Tape 5, August 26, 1998 and August 27, 1998

Lawrence Wollersheim and Jesse Prince

J:	Now, I do believe this is the way it worked because I had privy to see the Author Services bonus system. Author Services received a certain commission or a certain percentage of all monies gotten from organizations for L. Ron Hubbard's interest. Out of that, depending on what position you held within the organization, you were assigned a percentage of whatever that was. And, so, yes, you got a commission every week. Just by being there, even if you were the claimant.
L:	How much do you think the top people at ASI might have been making in commissions? Or do you know? Did you ever see or hear talk, them you know, "I made 500 bucks this week" or --
J:	Well, I know Mike Eldridge was in there and I know one week he made $900.
L:	In commissions?
J:	Right, just paid, you know, his percentage of the commissions.
L:	His percentage of the commission was $900 for that week. Now, how many other Sea Org members make that kind of money, out of the 13,000 -
J:	They were the most affluent Sea Org members in Scientology that I know of, Author Services staff.
L:	Did the other Sea Org's members know they were making this amount of money?
J:	Yes and they were told they were a separate non-religious corporation and they were told all they were getting paid was minimum wage.
L:	So, in other words, they were lied to, saying that the people in ASI were making minimum wage when, in fact, they were making huge commissions?
J:	Huge commissions.
L:	And creaming off the assets of Scientology for -
J:	Right. So Fran, in particular, systematically went through to make sure that everyone kept getting the commissions, and she had the blessings of David Miscavige and Norman Starkey.
L:	Because they were getting -
J:	They were getting paid.
L:	They were getting lots of money every week.
J:	Sure.
L:	That nobody else -
J:	This is how gold starts stacking up in these little personal treasure chests, the rare coins.
L:	So they're milking the money off the top of the corporation, telling the other Sea Org members that they're making minimum wage or that -
J:	Yeah right.
L:	- they're not making this kind of money.
J:	And they were told to not be extravagant, not be showy, just take your money.
L:	So, in other words, just spend your money secretly and not let the others Sea Org members know they're being basically had.
J:	Right.
L:	I mean, do you think about it now and you feel like you were being had or were you getting a piece of the pie too at this time?
J:	No.
L:	How much - So, let me understand this.
J:	And they kept this very secret, too.
L:	OK. I could understand why they would keep it secret. 13,000 staff members living in filth, starving, working day and night, and David Miscavige and these top people creaming money off and spending it secretly -- I'd get pretty pissed if I found out about it. I'd feel like I had been had and I was a fool. OK. They had, ASI had the authority to order organizations to buy books?
J:	Right.
L:	And they would go from the ASI corporation to the Church corporation and have one of their executives tell them to write out a check for maybe $1000, maybe 5?
J:	And then if they didn't comply, they got sent to ethics, they were subjected to harassment.
L:	So if they didn't follow the executive of another separate and distinct corporation, that supposedly had no authority over this other corporation -
J:	They would get creamed.
L:	And this was if they didn't give them the money they wanted and bought what they told them to buy?
J:	Right. But, Fran would often, and not only Fran but Terry Gamboa too, would run over to BPI and make them go into organizations and demand -- I mean, BPI was just an execution arm for sales for Author Services, in essence.
L:	So, BPI was ordered to do something which it then ordered the other organizations to do it, and ASI was controlling the cash of the other separate Scientology corporations by simply ordering them to buy stuff.
J:	Right. Or sending a person from BPI. But the orders would come from Author Services to BPI or from Author Services directly to the organizations however to get that money in there with there bonuses.
L:	Was David Miscavige ordering this or Norman Starkey? Who was ordering, "Tell them to buy these books and send us a commission check"? Who was the first person in the command chain?
J:	L. Ron Hubbard.
L:	Hubbard.
J:	Minimum book stocks.
L:	To Miscavige on down the line.
J:	Right. This pumped up ASI considerably. They became very, a very luxurious organization to work for. They had extravagant parties and had nice little trips and --
L:	Tell us about the extravagant parties and the trips that you can remember.
J:	Well, they would rent, uh, just go to a restaurant, you know, the big Japanese restaurant, I think they've gone to every damn giant, expensive restaurant there in Los Angeles, you know, just having their little outings. They would report these, all of these things were written up exactly what they would do week after week after week because sometimes they didn't do good on the week or that they would have other problems, then all of Author Services were come up to Golden Era Productions, to have meetings where microphones were suspended from the ceilings, and these meetings were taped. And they were run in a very orderly fashion and these meetings would then go up to L. Ron Hubbard so that they could see, "Well, what's going on with the organizations, what's going on with Author Services, what's going on with my money?" So every week in 1982 when I came to the base at Gilman Hot Springs, Author Services staff would come so sometimes I would have to do actions, you know cramming and this kind of stuff. And, you know, they'd have barbecues and they'd go out and they'd do whatever, water slide places, whatever.