Tom Cruise is hosting a Scientology benefit on April 19 in New York for the group’s controversial detox program for 9/11 survivors.
The New York Fire Department does not support the program, and there is much hostile feeling toward Cruise.
Of course, the real goal was to grab new members for Scientology. Apparently, the group had some success. According to my sources in the FDNY, several firefighters not only joined Scientology but left their families in the process.
"They told the firefighters that they’d been unhappy in their lives before 9/11 and that they should leave," said a higher up in the department who spoke to me recently. "Cruise is responsible."
Dubbed the "New York Rescue Workers Detoxificiation Project," the program got tax-free status, and Cruise and Scientology used a California CPA named Roland Fink, who happened to be a Scientologist, to vouch for them in writing as an "independent auditor."
Fink, according to reports, has coincidentally made the Scientology "honor roll" twice in the last four years.
The result, according to their federal tax filing, is the usual financial roundelay for the IRS-sanctioned religion.
In 2004 the organization raised $1.6 million, nearly all of which went to "expenses." Of that, $880,000 went to something called Downtown PC. Another $173,300 was funneled back to Dr. Steven Lager of Williston Park, N.Y., a major Scientologist who advocates alternative methods of detoxification.
The detox method is considered to be another name for Scientology’s "purification" program, long in existence before 9/11 and designed to "cleanse" its followers.
How the Scientology detox program raises its money is perhaps even more interesting. As detailed on the Web site, its new fundraising initiative — launched Nov. 1 and set to conclude on May 1, 2007 — reads very much like a pyramid scheme at worst, or Amway at best.
"To reach our goal, we are asking for your help and the help of all New Yorkers. Those who join the campaign as Participants agree to ask 25 of their family, friends and co-workers to donate $5.00 each to the project. When a donation sheet with 25 donors donating a minimum of $5 each is completed and mailed to the project, the Participant will then be entered into a drawing to win a Caribbean Dream Vacation for two to the Atlantis Hotel & Casino in the Bahamas. Participants are encouraged to complete as many donation sheets as they can — each completed sheet qualifies you for another entry in the drawing."
According to the group’s Web site, at least two New York City firefighters joined Scientology as a result of the detox program. Both Sebastian Rapanti and Joe Higgins offer themselves as case studies for the group on the site. They also appear in pictures with actress Jenna Elfman and her husband, Bodhi Elfman, two avowed Scientologists, from a party at the group’s Hollywood headquarters, some 3,000 miles from their homes and families.
According to The New York Times, Higgins wound up joining Scientology and becoming a paid adviser.
