Scientology leader David Miscavige is “nowhere to be found” as prosecutors try to serve the 62-year-old man in a federal child trafficking lawsuit that names him as a defendant, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
The outlet reported that process servers have tried to deliver documents to Miscavige 27 different times over the past four months in the Clearwater, Fla., area and in Los Angeles, to no avail.
When lawyers showed up at Scientology properties looking for the leader, security guards said they had no idea. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit also hired a private investigator to help find Miscavige.
The lawyers also sent an Instagram message to the church’s official account to ask about Miscavige.
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David Miscavige (L), Chairman of the Board of the Center for Religious Technology and leader of the Scientology religion, addressing the crowd during the dedication of the Church of Scientology’s new church in the City of London, Sunday, October 22 from 2006.
(Yui Mok/PA)
Former Church of Scientology husband and wife members Gawain and Laura Baxter and Valeska Paris filed the lawsuit after claiming they were forced to work on Scientology ships as children after signing a billion-year contract in exchange for little or no money.
Paris reportedly left the church in 2009, and Gawain and Laura Baxter left in 2012.
In addition to the trafficking allegations, Paris alleges that she was the victim of repeated sexual assaults in her youth and that when her mother left Scientology, the then-17-year-old was locked in a machine room for 48 hours as punishment.
Gawain Baxter said his parents put him in a Sea Org nursery when he was two months old, according to the lawsuit. When he turned six, he was also forced to sign the billion year contract and sent to live in a Cadet Org dormitory with 100 other children.
Children over the age of six are considered to be adults, and are often told that they are, and that they should act and expect to be treated as adults. The lawsuit says the children should be referred to as “cadets” and not children.
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The Church of Scientology in Los Angeles, California, USA, on Tuesday, July 7, 2020.
(Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Miscavige’s last known address is the church’s international building in Los Angeles, but like other members of Scientology’s extremist wing, Sea Org, he does not have a registered address.
Court documents related to the recent lawsuit list his home as Scientology property in a gated community known as Hacienda Gardens in Clearwater. The 120-unit apartment complex houses Scientology staff and was purchased by the organization in 2001.
During a motion earlier this month, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Neil Glazer, said, “Miscavige cannot be allowed to continue his game,” the Tampa Bay Times reported. He is due to appear in court on January 20, but that meeting is pending unless papers are served on him.
Glazer also said that Miscavige is engaging in “intentional concealment of his location and evasion of service.”
The Tampa Bay Times report indicated that attorneys have tried to locate him through two traffic tickets he received in the 1990s, but both citations list Scientology’s downtown Los Angeles as his home.
Miscavige’s lawyers told the newspaper that he is simply the target of a legal ploy because of his status within Scientology. They added that he does not live in Florida, so the lawyers cannot serve him.
In this photo provided by the Church of Scientology, David Miscavige, chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center and ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion, at the Church’s global media center on Sunset Boulevard on December 14, 2016, in Hollywood, Calif.
(Church of Scientology via Getty Images)
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US Magistrate Judge Julie Sneed served a summons on Miscavige on behalf of the plaintiffs. Ten copies of the summons were sent to various Scientology properties in Florida and California.
They were all returned as undeliverable as no one wanted to sign for them.
