Utah Fox News affiliate Exposes Scientology's Narconon scam

On Tuesday, February 22, the Utah Fox News affiliate is scheduled to run an expose on Narconon ®/New Life's activities in the Utah juvenile court system.

For those of you in Utah, that is channel 13 at 9 pm. Contingent on other news of the day, it will be the top story.

This is a story that I started and have been heavily involved in.

The Narconon infiltration of the juvenile court system here in Utah began early in 1998 when Ed Fila and Annaliesse Calder, local Scientologists, began negotiations with Utah State Court officials in an attempt to make Narconon the official program for juveniles remanded to drug rehabilitation.

They were successful in getting a contract for one location in Provo, Utah. They set up a small course room in one of the state juvenile court buildings and began administering the program, which includes non-professional TRs and the Purification Rundown. I volunteered on several occasions by helping out in the course room, coaching the students on their programs. The course room was run just like a standard Scientology ® course room, with roll call and muster. The only difference was that there was no "hip hip hooray" nor were there any pictures of LRH. However, all of the course materials had LRH's name on them.

I had several conversations with Annaliesse shortly after the program began. One question I distinctly remember asking her was whether or not the state officials had offered any resistance due to Narconon's association with the Church of Scientology. She smiled and told me that the state personnel had asked about that, but that she had "downplayed the connection."

After a while, I became occupied with receiving my auditing and didn't have time to volunteer. I heard miscellaneous stories about Narconon's activities in Utah county. Primarily, the talk was that the program was being closely watched from up lines and that it was a model that would be used in the future for taking the program into the juvenile court systems in other states.

After I left Scientology, I decided to find out what had become of the small Narconon program in Provo. I went to the Court Administration offices in downtown Salt Lake City and found out that the program was receiving state funds, that they were building saunas on leased state property, and that the Narconon people were in negotiations with the juvenile court administration to bring the program into Salt Lake county as well.

I have a friend who works for the Fox news affiliate here in Salt Lake. I told him about the situation and very quickly Fox became interested in doing the story. Remi Baron, Fox's investigative reporter, was assigned to the story.

Remi set up interviews with Kimball Bird (a state employee responsible for administering the program), a Utah judge, Annaliesse, a juvenile who had been through the program, and his parents. Shortly thereafter, all of them cancelled.

Remi was able to get interviews with state personnel by waiting in the parking lot and approaching them as they went into the building. One judge granted an interview. Remi finally got an interview with Annaliesse (can you say damage control?) and asked her on several occasions if she was a Scientologist. She denied that she was and even went so far as to claim she is a Mormon, which I know is a bald-faced lie. Annaliesse flatly denied on camera that there is any connection between Narconon and Scientology.

They are finishing up the story now, which will also include an interview with me! I haven't seen it yet, but I think it's going to be great.

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The Anti-Reg, ATS (Actual Trouble Source)
"I got regged one too many times!"