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From: Mike_Reuss@HP-Loveland-om10.om.hp.com (Michael Reuss)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Rocky Mountain News 10/4
Date: 4 Oct 1995 18:41:32 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard
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The following article appearing in the Rocky Mountain News (Denver,
Colorado, USA) (page 22A) on Tuesday, 10/4/95. Typos are mine.
Used without permission.
--
Michael Reuss
Honorary Kid
***************************************************************************
Major Headline: "Computer expert to study church data"
Minor Headline: "Judge orders review of Scientology material"
by Karen Abbott - RMN Staff Writer
A federal judge ordered a computer expert Tuesday to study disputed
computer materials in a legal battle of the Church of Scientology beliefs.
Some of the church's most secret beliefs, meanwhile, will be sealed.
Denver U.S. District Judge John Kane ordered the computer equiptment and
data turned over to the court for inspection by Gary Nutt, a University of
Colorado computer sciences professor who testified for Scientology critics
Lawrence Wollersheim and Robert Penny.
Wollersheim and Penny are former Scientologists who have distributed
information about the church on the Internet. The church has sued them on
grounds they are violating copyright and trade-secret laws.
In August the church, possessing with a court order [original grammar],
seized the two men's computer equiptment and related materials in surprise
raids at their homes.
The church and its two critics each argued Tuesday their side should
have the computer materials. Scientology leaders said they would be
committing heresy if they released the materials. Wollersheim and Penny
accused church officials of violating Kane's order that they return the
materials and asked Kane to find them in comtempt of court.
But in a 13-page document amending and clarifying his order, Kane said
the original court orders required the materials to be in the hands of the
church's lawyers, not church officials. He said no one's religious freedom
would be violated by any order that the lawyers hand over the materials to
Wollersheim and Penny or anyone else.
Kane said the material that church officials say is most sacred and
secret, a copy of which purportedly was in Wollersheim's computer, will be
sealed until further notice in accordance with an earlier federal appeals
court order in the case.
The two sides also had argued about the condition of the computer
equiptment and materials and whether the other side had tampered with the
evidence. Kane ordered Nutt to examine the materials and report on whether
they had been altered or tampered with. Nutt also is to get the computer
equiptment in working order if possible.
Until Nutt reports to him, Kane said he won't rule on the contempt issue.
ÿ