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MIKE RINDER
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Graham Berry and Mike Rinder: A Faustian Bargain

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Mike Rinder: Family Betrayal & Violence

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Mike Rinder Says Whatever Pays: A Firsthand Account from Mark Rathbun

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Ex-wife Cathy, Daughter Taryn Depict Mike Rinder’s Violence and its Aftermath

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Graham Berry and Mike Rinder: A Faustian Bargain

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Mike Rinder: Family Betrayal & Violence

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MIKE RINDER: THE REAL STORY
 * A criminal conspiracy
 * Malfeasance targeting the Church’s leader
 * Removed in disgrace, stripped of authority
 * Admitted lies and “doing illegal things”
 * Deserted his family
 * Finds a living attacking the Church and its leader
 * Devised “devious plan” to extort the Church
 * Reinvented himself as a “real Scientologist”
 * Failure and finding pay in anti-Scientology
 * False reports to law enforcement
 * Malice and harassment
 * Assaulted, permanently injured his wife




STATEMENT FROM THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL

Mike Rinder has been waging a campaign of false reports and harassment against
the Church of Scientology and its leadership, claiming his “authority” as a
“former Church executive.”

Rinder’s narrative is not just twisted, it is a bald-faced lie. Mike Rinder was
removed in the Church in total disgrace by the Church’s ecclesiastical leader,
stripped of any authority and ultimately expelled for gross malfeasance—actual,
hard-facts crime.

Tellingly, after being sacked in the Church, Rinder owned up to being a serial
liar—even “lying about lying”—who had a “criminal moral code” and did “illegal
things” and what he could “get away with.”

He never changed. Rinder is a serial liar and harasser and his motivation is
vengeance. He has devised criminal schemes and frivolous litigation to harass
the Church’s leader and try to extort the Church for millions, failing each
time. He feeds willful false reports to authorities and media to incite bigotry
and hate. He betrayed his own family and assaulted his wife, injuring her for
life. True to a criminal moral code, Rinder has also repeatedly changed his
personal narrative according to who pays.

Following are the facts of Mike Rinder and what he has done.


THE REAL STORY

Mike Rinder’s record of criminal conduct in the Church, as far as discovered,
began in 1995 when he was responsible for the Church’s legal affairs.

Off his own bat and unbeknownst to the Church, Rinder, working with two
co-conspirators, suborned perjury and hid evidence in a police investigation
opened that year in Florida. The Church was not culpable in the case and was
ultimately fully exonerated, but Rinder’s concealed crimes caused a years-long
legal ordeal to the detriment of the Church and its leader. As the truth came to
light over the following years, Rinder was removed and ultimately expelled from
the Church.


RINDER COLLUDED IN AND HID A CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY FROM THE CHURCH AND ITS LEADER

The case stemmed from an accidental tragedy in December 1995 that took the life
of a psychotic woman who had been staying on Church premises in Clearwater,
Florida.

As the facts ultimately revealed, the woman, suffering severe psychosis, had
been allowed to stay on the premises in her state by one of Rinder’s
co-conspirators, in direct violation of Church policy. In an attempt to cover up
the truth, Rinder created a false story of the woman’s circumstances and
suborned perjury—forcing witnesses to lie to authorities—and concealed his crime
from the Church.

Rinder’s criminality muddied the legal landscape and exacerbated an already
emotionally charged investigation. What followed was an unmerciful two years of
criminal proceedings, media accusations and charges brought against the Church,
fueled by Rinder’s undisclosed culpability. The Church’s ecclesiastical leader,
Mr. David Miscavige, was forced to step in and personally handle the matter. Not
surprisingly, Rinder stayed silent about his malfeasance.

Based on the medical evidence, the tragedy was finally ruled an accident and the
State dropped all charges against the Church.


MIKE RINDER’S ACTIONS RESULTED IN THE CHURCH’S LEADER BEING SUED AND ACCUSED OF
RINDER’S OWN CRIMINAL CONDUCT


The evidence, found in Mike Rinder’s office storage, that the Church’s leader
was accused of “destroying,” while Rinder stayed silent

A civil suit went forward, incited, funded and exploited by several
anti-Scientologists with an avowed agenda to take out the Church and its leader.
An attempt was made to add defendants to the case, including Rinder and the
Church’s leader. Rinder, responsible for defending the case and attending to the
court arguments, emerged with himself dismissed as a defendant and Mr. Miscavige
gratuitously added, thus becoming the principal target.

During a 60-day hearing in 2002, allegations of missing evidential records
became a core issue in the litigation. Hostile witnesses seized on the
opportunity to launch an assault on the Church’s leader, repeatedly accusing him
of destroying documents.

Having no knowledge of these matters, and not trusting Mike Rinder,
Mr. Miscavige ordered a top-down search of Rinder’s office facilities for the
missing records Mr. Miscavige was being accused of having destroyed.
Astoundingly, the “destroyed” evidence was located in one hour in Mike Rinder’s
office storage in Los Angeles—vindicating Mr. Miscavige. Rinder had been sitting
on the evidence all along, saying nothing, while the Church’s leader was under
an unjust onslaught.


RINDER WAS REMOVED IN DISGRACE AND STRIPPED OF AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH

While the extent of Mike Rinder’s dishonesty and deception were yet to surface,
the known facts to date were undeniable: Mike Rinder and his lies had only made
everything to do with this legal matter far worse for the Church, which had done
nothing wrong, and caused the Church’s leader to be not only sued but wrongly
targeted for criminal conduct.

Mr. Miscavige removed Mike Rinder in disgrace and stripped him of any authority
in the Church. Rinder did eventually admit he was aware the entire time that
“missing” evidence at issue in the Clearwater case was in his facility in Los
Angeles. In fact, Rinder and a co-conspirator, Mark “Marty” Rathbun, were the
ones who had put it there.

Even then, the depths of Rinder’s wrongdoing remained shrouded in obfuscation.
His unlawful conduct could have landed him in jail, had it been discovered in
time. But he managed to avoid discovery, along with his co-conspirators.


RINDER ADMITTED DISHONESTY, A CRIMINAL MORAL CODE AND “DOING ILLEGAL THINGS”

Mike Rinder attempted to clear his conscience by volunteering a series of
written confessions on his dishonesty. On August 21, 2003, in a document to the
Church’s leader titled “My Honesty,” Rinder wrote: “Many times I’ve looked at
the overts [transgressions] I’ve committed when I have lied to you… it is a
reflection of my cowardice and lack of integrity that I would do this and it’s
just black and white wrong.”


Mike Rinder’s August 21, 2003, admission of his dishonesty

On January 29, 2004, Rinder wrote: “Bottom line is that I’ve had a totally
criminal moral code and operated with a totally ‘criminal mind’ attitude that I
have not fully confronted (even down to ‘lying about lying’ and doing illegal
things)….” In reference to the latter, he further admitted: “Some things ‘had to
be done’ and would not be spoken about and I would have to take heat and ‘suck
it up’… it was criminal.”


Mike Rinder’s January 29, 2004, admission of his criminal activity

On February 20, 2005, Rinder authored a typed and signed apology to the Church’s
leader: “Your insistence, for months and years, that I get straight is the only
thing that has actually brought me to my senses. Several times in the past, I
pretended to myself, you and others, that I had confronted my out ethics
[unethical behavior] and gotten myself handled. It was not true… I wasn’t honest
with myself, you or anyone else, as I continued to operate on a ‘moral code’
(justification) of what I could ‘get away with.’”


Mike Rinder’s February 20, 2005, admission he did what he could “get away with”

Even years after he was expelled from the Church, Rinder testified under oath
that he told so many lies to the Church’s leader, he could not estimate a
number.


Mike Rinder’s sworn testimony in 2015 that he could not quantify, even by
estimate, the number of lies he told to the Church’s leader

Mike Rinder’s malfeasance concerned not only his severe dishonesty and hidden
criminality, but also physical abuse of subordinates, especially women. Rinder
himself would admit: “I lost my temper and took it out on staff with psychotic
yelling and even physical assaults.”


MIKE RINDER WALKED OUT AND DESERTED HIS FAMILY

His misconduct exposed—even if the criminal depths were still veiled—Rinder knew
he would never again hold an executive position within the Church.

In June 2007, while on a probationary assignment in England, Rinder walked out
and kept walking, without a word to anyone—including his wife and two children,
whom he deserted.

“I left. I walked out of the Church, I walked away from my family, knowing I was
walking away from my family,” Rinder eventually admitted to a TV host.


Mike Rinder on TV3 in Ireland, October 2011

Three weeks later, Rinder finally emailed a Church acquaintance and included a
second-hand message to his wife, Cathy, telling her he was not coming back.

“That is how he broke up our marriage of over 30 years—is an email to somebody
else,” Cathy said, adding that Mike Rinder never once asked about their
children.


RINDER FOUND HE COULD MAKE A LIVING ATTACKING THE CHURCH AND ITS LEADER

After two years of struggling to make it selling cars, Rinder reconnected with
his former co-conspirator, Mark Rathbun, who had also left the Church and was
leading a ring of anti-Scientologists. Rathbun arranged a job for Rinder with a
collaborator who had avowed his aim to “destroy” the Church and its leader.

Rinder went to work accordingly, banking on his fraudulent status as a “former
Church executive.” That Rinder would have an ax to grind with the Church and its
leader—the man he stabbed in the back with his felonious conduct and who removed
him in disgrace—is no surprise.

What was a surprise is that Rathbun admitted to a reporter what the Church would
learn for the first time: the criminal conspiracy he, Rinder and another
co-conspirator had carried out, for which the statute of limitations had since
expired.

Regardless of Rinder being exposed as a criminal, media continued to give him
attention for his scurrilous and sensational allegations. Financially backed,
Rinder made a career of it. He joined Rathbun, who, late in 2009, started up the
so-called “Independent Scientologists.” Comprised of a smattering of expelled
former Church members, they proclaimed themselves the “real” Scientologists and
sought to start a competitor church for personal profit. That goal also required
they go all out in a far-fetched attempt to tear down the genuine Church and its
leader.


RINDER DEVISED HIS “DEVIOUS PLAN” TO EXTORT THE CHURCH FOR A “FAST PROFIT”

Rinder immediately took up the Independents’ agenda, devising and mailing to
Rathbun a harassment and extortion scheme through which he hoped to profit by
millions from the Church.

Rinder blatantly called it his “devious plan”: He and two accomplices would
covertly acquire a building next to the Church’s spiritual headquarters in
Clearwater, Florida. They would then announce the property as the future home of
the “International Association of Independent Scientologists,” revealing its
true purpose to serve as a vehicle for Church antagonists to harass the Church
and its leadership. Rinder’s stated intention was to extort the Church into
purchasing the building at an exorbitant price if it wanted to be at peace. “We
will make a fast profit by selling,” he wrote.


Mike Rinder’s “devious plan” to extort the Church to “make a fast profit”

Rathbun declined to take part. He ultimately posted the incriminating document
online in October 2020, revealing that Rinder had sent it to him by mail “for
fear that talking about it on the phone or creating a digital record through
e-mail might create evidence of criminally punishable extortion.”

Rinder had squarely become what he had described in testimony when he was in the
Church: one of a few “who are bitter and harbor an unabiding [sic] resentment of
Scientology and what it stands for and for their own failures in the Church.
They view the Church as their ‘lottery ticket’ and pursue their jackpot with
lies.”


MIKE RINDER REINVENTED HIMSELF AS A “REAL SCIENTOLOGIST” FOR PROFIT

Rinder next teamed up with an “Independent Scientologist” benefactor on a much
larger scheme: a fantastical plan to recruit former Church members to file a
barrage of lawsuits to “financially crush the Church to death,” in order to gain
the wherewithal required to bring the Independent sect to fruition. Their stated
goal was to net from the Church of Scientology “all the cash”—a hopeful $1
billion—and “all [Church] buildings in our hands,” as well as obtain the
copyrights to the religion’s scriptural materials for themselves.

In return for financial support and free housing from his benefactor, Rinder
agreed to lead the charge as a “voice” of a spurious Independents “movement.”

Rinder plunged into his role. Reinventing himself as a “real Scientologist,” he
went so far as to ordain himself the first (and only) “minister” of the
“Independent Church of Scientology.”



Rinder, as a self-ordained “minister” of the “Independent Church of
Scientology,” conducts Mark Rathbun’s wedding in 2010.

Rinder publicly declared his adherence to Scientology, refuting any notion that
he had ever renounced his religion. “I never did,” he asserted to a TV host in
2011, “I never did.” He would continue to make that assertion for several more
years while attempting to recruit Independents and prospective litigants in the
process.


MIKE RINDER’S “CHURCH” FAILED, AND HE FOUND PAY IN ANTI-SCIENTOLOGY

By 2014, Rinder’s effort had yielded only one lawsuit—which ultimately
failed—and no jackpot. Rinder had also lost his backing when his benefactor ran
out of cash. The “Independent movement” evaporated, and the specious litigation
plans went up in smoke.

Rinder was back to working different jobs when, in late 2015, he was offered
another “lottery ticket”—this time to take part in Leah Remini’s
anti-Scientology Aftermath program.

No sooner had Rinder cashed in his new ticket than he shed all pretense of his
recent history as a devout Scientologist. “I haven’t been considering myself to
be a Scientologist for ten years,” he now asserted.

Moreover, Rinder declared, “Today, the state of affairs with respect to
Scientology is, you’re pretty much free to do and say anything you want….
They’re fair game for the media.”

Rinder fulfilled his role accordingly. As just one example: In 2015, months
before his paid partnership with Remini, Rinder proclaimed that Scientologists
are “good people… really doing something to change the world for the better.” In
2017, after a year of profiting from Aftermath, Rinder borrowed a page from
Goebbels to proclaim that Scientologists are “like cornered rats and will
ultimately be wiped out entirely because they are such menacing, antagonistic
and rabid vermin.”


RINDER IS BEHIND MULTIPLE FALSE REPORTS ON THE CHURCH TO LAW ENFORCEMENT

Mike Rinder is a source of multiple false reports on the Church to law
enforcement. As a salient example, for Aftermath, Rinder and Leah Remini induced
discreditable individuals to file false reports about the Church with the police
as a requirement to appear on the show. The reports from these so-called
“victims” were meant to give credence to lies about the Church and to protect
Rinder, Remini and the network from defamation claims.

One such “victim”—who reported a ludicrous, Pizzagate-inspired conspiracy of
police and the Church using “underground tunnels” to collude in human
trafficking—told police that he had to file his report in order to be on the TV
show. The police report also made specific note: “[Victim] wants us to speak to
Mike Rinder.”


Police report closing out the groundless claims a woman, asked by Mike Rinder to
be on Aftermath, was “required to bring forward” to appear on the show.

Another “victim” Rinder procured for the show made outrageous, false claims to
police of a vile and prurient nature. The police report stated: “[S]he is
appearing on the A&E Network with the ‘Aftermath Foundation’ against the Church
of Scientology and was required to bring forward the following information
before the show is aired.” The woman’s segment was canceled when the network was
informed that she had earlier been found guilty of lying to the police.

Police thoroughly investigated the claims of a half-dozen individuals who filed
such reports during Aftermath, including interviewing scores of
witnesses—Scientologist and non-Scientologist alike. In the end, months and even
years after Rinder and Remini propagated the false reports, police closed all
cases. Not one single witness or piece of evidence corroborated any of the
fabricated stories. Not only did no witness corroborate anything Rinder’s
complainants alleged, but witnesses told the police the complainants were liars.


RINDER IS A CONTINUAL SOURCE OF MALICIOUS FALSE REPORTS TO HARASS THE CHURCH AND
ITS LEADER

Mike Rinder continually manufactures false reports and malicious harassment.
Case in point: In March 2020, as soon as Covid-19 safety restrictions took
effect in Clearwater, Florida, Rinder altered the date of a video shot the
previous week of Church staff exiting a bus so he could falsely claim the Church
was violating social distancing. He then posted the falsified video so that it
was, in turn, sent to bots and cells around the globe to manufacture hundreds of
messages to the City, creating the fallacy of a local “uproar.”

An ensuing surprise inspection by the chief of police found the Church, of
course, in full compliance with safety restrictions. Analytics found the
“uproar” came from 576 Twitter accounts, only 11, or 1.9%, of which were
local—virtually all associated with Rinder. The rest were almost uniformly
anonymous accounts in locales as far afield as Ghana, Russia and Sri Lanka.


Analytics of Rinder’s false, manufactured campaign to the City

Rinder has further used false reports to foment harassing litigation against the
Church and its leader as an “expert” at the hire of ambulance-chasing,
unscrupulous lawyers. His intent is to prey on a judiciary uninformed on
Scientology, with bizarre and inflammatory interpretations of its beliefs and
practices—hoping to appeal to prejudice and put the religion on trial in blatant
violation of the First Amendment. His efforts have resulted in one failure after
another.

In one such attempt, in December 2020, Rinder’s “expert testimony” was
jettisoned by the Los Angeles Superior Court: “The [Rinder] declaration is
filled with unsupported assumptions, foundational deficiencies, irrelevant
matters, improper opinions, and arguments.”


L.A. Superior Court strikes Mike Rinder’s “expert testimony” in December 2020.


MIKE RINDER ABUSED HIS FAMILY, ASSAULTED AND PERMANENTLY INJURED HIS WIFE

Mike Rinder’s lies and criminality have extended to his own family. Several
months after Rinder deserted his wife and children, doctors diagnosed his son,
Benjamin, with a rare and highly aggressive form of malignant melanoma. The
young man was given five years to live.

For nearly two years, Benjamin endured an excruciating but successful war
against the cancer, including multiple disfiguring facial surgeries and
reconstruction. Mike Rinder was never heard from once the entire time, even
after he had moved to Safety Harbor, Florida—a 15-minute drive from Clearwater,
where Benjamin lived.

When media learned of this abhorrent fact, they questioned Rinder’s lack of
attention to his son. Rinder’s response was to pull a despicable, self-serving
stunt: While Benjamin was in recovery in 2010, Rinder, accompanied by Mark
Rathbun, attempted an ambush “visit” on his son, complete with a video operator
to record the encounter for inquiring media. The attempt failed as Benjamin
refused to see his father, who had scarcely paid him attention his entire life.

Mark Rathbun later revealed that he, Rathbun, had orchestrated the entire stunt
for exactly what it was: an attempt for Rinder to save his own face.


Mark Rathbun exposes Mike Rinder’s self-serving stunt on his son, Benjamin

Benjamin on the stunt Mike Rinder pulled when he was recovering from cancer

For Benjamin’s mother and sister, their estranged husband and father had crossed
the line. Along with Mike Rinder’s brother and several long-term family friends
and former associates of Rinder, they set out to Clearwater to have words with
him. Rinder’s response was to violently assault Cathy. He seized the diminutive,
5′ 3″ woman in a vice grip that gouged her right arm, wrenched her shoulder,
dislocated her collarbone and fractured another bone. The resulting nerve damage
and mobility loss in Cathy’s right arm impaired her for life.

“It’s a permanent disability that will always be there with her,” Cathy’s
orthopedic surgeon concluded after nearly five years of treatment, including
surgery.


Cathy Rinder hours after her assault by Mike Rinder, and an MRI scan of her
shoulder preceding surgery

Rinder’s assault on his then wife—and his trail of denials and lies about the
incident—serve as a metaphor for the man and his evolution as a criminal and
duplicitous husband, father, son and colleague who has finagled his way through
life while leaving disaster in his wake.

Through the years since Rinder left the Church, several alert media hosts have
questioned him as to how one can know if he was lying before, or lying now—and
why should people believe him.

“They have got to make up their own mind,” Rinder answered one such host.
“They’ve got to look at me. They’ve got to say, ‘OK, what we see here is someone
that we believe is telling the truth.’ Or ‘What we see here is someone who seems
to be just a liar.’”

This is a man who suborned perjury, who lost count of the number of lies he told
to the Church’s leader, who lied to his own family, and who has generated false
reports to authorities to harass the Church and its leader. This is a man whose
self-narrative has even been a lie, changing his story for personal profit.

This is also a man with a proven and admitted record of malfeasance and criminal
acts. Mike Rinder does not just seem to be a liar; he is a criminal liar.


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Former Colleague Recalls How Mike Rinder “Ridiculed, Belittled” Others

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Son Benjamin on Mike Rinder’s Absence during His Cancer, and Self-Serving Stunt

Former Wife Cathy Details Mike Rinder’s Desertion, Assault and Abuse of Family

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Former Secretary Recounts Mike Rinder’s Verbal, Physical and Sexual Harassment

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MIKE RINDER

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