WEBVTT 00:12.330 --> 00:15.530 Alex Gibney claims to be a documentarian… 00:15.630 --> 00:17.930 But Alex Gibney’s idea of a documentary 00:18.030 --> 00:20.230 on the Church of Scientology? 00:20.330 --> 00:24.470 Start with a book written by his buddy Lawrence Wright. 00:24.570 --> 00:28.970 Disregard that the book was filled with unsubstantiated innuendo, 00:29.070 --> 00:32.800 unsupported rumors, and allegations so outrageous 00:32.900 --> 00:36.300 a federal judge dismissed them as baseless. 00:36.400 --> 00:41.630 Ignore the fact that the main source for the book was this man Marty Rathbun — 00:41.730 --> 00:45.170 leader of a tiny failed cult whose members had all been 00:45.270 --> 00:49.130 expelled from the Church for discreditable activities. 00:49.230 --> 00:53.570 Then spend two years in secret turning that book into a film… 00:53.670 --> 00:57.700 and never once present any allegations to the Church. 00:58.070 --> 01:02.130 And to ensure that the media would consider it tweet-worthy, 01:02.230 --> 01:05.230 find an expelled and embittered former Church member 01:05.330 --> 01:07.900 willing to make sensational claims. 01:08.000 --> 01:10.370 Someone with a proclivity for lying 01:10.470 --> 01:13.870 and a bloated self-image with nothing to back it up. 01:13.970 --> 01:17.530 Someone just like Tom De Vocht. 01:17.630 --> 01:20.600 Tom De Vocht didn't have a lot of bearing in the Church. 01:20.700 --> 01:22.230 He didn't have a lot of authority. 01:22.330 --> 01:25.200 I actually don't know what authority he did have. 01:25.300 --> 01:27.570 And I was pretty familiar with who had authority and who didn't. 01:27.670 --> 01:30.470 And his was just strictly on renovations and construction. 01:30.570 --> 01:32.200 That’s him. 01:32.300 --> 01:35.770 A construction guy who overstepped the bounds of his authority, 01:35.870 --> 01:38.770 created a series of financial disasters 01:38.870 --> 01:42.070 and connived for years to cover it up. 01:42.170 --> 01:43.500 In a public announcement, 01:43.600 --> 01:46.400 Tom De Vocht gave the world a glimpse into the mentality 01:46.500 --> 01:48.670 behind his chronic deceit – 01:48.770 --> 01:51.300 the mindset of a criminal, 01:51.400 --> 01:54.230 “I would never even consider I was doing wrong,” 01:54.330 --> 01:58.330 he wrote, “unless I was caught out and then my only sorrow 01:58.430 --> 02:00.530 was for being caught.” 02:00.630 --> 02:03.170 But before his deceptions were discovered, 02:03.270 --> 02:05.770 Tom De Vocht talked his way into supervising 02:05.870 --> 02:09.170 some of the Church’s various building projects. 02:09.270 --> 02:10.930 Colleagues would later discover 02:11.030 --> 02:14.030 that De Vocht was hiding his financial misconduct 02:14.130 --> 02:17.000 behind a complex web of lies. 02:17.100 --> 02:19.700 Tom De Vocht messed up a lot, financially within the Church 02:19.800 --> 02:21.570 when it came to construction and renovations. 02:21.670 --> 02:24.100 There were two specific projects I was involved with. 02:24.200 --> 02:27.030 To say, I guess, that they didn't go well was an understatement. 02:27.130 --> 02:30.100 He had left this trail, like slime; 02:30.200 --> 02:33.270 things that had to be rebuilt, replanned, redone, 02:33.370 --> 02:35.200 refigured out, re-researched. 02:35.300 --> 02:36.700 And through his incompetence, 02:36.800 --> 02:38.930 because he didn't have a clue what he was doing 02:39.030 --> 02:41.900 so he'd never get planning approved, never get budgeting done. 02:42.000 --> 02:45.170 He would just go ahead with projects and then constantly change them. 02:45.270 --> 02:46.930 I had the assignment of tallying up 02:47.030 --> 02:49.670 all the change-orders from one of these projects 02:49.770 --> 02:52.630 that he was working on. And it was astronomical. 02:52.730 --> 02:55.030 Over-expenditures in terms of hundreds of thousands of dollars 02:55.130 --> 02:56.200 on one particular building. 02:56.300 --> 02:58.830 He had given authorization for things to be done 02:58.930 --> 03:00.800 that were not approved by the Board. 03:00.900 --> 03:03.130 And it was very evident he was dishonest. 03:03.230 --> 03:05.000 And he thought he was above the law. 03:05.100 --> 03:07.600 And when caught out on such, he would lie. 03:07.700 --> 03:10.130 Bills would be coming in and he would cover them up. 03:10.230 --> 03:13.400 He was a financial nightmare. 03:13.500 --> 03:16.930 Among other financial misconduct, Tom De Vocht secretly 03:17.030 --> 03:22.730 signed contracts worth $10 million without Church authorization. 03:22.830 --> 03:26.000 Committed to a multi-million dollar loan guarantee- 03:26.100 --> 03:29.900 sticking the Church with the tab when the loan defaulted. 03:30.000 --> 03:34.270 Engineered a disastrous land deal benefiting a known felon 03:34.370 --> 03:37.030 that cost the Church a million dollars. 03:37.130 --> 03:39.300 But De Vocht got a perk out of the deal - 03:39.400 --> 03:43.700 he scored tickets to a pro football game. 03:43.800 --> 03:46.370 All from a man who would later disclose this 03:46.470 --> 03:50.230 about his stunning lack of moral character 03:50.330 --> 03:53.170 “Lying was not wrong unless I was caught out 03:53.270 --> 03:56.270 and couldn’t lie my way out of it.” 03:56.370 --> 03:58.800 And when piles of bills and internal audits 03:58.900 --> 04:01.730 made it impossible to hide the truth any longer, 04:01.830 --> 04:05.630 De Vocht admitted all in a public announcement, 04:05.730 --> 04:09.730 “I operated insanely, spending money with no responsibility 04:09.830 --> 04:12.530 for what I was doing and no concept 04:12.630 --> 04:15.500 of the destructive consequences.” 04:15.600 --> 04:18.430 Alex Gibney mentions none of this. 04:18.530 --> 04:22.030 Nor does he mention that a closer look into Tom De Vocht’s life 04:22.130 --> 04:25.300 reveals an even wider and more reprehensible pattern 04:25.400 --> 04:28.730 of undisclosed anti-social conduct. 04:28.830 --> 04:33.330 De Vocht stole cash from his bride’s grandmother at their wedding. 04:33.430 --> 04:36.070 There really isn't anything much lower 04:36.170 --> 04:39.500 than stealing from my Grandmother on our wedding day. 04:39.600 --> 04:42.100 It doesn't get worse than that. 04:42.200 --> 04:46.030 But then he sold two of his wife’s cars without her knowledge, 04:46.130 --> 04:48.170 while she was out of town; 04:48.270 --> 04:51.400 I returned home. My girlfriend picked me up at the airport. 04:51.500 --> 04:55.430 We drove back to my apartment. I turned to her and said, "Where's my car?" 04:55.530 --> 04:58.630 And she looked at me, she went completely white in shock and said, 04:58.730 --> 05:01.630 "He didn't tell you?! Are you kidding me, he didn't tell you?! 05:01.730 --> 05:06.300 He sold your car." Just took it out, sold it, spent the money. 05:06.400 --> 05:10.000 And he squandered $100,000 of her inheritance, 05:10.100 --> 05:12.570 without bothering to mention it. 05:12.670 --> 05:16.830 He would leech off me and my family, who provided him an incredible life, 05:16.930 --> 05:19.730 whether it was the Armani suits my mother bought him, 05:19.830 --> 05:24.830 the beautiful vacations that my family sent us on with them. 05:24.930 --> 05:26.130 And he took advantage of it. 05:26.230 --> 05:29.530 He betrayed me, he betrayed my family. 05:29.630 --> 05:32.970 But that was just a warm-up for what was to come. 05:33.070 --> 05:36.100 For Tom De Vocht not only steals money from women. 05:36.200 --> 05:38.700 He also likes to knock them around. 05:38.800 --> 05:42.730 Including his own wife, whom he once violently battered. 05:42.830 --> 05:44.170 It was in a work setting 05:44.270 --> 05:46.800 and I said something and he didn't like it. 05:46.900 --> 05:49.030 And my hair was pulled back in a ponytail. 05:49.130 --> 05:53.230 And he grabbed the ponytail and whipped my head down towards the floor 05:53.330 --> 05:56.700 and dragged me, literally like a caveman, 05:56.800 --> 06:01.500 down a hallway until people started screaming at him and made him stop. 06:01.600 --> 06:05.930 Needless to say, that was the end of that marriage. 06:06.030 --> 06:09.270 But far from being remorseful about his violent streak, 06:09.370 --> 06:12.270 which extends to attacks on several colleagues – 06:12.370 --> 06:15.400 Tom De Vocht actually boasts about it, 06:15.500 --> 06:19.800 “I drove fear into people with my physical handling of people,” he said. 06:19.900 --> 06:22.170 “I beat up some people…” 06:22.270 --> 06:23.930 Most of it in tandem with that 06:24.030 --> 06:27.200 failed Texas cult leader - Marty Rathbun. 06:27.300 --> 06:32.830 In the last months when he was hooked up with Marty Rathbun, 06:32.930 --> 06:35.070 not long before he left the Church, 06:35.170 --> 06:41.000 he became increasingly aggressive, increasingly bizarre and violent. 06:41.100 --> 06:43.070 “Rathbun and I, he admitted, 06:43.170 --> 06:47.370 “were working together as close friends and beating up people.” 06:47.470 --> 06:49.300 One of them, strangely enough, 06:49.400 --> 06:52.830 Marty Rathbun’s sidekick, Mike Rinder. 06:52.930 --> 06:56.400 Mike Rinder, Tom De Vocht and Marty Rathbun 06:56.500 --> 06:59.000 were not only violent to others, they were violent to themselves. 06:59.100 --> 07:00.870 It was strange - there was one incident 07:00.970 --> 07:04.630 where Tom De Vocht went into a psychotic rage and went down and saw Rinder 07:04.730 --> 07:07.170 and grabbed him, shoved him into an oleander bush. 07:07.270 --> 07:09.500 Stumbled, because Rinder tried to grab him. 07:09.600 --> 07:13.300 But then so De Vocht - even more angry, started kicking him 07:13.400 --> 07:15.330 in the ribs, in the side. 07:15.430 --> 07:18.130 And Rinder was begging for mercy. It was a gross scene 07:18.230 --> 07:21.530 until he was pulled back. It was just a psychosis. 07:21.630 --> 07:24.770 Tom De Vocht’s criminal resume would eventually go beyond 07:24.870 --> 07:27.730 financial malfeasance and unhinged violence 07:27.830 --> 07:30.470 and into suborning perjury. 07:30.570 --> 07:32.670 In an important Church court case, 07:32.770 --> 07:35.000 Tom De Vocht secretly began pressuring 07:35.100 --> 07:38.270 and coaching witnesses to lie to police. 07:38.370 --> 07:43.000 His accomplices, once again, Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder, 07:43.100 --> 07:47.100 who hid the conspiracy from Church officials for 14 years - 07:47.200 --> 07:51.500 until Rathbun finally outed them all to a reporter. 07:51.600 --> 07:57.000 These same three, all given major roles in Alex Gibney’s film. 07:57.100 --> 08:01.570 But Gibney doesn't seem to care that lying to law enforcement is a felony 08:01.670 --> 08:03.430 and had De Vocht been caught, 08:03.530 --> 08:06.800 he could have spent five years in prison. 08:08.100 --> 08:13.300 Inevitably, Tom De Vocht's lies and antisocial acts caught up with him. 08:13.400 --> 08:15.200 And when they were discovered, 08:15.300 --> 08:18.330 he was removed and dismissed in disgrace. 08:18.430 --> 08:20.800 But Tom De Vocht's bitterness at being dismissed 08:20.900 --> 08:23.230 would fuel a vendetta against the church. 08:23.330 --> 08:26.630 First, on a media tour in support of Rathbun's cult. 08:26.730 --> 08:29.200 And, when that failed, using forcible means 08:29.300 --> 08:32.300 to harm actual Scientologists. 08:32.400 --> 08:36.200 Including a deprogramming attempt against a young Church member 08:36.300 --> 08:38.300 visiting from Australia, 08:38.400 --> 08:41.630 lured to a house where she was held against her will, 08:41.730 --> 08:45.700 threatened and verbally abused by De Vocht and seven others. 08:45.800 --> 08:49.730 The more that I was not agreeing with what they were saying, they'd get angry. 08:49.830 --> 08:51.700 "What, you think you're tough? What are you going to do? 08:51.800 --> 08:53.700 What are you going to do? You think you're tough, huh? 08:53.800 --> 08:57.070 You're going to listen to ME. You're going to listen to me 08:57.170 --> 08:58.930 and you're going to do what I say." 08:59.030 --> 09:01.400 And that minute I knew that like something was wrong. 09:01.500 --> 09:03.870 Like I was scared. 09:03.970 --> 09:05.900 Then they all come outside and now I'm cornered. 09:06.000 --> 09:08.500 You know. Cornered in the sidewalk of the house. 09:08.600 --> 09:10.300 So then Tom De Vocht comes out. 09:10.400 --> 09:13.970 He said, “If you were my sister, I'd tie you up right now." 09:14.070 --> 09:16.530 And that's what freaked me the hell out. 09:16.630 --> 09:20.300 I mean, "You'd tie me up because of what? Because I'm a Scientologist?" 09:20.400 --> 09:22.530 No one has any right to do that. 09:22.630 --> 09:25.700 To not have the freedom to be what I want to be, 09:25.800 --> 09:29.070 follow what I want to follow and do what I want to do. 09:29.170 --> 09:32.930 To me, that's evil. I mean, they have no right to do that. 09:34.270 --> 09:37.670 But nothing would quell De Vocht's bitter crusade for revenge 09:37.770 --> 09:39.770 over the good life he lost. 09:39.870 --> 09:43.470 And so, Tom De Vocht next turned on his own family, 09:43.570 --> 09:46.400 still members in good standing with their church. 09:46.500 --> 09:49.400 Remember the sister he talked about tying up? 09:49.500 --> 09:52.270 He tried to turn her own daughter against her. 09:52.370 --> 09:55.300 It's ludicrous because he never even knew my daughter, never. 09:55.400 --> 09:58.770 You know, he met her maybe once in thirty years, 09:58.870 --> 10:00.400 for a few minutes. 10:00.500 --> 10:03.970 And then, now he tries to put a rift between her and I. 10:04.070 --> 10:06.100 And I think that's the meanest thing that 10:06.200 --> 10:09.370 a brother could absolutely do to his family. 10:09.470 --> 10:12.100 To do that is so mean. 10:12.200 --> 10:15.170 What kind of a person would do that? 10:15.270 --> 10:18.070 That’s Tom De Vocht - a featured player 10:18.170 --> 10:21.930 and now spokesman for Alex Gibney’s "documentary", 10:22.030 --> 10:25.470 who repeatedly stole from his wife and her family, 10:25.570 --> 10:29.670 engaged in a ruthless campaign of violence against his colleagues, 10:29.770 --> 10:34.100 and through his willful incompetence, cost the Church millions. 10:34.200 --> 10:35.730 I guarantee you right now, 10:35.830 --> 10:39.430 the guy owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to people he’s ripped off, 10:39.530 --> 10:42.070 people who he’s conned, they’ve given him money, 10:42.170 --> 10:44.400 whatever business endeavors he’s tried to get into, 10:44.500 --> 10:48.600 they’ve all failed. He sucks off of people, he drains them. 10:48.700 --> 10:53.230 He cons them to, to believe in him in some way. 10:53.330 --> 10:57.530 They give to him—give, give, he takes, takes, takes. 10:57.630 --> 11:02.370 And he never gives back. And he bombs every time. And he’s a failure. 11:02.470 --> 11:06.630 Tom De Vocht… Alex Gibney’s hardhat hustler. 11:07.730 --> 11:12.100 And so it goes with Alex Gibney's idea of a documentary... 11:12.200 --> 11:15.770 ignoring all evidence: court documents, police records, 11:15.870 --> 11:19.170 testimony of family, former friends and colleagues, 11:19.270 --> 11:22.530 anything that doesn’t fit the story he wanted, 11:22.630 --> 11:25.670 while including only the long-discredited fabrications 11:25.770 --> 11:27.870 of his small handpicked crew 11:27.970 --> 11:31.900 of bitter expelled Church members and their cronies. 11:32.000 --> 11:35.400 Remember this guy – the leader of that tiny failed cult? 11:35.500 --> 11:36.900 "Shut the fuck up..." 11:37.000 --> 11:40.330 He has repeatedly admitted under oath to perjury. 11:40.430 --> 11:44.370 You’ll also meet those this man calls his "posse". 11:44.470 --> 11:46.400 His minion, Mike Rinder. 11:46.500 --> 11:49.030 He confessed under oath in a court proceeding that 11:49.130 --> 11:52.300 he couldn't even calculate the lies he told Church officials 11:52.400 --> 11:55.300 before he was finally removed. 11:55.400 --> 11:56.730 And the drama queen 11:56.830 --> 12:00.130 who regaled Alex Gibney with a tale of an “escape” 12:00.230 --> 12:02.600 that never happened. 12:02.700 --> 12:07.400 But Alex Gibney isn't revealing who his prized sources really are. 12:07.500 --> 12:09.070 And for obvious reasons. 12:09.170 --> 12:11.530 I think we got the story that we wanted. 12:11.630 --> 12:17.300 It’s not the truth. It’s Alex Gibney. On HBO.