"But the most surprising thing we've learned: by the time the New Yorker revealed the existence of the FBI probe in February 2011, the investigation itself had been dead for some four months.
Last week, I was in Clearwater, Florida for a couple of days interviewing Mike Rinder, who until 2007 was the top spokesman in the church and also was the executive director of Scientology's intelligence wing, the Office of Special Affairs.Over those two days, Rinder and I talked about a lot of subjects for several future stories. Near the end of those sessions, I asked Rinder what many of our readers have asked over the past year -- what happened with the FBI? What he said inspired me to call up several other former high-ranking Scientologists who had all been interviewed by the FBI in 2009 and 2010. Piecing together what they told me, I've been able to come up with an outline which describes how seriously the US government considered raiding the International Base -- and how long ago the FBI suddenly changed its mind."






... Until 2004, Rathbun was the second-highest ranking official in the church, answering only to Miscavige in his role as Inspector General-Ethics of the Religious Technology Center, Scientology's controlling entity. After he left, Rathbun laid low for several years until, in 2009, he started up a blog and began harshly criticizing Miscavige and the way the church is being run. And it was also that year that he began talking to the FBI, whose investigation was being led by Tricia Whitehill and later Valerie Venegas, agents who each specialize in human trafficking cases, which can include allegations of slave labor.






Mark "Marty" Rathbun




"I told them everything. Everything I've said publicly and then some," he tells me. But Rathbun, who helped oversee Scientology's "fair game" campaigns against enemies that used complex methods of surveillance and control, was disappointed by how little the federal agents seemed to know of that history.
"They were goodhearted, but so unsophisticated," he says. "They told me the church didn't know about the investigation. Are you kidding me? I said."







(ISLA-Link - Absatz 2)




















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