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Has Tom Cruise's faith gotten him in trouble?
The Daily News reports that Peter Letterese, a former Scientologist who's become one of the religion's harshest critics, has filed a $250 million suit against the Church of Scientology - and the actor's name is among those singled out by the suit!
Letterese claims that members of the Church harrassed him after he became disillusioned. According to his allegations, the harassment's even spread to his legal team - Letterese claims a church member called up the wife of one of his lawyers claiming to be her husband's homosexual lover!
Letterese also charges the Church with reproducing published material to which he owns the copyright. Years ago, Letterese bought the rights to the book "Effective Sales Closing Techniques" - a business book used as a core Scientology text - from the author Leslie Dane's widow. He claims that the Church's continued use of the book constitutes a violation of his intellectual property rights.
Letterese characterizes the Church as a "crime syndicate" and wants to see the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statutes employed to break it up.
So how does any of this relate to Tom? Well, technically it doesn't - but that hasn't stopped Letterese from including Cruise's name in his suit as many times as he could manage!
Letterese calls Cruise the "right-hand man" to David Miscavige, the Church's head, and alleges that the star raises funds "in the multiple tens of millions of dollars" while elevating the profile of Scientology both at home and abroad.
Scientologists are predictably livid over these charges. Official Church spokeswoman Karin Pouw described Letterese's suit as "frivolous" and "based on falsehoods" to the Daily News and pointed out that the courts affirmed that the Church's exploitation of Dane's book fell squarely under fair use statutes earlier this month.
This one's gonna get ugly - and we can't wait to see watch it go down!
We'll keep you posted!
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