Recently, a handful of not so self-respecting journalists ran with apocryphal tales on the Church of Scientology. Even the most cursory comparison from one bit of reportage to the next reveals an unmistakable similarity one to the next. For each drew their sources from the same small cadre of ex-Scientologists. Those individuals are the subject of this
publication.

They call themselves “The Posse” and they’ve got a leader who goes by the name of “Kingpin.” They saddle up and ride in loose formation, incessantly shooting their mouths and crying in their whiskey about how they’ve been dealt a bad hand. All of which is meant to conjure up images of a renegade gang that rides from town to town serving up their own brand of ruthless justice.

They sashay from one reporter to the next with a saddlebag of self-corroborated stories to
vindicate themselves for having been excommunicated from the Church.That’s not even remotely what it’s all about, but let’s carry on with the imagery. It’s true, they’re misfits and drifters to a man, but in reality the Posse is nothing more than a half-dozen or so embittered apostates. And instead of riding the range, they sashay from one reporter to the next with a saddlebag of self-corroborated stories to vindicate themselves for having been excommunicated from the Church. It all began with a pair of tabloid newspaper reporters to whom the Posse recited a litany of well-rehearsed allegations. Every one of their fabrications was subsequently exposed and disproved. Whereupon the Posse simply thunk up a passel of new stories and moved on.

They next landed in the lap of a tabloid TV host desperate to save his slipping ratings. The host specializes in on-site coverage of natural disasters, but with the Posse all gussied up under the lights, he featured a man-made disaster right inside his TV studio. When their newly spun tales were similarly shot down as patently false, the Posse came up with a fresh pack of lies and soon jangled their spurs on the doorstep of the next media outlet. And that’s how they ride… But before unfolding the whole panoramic picture of the Posse, an introduction of the individual players is due:

• Marty “Kingpin” Rathbun, a selfproclaimed psychotic with a long history of violence—including more than 50 separate acts of assault against co-workers, one in which he nearly killed a man with his fists. He’s lately added a few more notches to his belt: publicly admitting to suborning perjury and obstruction of justice, while formally and ceremoniously getting himself arrested for disorderly conduct—in New Orleans, no less.

• Mike Rinder, the man who was at the receiving end of Kingpin’s aforementioned homicidal attack. That he now refers to Kingpin as his “best good buddy” is yet another strange twist in the story of the Posse. But the “best good buddy” has his own violent streak—when his estranged family went to see him, his “welcome” was an attack that left his brother injured and his wife in the care of paramedics and, later, surgeons.

• Tom DeVocht, by his own prideful admission, is also an unrepentant liar. Indeed, there is nothing wrong with lying for financial gain, he boasts, so long as “you don’t get caught.” He left the Church with a deep secret only later revealed by “Kingpin”—that he was, in fact, Rathbone’s partner in his suborning perjury scheme.

• While rounding out the rest of the Posse there is Amy Scobee, dismissed from any position of authority years earlier—specifically for sexual misconduct with the person she was ministering to; Jeff Hawkins, the former copywriter who counts himself a member of the cyberterrorist organization known as Anonymous that remains under federal investigation for hate crimes against the Church of Scientology—with two of its members having served time in federal prison for said hate crimes; Steve Hall, the man known within the “Posse” for apparently creating the universe (not necessarily in seven days) and who claims he was previously both Jesus and the Buddha (not necessarily in that order); Marc and Claire Headley, the Posse’s own “Bonnie and Clyde” (albeit devoid of the glamour and cool) whose frivolous his-and-her cookie-cutter lawsuits were tossed out of court and the judge ordered the couple to pony up $40,000 to pay the Church’s court costs; and finally, Jason Beghe, the d-list character actor whose “anger management” problems and battery convictions served as his initiation rite into the ranks of the Posse.

So, there you have a preview of Kingpin and the Posse. In reality, their stories underscore a fundamental issue that resonates in this 21st century. For what can be said of a media machine that feeds on salacious lies and “he said, she said” reportage? And what of journalists who forsake any sense of integrity and ethics and call the likes of the Posse “legitimate sources”? The answers to these questions are implicit in all that plays out on the pages to come.