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Hollywoodlife.com Promotes Religious Bigotry
On Sept. 29, 1995 the Washington State jury found that Mr. Ross “intentionally and recklessly acted in a way that is so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to be beyond all possible bounds of decency and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”
April 23, 2019
Jason Brow
Hollywood Life
Mr. Brow:
I read your article of April 17 where you cite Rick Ross as the source for false information about the Church of Scientology.
Rick Ross is an anti-religious bigot and is perhaps the last person on Earth who should be credited with knowing anything about the Church of Scientology.
For one, Ross has never been a member of the Church and has never set foot in a Church of Scientology.
Second, Ross, as an active deprogrammer who violently attacks people of faith stands diametrically opposed to all that we hold sacrosanct—namely, respecting the religious beliefs of others.
Rick Ross is notorious not only because he was convicted of a felony for jewel theft, but because he was one of the deprogramming defendants in a lawsuit for attempting to coerce an 18-year-old Pentecostal man from his faith. Ross failed to sway the man and he brought suit against Ross and his co-conspirators and then won a $2.5 million jury verdict against them.
On Sept. 29, 1995 the Washington State jury found that Mr. Ross “intentionally and recklessly acted in a way that is so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to be beyond all possible bounds of decency and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”
The verdict was upheld on appeal, but Ross declared bankruptcy to avoid the consequences of his criminal act.
Further, professor of sociology of religion Nancy Ammerman, who investigated and wrote a book about the BATF and FBI siege of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas, implicated Ross— who postured during the siege as a “cult expert”—behind the mass deaths because he “has a personal hatred for all religious cults” as recounted in FBI interview notes.
And this is the person to whom you source your biased and bigoted information?
To find out the truth about Scientology, our beliefs, practices, values and what we do to help people in society, you should go to Scientology.tv. There you will find the true information about anti-social personalities that you mischaracterized in your article.
Sincerely,
Edward Parkin
International Director, STAND
