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(Tampa Tribune -- July 21, 1989)

By Anne Bartlett
Tribune Staff Writer

      TAMPA -- The Church of Scientology is asking a federal judge to punish a Tampa woman for publicly denouncing the church in violation of a lawsuit settlement.

      In seven motions delivered Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich, the church asks the judge to order Margery Wakefield, 41, a former Scientologist, to show why she should not be held in civil and criminal contempt for talking about Scientology to three radio stations and two newspapers, including The Tampa Tribune.

      It asks Kovachevich to fine Wakefield up to $500 or jail her for up to six months for each act of criminal contempt, and requests that Wakefield be fined at least $240,000 on civil contempt charges.

      Kovachevich has sealed the motions. Wakefield gave copies of them to the Tribune.

      Wakefield has acknowledged in recent press and radio interviews that she is violating the 1986 settlement of her lawsuit against the church by publicly discussing Scientology.

      She said Thursday that she was not surprised by the church's legal action against her.

      "It was pretty much what I expected," Wakefield said. "My feelings are unchanged. I will not stop speaking out against Scientology. I feel what happened to me was atrocious."

      She said she plans to continue her campaign against the church by joining with other ex-Scientologists to form a support group. Members hope to appear before the City Commission in Clearwater, where the church has its eastern U.S. headquarters, she said.

      Paul Johnson, the church's Tampa lawyer, refused to confirm that the church has taken any action against Wakefield.

      "Assuming that anything was filed, it was filed in camera, and under the court rules, I'm not permitted to discuss anything in camera," he said. "I'm not permitted to discuss these irresponsible statements she's been making to the news media, much as I would like to."

      Wakefield was expelled from the church in 1980, after 12 years of membership. In 1982, she filed a lawsuit against the church, alleging she joined it because it falsely claimed it could cure her mental problems. That prevented her from seeking competent professional help, the lawsuit contended.

      Wakefield says she's suffered since she was a teen-ager from episodes of what has been disgnosed as borderline schizophrenia. But she says her experience with Scientology is largely responsible for 14 stays in mental hospitals since she left the church.

      In 1986, she says, she received $200,000 from the church in return for agreeing to a lawsuit settlement that forbids her from speaking publicly about her experiences with Scientology. Her lawyers received half the money.

      Kovachevich has sealed court records in the case. On May 16, Kovachevich also issued an injunction ordering Wakefield not to discuss the church.

      Wakefield now repudiates the agreement, claiming she was pressured into signing it, and aggressively seeks forums -- in the press, on radio shows, in churches -- to denounce Scientology.

      "I don't care what the legal repercussions are at this point," she told the Tribune recently. "I want people in this area to know what Scientology is about. I want them to know it's a satanic cult."

     The church has been the center of controversy since it was founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1954.

      Hubbard taught that Scientologists can remove sensory traces of painful events in their pasts through use of a lie detector-like device called an E-meter and a counseling technique called auditing. Scientologists also believe in a form of reincarnation in which souls, which they call "thetans," are "implanted" into new babies.

      Wakefield got involved with Scientology in 1968, when she was a 19-year-old music student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Just emerging from six months in a mental hospital, she was troubled and looking for answers.

      Wakefield contends another music student literally hypnotized her into the church by repeating information about Scientology.

      "She looked directly into my eyes, and she kept repeating the same thing," Wakefield says.

      Wakefield spent the next 12 years in the church, in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Clearwater and elsewhere. Much of the time, she either worked for the church or in various computer jobs. She estimates she spent about $50,000 on church courses.

      Among her allegations about Scientology:

• The beliefs and auditing techniques taught at the secret upper levels of Scientology are evidence that the church is actually a cult. "They're based on science fiction, and they're based on black magic," she says. Wakefield says she is now a Christian who attends an Episcopal church.
• The Scientology church routinely asked members in disfavor to commit crimes to further its goals. Wakefield says she stole documents from the American Psychiatric Association in Washington, D.C., in 1972 on orders from the church.
• When she reached the higher levels of the church's teachings in 1980, she had a mental breakdown, Wakefield says. During this time, the church kept her in a locked room in its Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater for "a couple of weeks," and guarded her 24 hours a day. The church subsequently expelled her.
• In 1981, after she had been expelled and had returned to her family in Madison, Wis., three Scientologists took her to a motel, held her there three days, and forced her to sign an agreement promising not to sue the church in return for a check for $16,000. She signed, and accepted the money, which she used to repay a loan from her father.
• When she returned to the Tampa Bay area and sued the church, someone broke into her home in mid-1986 and sprayed what appeared to be blood on her bedroom wall. She blames unknown Scientologists.

      Wakefield reported the incident to police, who photographed the bedroom, but made no arrests.

      Church officials said they could not respond to Wakefield's allegations because they're bound by the settlement and the sealed court files.