Perspectives on church clash: Ex-member claims he was locked up

Battle Creek Enquirer/February 25, 2001
By Matt Galnor

Jesse Prince, a high-ranking Scientologist for 16 years, says he knows he's at the top of the church's list of enemies. When asked about Prince's allegations against the church, John Carmichael, president of the Church of Scientology of New York, produces a nine-page document that includes Prince's mug shots from a 1997 drunken driving arrest and information about three other arrests.

Carmichael did not include information on Prince being convicted of any crime. Prince laughs when told of the allegations. "They are so predictable, that's why it's so funny," Prince said. "They'll use the law. They'll make a mockery of the law."

Part of the documentation includes a charge of "contributing to the sexual delinquency of child," from 1976 - just before Prince joined Scientology. Prince did not appear in court and the court ruled against him for failing to appear.

After the charge, which Prince says the church knew about, Prince was elevated in 1982 to inspector general of the Religious Technology Center - among the highest ranking positions in the church.

"They weren't saying that crap about me when I was leading the legions of their deluded followers," Prince said. "... They knew everything then that they are telling people now. Then how do you explain how I rose to such a high-ranking position?"

The allegations also include a 1997 "driving under the influence of alcohol" charge in Boulder, Colo., a charge that Prince says he did plead guilty to. Prince is now executive vice president of the Lisa McPherson Trust, a Clearwater, Fla., organization with the mission statement: "To expose the abusive and destructive practices of the Church of Scientology and help those who have been victimized by it."

Prince spelled out his criticisms of the church in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Denver in 1998 and in several interviews with the Battle Creek Enquirer in recent weeks. The affidavit was in connection with Bridge Publications Inc. v. F.A.C.T. Net Inc., involving copyrighted Scientology materials being posted on the Internet.

Bridge Publications publishes the various Scientology books and materials. Prince was 21 when he joined Scientology in San Francisco in 1976. He then was transferred to Los Angeles three months later. Within five months, Prince says he was working manual labor for 18 hours a day in a building surrounded by barbed-wire fences and armed guards.

Prince decided he'd had enough. "I said, 'I'm leaving,' and they said, 'No, you're not,' " said Prince, who claims five men then grabbed him and dragged him to the seventh floor of the building. "They pretty much locked me up in a room for three months until I was sufficiently brainwashed and didn't want to leave," Prince said.

Prince said he was aware of various crimes going on within the church, such as wiretapping people's rooms - claims that Carmichael emphatically denies. "(Scientology founder) L. Ron Hubbard long, long ago stated that the way to run any organization is to follow the rules and regulations of the law," Carmichael said.

In 1992, Prince said, he was still trying to escape the Scientologists. He and his wife, Monika, carefully planned an escape and fled to St. Paul, Minn., where they hid in her brother's house.

"We were barely able to sleep that week and a half we had it planned," Prince said. "That's how much they scare and threaten you." Their long-awaited freedom had a short life.

"They found us," Prince said. "Six of them came up there and took us back." For the next three months, Prince and his wife were under guard by Scientology officials, interrogated about their "evil intentions," he said. Finally, after several other failed attempts, Prince and his wife got away for good on Halloween - Oct. 31, 1992. Prince says he was held captive, which Carmichael emphatically denies.

In order to leave, Prince said the church forced him to talk about how Scientology helped change his life for the better in an interview, which was included in the packet Carmichael presents. "At that point, my wife and I were willing to do whatever they said, say whatever they wanted us to say so they'd let us out," Prince said, "and they let us out."

Carmichael strongly disputes Prince's claims. "People are not held against their will in the Church of Scientology," Carmichael said. "It's against the rules of the Church of Scientology. It's against church theology and against church policy. "This is bogus and invented."