>>21440593

The Obstruction of Justice

The seized documents demonstrate beyond peradventure that the two defendants before the Court for sentencing, Jane Kember and Morris Budlong, from their secure haven in East Grinstead, England, orchestrated a massive cover-up, obstructing the administration of justice in the United States. They suppressed and fabricated evidence go be presented to investigating authorities and the grand jury in order to insulate themselves and Scientology from liability for the crimes which they had ordered and committed, including the nine burglaries of which they now stand convicted. In doing so, they committed crimes ranging from harboring a fugitive to suborning perjury. Not only did they commit these crimes against the American judicial system, but they did so with impunity. Examples from a few of the seized documents provide a flavor of the brazenness and singlemindedness with which these two defendants set about obstructing the American judicial system. We submit that this Court not only can, but indeed should, consider this evidence in assessing the culpability of these defendants and the likelihood of their rehabilitation, or lack of such likelihood.

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Thus, as the evidence shows, these defendants orchestrated an elaborate cover-up, beginning in June 1976 and continuing through June 1977 and, no doubt, thereafter. In fact, a significant part of the defense they presented at trial their attack on the integrity and reliability of Michael Meisner was foreshadowed in the "obstruction documents." They presented this Court with a shabby attempt at impeaching Meisner's credibility by claiming that he stole money from the Church – the same false claim they made against another former Scientologist who had the courage to expose their crimes and thus fell victim to their fair game doctrine. Allard v. Church of Scientology of California, 58 Cal. App. 3d 439, 129 Cal. Rprtr. 797 (Ct. App, 1976), cert denied, 97 S. Ct. 1101 (1977).

It is the two defendants before the Court for sentencing who, along with their already convicted and sentenced cohort, Mary Sue Hubbard, bear the greatest degree of responsibility for the massive conspiracy to obstruct justice which they jointly directed. While the others already convicted of that offense (Henning Heldt, Dike Snider, Gregory Willardson, Richard Weigand, Cindy Raymond, and Gerald Bennett Wolfe) indeed deserved the punishment they received, they acted under direct orders of Jane Kember and Morris Budlong, a factor appropriate for consideration by this Court in assessing the relative severity of the sentences that the defendants Kember and Budlong should receive.

>>21440593The defendants' contention that they committed the crimes of which they stand convicted in order to protect their Church from Government harassment collapses when one reviews a sample of the remaining documents seized by the FBI during the execution of the two Los Angeles search warrants. If anything, these documents establish beyond doubt that the defendants, their convicted co-defendants, and their unindicted co-conspirators, as well as their organization, considered themselves above the law. They believed that they had carte blanche to violate the rights of others, frame critics in order to destroy them, burglarize private and public offices and steal documents outlining the strategy of individuals and organizations that the Church had sued. These suits were filed by the Church for the sole purpose of financially bankrupting its critics and in order to create an atmosphere of fear so that critics would shy away from exercising the First Amendment rights secured them by the Constitution. 2/ The defendants and their cohorts launched vicious smear campaigns, spreading falsehoods against those they perceived to be enemies of Scientology in order to discredit them and, in some instances, to cause them to lose their employment. Their targets included, among others, The American Medical Association (AMA) which had branded Scientology's practice of "dianetics" as "quackery"; the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which sought to