Fair Game

by Steve Cannane

  José’s fear of being recaptured was intense, but it was mixed with a sense of relief. A diary entry from 4 March 2010 read: ‘Today was the day when I left, left, left.’2 He’d repeated the words for emphasis to remind himself that he had somehow made it out. Above that sentence was a self-portrait sketched in blue pen. It depicts a free man, sitting barefoot in front of the Sydney Opera House. The sun was shining on José, bouncing off the sparkling waters of Sydney Harbour. But how long would his freedom last?

  Freedom was one thing, but food was another. On his fourth day on the run he started eating the grass in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens. He had learned how to get by on the primitive RPF diet of rice, beans and leftovers from the Flemington markets, but this was taking culinary deprivation to new levels. For a former head chef, trained in fine dining at international hotels, digesting a fist full of dry kikuyu lawn must have been a difficult prospect.

  Most men sleeping rough in the Botanic Gardens raid the rubbish bins around Circular Quay, beg in the streets for money, or seek out a homeless shelter for a feed. But José was worried if the police discovered he was homeless they would send him back to the Church of Scientology, as his migration status in Australia was based on a religious worker visa granted through the church.

  To avoid police scrutiny, José roamed the streets at night, and slept in the Botanic Gardens by day. He parked himself under a tree, a few metres from the footpath that hugs the shore of Sydney Harbour. He put his sunglasses on, placed a book beside himself and reclined. Passing joggers, if they noticed him, would never have guessed he was a Venezuelan fugitive on the run from a notorious American-born cult. In his blue shorts and blue work-shirt, he looked like a maintenance man on his lunch break, sent horizontal by a few sleep-inducing passages in his book.

  Food and sleep were not the only things José was missing out on. Walking along the harbour foreshore at night, he watched enviously as young Sydneysiders laughed and drank and danced in the harbourside bars. On his fourth night of freedom, he gained the attention of a tall blue-eyed blonde in her late 20s drinking outside the Cruise Bar opposite the Opera House. She smiled at José; he smiled back. She asked him inside to dance. He could not believe his luck. The Sea Org, with its prohibitions on pre-marital sex, had already put him through an excruciating period of self-denial. His mind raced ahead with the possibilities on offer. A drink, a dance, a night alone with a beautiful woman, a bed, some breakfast, a hot shower, who knows, if things went really well, maybe even some long-term accommodation. Maybe his luck was about to change. But just as he was on the cusp of becoming the first homeless man to pick up at the Cruise Bar, the doorman spied his Sea Org issue work boots and shorts, and told him he did not meet the dress standards.

  LESS THAN FOUR MONTHS before José escaped, Senator Nick Xenophon had stood up in the federal parliament and delivered a withering criticism of the Church of Scientology. He called it a ‘criminal organisation’, referring to allegations of ‘false imprisonment, coerced abortions, embezzlement of church funds, physical violence, intimidation, blackmail’.3

  Surprisingly, José had heard snippets of that speech. As a Sea Org member on the RPF, he was supposed to be denied access to all media. But while being ferried between Scientology work sites, he heard part of Xenophon’s broadside on the car radio. The driver immediately lurched for the volume control and turned it down. ‘That is the number one Suppressive Person in Australia right now!’ he yelled at his downtrodden crew in the back of the van as they readied themselves for their next shift of hard labour.

  At the time, Scientology spokeswoman Virginia Stewart dismissed Xenophon’s accusations. ‘I can tell you that allegations such as these do not happen in my church in Australia,’ she said.4 José knew these words were meaningless. Just months later, the Church of Scientology put men out into the streets of Sydney to round him up and take him back to their punishment camp.

  The RPF is situated at Scientology’s Australian and Asia-Pacific headquarters in Dundas, 22 km north-west of Sydney’s CBD. The Continental Liaison Office, as it’s known, is located in a suburban street, which backs onto St Pat’s Oval, the home ground of the Shamrocks junior rugby league team. The sprawling brick building includes offices, kitchens and dormitories for the Sea Org members who live on site. The building was previously known as Champagnat College. Built in the 1950s by the Catholic Church, it functioned as a teachers’ training college,5 and operated as a home and a place of learning for over 500 Marist Brothers until 1984.6

  The Church of Scientology says the RPF is a voluntary religious retreat. Religious scholar Professor Stephen Kent describes it as ‘a program of hard physical labour, forced confessions, and intense ideological study within a prison-like environment’.7 If members of the Sea Org breach Scientology policy or merely upset the wrong person they can be sent to the RPF.

  At Dundas the RPF schedule was as follows: rise at 5.45 am for muster at 6 am. Breakfast for fifteen minutes, then physical labour from 6.15–10.45. A 15-minute meal break followed, before it was back to manual labour until around 3.30 pm. The work took on many forms, including sanding floors, cleaning bathrooms, painting, plastering, moving rocks, and cleaning out maggot-ridden dumpster bins. If targets were not met, RPF members had to do push-ups or run up and down stairs.8 The RPF did not discriminate on the basis of sex or age. Some members struggling up and down the stairs were in their 60s.

  After the hard labour was completed, the exhausted RPF members were given another 15-minute meal break. From 3.45–8.45 pm they had to study the works of L. Ron Hubbard, in what is known as Redemption Time. This was followed by another 15-minute meal break. At 9 pm they had to endure a half-hour meeting where they went over the day’s statistics and whether they had met their goals or not. Next they were granted 15 minutes ‘hygiene’ time, before getting a quarter of an hour to themselves before the lights went out at 10 pm. This routine was repeated seven days a week, sometimes for years on end. One Sea Org member was on the RPF at Dundas for 12 years.9

  The RPF at Dundas deprived Sea Org members of their liberties. They were not allowed to talk, unless someone from outside the RPF addressed them. They were denied access to newspapers, books, photographs and television. They were even denied toilet paper. They had no time off, not even on Christmas Day. When José Navarro was doing the RPF he was paid less than $20 a week for all that hard labour.

  In the RPF, Sea Org members are paired up with a ‘twin’ who is meant to help them get through the program. If your twin does something wrong, you are punished as well. If you are assigned to the Sea Org’s ultimate punishment, the RPF’s RPF, your twin must go with you.10

  José’s twin was Darien Shea, an American Sea Org member who had been sent to the RPF in Australia for a bizarre indiscretion. He had been working in the roof of one of Scientology’s buildings in the US when a thought crept into his mind. From this vantage point, someone could take a shot at Scientology’s leader David Miscavige. Shea was distressed by the idea. He was so committed to Scientology he would have taken a bullet for Miscavige.11

  In a subsequent auditing session, he mentioned this innocent thought. It did not go down well. It was assumed Shea had ‘evil intentions’ against Scientology’s leader and he was to be sent as far away as possible. Former Scientology executive Marty Rathbun remembers Miscavige making similar threats to others. ‘I heard Miscavige refer to a couple of times in the early 2000s of threatening people: “I’m going to ship you off to Australia and nobody will ever hear from you again.”’12 Like Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, Scientology had decided to use Australia as a far-flung penal colony. But their 21st-century version of transportation was done under the cover of religious worker visas.

  In March 2010, José Navarro was sent to the RPF’s RPF for flirting with a young Japanese woman who was on the RPF. It was the second time he’d been punished in this fashion for interacting with members of the opposite sex. The Sea Org’s ultimate punishment meant less sleep, more
work, even worse food. José’s twin, Darien, had to share the burden.

  On the first night of their second stint on the RPF’s RPF, the pair were sent to Scientology’s Advanced Organisation in Glebe, in inner-city Sydney, to clean the kitchen. AOSH ANZO, as it’s known, is the place where Scientologists pay for services such as auditing. José was scrubbing pots and pans when an overwhelming feeling struck him. ‘I started thinking I have to get out,’ he recalls. But escape seemed impossible. The building at that time was full of loyal Scientologists, and he would somehow have to get past Darien, who would’ve taken a bullet for Scientology’s leader.

  Just after midnight, José decided to make his move. Most of the staff had left the building he just had to make it past his twin. ‘I took a piece of cardboard to the rubbish bin,’ says Navarro, ‘Darien was going to follow me and I said “C’mon man, I’m just going to the bin!”’

  For some reason, Darien cut his twin some slack. It gave José the opportunity he needed. ‘I grabbed my backpack, opened the fire door and started running.’ He turned left, and darted down Greek Street, a narrow lane that backs onto the car park of the busy Broadway Shopping Centre. He turned right down Bay Street before taking the first right into Francis Street and seeking refuge near a children’s playground in Minogue Reserve just a few hundred metres from the Scientology building.

  It was dark and silent and José kept still. He didn’t move for another three hours. Heading straight into a park so close to Scientology’s Advanced Organisation might seem counterintuitive, but he thought his pursuers would start looking further afield.

  When the Venezuelan finally moved from the dark shadows of Minogue Reserve he headed towards the centre of Sydney’s business district, just over a kilometre away. The streets were still awash with late-night drinkers, coming and going from the city’s bars and clubs. He was seeing a part of Sydney he’d never seen before. Young men and women were out bar hopping. They were laughing, picking up, staying out late, all the things he’d been deprived of in his seventeen years inside Sea Org.

  ‘Are you having a nice walk?’ José was asked, as he was grabbed from behind. It was an official from Scientology’s Advanced Org. There were two of them, the official and Darien, José’s twin on the RPF. His escape had been thwarted, just hours after he’d pushed open the fire door and run for it. The Scientology official pulled out his mobile phone to call for reinforcements to haul in the escapee. But as he went to dial the number, the battery went flat. He would have to use a public phone.

  José saw his chance. As the Scientologist wandered off to find a phone, the Venezuelan walked calmly in the opposite direction. Darien followed him. José looked for a dark street amid the bright lights of Sydney’s business district. He walked down a lane; his twin followed. He pushed Darien over, shouting, ‘Leave me alone. I’m not coming back’. The American got to his feet. ‘If you don’t leave me alone,’ he yelled, ‘I will put you on the floor.’ Darien couldn’t leave him alone. If he let him go, he would face further punishment back at the RPF.

  Navarro punched Darien five times in the face and he fell to the ground. ‘I was in a rage. I said if you keep following me, I will break your bones.’ Darien was around ten years younger, but he couldn’t defend himself from José’s onslaught. The Venezuelan left him on the ground and ran for it. It was around 4 am. He decided to head for the Opera House. He is not sure why. ‘I was just drawn to it,’ he says. As the sun came up, he headed to the Botanic Gardens. It seemed like a safe place.

  José had just $30 in his pocket. After buying some tobacco and cigarette papers, he worked out that he could afford one meal a day from McDonald’s for the next three days. He got into his routine of catching the odd hour of sleep in the park by day, and walking the streets by night. By the end of his third day as a Scientology fugitive he didn’t know what to do next. He was starving and skint, and roaming the streets in a desperate state. The grass he slept on doubled as his next meal. ‘I was fucked,’ he says. But no matter how bad things got, he could not go back. ‘The RPF was like jail,’ he says. ‘I would rather eat grass for the rest of my life than go back to the RPF.’

  By day six he was getting desperate and delirious. He started thinking dark thoughts. ‘I was worried that if I didn’t find anyone, I’d have to go back in and my life would be destroyed again.’ José steeled his resolve to never return. ‘I decided I would rather starve to death than go back in.’ What he did next would change his life forever, much like the choice he made in Venezuela nearly 20 years earlier.

  JOSÉ NAVARRO WAS BORN to a large family, in a small industrial town. He was the eighth of ten children, and, like many Venezuelans of his generation, dreamed of migrating to America. He left school at 17 and worked as a waiter in a local restaurant, before finding more permanent employment as a chef at a major international hotel. In his spare time, José studied English, French and Italian. His English teacher was a Scientologist. He was soon convinced that joining the Sea Org was his ticket to the United States. But it was a ticket that came with a massive down payment. Scientologists believe in past and future lives. When you join the Sea Org you sign a contract, promising to serve Scientology for one billion years – that is a thousand million years. He would only see his family once in the next 20 years.

  Navarro started his training for the Sea Org in Mexico City, but had to move soon after. The local Scientology centre could not afford to pay the rent and they were kicked out of the building. José and his colleagues were relocated to a warehouse in the countryside until they were able re-establish an office in the city. After a few months of training, Navarro felt no closer to his dream of living in the US. But then he received an offer that made him the envy of all the other trainees. ‘I got a call asking me to go to the Freewinds,’ he says. ‘They needed a chef. The others were very jealous.’

  The Freewinds is Scientology’s 440-foot luxury cruise ship, which sails the Caribbean. It acts as a floating study centre for wealthy Scientologists who can afford high-level courses such as Operating Thetan Level VIII (OT VIII). It’s also the place where in July 2004, David Miscavige put on an extravagant birthday party for Tom Cruise that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  In the week leading up to Cruise’s party, José and other kitchen staff were averaging two to three hours sleep a night. The chefs were under immense pressure to prepare a perfect banquet for the big night and meet the daily demands of David Miscavige’s appetite for high-quality, low-calorie snacks and meals. ‘We were warned,’ Navarro says. ‘Any mistakes and it would be straight to the engine room.’

  The Freewinds was not only a place for celebration. While Cruise and his acolytes partied, there were others on board who were being held against their will.13 The Freewinds is also part prison hulk – another place to punish and isolate Sea Org members who are deemed to have gone against Scientology policy or are considered a risk to the organisation’s reputation.

  In late 2006, Karleen Desimone, a young Scientology executive, was sent to the cruise ship. Her family was Freewinds royalty. Her father was a former Chief Officer, her mother had previously handled external relations for the vessel. Karleen had grown up on the Freewinds.14 But her latest visit was no family reunion. She’d been sent to the Freewinds for punishment. While on board she and José fell in love.

  Before she was banished to the Freewinds, Karleen Desimone was Deputy Executive Director of the International Association of Scientologists Administrations (IASA). The IASA solicits and banks donations for the International Association of Scientologists (IAS).15 Desimone oversaw the fundraising for the IAS. In some weeks they pulled in US$5–10 million.16

  The IAS was established in 1984 as a legal defence fund for the church. At the time the church was involved in dozens of multimillion-dollar lawsuits.17 But the IAS grew into something bigger. Former Scientology executive Marty Rathbun says the IAS became a personal ‘war chest’ for its leader, David Miscavige, describing it as ‘all offshore, out of
the reach of tax authorities or civil lawsuits; all at his fingertips, to spend in whatever ways he sees fit’.18 Former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder estimated that by 2014 the IAS’s cash reserves were probably in excess of US$2 billion.19

  The IAS relentlessly solicits for donations. Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson in The Simpsons, was made a Patron Laureate of the IAS when she gifted US$10 million.20 Scientologists will rack up huge debts to meet donation targets.21 One Seattle couple that handed over US$160,000 were told their donation was not good enough and were reported to church officials for insufficient generosity.22

  By 2006, questions started to be asked at the top of the IAS about the ethics of all this predatory fundraising and where the money was ending up. According to Mike Rinder:

  Huge amounts of money were spent by the IAS to cater to POB [Pope on a Box – a disparaging nickname given to Scientology’s leader, David Miscavige] and it was funded through a scheme whereby the staff of the IAS were paid ‘bonuses’ that they turned over to form a slush fund for POB/Tom Cruise jaunts/parties/food/gifts.23

  Janet McLaughlin was the President of the IASA, the organisation that managed the IAS and took care of its affairs. She was softly spoken, but hard headed, and Miscavige gave her power and status through the IASA, but after decades of playing the role of loyal subordinate she reached her breaking point. In late 2006, she made it known that she was not happy with the way IAS money was being spent and how her staff were being treated.24 This did not go down well with Miscavige. McLaughlin’s car was fitted with a tracking device, her calls were monitored, and she was tailed by private investigators.25

  Janet McLaughlin and her husband, Colm, made plans to leave Sea Org. But before they could escape, Miscavige’s agents swung into action. Around 15 Sea Org executives arrived at her LA office and separated her from her husband. Colm was dragged, kicking and screaming, into another room, where he was shoved into a closet.26 Janet was sent to ‘The Hole’, Scientology’s brutal punishment camp for executives, situated in a desert compound east of Los Angeles.27 It consisted of two trailers connected by a conference room. At times over a hundred Sea Org members were crammed into this building on the orders of David Miscavige.28 Some stayed for months; others were trapped for years. There were bars on the windows and doors and a security guard stationed at the compound’s only entrance.29 Staff slept on the floors. Former Scientology Executive Debbie Cook testified that David Miscavige would have the electricity turned off for weeks at a time as desert temperatures nudged 40°C.30 (The Church of Scientology denies the allegations concerning Janet McLaughlin.)