on
the sudden, secret turn-around by IRS?
Is it possible, as one observer has speculated, that all of
Scientology went into receivership to IRS, and is now being run–as a
corporation–by the federal government?
Is that why the agreement is such a closely-held secret?
All these questions still wait for answers. But the
previously-suppressed connection to IRS may provide a new place to
look for them.
– 30 –
More information about this and from the ARSCC Librarian and all the proof – please click here: http://arscc.scientology-1972.org