I haven’t written about a Scientology story in months, so I’m a bit out of practice with this topic. As we’re all quite aware by now, Leah Remini blew out of the CO$ last month, and Kirstie Alley jumped all over her, and it was a huge mess, but we’re all happy for and proud of Leah. In the meantime, questions of Shelly Miscavige’s (wife of David, who runs the entire cult but is referred to only as “COB” or “Chairman of the Board”) whereabouts are still circling because no one has seen the poor woman for years. And part of Leah’s explanation for leaving is that she asked where her friend Shelly was, and she was told to step off because she didn’t “have rank” to ask such silly questions.
All throughout the waxing and waning of interest in the cult, David Ortega has been on the front lines. Last month, he received word that Shelly has been detained at a CO$ internment camp since approximately 2005, and she’s under constant supervision and has only left the premises once for a family funeral. Ortega doesn’t mention why Shelly was sent there (I suspect that either she said something to question CO$ methods or Miscavige was simply tired of having a wife), but he says Shelly “has been conditioned to believe that she is at fault for her confinement, and that her job of working to preserve the works of L. Ron Hubbard is a worthwhile goal.” Poor Shelly is probably scrubbing tiles with a toothbrush while being forced to watch videos of her husband and Tom Cruise embracing at the “Medal of Valor” on a loop. That’s no exaggeration either.
Well, sh-t almost got real yesterday because Leah Remini filed a missing persons report on Shelly with the LAPD:
Leah Remini has taken a surprising new step, the Underground Bunker has learned.
After speaking with the Los Angeles Police Department, we have confirmed that on Wednesday Remini filed a missing-person report for Scientology leader David Miscavige’s wife, Shelly Miscavige, who has not been seen in public in six years.
As we reported when we broke the news July 8 of Remini’s departure from Scientology, one of the main reasons she began to question her involvement in the church was discovering at the wedding of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in November 2006 that Miscavige was there without his wife, who had disappeared without explanation. When Leah asked about it, then church spokesman Tommy Davis told her, “You don’t have the f—ing rank to ask about Shelly.”
In other stories, we have explained that in late 2005 or early 2006, Shelly was transferred from Scientology’s International Base near Hemet, California to a secret compound near Lake Arrowhead in the mountains above Los Angeles. This compound, the headquarters of the Church of Spiritual Technology, is home to only a dozen or so Scientologists who are completely cut off from the outside world. We’ve been told that Shelly has been there for the past six years. But Miscavige and his attorneys have so far refused to publicly confirm her location there, and they have not produced her to confirm that she is in good health.
Now, Remini has put enormous pressure on the church to do just that by involving the LAPD.
Their job won’t be easy. Remini filed the report in Los Angeles, where Scientology’s international administrative headquarters are downtown, as well as many other church facilities. Before she vanished, however, Shelly Miscavige was living and working at the church’s international management headquarters on a 500-acre compound near Hemet, California, which is in Riverside County. The CST compound, where we believe Shelly is being held today, is near Lake Arrowhead in San Bernardino County. This jurisdictional jigsaw puzzle is complicated by the church’s relationship with law enforcement agencies, which includes a cozy friendship with Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, as well as a history of support from the Riverside County board of supervisors.
But Leah Remini’s involvement may prove a major shift in that calculus. We had previously been told that Remini had considered Shelly a friend, and we now have photographic evidence of it, obtained from our sources in the church … the two were photographed at the Hollywood Celebrity Centre gala, circa 2005.
[From Tony Ortega’s Underground Bunker]
Ortega has published a rather blurry photo of Leah and Shelly hanging together at the Celebrity Centre, but it’s obvious that these two were more than mere acquaintences — they were friends. And when a friend disappears or even innocently fails to appear at a major wedding (the TomKat one in Italy), it’s only human nature to inquire about the friend’s whereabouts.
Unfortunately, the LAPD has ducked out of this game and not for (as Ortega worried would happen) jurisdictional reasons. Instead, E! Online has received word that the missing person report has been dismissed:
“The LAPD has classified the report as unfounded, indicating that Shelly is not missing,” said Detective Gus Villanueva. He said that he didn’t know exactly where or when, but detectives did meet with the Miscaviges as part of their investigation and saw Shelly in person.
A spokesperson for the Church of Scientology had called Remini’s police report “just harassment.” “It is a publicity stunt cooked up by a small band of unemployed fanatics who live on the fringe of the Internet,” the rep said. “The Church and the attorney for Mrs. Miscavige have already responded to this ludicrous claim.”
[From E! Online]
Obviously, the attorney for Mrs. Miscavige = a CO$-sanctioned attorney. Free Shelly.
Photos courtesy of Tony Ortega and WENN
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