My (then) husband Bernie was running an online dictionary store and also selling to some locals. He stocked George's General Store with dictionaries and continued to do so after the name mysteriously changed to Georgettes General Store. These dictionaries were provided on consignment and the store sold them all, but never paid Bernie for them. The bill was up to around $6,000. We approached the manager of the store, Marina Martins, to see what could be done to pay us for these dictionaries.
Marina Martins is a Scientology and a silver-tongued devil. Somehow, she convinced me to get involved in her store. I jumped in with both feet. I started to manage her store, straightened out the financial accounts, straightened out the mailbox nightmares, made financing arrangements with all her vendors (all her accounts were delinquent), and basically got the store out of the poor condition it was in, got it stocked, and the people started to pour in.
The store's name was Georgettes General Store and it was across the street from AOLA and the entire Church of Scientology campus of buildings in Hollywood.
A month or two in to this project I received several visits from Chase Wilson and Brenna Bielhart of WISE West US. They kept telling me I had to pay $500.00 for a WISE membership... or else. They were absolutely obnoxious about it, walking in at any time of day unanounced, making demands of money the store didn't have, not listening to reasons why their request was inappropriate, etc. Keep in mind that through all of this, I'm just an employee... the manager. I didn't own the store.
One day, Chase Wilson decided he needed the money "today, or else", and came in to the store. I again told him that our stats were not high enough to spend $500 for a "membership" that would get us nothing in return. Chase Wilson threatened me that if I didn't pay him the $500.00 on the spot, that he woud issue a "WISE Non-member Order" on me and he would post it publicly on all the public bulletin boards on the Scientology campus "and what would THAT do to your stats?" he derided. I told him that was extortion, he said no it was not. I grabbed a dictionary and read him the definition of extortion "the act of extorting, or getting money, etc. by threats, misuse of authority, etc." and extort "to get (money, etc.) from someone by violence, threats, misuse of authority, etc.; exact or wrest (from)".
Chase Wilson insisted it was not extortion. He cited that he had the authority to do so. I asked for him to show this to me in writing. Chase Wilson said it was in a Sea Org issue and therefore I couldn't read it (since I wasn't in the Sea Org). I replied that it then didn't apply to me since I was not in the Sea Org. He assured me it did apply.
I sent him out of the shop. The owner (Marina Martins) eventually signed up for a WISE membership and Chase Wilson faded away into memory. Unfortunately, Chase Wilson had already written up a WISE Non-member order on me personally, and though he says later it was not officially issued (because the matter was handled by Marina Martins signing up for a WISE membership) the issue had even been printed and was let out and obtained by ASHO, who tried to use it against me. I got all that cleaned up, but not without a lot of effort.
I have to make a mention of this. Jeff Mintz, a Sea Org member and a registrar, once came in to argue with me about something. He yelled at me "You need to get your fucking ethics in!", pointing and poking at me. I told him to leave the store. He tried to harass me more. I repeated for him to get out. He grabbed me on both arms and started to push me backwards saying something like "We're going out back to settle this!". My cashier, a non-Scientologist, observed this and told Jeff Mintz to "Get your hands off of her." At this point, I spun Jeff around and physically walked him to the door and pushed him out.
There were several instances of Church of Scientology staff coming in to the shop to recruit people, solicit them for donations, or solicit our business to do their jobs (such as pass out event tickets or confirm people for events). Please see this report I wrote at the time. It mentions names and actions. In fact, I found several reports where I had to notify Church of Scientology personnel or seniors about COS acts within my shop that were inappropriate to be done "in public" and which reflected badly on the Church of Scientology.
During the time I was working at Marina's store, I had loaned Marina Martins a lot of money. It happened slowly and without my noticing how deep I'd gotten myself into this. It's sort of like getting into Scientology; you just don't notice how deep or how much in trouble you are for being associated with the group.
Marina Martins was using my credit lines to purchase goods for her store. She had been promising that she would open a credit line and pay off my balance. She just didn't seem to make it go right, didn't have the time, or whatever her reason-du-jour was. By the time I wanted to leave as the manager, Marina Martins owed me $30,000. She refused to pay me or try to take out a line of credit at that time. In fact, most of the lines of credit I'd tried to open for the business had erroneously been put into my name. This I only found out after I was in so deep. In fact, this is HOW I got in so deep — there was no original intention to loan Marina the money. These were supposed to be store credit cards.
We had a mediation with her on this matter, using the WISE Charter Committee of Los Angeles. Marina Martins wanted to pay me back via the business. But the business hadn't been making any money (it sold a lot of items, but just wasn't making any profit after expenses) so that wasn't an option. She thought I should bear the brunt of the loss. How so, since I didn't own the business? Well I got her to agree to personally pay me half of what was owed on the credit cards. She signed that agreement, then never paid me another penny. In fact, there was another line of credit which was NOT in my name, and the very next day after she signed the mediation agreement, she phoned that company and told them it was my personal credit purchases (an outright lie).
I tried to get WISE to enforce the agreement, but they wouldn't do it. Keith Legg, Compliance Officer for LA Charter Committee was useless. The WISE Charter Committee wanted me to pay $175.00/hour to get Marina Martins to comply (click to view Cheri Didear's email). Of course, they forget that in the beginning when they got me to pay in advance for the mediation, they promised me that if there was non-compliance, that actions to get compliance were part of the fixed fee. Their actions were such a comedy of errors that you have to laugh at how unprofessional their "justice" system is. In the end, I lost $30,000, and had another credit card company trying to collect another $10,000 from me. Is that justice?
So I started investigating Marina Martins myself. I naively thought that if the Church of Scientology and WISE knew how deep a criminal this Marina Martins really was, they would DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Click to view the one-inch packet of reports I eventually put together.
Keep in mind that the COS touts their "ethics technology" as the ne-plus-ultra of justice procedures. As COS member is not allowed to take their disputes to the non-Scientology world. No law suits allowed. No calling the police. Even a letter from an attorney demanding payment of a bill is considered by some to be a suppressive act. You are taught that the COS and WISE can and will handle ANY dispute or ethics problem or injustice.
In reality, they never handle anything. But, of course, you don't discover that until it's too late.
I want to start this by saying that anything I say about Marina Martins can be proven in a court of law. If anyone objects to me disclosing these crimes and misdeeds, I don't care. The purpose for disclosing this information is so you can laugh at how ridiculously unjust the COS is, despite the truth being disclosed to them. The COS thinks it's the "cat's meow" of justice. It is delusional!
Marina Martins stole George's General Store from George. George was getting very old and sort of senile. Marina Martins and another partner of hers started going over to the store and pretended to be the managers. They learned the ropes, used the store proceeds to pay the bills for inventory, and basically "played shop". All the while, they had no permission to be there doing what they were doing. But poor old George had been taken down the street to the local nursing home and who else was going to question them? Marina Martins told me that she discovered that George owed about $100,000 and his shop inventory was sparse and the equipment old. So Marina decided NOT to buy the store (her original intention). Instead, she stopped paying on the lease, causing George to be in default and lose the lease, negotiated with the landlord to sign a new lease for a new store, the landlord gave her everything "lock, stock and barrel".
Marina Martins re-opened the store under the name Georgettes General Store LLC. She obtained for free all of George's assets and none of his liabilities. When an old vendor demanded their money from Marina, she feign innocence and said it was a new business that had nothing to do with the old store on the same location.
In short, she defrauded George's creditors of about $100,000.
During the next five months, Marina Martins was slow to pay most of her vendors and was behind on most of the accounts. During the five months that I was managing the store, I brought all the vendor accounts up to date. After I left, she no longer paid anyone. In fact, five months after I left she wrote a letter to all her creditors inferring that the manager (me) had left with the cash and she couldn't pay them — but would do so in the next 30 days. Note: She hadn't paid them in five months, but who's counting? She never paid anyone else. I had some of the vendors calling me at my home asking for the money. I explained that I had been an employee and no longer worked there; but that's how I got a lot of the information I obtained on her "management" after I left.
In the end, Marina Martins closed the store under the guise of "renovations" and blew the area (May 2003). She didn't turn off any of the utilities, she had a sidewalk sale and sold everything including the freezers, the fridges, the equipment, the mailboxes, the cash register... everything! She even sold the coffee machinery which belonged to another company and was only "on loan" to her so she would sell their brand of coffee (which she didn't do, either). When I was talking to a person who told me he'd bought it, I notified him that Marina didn't own the coffee machines and gave him the name and contact of who really owned it. He was pissed at Marina. Welcome to the club!
Marina sold the merchandise from all the consignors, including 24 fellow Scientologists, and neither paid them for their goods, nor informed them that she was going to liquidate everything in one weekend on the sidewalk — which would have given them a chance to come and pick up what was left of their merchandise.
Marina engaged her minor children to work in the store at times, where they were cashiers and sold cigarettes — a crime in California. She had failed to file for a cigarette selling permit before I came along and did it for her. She failed to file for an Alarm Permit, required by Los Angeles Municipal Code. (A funny side story: About one year after I left her employ, and long after the store had been closed down, I received a phone call from my ex-husband, who had received a phone call from the alarm company notifying us that the alarm was going off. Marina had never cancelled the service nor given them her contact information, even though she kept the store open for about seven to eight months after I left. I told the company I was in Florida and couldn't turn off the alarm, and laughed at them for keeping the service going after not getting paid for almost a year. Doofuses!)
Marina Martins made food for resale in the store without obtaining the proper Health Dept permits. She refused to pay overtime pay when it was appropriate and required. She kept her four minor children out of school under the guise of home-schooling them, but she didn't actually school them. She left them to their own devices. She failed to forward withheld IRS taxes and California EFF money that was deducted from her employee's paychecks and did not send them W-2s at the end of the year. (This was for the calendar year before I was employed there. I audited the records, straightened everything out, got her signed up with a payroll service, and started the process of getting the old bill paid off before I left.) Marina failed to pay the corporate taxes or file LLC information returns with the IRS. Marina never filed application forms with the USPS which was required for her to run a mini post office. And Marina failed to change my address with the payroll company so I never received a W-2 at the end of the calendar year, and even though she received a copy of it herself, she refused to forward a copy to me.
Marina Martins also lied in 2002 about having a problem with her credit report. She said there was something on it that was incorrect and she was working on it, that it was about $40,000 and it would be cleared up soon. A later (2004) background check I paid for showed that she had an unpaid tax lien on her personal income taxes from 1990 (twelve years prior) in her name in the amount of $40,901.96 (click to view the publicly recorded lien). Marina Martins used several different social security numbers. Marina ordered cell phone service under an alias (Maria Martinez) to start phone service, because she owed them money under her real name and didn't want to pay it. (I was there when she ordered the service and heard her order it. I queried about the odd name and she confessed that she had an unpaid bill with them and didn't have time to argue about it and so was just signing up with a new alias.)
Marina Martins got another Scientologist [Name withheld to protect the victim] to purchase for her a brand new huge Ford SUV with all the bells and whistles ($31,500). This was registered in his name, registered in his state (Texas), and was bought with a loan from Ford Credit (also in his name). Marina was supposed to pay him these payments, but she often didn't. The Scientologist who made this arrangement with Marina told me that Marina often didn't pay him and he had to make the over-$500/month payments on "her" car. Since this was really "her car" and she resided in California, she also violated the California laws which require that she register the car in California within 10 days. She kept the car for at least two years with this "arrangement".
These are just some of the things I discovered about this lovely lady of silver tongue and shady dealings. For those who come across her in the future, she prefers to operate in the film industry and works mainly as a fundraiser (not surprisingly).
(sigh) I was duped by Marina Martins, just like all the other people who got involved with her. But neither WISE nor the Church of Scientology lifted a finger to get Marina Martins to comply with any of her agreements. The Church of Scientology touts that they have the best ethics and justice system in the world. I've never seen that to be true. In fact, they have the best INjustice system in the world. If the COS was so good at justice, then Marina Martins would never have been able to bilk all these people (including myself), or she would have been brought to justice. But they did nothing.
WISE is simply a squirrel group, when it comes to application of L. Ron Hubbard administrative technology. It is an extortionist group who simply wants to collect membership money in exchange for nothing. The local WISE Charter Committees are a joke. I've never seen a more lenient group of people whose job it is to get and keep ethics in on the business owner members.
Well, that's my story of abuses with the Church of Scientology. These are by no means the complete treatise on all the abuses, but it covers some of the highlights.
Now I'll take you forward in time to what happened to me AFTER I made the decision to leave the Church of Scientology.