Scientology Says Leah Remini’s Harassment Suit Violates First Amendment
Scientology says that ’s harassment suit against her former Church, and its leader should be DOA thanks to the First Amendment.
“Defendants determined that the vast majority of the allegations in the 68-page, 310 paragraph long FAC implicate Defendants’ constitutionally protected speech or activity, “ Scientology’s Winston & Strawn LLP and Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP lawyers spelled out in a memorandum filed Tuesday in LA Superior Court. “Each cause of action incorporates all prior allegations, and each action depends – in whole or in part – on allegations containing protected activity within the anti-SLAPP statute,” they add.
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Defendants Scientology International, Miscavige and Church cooperation the Religious Technology Centre will be seeking permission this morning from Judge Randolph Hammock to submit a combination brief of support for an anti-SLAPP motion to strike. “Despite the length of the First Amended Complaint and the volume of its allegations, CSI and RTC do not seek to increase the total number of pages allotted to them by statute. Defendants seek only to file a single consolidated 30- page brief,” the defendants asserts (read Scientology’s memo to the court here).
In a short October 17 filing of her own, host Remini said that she thought 30-pages “excessive,” but would defer “to the Court’s judgment as to the appropriate length of a coordinated filing and, if the Court grants Defendants’ request, Plaintiff asks for leave to file a coordinated response of an equal number of pages.”
Not far from the criminal court building where Remini and others on September 7 watched prominent Scientologist Danny Masterson sentenced to 30-years behind bars on multiple rape charges Judge Hammock will hear arguments from both sides later today.
Remini’s August 30 FAC reiterates the King of Queens‘ earlier allegations in the original August 2 filing of retaliation by the celebrity heavy Church for her public lambasting of its policy and personnel. Additionally Remini’s FACis says that since the complaint was filed she has been the victim of various acts of credit card fraud, attacked and mocked by online trolls. In pushback to the suit, Scientology accused Remini of being “a bigot,” and for“threats of and actual violence against the Church.” Laughably, the Church also suggested Remini “consider emigrating to Russia.”
This week, Scientology doubled down on Remini in the court docket.
“This case concerns a more than decade-long campaign by Plaintiff against her former church, the Church of Scientology,” they harshly said of the once-high profile member. “Over the past decade, she has made a lucrative career spewing hate and inspiring violence against the Church of Scientology, its parishioners, and the ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion,” the defendants procliamed.
“She has done this through her autobiography, a cable television show, podcasts, and appearances on broadcast television and radio,” Scientology added in the October 17th filing. “She has used those platforms to call the Church ‘pure f*cking evil’ and its parishioners as ‘sick assh*les,’ “f*cking like body snatchers,” and “morally depleted,” and even to falsely accuse the ecclesiastical leader of the religion of unidentified ‘crimes.’ CSI has, and continues to, respond to Plaintiff’s slander in various public fora.”
As stated in the original nine-claim complaint of early August and the FAC alleging even greater harassment that followed a few weeks later, Remini is seeking unspecified damages in her legal action. The actress/activist is also hoping the court will give her injunctive relief “to end Scientology’s policies against Suppressive Persons so that current and former Scientologists, and others who wish to expose Scientology’s abuses, including journalists and advocates, may feel free to hold Scientology accountable without the fear that they will be threatened into silence.”
Remini’s case is not the only active harassment action the Church is facing in court.
Judge Upinder Kalra on September 26 lifted the long stay on the 2019-filed harassment case against Masterson and the Church of Scientology from a series of former Church members and their families.
The plaintiffs in that matter claim harassment and more by Masterson and Scientology after the plaintiffs and their families went to the LAPD with sexual assault accusations against the former That 70s Show actor. All three Jane Does in the civil case, in which Scientology unsuccessfully tried to get the Supreme Court to intervene last year, are former members of the Church. They were also all participants in the criminal case against now incarcerated Masterson.
With volumes of discovery and more still to be waded through, the trial for that harassment case tentatively set for September 22, 2025.
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