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     dancer Member Username: dancer Post Number: 94 Registered: 11-2004 Posted From: 68.40.211.238 |
Whole article with pics of lawyer and public relations spokesperson http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/Scien27.html In posting the winning bid, Hayes, as CAN appeals lawyer David Bardin of D.C.’s Arent Fox puts it, got a "helluva bargain." Not only did his $20,000 bid buy CAN’s name, logo, phone number, and office equipment, it also gave him rights to at least 15 court judgements won by CAN. These included judgements for attorneys’ fees and costs from suits like the ones Bowles & Moxon had brought against CAN and lost, which, according to Kisser, were easily worth $100,000. After the sale, Hayes proceeded to license CAN’s name and help line number to a newly created group in Los Angeles called the Foundation for Religious Freedom, which is running the new CAN. Hayes, who says that he raised the $20,000 from "friends," denies that Scientology leaders paid for the purchase of CAN’s assets or are in any way controlling the group. Though two of the foundations five board members are Scientologists, Hayes points out that its chairman, George Robertson, is a Baptist [ actually a member of a "cult" known as "The Bible Speaks", and now "Greater Grace" of Baltimore, MD—this group was forced off its property in MA through a judgement of $6 million awarded to a former member] while the other two include a Buddhist and apractitioner of a "new age" religion. | ||
| dancer Member Username: dancer Post Number: 95 Registered: 11-2004 Posted From: 68.40.211.238 |
Instead of "spewing hate" the way the old CAN did, Hayes claims that the new CAN is now putting out factual information about all religious groups and doing "all kinds of exciting things." Robertson, chair of CAN’s new board [recommended by Scientology as a resource see http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist42.html and http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist1.html ], notes that the group has been publishing a new newsletter—one recent issue featured a glowing article headlined "Scientology: The Inside Story at Last"—and is working to develop a new code of ethics. Under the old CAN, he says, "the bottom line was that any [group] was a cult that they claimed was a cult. [It should be note that neither Robertson’s "Baptist" ordination, so-called doctorate or teaching credentials can be verified as accredited. It seems his "doctorate" is from a "diploma mill" that is now closed, his ordination with a seemingly unknown denomination and his teaching confined to an unaccredited school run by the previously mentioned group "Greater Grace" in MD]. "We want to be a self-policing interfaith association," adds Robertson, who says that the new CAN is inviting "any and all religious groups" to join up. Still, former board members insist that the new CAN—or as they put it, the "fake CAN"—is nothing more than a Scientology front group. Kisser, for one, contends she’s well acquainted with Robertson, who she claims used to make regular appearances at anti-CAN events with Scientologists and had a "long history of harassing" the former CAN. "[Robertson] is up to his ears in Scientology," contends Kisser. "They’re liars, [and] they’ve been liars from the beginning," counters Robertson. "We [the new CAN] are just doing what needs to be done." Robertson’s efforts have been running into some resistance. For while the old CAN may have had trouble paying off its debts, it has recently had better luck attracting free legal representation. And now two law firms—Washington’s Arent, Fox and New York’s Parker Chapin—have joined the fight to convince the U.S. district court in northern Illinois to reverse the sale. Their appeal has raised a host of objections—ranging from how the auction was handled to the fact that CAN’s name was sold at all—while picking apart the actions of bankruptcy trustee and Rudnick & Wolfe partner Martino. For instance, CAN lawyer Bardin of Arent Fox argues in his appeal brief that Martino didn’t advise all of CAN’s creditors about the auction, as required under bankruptcy law. Worse, he told the court, Martino deliberately failed to reveal that Hayes had submitted a bid for CAN’s assets a month before the auction—an omission he called an example of "collusion" between Martino and Moxon and Hayes. If Hayes’s bid had been disclosed sooner, says Bardin, CAN would certainly have raised a protest over the potential misuse of its name, and the sale, he claims, could not have been "rushed" through. "Feigning neutrality," wrote Bardin in his appeal of the bankruptcy sale, "trustee Martino managed his sale of selected assets to give [the] buyer as much as possible of what he wanted—quite enough to defraud the public—at a bargain basement price." |
