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From: mikesmith3@aol.com (MikeSmith3)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: FACTNET-THE FACTS PART 1
Date: 31 Aug 1994 11:41:04 -0400
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Subj:   Factnet story
Date:   94-08-31

              "FACTNET" -- PERVERSIONS, CRIMINALITY and LIES

         The purpose of this post is to clear the air on some
    incredible and outrageous lies that have been circulated around
    about friends of mine.  And there are other innocent people whose only
    fault was that they have stuck their necks out and taken a stand as
    Scientologists, to improve the world we are living in.

         I am referring to a flier recently distributed by group calling
    themselves "FACTNET", which is replete with such outright false data
    that it defies belief that anyone could come up with such garbage.
    After reading this flier I decided I had to find out who could do
    such a thing and why.  When I did, and found out about the people
    who were involved in this, it became more understandable.  After
    all, what can you expect from people who are so low that they can't
    do anything more worthwhile than to try and destroy other people by
    twisting truth, lying and then trying to make a living out of it.

         FACTNET emerged in January 1994 claiming to be a "research and
    educational public service" group, using a PO Box address in
    Golden, Colorado.  FACTNET's first mailing, rife with rumors and
    lies, had stirred up scores of individuals across the United States
    who have filed complaints demanding that the state and federal
    authorities investigate who and what FACTNET really is.

         An odd mixture signed on to FACTNET's board of directors: a
    retired psychologist who is embroiled in bitter litigation with her
    peers in the psychological community; a 25-year con artist who moves
    from state to state promoting and ever-changing array of gadgets,
    fad diets and new-age personality boosters; a clerk and
    self-proclaimed founder of "renuncians" who says that money should
    be abolished; a former Dominican priest who abruptly left the
    priesthood shortly after becoming affiliated with FACTNET; a former
    dope dealer, ex-convict, mental patient who earns a living as a
    deprogrammer; a recluse living in Longmont, Colorado who apparently
    spends his days scanning paper into FACTNET's computer; and a sexual
    pervert whose literary career spans from community news in a now
    defunct small weekly newspaper to writing and editing pornographic
    bulletin boards.

         Looking over the FACTNET materials that I have been able to
    collect, it becomes clear that they are nothing more than a holding
    company for lies and untruths for sale - to money grubbing
    attorneys, spineless "deprogrammers", senseless reporters and the
    like.

    There is more.  See why and who is really behind it.

The FactNet Story Part 2
31 August 1994

         WHY?

         A close look into the background of FACTNET's founders explains
    their true motivation.

         All of the individuals involved in FACTNET are also involved
    with or members of the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), an
    anti-religious hate group that has come under close scrutiny by
    federal authorities in recent years for operating as a deprogramming
    referral network.

         CAN, earlier known as "Citizens Freedom Foundation," is most
    well known as the brainchild of Ted Patrick, a convicted felon who
    has deprogrammed members of the Catholic Church, Amish religion and
    lesbians (one was raped by Patrick's cohorts as a means of
    converting her sexual preferences).  Deprogrammers advocate coercive
    tactics to "dissuade" anyone from anything thought objectionable by
    the customer holding the purse strings.

         "Deprogrammers" charge outrageous sums of money -- several
    thousand dollards for a "days work" -- which they opportunisticly
entice
    from pockets of upset and unsuspecting relatives who have been twisted
    by the lies fed from groups such as CAN.  FACTNET is apparently in the
    same business, but  in their case are selling their lies to the
    deprogrammers and hired gun attorneys to use in an attempt
     to poison the courts.

         CAN's former security Chief, Galen Kelly, is currently serving
    a 7-year sentence on kidnapping charges related to a deprogramming
    attempt.  Galen Kelly had been put on a $15,000.00 monthly retainer in
    1992 by CAN's Executive Director, Cynthia Kisser, but this funding
    ceases after his arrest by the FBI in September 1992.

          Deprogramming, although a lucrative business, has its
     pitfalls.  Ted Patrick summed it up well in his 1976 book "....it
     may be said to involve kidnapping at the very least, quite often
     assault and battery, almost invariably conspiracy to commit a
     crime, and illegal restraint."

     Part 3 to follow- Who is behind FactNet?

FactNet Story Part 3
31 August 1994

        Who is behind FACTNET?

         LARRY WOLLERSHEIM, FACTNET's Treasurer, is an opportunist from
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin who successfully dodged the draft in 1969 by
    convincing a psychiatrist he was unfit for military service.  After
    abusing nearly every elicit drug available on the streets, including
    300 hits of LSD, it is not surprising that he became a drifter who
    has been under the care of a psychologist for nearly 15 years.

         WOLLERSHEIM is an admitted wife-beater who ran a meat business
    in Los Angeles in the early 1970s (and was sued by the City for
    false advertising).  He dumped the business on his partners, leaving
    them with $20,000 in debts, and the company later went bankrupt.

         In the late 1970s, Larry Wollersheim started up a
    picture-selling business which he called Beautiful Pictures
    Beautiful Gifts, which operated out of Denver.  Late in 1977,
    Wollersheim left Denver with 4 months rent owing on the lease of his
    office space.  He then started a branch office of Beautiful Pictures
    Beautiful Gifts in Houston and left in March 1978, breaking a $2000
    lease.  He lived briefly in Dallas in 1978 and left two banks accounts
    overdrawn and broke a two year lease on an apartment.

         In July of 1978 Wollersheim opened up Beautiful Pictures
    Beautiful Gifts in Los Angeles.  His unethical business practices
    caused the loss of thousands of dollars to his clients.

         His businesses owed money to many creditors, some of whom took
    legal action against Wollersheim to collect - the glass company
    which provided the glass for the pictures that sued for $4,000 for
    credit extended; the supplier of the art prints who claimed that
    Wollersheim defrauded him out of $6,000; and the factoring company
    which was owed $45,000 from uncollectable accounts receivable.

         Wollersheim moved to Aspen, Colorado sometime around 1980,
    where he solicited over $200,000 from investors for speculative
    fitness products.  Two people who contracted with him to produce and
    market his products, never saw a penny of the $70,000 they invested
    in Wollersheim.

         Using the pseudonym of Robert Lawrence, Wollersheim plagiarized
    material from a local doctor in Aspen which he published in a book
    he called, "The Aspen Diet." Local press claimed that "Robert
    Lawrence, through a couple of years research on mind control,
    behavior and brain laboratory studies, has developed a system for
    mind control." (It is not surprising that Wollersheim tried out a
    "mind control" system as a new angle for making a quick buck,
    considering that his mentor and personal psychologist, Margaret
    Singer, has harped on her "mind control" theories ad nauseum,
    despite being rejected by the courts and the APA).  Several people
    invested a total of at least $85,000 in the Aspen Diet - and lost
    it.

         Wollersheim later claimed in a Personal Financial Statement
    filed with the court in February 1990 that bills due from the later
    collapse of his Aspen business totalled approximately $275,000.

         In 1983, while in Aspen, Wollersheim harassed his roommate to
    the point where the police were called to investigate Wollersheim's
    connection to the roommate's broken windshield.  Wollersheim was
    warned that if he kept on with this behavior, he would be summonsed
    to court.

         By September 1984 the Aspen Diet investment deal fell through.
    Wollersheim fled the area in February 1985, turning over the
    business and its liabilities to others and leaving the area.

         In September of 1992, Wollersheim advertised workshops in
    Milwaukee entitled "EMPOWERMENT NOW." His promotion claimed that he
    had authored two books and "numerous" motivational training manuals,
    and that he had "13 years experience conducting inspiring,
    life-enhancing peak experience workshops."

         Like the claims now being made by FACTNET, these
    representations were clearly hype.  Wollersheim has used 3 different
    social security numbers, apparently to hide his identity.

         Wollersheim is now claiming that FACTNET offers educational and
    research information... which can be accessed only by "pre-screened"
    individuals?

         Wollersheim's sanity might be measured against a letter he
    mailed out to Scientology attorneys in 1992 in which he claimed that
    he had discovered that Scientology is "some type of intelligence
    agency project", a "renegade think tank field experiment" of the NSA
    or some other government intelligence agency.  After communicating
    his great realization, he concluded, "you know I know, and I know
    you know, and everybody and both levels of government knows we all
    know." With this sort of brilliant analysis, no wonder he is now
    filling a computer in Colorado full of lies to try and make a quick
    buck from profiteering attorneys and unsuspecting dupes.

    The FactNet Story Continues in Part 4

FactNet Story Part 4
31 August 1994

       WHO ELSE?

         GERRY ARMSTRONG, according to their Articles of Incorporation,
    is the President of FACTNET.  In December 1981 Armstrong, who worked
    as a librarian for the Church of Scientology, stole more than 10,000
    pages of records belonging to L.  Ron Hubbard and the Church.
    Armstrong loaned and showed the documents to others who were bent on
    attacking the Church to support their attacks.  Armstrong's state of
    mind is clearly illustrated by various "literary" writings authored
    by him, none of which more clearly demonstrated it than a document
    now known as the "pig letter", in which Armstrong described in
    graphic detail a dream he had where a pig asked him to have sex and
    he declined despite the fact that he wanted to.  Armstrong ws
    formerly a heavy drug user, and on at least one occasion, he was
    paid to provide homosexual sex.

         On November 11, 1992 in the Marin Independant Journal there was
    an article on Gerald Armstrong title "is Money the Root of
    Problems." In the article , there is a picture of Armstrong in the
    nude holding a globe.  This article states that Armstrong has an
    idea for dealing with the national debt - "write it off.  Forget
    it.  It doesn't exist." The article goes on to state that Armstrong,
    the self-proclaimed founder of the Organization of United
    Renunciants, set the date for people who have taken his "pledge of
    renunciants" to stop using money.  Fellow renunciants will renounce
    all cash and credit, stop paying with money, forgive all their debts
    and stop keeping financial records.

         JON ATACK is another sorrowful character, who is rumored to be
    taking over the presidency of FACTNET from Gerry Armstrong.

         Atack is an ex-psychiatric patient, a convict and a drug
    dealer.

         He was under-psychiatric counseling from the age of 13 until
    18.  He then spent time in a psychiatric hospital, and was given an
    anti-depressant drugs wich "knocked him out for 20 hours." Atack is
    a troubled individual who continued to take heavy street drugs,
    including LSD, marijuana and cocaine.  Atak was dealing in drugs,
    and was convicted twice (which was covered in the English press),
    once for illegal possession of drugs, and a second time for growing
    marijuana plants.

         Atack has had a long association with criminal deprogrammers in
    a "kidnapping for hire" ring called FAIR, which is involved in
    forcibly attempting to break one's religious faith through the use
    of violence and kidnapping.

         One of Atack's cohorts in this group was Neil Dawson, the
    Dulwich vicar and chairman of FAIR from 1986 to 1988.  Dawson
    stepped down after a barrage of media stories revealed he had
    regularly conducted and participated in homosexual orgies involving
    illegal drug use at his vicarage.

         Another Atack's collaborators is Cyril Vosper.  In 1987, a
    Munich court convicted him of false imprisonment and causing bodily
    harm to a 32 yearold German woman he had kidnapped.  The woman
    escaped by smashing through a window, but not before badly cutting
    herself.  Martin Faiers, another Atack associate, was convicted of
    kidnapping a Swiss member of the Hare Krishna movement in 1989.
    During this violent faithbreaking, the victim was forcibly drugged,
    tear gassed and handcuffed.

         Another victim, a 25 year-old-woman in Devon, England, was
    found hanged to death following a Faiers' deprogramming.

         These are only a few of Atack's and FAIR's corpses and deaths
    that they are responsible for.

FactNet Story Part 5
31 August 1994

         More of who.

         MARGARET SINGER, who first started treating Larry Wollersheim
    in the early 1980s, ia a founding board member of FACTNET , and
    various other anti-religious groups in the United States had earlier
    relied heavily on the theories of Margaret Singer in attacks upon
    religions.  Singer, however has been completely discredited in the
    courtroom, as nay sort of "expert" in this field, yet courts have
    debunked the "scientific" basis of her rantings against new
    religions.  The mounting criticism of her wholly unscientific
    methods and opinions have finally caught up with her.

         Her fall from hired gun "expert" status to sham began when
    Singer and a task force set up within the American Psychological
    Association (APA) to study methods of "persuasion and control" filed
    their final report to the Board of Social and Ethics Responsibility
    for Psychology of the APA.

         This report was resoundingly rejected by the Board in 1987,
    which stated, "in general, the report lacks the scientific rigor and
    even-handed critical approach needed for APA imprimatur." The APA
    Board even went further and put the task force members on notice
    that their appointment to the task force was not to be used to imply
    that the APA in any way supported the positions in their reports
    (i.e.  anti-religious theories).

         Not to be daunted by this rejection.  Singer began a series of
    "expert" testimonies in various legal cases dealing with new
    religions.  In the Kropinsky v.  World Plan Executive Council case,
    the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 1988, citing the lack
    of acceptance of Singer's theory, namely that techniques of thought
    reform may be effective in the absence of physical threats or
    coercion, has a significant following in the scientific community,
    let alone general acceptance."

         In 1989, Fourt Appellate District Court of Appeal of California
    dismissed Singer's testimony.  The Court stated that the
    "brainwashing theory of false imprisonment is no more than an
    attempt to premise tort liability on religious practices that
    Georges (party in the case) find objectionable.  Such a result is
    simply inconsistent with the First Amendment."

         In 1990, U.S.  District Court Judge D.  Lowell Jensen in US v.
    Fishman barred Singer from testifying because her ideas were not
    accepted within the scientific community.  Jensen said, "The
    evidence before the court... shows that neither the APA [American
    Psychological Association] nor the ASA [American Sociological
    Association] has endorsed the views of Dr.  Singer... on thought
    reform.  The APA found that Dr.  Singer's report lacked scientific
    merit and that studies supporting its findings lack methodological
    rigor." In 1991, the US District Court in DC in the case Patrick
    Ryan v.  Maharishi Yogi, found that Singer's expert testimony had
    failed to gain substantial acceptance.  Judge Oliver Gash refused to
    allow Singer to testify.

         Despite her 14-year of history of being thoroughly discredited
she
    to promote her hairbrained "theories".

    Two more "whos" part 6.

Factnet story part 6
31 August 1994

         Two more "whos"

         KENT BURTNER is another founding board member of FACTNET.

         Burtner has served as the Treasurer of the Cult Awareness
    Network (CAN) since February 1993.  He has served on the Advisory
    Board of CAN for several years, and has been involved with CAN (and
    its predecessor Citizens Freedom Foundation) for over 20 years.

         Up until February 1994, he was a Dominican priest at St.
    Dominic's Church, in San Francisco.  He recently left the priesthood,
    reasons unknown, and moved to Portland seeking employment.

    Burtner has admitted to being pro-deprogrammed and having been
    involved in numerous deprogrammings since the 1970s.  News articles
    in Anchorage, Alaska, where Burtner lived from 1983 until 1987,
    indicate that Burtner first got interested in cults in 1970, when a
    daughter of a secretary at his seminary became involved with the
    Unification Church.  In this article, Burtner stated that he
    deprogrammed 20 members of religious groups and had "rehabilated"
    about 100 more from 1973 to 1983.  An October 1981 article in an
    Oregon paper, Siskiyou, quoted Kent Burtner as saying "Bruntner
    (sic) agrees that some self-styled "deprogrammers" have tried
    violence, screaming, sleep deprivation and sensory overload to shock
    a cult member out of his present mental state."

         Another October 1981 article, in the St.  Peterburg Times,
    stated that a psychiatrist from California, a theologian from
    Canada, the Florida vice president of American Civil Liberties Union
    and a spokesman for the Florida Catholic Parents Association all
    denounced the activities of the Citizens Freedom Foundation (CFF),
    characterizing it as a threat to religious liberty in America.
    These individuals said that their appearances were prompted only by
    mutual concern for the civil rights of victims of "deprogramming,"
    which they said is a principal focus of CFF, and other
    "anti-religious" activities by CFF.  Burtner has been closely
    associated with CFF and also per this article, was listed as one of
    the speakers at the next CFF convention.

         In 1977, an article came out in the Oregonian, mentioning that
    Burtner had assisted in several deprogrammings.  One of these
    involved a deprogramming at the Newman Center on the University of
    Oregon Campus.  Burtner was also mentioned in another 1977 article
    in Northwest Magazine entitled, "The Deprogrammers." In this article
    he referred to kidnapping as a "very gentle thing because you can't
    use fear to deprogram a person."

         BOB PENNY, a member of the Cult Awareness Network who is living
    on 100% disability insurance, did the computer design work for
    FACTNET.  According to a former employee who chooses to remain
    anonymous, Penny has defrauded the insurance company which sends him
    a monthly check, and he even attempted to defraud Social Security.
    After a desperate measures to find volunteers who could help feed
    paper into FACNET's computer, which is kept in Penny's home, Penny
    found a local homosexual priest who is now working with Penny out of
    his home.
    
    More in Part 7

Factnet Story Part 7t
1 September 1994
         
         FactNet, More About
  
         STEVE FISHMAN, ex-convict sentenced in 1988 to 5 and a half
    years in prison for 11 counts of mail fraud and one count of
    obstruction of justice (he is currently out on parole), is the
    source of many of FACTNET's claims of "murder" and "psychosis."

         In the words of his psychiatrist, Fishman is a man who will lie
    and manipulate others until the day he dies.  The Federal prosecutor
    who investigated Fishman, saw through Fishman's wild claims that
    individuals have been murdered by Scientology - correctly labelling
    these allegations as "total poppycock." In fact, it was Fishman's
    attempt to blame the Church of Scientology for his own crimes which
    resulted in the obstruction of justice charge against him.

         Fishman is an admitted compulsive liar, whose entire life is
    woven with illusions and lies concocted for those he deals with.  In
    federal court in July 1990, while on trial for crimes he was later
    convicted of, Fishman claimed that he was "Malchoot", the "father of
    Jesus" in an earlier life.  Fishman went on to describe this entity:

         "Malchoot is Antichrist.  He gets certain suggestions with
    occlusion, of course, that he was the father of Christ and he had -
    he had taken a bath, which in today's parlance would be analogous to
    a Jacuzzi.  And allegedly he had masterbated in the water and then
    the sperm had entered Mary and then Jesus was born, and so he was
    Malchoot the Antichrist and father of Jesus of the illegitmate
    father of Jesus."

         His hypnotist/psychologist, testifying in this same trial,
    described Fishman as "manipulative" and said that he was been insane
    and schizophrenic since 1968.

         How can Fishman qualify as a source of information about anyone
    or anything?

         If you need more, take a look at the affidavit of FBI Special
    Agent William Kemp, executed on January 26th, 1989, describing his
    investigation of Fishman.  Kemp had earlier arrested Fishman in July
    of that year for "devising a scheme and artifice to defraud over 20
    Federal Class Actions Lawsuits." "The amount of the fraud is in
    excess of $800,000." Kemp describes in the affidavit how Fishman
    then paid $40 to a prostitute to make threatening phone calls to him
    to make it sound like they were Scientologists, in an attempt to
    blame his criminal path on Scientoloy.

    More in part 8. 

Factnet Story Part 8
2 September 1994

         More FacNet Facts

         Kent Burtner is another founding board member of FACTNET.

         Burtner has served as the Treasurer of the Cult Awareness
    Network (CAN) since February 1993.  He has served on the Advisory
    Board of CAN for several years, and has been involved with CAN (and
    its predecessor Citizens Freedom Foundation) for over 20 years.

         Up until February 1994, he was a Dominican priest at St.
    Dominic's Church, in San Francisco.  He recently left the priesthood
    for reasons unknown, and moved to Portland seeking employment.
    Burtner has admitted to being pro-deprogramming and having been
    involved in numerous deprogrammings since the 1970s.  News articles
    in Anchorage, Alaska, where Burtner lived from 1983 until 1987,
    indicate that Burtner first got interested in cults in 1970, when a
    daughter of a secretary of his seminary became involved with the
    Unification Church.  In this article, Burtner stated that he
    deprogrammed 20 members of religious groups and had "rehabilated"
    about 100 more from 1973 to 1983.  An October 1981 article in an
    Oregon paper, Siskiyou, quoted Kent Burtner as saying "Bruntner
    (sic) agrees that some self-styled "deprogrammers" have tried
    violence, screaming, sleep deprivation and sensory overload to shock
    a cult member out of his present mental state."

         Another October 1981 article, in the St.  Peterburg Times,
    stated that a psychiatrist from California, a theologian from
    Canada, the Florida vice president of American Civil Liberties Union
    and a spokesman for the Florida Catholic Parents Association all
    denounced the activities of the Citizens Freedom Foundation (CFF),
    characterizing it as a threat to religious liberty in America.
    These individuals said that their appearances were prompted only by
    mutual concern for the civil rights of victims of "deprogramming,"
    which they said is a principal focus of CFF, and other
    "anti-religious" activities by CFF.  Burtner has been closely
    associated with CFF and also per this article, was listed as one of
    the speakers at the next CFF convention.

         In 1977, an article came out in the Oregonian, mentioning that
    Burtner had assisted in several deprogrammings.  One of these
    involved a deprogramming at the Newman Center on the University of
    Oregon Campus.  Burtner was also mentioned in another 1977 article
    in Northwest Magazine entitled, "The Deprogrammers." In this article
    he referred to kidnapping as a "very gentle thing because you can't
    use fear to deprogram a person."

         BOB PENNY, a member of the Cult Awareness Network who is living
    on 100% disability insurance, did the computer design work for
    FACTNET.  According to a former employee who chooses to remain
    anonymous, Penny has defrauded the insurance company which sends him
    a monthly check, and he even attempted to defraud Social Security.
    After a desperate attempt to find volunteers who could help feed
    paper into FACNET's computer, which is kept in Penny's home, Penny
    found a local homosexual priest who is now working with Penny out of
    his home.

                          ---------------------

         A closer look is needed into FACTNET and those behind it.  What
    other perversion, criminality and psychosis lies behind the
    accusations made by FACTNET?

         FACTNET's black propaganda and thought reform program has led
    to numerous innocent individuals being libelled by their issuance
    of false and misleading information.  What is FACNET's real agenda?
    Please - help bring these matters to light and protect possible
    future victims.

         YOUR HELP IS NEEDED:

         YOUR HELP IS NEEDED TO BRING TO LIGHT THE TRUTH ABOUT            
     FACTNET.  IF YOU HAVE BEEN MALIGNED BY FACTNET, IF YOUR         
FAMILIES HAVE BEEN THREATENEED, OR IF YOUR KNOW OF          SOMEONE WHO
HAS BEEN HARMED, PLEASE REPORT THIS TO          YOUR LOCAL POLICE
DEPARTMENT.
