Tape 7, August 30, 1998

Lawrence Wollersheim and Jesse Prince

L:	And did they ever say anything like, "you are doing this on your own free will"?
J:	Let me just communicate to you a concept so that you get the idea about this. I'm in a situation where my wife finally sees the light. They've done everything to us, they've sec checked us, they've degraded us in every way that they possibly can, simply because we want to leave. Now the thing that they had on us was the fact that she still has family in Scientology. Her father, who is the person that she looks up to more than anybody in her life, and her sister. Then they looked like twins. They told her and me that she would never see them again unless we did what they wanted us to do.
L:	They told you you'd never see her parents again?
J:	Right, never talk to them.
L:	Unless you did exactly what they told you. What did they tell you to do?
J:	Sign what they told us to sign. When it came to videotaping and recording and doing all of that stuff, it's like this, and I want you to really get this idea. "Here's jail, here's freedom. If you do A,B, and C you can leave jail and do freedom." That was my state of mind at that time. You've got to know that. You've got to know that I did whatever I did what I had to do to leave that place so that my wife could still be in contact with her family and we could physically leave.
L:	I understand that completely.
J:	I did not read the papers.
L:	I am not asking as an adversary, I'm asking for the record, don't see me as an adversary.
J:	No I don't, I'm making a record with these questions, because there's a bit of human compassion involved in this, there's a bit of human emotion involved in this. Like I said, I didn't even read the papers. If there is video, and they have that video, and you will see when they handed me the papers to read, I just signed.
L:	You never read the papers, did they explain them to you verbally?
J:	Oh, they went all over it, and asked me if I had any questions. No.
L:	So you didn't read it, they explained it to you.
J:	If you look at the very beginning of the tape, we drew a line in the sand, and that line of sand was this. "If I do this last thing you tell me, can we go?" And they said, "yes." You've got to understand, there was a line drawn in the sand. I don't care what video they've got, I don't care what tape machine they had, the agreement was if I do this last thing, her and I could walk out. If that meant taking a handful of shit, and throwing it across the room I would have done it.
L:	Your understanding was that you would not be free from their restraint and their control unless you signed a document?
J:	Or whatever they asked me to do this one time.
L:	Did you have a lawyer representing you in the room?
J:	You know better. No.
L:	Did they give you a copy of each document when you left, so they kept all the copies.
J:	Everything.
L:	You never read the document.
J:	They took all my wedding photos, they took the majority of my possessions from me. I left there with one trunk, no, two trunks of things from 16 years of living a bad life, leaving a good life, I left there with two trunks. They took everything I had.
L:	Did they pay you for the stuff they took?
J:	No.
L:	What right did they have to take it?
J:	That's a question you can ask them. That's a rhetorical question. Obviously they had no right.
L:	At the point that you decided to let them have it, it was freedom vs. letting them take these things?
J:	Right.
L:	You wanted to get out of there.
J:	That's right. You're behind bars and a person says, if you do 1, 2, and 3, you can walk, I guarantee you're going to 1, 2, and 3.
L:	Was there a lawyer for Scientology in the room?
J:	Yes.
L:	Do you remember what his name was?
J:	No. L; Could you describe him, or if you heard his name would you remember it.
J:	If I heard his name I would remember it. I just want to make one thing clear about this. These were some of the blackest moments of my life. It wasn't a whole lot of consciousness there.
L:	I do understand. So you didn't read it, you signed it -
J:	And ran out the door.
L:	You ran out the door because it was the only way to get away from the people.
J:	They changed the document, let me speak for a second. It happened on the 31st of October, not the 1st of November. They wrote 1st of November. It happened on the night of the 31st of October. The night that I signed it, they said, "Don't you just want to stay, you can leave in the morning?" I said, "Hell no, I want to leave when this pen goes to paper and I sign this, I want to leave in that instant." That's how it happened.
L:	They altered the date of the actual document as well?
J:	Right.
L:	Did they tell you that you had to be silent about your experiences, everything that ever happened to you in Scientology that they told you?
J:	Well, the document that I signed kind of speaks for itself. You read that, it's pretty much what it says.
L:	You've seen it now, and actually read it. They presented..
J:	No, I still haven't read it.
L:	You have never actually read it. These are specific questions that have bearings in law, that's why I'm asking them. I'm not testing you, challenging you or doubting what you're saying. I'm asking questions that help me to understand the legal premise that was going on. Did they tell you or inform you that a confidentiality agreement has no bearing if it's designed to cover up acts of fraud or criminality?
J:	No.
L:	At a certain point you met with Earl Cooley.
J:	1995.