Operation Snow White - Aftermath and Trial

Aftermath and Trial

Meisner and Wolfe were given cover stories by the Guardian's Office. On the last day of June, Gerald Wolfe was arrested. Wolfe was charged with “the use and possession of a forged official pass of the United States." The day after Wolfe’s arrest, Mary Sue Hubbard wrote a letter to Weigand ordering him to keep her abreast of the situation. Hubbard also conversed with Mo Budlong, and Richard Weigand about Wolfe’s arrest, cover story, and subsequent plan to destroy evidence linking Wolfe and Meisner to Scientology.

At the end of July a judge decided that the case against Wolfe warranted an investigation by a Grand Jury. A week later the judge issued an arrest warrant for Meisner, who, at the time, was being hidden in LA. The FBI was able to connect him to Scientology. By January 1977 it was becoming increasingly likely that Scientology would be unable to escape Operation Snow White without serious penalty. Though Meisner was still in hiding, he was growing increasingly anxious about the situation. By April, Meisner wanted to surrender to the authorities. Meisner was quickly put under the control of several guards.

On May 13, Gerald Wolfe entered a guilty plea. Later in the month, Meisner escaped his captors, only to be convinced to rejoin the GO the following day.

In June, Wolfe, after being sentenced to probation and community service, testified before the Grand Jury. Instead of the truth, Wolfe told the latest incarnation of his cover story. Several days later Meisner would again escape his captors, though this time he would contact the FBI. Meisner was eventually taken to Washington, where he agreed to plead guilty to a five-year conspiracy felony and cooperate with the Grand Jury.

On July 8 the FBI raided Church of Scientology locations in Los Angeles, Hollywood and Washington, DC. The Los Angeles raid involved 156 FBI agents: the most that had ever been used in a single raid. It lasted 21 hours and filled a sixteen ton truck with documents and other items.

The raids not only turned up documentation of the group's illegal activities against the United States government, but also illegal activities carried out against other perceived enemies of Scientology. These included "Operation Freakout", a conspiracy to frame author Paulette Cooper on false bomb-threat charges, and conspiracies to frame Gabe Cazares, mayor of Clearwater, Florida, on false hit-and-run charges. The papers also revealed that Sir John Foster (author of the official UK Government inquiry into Scientology) and Lord Balniel (who had requested the report) were targets, along with the National Association for Mental Health (NAMH) and World Federation for Mental Health.

Comparing the FBI to the Gestapo, the Church declared that all the files seized from the Church were taken illegally, though the FBI produced a 40-plus page affidavit detailing 160 specific items they were looking for.

By July 20, some 13 days after the raid, a Washington judge ruled that the documents should be returned, at least temporarily, to the Church, and that none of the documents could be shared with branches of the government, unless that specific branch was investigating Scientology. Scientology's lawyers had successfully argued that in order to prepare for an August 8 hearing on the legality of the raid, they must be able to see the documents. By July 27 a judge in Washington had ruled the warrant authorizing the raid was too broad, and as such, violated the Church's 4th Amendment rights. In August this ruling would be overturned, with Scientology promising to take the case to the Supreme Court, which would, early in the next year, refuse to hear the case.

In August 1978, 11 high-ranking members of Scientology were indicted on 28 charges. One of the indicted was Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of Scientology’s creator L. Ron Hubbard. The other ten were Gerald Bennett Wolfe, Cindy Raymond, Henning Heldt, Duke Snider, Gregory Willardson, Richard Weigand, Mitchell Herman, Sharon Thomas, Jane Kember, and Mo Budlong. Kendrick Moxon and L. Ron Hubbard were named unindicted co-conspirators.

Over the course of the investigation the Church of Scientology would attempt to have a judge removed, and would subpoena almost 150 federal agents in what appeared to be a large stalling scheme. The Church would also offer several shifting explanations for their actions. Ultimately, these tactics failed and the defendants agreed to a plea deal.

The Scientologists would be found guilty and their attorneys would be allowed to argue for the suppression of the government’s evidence. 7 of the 11 members of the Guardian’s Office pled guilty to just a single count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. One more pled guilty to a similar charge and a ninth pled guilty to a misdemeanor. The remaining two Scientologists were in England, awaiting extradition.

On December 6, 1979, some five years after Operation Snow White began, it officially came to an end. Five of the Scientologists were sentenced to four years in jail, with four of the convicted being taken immediately. Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of L. Ron Hubbard, was sentenced to five years. Each of the six faced a fine of $10,000. The next day the four remaining Scientologists were sentenced. Three of the four faced a fine of $10,000 and five years in jail. The fourth was fined $1,000 and sent to jail for six months. Upon release Mary Sue Hubbard was given five years of probation and community service. All of the Scientologists immediately began to appeal. Their appeal was rejected.

In November 1980, the two remaining Scientologists, Jane Kember and Mo Budlong, were finally convicted on nine counts of aiding and abetting burglary in connection with break-ins at government offices, and were sentenced to six years.

Kember and Budlong had claimed political asylum in the UK, arguing that they should not be extradited to the USA because the burglaries had political objectives. Their application for asylum was denied by the British High Court; Mr Justice Griffiths said:

I am unable to accept that organising burglaries either for the purpose of identifying persons in Government offices hostile to the Scientologists, or for the purpose of gaining an advantage in litigation, or even for the wider purpose of refuting false allegations thus enabling a better image of the Church of Scientology to be projected to the public, comes anywhere near being an offence of a political character within the meaning of the Extradition Act.

The Applicants did not order these burglaries to take place in order to challenge the political control or Government of the United States; they did so to further the interests of the Church of Scientology and its members, and in particular the interest of Ron L. Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. In my view, it would be ridiculous to regard the Applicants as political refugees seeking asylum in this country, and I reject the submission that these were offences of a political character.