{"id":2470,"date":"2013-01-12T21:57:28","date_gmt":"2013-01-13T01:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oddempire.org\/weblog\/?p=2470"},"modified":"2013-01-14T23:34:30","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T03:34:30","slug":"2470","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/2013\/01\/12\/2470\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI’s Scientology investigation: Balancing the First Amendment with charges of abuse and forced labor"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
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John Brousseau hadn’t been seen for hours, not at the afternoon muster and not at the dinner break. That’s when they got concerned.<\/p>\n

At 6 a.m. he had driven his black Ford Excursion out of the Church of Scientology’s huge compound east of Los Angeles, guards at the gate waving as usual.<\/p>\n

A 32-year member of the church’s religious order, the Sea Org, and a master craftsman, Brousseau often did special jobs for Scientology’s leader, David Miscavige. He could come and go from the church’s International Base with a freedom other workers didn’t enjoy. But now it was approaching 7:30 p.m. And he wasn’t back.<\/p>\n

Two Scientology staffers found a note in his room.<\/p>\n

By now you’ve noticed I’m gone. I couldn’t stand to see my Sea Org friends so mistreated. I won’t support it anymore. Goodbye.<\/i><\/p>\n

Where had he gone?<\/p>\n

Within days, church private investigators spotted him in south Texas. He was meeting with Marty Rathbun \u2014 a former top deputy to Miscavige and now his most vocal critic.<\/p>\n

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    John Brousseau hadn’t been seen for hours, not at the afternoon muster and not at the dinner break. That’s when they got concerned. At 6 a.m. he had driven his black Ford Excursion out of the Church of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2470"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2483,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470\/revisions\/2483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}