Scientology leader considered legally served in Australian human trafficking case

Scientology’s reclusive leader, David Miscavige, has 21 days to respond to allegations from a human-trafficking case brought by three Australian residents, after nearly a year of avoiding legal service.

Gawain Baxter, Laura Baxter and Valeska Paris have claimed in a civil case lodged in Florida that they had endured horrendous emotional, physical and psychological abuse while in Scientology.

Scientology leader David Miscavige had avoided court service.

Now a US magistrate has ruled that Miscavige had been actively concealing his whereabouts for nearly a year and declared him officially served in the case.

Miscavige, the leader of Scientology since 1986, had been named in the lawsuit filed last April, along with five Scientology-related organisations. He had been the only defendant to not have been served.

The court heard allegations from plaintiff lawyers that Miscavige had evaded service 27 times, including by ordering security at Scientology properties to prevent the summons from being delivered. Miscavige’s lawyers had also refused to accept service for him last month.

The lawsuit, backed by US class-action law firms, is regarded as one of the most significant in decades against Scientology, considered by some critics as a dangerous, money-focused cult.

“For years, David Miscavige has succeeded in evading accountability,” said John Dominguez, partner at Cohen Milstein, and Zahra Dean, attorney at Kohn Swift. “Today’s ruling brings our clients – who are alleged to have endured unimaginable abuses in Scientology as children and into adulthood – one step closer to getting their day in court and obtaining justice against all responsible parties.”

Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw said the magistrate’s findings were “erroneous”.

“Mr Miscavige never evaded service,” she said. “The case is nothing but blatant harassment and was brought and is being litigated for the purpose of harassment — hoping that harassment will extort a pay day. The allegations in the complaint are absurd, ridiculous, scurrilous and blatantly false.”

The three Australian residents filed their lawsuit last April, alleging they were abused while part of Scientology’s “Sea Org” and “Cadet Org” entities that involved them signing billion-year contracts to provide free or cheap labour.

Some of the attempts to serve Miscavige were via certified mail.

Pay was sometimes withheld or set at a maximum of $US50 ($72) a week, the lawsuit alleges. Much of the alleged abuse occurred on Scientology’s Caribbean cruise ship, the Freewinds, which never enters US waters.

The lawsuit detailed claims of how children as young as six were separated from their parents, who relinquished custody to the Cadet Org and later Sea Org. Members of “Orgs” work as indentured labour, the lawsuit alleges, accumulating large debts that are then held over them.

Lawyers for Scientology have since said the three had signed contracts while members of the Sea Org, which required them to arbitrate disputes within the church, not through the legal system. Scientology has successfully used this legal defence on one occasion.

Part of the legal claim against Scientology includes allegations that Laura Baxter was accused of monopolising the attention of a prominent celebrity – who is not named in the filing but has been identified by The Age as Tom Cruise – while aboard the Freewinds for his birthday in 2004. She alleges her punishment was to be locked in an “extremely hot” engine room of the ship. There is no suggestion Cruise was aware of Baxter’s situation.

While living on the Freewinds, Gawain Baxter alleged he worked 16 to 24 hours a day in unsafe conditions. He claims that after working with blue asbestos and concrete dust, he later coughed up blood.

Scientology was founded by US science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1953 and has long attracted celebrities including Cruise and John Travolta.

A 2021 investigation by The Age into Scientology’s finances found it had shifted tens of millions of dollars into Australia, and makes tax-free profits with little scrutiny.

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