I couldn’t shake the feeling that Paul was right when he predicted more trouble ahead, but I had to believe the government would do right by me once they realized that whatever information they had been fed to start them on this path came from people with agendas from the Church of Scientology.
I hired a law firm to develop a trust to pay back my clients whatever they had lost from investing in Dror’s productions. I was determined to do whatever was needed to make sure they were compensated. I knew my clients were fearful for their financial futures, yet they couldn’t have been more supportive and I was humbled by their willingness to stand by me. Most of us had enjoyed long and trusting relationships. They knew my character, and that I never would have intentionally risked their hard-earned savings. It was all because of my blind trust in a fellow Scientologist. But that didn’t dull the pain and guilt I felt for their anguish. They had lost money—in some cases, their life savings—because they had taken my advice. How could I live with that knowledge? How could I make them see that I would rather go broke myself than watch them suffer? If it took the rest of my life, I would pay back everything they had lost.
That April, the kids and I moved from our gated community in Valencia to a smaller home in Pasadena to be closer to Charley. Charley and Maria were legally separated and working out the terms of their divorce, and our relationship was in full bloom.
Within a week of the move, I began noticing cars I didn’t recognize parked outside the house. It was usually the same scenario: a man in the driver’s seat passing the time reading a newspaper. I tried not to think the worst, but by then I’d read a lot about the church’s longtime use of private investigators to gather “intelligence” on its enemies.
One day, the same car appeared on and off all day outside my house, then came back at night and parked at the curb. In the shadow of darkness, I could see a person get out, look around and get back in again. I was frightened and called my attorney and friend, Pam Johnson, who was a formidable woman. I told her the same car had been there a day earlier. Pam lived a short distance from me. She drove to my home and confronted the man.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I need to get a few things to Michelle,” he said. At nine o’clock at night?
“You can give whatever you have to me,” Pam said. The man put his car in gear and drove off.
After that, I didn’t go anywhere without checking my surroundings. Cars were always parked outside. I was often followed when I drove anywhere—to the grocery store, to the bank, to the kids’ schools. On one particular afternoon, I circled around and got behind the car following me. It had a Scientology symbol on the bumper.
A short time later, my dad was visiting from Nevada. One night he noticed someone sitting in a car outside for a long time. We turned out the lights and sat on the couch, watching as the car drove slowly back and forth in front of the house. The car stopped at the curb. We saw someone get out, then in again, and continue sitting there, watching. Dad wanted to go outside to confront him, but I wouldn’t let him. I leaned my head on his shoulder. “I’m scared,” I said.
“I’m scared for you,” he replied.
* * *
In August, my clients and I agreed on the terms of the trust: Their losses amounted to $11.8 million. An independent accounting firm determined that by liquidating most of my assets and promising 35 percent of my future income, I could contribute $8.5 million. I decided to subsidize the remainder using outstanding residuals from insurance deals that were coming due. It would take some time to get the trust finalized, but everyone was satisfied with the proposal. Dror was nowhere to be found.
Things seemed like they might be turning around.
For the first time in months, I saw hope on the horizon.
Once my clients were paid off, I would get back on my feet and begin life anew. I wasn’t afraid of hard work and I could earn back whatever I’d lost. Somehow I would convince my mother to leave the church. My children were thriving. And I had Charley, the love of my life.
With the state’s investigation looming over me, Charley decided to take me away to New York for a long weekend. New York was a blissful place for us. We’d spent many wonderful days and nights in the city and we loved it there. Charley booked a room at the Ritz with a view of Central Park. On our second night, we had dinner at our favorite restaurant in the Meatpacking District. In the dim, candlelit room, I stared at Charley as she studied the menu. I admired her sophisticated good looks and I loved it when she wore her sexy glasses.
“What are you staring at?” she asked.
“You! The love of my life! The sexy love of my life!” I answered.
“Mmm, I love that! Maybe we need to cut this dinner short!” she said.
“Maybe so.”
Charley and I. We were perfect together in so many ways. Even if it was just eating dinner together, she could make me forget all of my problems.
With encouragement from Charley, I began putting myself out in the real world. I made new friends and we made friends together. One was Pat Mitchell, the media mogul who once headed PBS and was now chief executive of the Paley Center for Media.
Charley and I met Pat and her husband, Scott Seydel, at an annual “think tank” retreat that Norman Lear hosts every year at his southern Vermont farm, formerly the home of the poet Robert Frost. I was forty years old and in the presence of media icons Norman Lear and Bill Moyers and Pat Mitchell. It might have been an intimidating experience—especially since I’d only recently begun to take an interest in the great big world outside of Scientology—but everyone was warm and welcoming.
Pat is all about empowering women, and she took me under her wing. I’d told her about my struggle transitioning out of the church, how my whole adult life had been lived around it and how everything I’d done and everyone I’d known was in some way related to it. I wasn’t sure how to begin rebuilding my life outside of Scientology.
In September, one month after my clients and I had come to an agreement on the trust, and I felt freer than I had since my troubles began back in July 2010, Pat invited me to New York City for a women’s conference where she was a guest speaker. It was a three-day summit focused on investing in initiatives that benefited women and girls around the globe. I was so excited to go. I missed my charitable work and was champing at the possibility of getting involved again.
The conference began on Thursday, September 20, with an inspiring keynote speech by Gloria Steinem. For the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of purpose I hadn’t had since my human rights work for the church. I felt as if I belonged.
Pat’s speech was Friday morning. She had just begun speaking when I felt my cell phone vibrating. I ignored it, but the vibrating went on and on, so finally I took the phone out of my purse to see who was trying so frantically to reach me. Of course, my first thought was always the kids. The missed calls had been followed by a stream of text messages from my friend Simon.
“OMG!” the first message said. “Have you seen the Hollywood Reporter?” It was followed by a headline: “State of California Sues Movie Producers over Alleged Ponzi Scheme.”
Then: “Michelle! This is about you and Dror!”
My face went white.
I quickly googled the story.
The Department of Corporations had filed a lawsuit against Dror and me.
“The suit claims a 2009 movie starring Simon Baker and Paz Vega cheated investors, many of them senior citizens, out of millions of dollars,” the subtitle read.
I continued to read in disbelief:
According to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court and obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the defendants used the money raised to pay large commissions, skim money to various interrelated companies and distribute dividends to investors until that abruptly stopped. . . . “Defendants specifically targeted unsophisticated se
nior investors,” says the suit, filed by the state’s corporations commissioner. . . . “Many investors face significant hardships,” says the suit, “including an inability to pay for basic necessities such as housing and medical care.”
I was stunned. Where had this come from? Why didn’t I know? Barely able to keep my balance, I stood up, fled from the summit and caught a flight home. Before I could get there, the Los Angeles Times had come out with its own story.
Seward . . . allegedly convinced her clients to invest their life savings in a film directed by Soref called Not Forgotten. . . . Seward convinced clients to cash in their annuities early—causing them to pay steep penalties—by promising returns of 10% to 18% on their investment in Not Forgotten, according to investigators.
After the film’s completion, Seward and Soref solicited more funds from investors to produce several films through a company called Windsor Pictures LLC. However, money used to form Windsor Pictures was instead used to pay back investors in the production of Not Forgotten.
More than 140 people were victims of the scheme, which operated between 2007 and 2010. Most were retirees living in Los Angeles and Kern counties, according to investigators.
The alleged scheme is thought to be among the most elaborate film investment frauds the department has investigated.
How many of my clients had already read the reports before I had the chance to tell them? I wondered. What must they be thinking?
The lawsuit undid the settlement agreement my clients and I had spent months negotiating. It was now the state’s job to determine a fair resolution. My good name was mud. My company was bleeding clients and my assets were depleting faster than I could earn money.
I was hit from all sides after that. Sean was granted temporary custody of our children during a simple court hearing about where they would attend school. Sean attached the state filing in his court brief and the judge ruled in his favor. I was devastated and couldn’t even walk out of the courtroom on my own.
Two of my most profitable accounts, Beth Linder and Kirstie Alley, pulled their business. It was the death knell for my company. Beth wrote me a “disconnection” e-mail and backed out of her policy deal a year early, with a penalty to me of $1.5 million.
I knew where it was all coming from. Kick ’em when they’re down—I’d learned it during the briefing on the Black Propaganda campaign against the BBC reporter.
I remembered something L. Ron Hubbard wrote: “The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.”
The fog in my brain had finally completely lifted. I finally understood, completely and without a doubt, that my so-called religion was a cult. For the first time in years, emotions I had been taught to ignore spilled over. Sometimes I felt like a fool for having been so blind, and for so long. I was furious over the church’s betrayal—of me and so many other believers—and fearful of what lay ahead. I was overwhelmed by remorse about people I had hurt along the way because of my twisted religious beliefs. Sometimes my regrets hung over me like a storm cloud and I couldn’t see the light that another day could bring, but then I would remind myself that I was a victim, like so many others, of a calculated scam called Scientology.
Along with that knowledge came a certain freedom. I would reteach myself how to be the person I was before the church infiltrated the mind of a vulnerable young girl and then systematically and subliminally indoctrinated her into the warped imaginings of L. Ron Hubbard. They can take away all of my belongings, I told myself. They can ruin my business. But they cannot destroy who I am. Or whom I love.
It was time for me to regain my strength and my children! I knew that Sean was only interested in money, so I sold the little bit that I had left and negotiated his price. For $25,000 up front and $2500 in monthly payments, I would have my children back the following day. I could not fight this cult or the state without them safe and by my side.
The next day, seeing their scared little faces as they ran into my arms, I felt I was receiving the greatest gift on earth! My older son, Sage, looked so sad and confused that I knew this was taking a much bigger toll on him than I had imagined.
Once my children were back, I had to deal with the collateral damage of my former belief system.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Defection
I repeatedly begged my mother to leave the church, to see that all my misfortune began when I came out as gay, that the church was persecuting me for it. For more than two years, she had repeatedly appealed to the church for ways to help me, but all she’d received were more probing questions about me and my life. What was I doing? Who was I with? How was my business? What kind of income was I bringing in? Could she get me to make another donation? Tell us more about this woman she’s with. She had always answered their questions, trusting the church’s word that they were only asking so they could help me. Whenever my mother tried convincing me that they were asking out of concern, I pleaded with her to open her eyes. The church had no intention of helping me. My fellow Scientologists—the people I had been taught to trust blindly—were trolling for information to hurt me.
Mom had doubted me for the longest time, but then she began asking herself: Might she be blind to what was happening? She had been with the church for twenty-six years. Was everything she thought colored by her bubblelike existence? Perhaps she didn’t even know how to think for herself anymore. But the idea that she could be so wrong frightened her, so she wavered for a while.
That September the Ethics Department sent my mother to visit me in a last-ditch attempt to bring me back to the church. I unloaded all the things I’d learned and all my suspicions about the church’s role in my misfortune of the last few years. About the strange cars sitting outside, always someone watching. All the lies told about me. The shadowy behavior by church members. The chaos that had been thrust upon my personal and professional life had left me angry and disillusioned, I said.
That day, I’d given my mother a smartphone. At first she said no—as a Sea Org member, she was forbidden to have her own phone—but she finally accepted it. She kept the phone hidden, but every chance she got she used it to search the Internet for information about the things I’d been telling her. Reading the claims of ex-communicants about vendettas by the church, she recognized a pattern. Their stories were chillingly similar to what was happening to me.
After Mom returned from her visit with me, she was ordered to meet with an ethics officer daily. She was told that since I was doing so poorly in my life, it was affecting her performance in the Sea Org. She was taken off her post, the ethics officer told her, on the orders of “those senior to him.” Her every move was monitored. She was not permitted to talk to anyone except for the ethics officer, who assigned her to read articles by L. Ron Hubbard every day and night.
After a month of this, my sixty-year-old mother was confined to her room at the Los Angeles “berthing” and ordered not to leave unless an ethics officer accompanied her. She was under house arrest.
An ethics officer brought her a copy of the church’s “Disconnection Policy” (which it claims doesn’t exist). She already knew what it said: Members who associate with “enemies” of the church risk being declared enemies themselves unless they “disconnected.”
The ethics officer told my mother that if she stayed connected to me, she would be banished from the church and lose her chance for immortality. She started to cry and told the auditor that she needed the church, but she didn’t want to sever her ties with me. He listened intently and prescribed a series of auditing sessions to help her make the right decision. He said it would take two weeks to set it up and the actual program would take two to four weeks.
; She called me that night from the bathroom.
“I have to make my escape this week,” she whispered. She told me about the meeting with the ethics officer and said they planned to have her call me the following afternoon to explain that she would be off the grid for a while and I shouldn’t worry. The ethics officer had coached her about what to say. He would be listening in. She had seen fellow church members “disappear” under similar circumstances. She had heard whispers about Sea Org members banished to prisonlike camps and not seen again for months or years. Sometimes not ever. She was determined it was not going to happen to her.
We hatched a plan: When Mom told me she would be going away for a while, I would vehemently object. She would assure me she was fine, but I would insist she was being held against her will and threaten to make a lot of noise in the press.
“Whatever I say, know I don’t mean it—and fight back,” my mother said before hanging up the phone.
The call was scheduled for one p.m. the next day. I worried there was time for my mother to change her mind. Or that the church would whisk her away first and I wouldn’t know where she was.
The morning seemed endless. Mom called a minute after one p.m.
“Hey, Michelle!” she said, sounding breezy.
“Hey, Mom,” I replied. “How’s it going? It sounds like you’re on speakerphone.”
“Yes. I’m with the ethics officer.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
As planned, Mom explained she was going away for a while for auditing and wouldn’t be in touch.
“Mother, you listen to me!” I cried. “And Dave the ethics officer, you listen too,” I demanded. “Let me be clear. I am not messing around. I am not scared of you and my mother is getting out of there today. If you don’t have her in front of the Hollywood Guaranty Building, I will contact the police and tell them you are holding her against her will. And when I come there, I will bring the press with me. Don’t doubt me. This is not an idle threat. My mother is getting out of there today.”
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