Plaintiff Savors Scientology Victory

Lawrence Wollersheim was awarded millions of dollars, but he plans to keep living as a nomad in a solar-powered RV, connected to the world by a cellular phone with a secret number.

The ex-Scientologist came by his money in a unique fashion too: He won a grueling 22-year court battle against the Church of Scientology of California that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wollersheim said the church pushed him to the brink of suicide, brought on bipolar disorder and drove his business into bankruptcy. A Los Angeles jury agreed.

On May 9, the church deposited $8.67 million with the Los Angeles Superior Court, marking the only time in two decades, church officials say, that Scientology has lost a lawsuit and been forced to pay a former member, or as church officials call him, an apostate.

Now, Wollersheim said, he won’t “have to worry about having a job ever again.”

But the 53-year-old, who has spent his entire adult life in Scientology or fighting it, said he is not going to relax in his newfound security.

He’d like nothing better, he said. It’s just that his quest for justice may compel him to wage more battles and file more lawsuits. He is encouraging other ex-members to file their own suits and plans to stay involved in Factnet, the anti-Scientology, anti-cult Web site he co-founded.

“Justice is more powerful than therapy,” Wollersheim said. “If it takes another 22 years, I’ll stay with it. I’m standing up straight and tall and looking them in the eye, and they’re not pushing me anymore.”

Church officials see a very different picture. They paint Wollersheim as a calculating, deranged ex-member who was mentally unbalanced when he joined and managed to convince a jury--using bogus testimony--that Scientology was responsible for what was wrong in his life. Church officials deny any criminal wrongdoing or harassment of Wollersheim.

His victory was “a miscarriage of justice,” said Kurt Weiland, an official with the Church of Scientology International.

Church officials denied Wollersheim’s allegations that they dragged their heels to avoid paying. They said that he didn’t want to collect and that he had an elaborate scheme to lose so he could continue collecting donations from anti-Scientologists.

Wollersheim’s lawyers dismiss this claim as ridiculous. Attorney Craig Stein said the church “used every possible litigation technique to make the pursuit of collection of the judgment so costly that any less determined person would have given up a long time ago.”

Wollersheim’s epic odyssey with the organization began when he was barely into his 20s. He’s hazy on the dates because, he said, his memory was damaged by his traumatic experiences. According to court records, it was San Francisco in 1969. He was a college student from Wisconsin strolling the colorful streets when a good-looking girl caught his eye.

They got to talking, and before he knew it, Wollersheim was attending a lecture on Scientology and taking a personality test. Then he enrolled in his first Scientology course.

By 1973, he had dropped his plans for a college degree and moved to Los Angeles, where the church is headquartered.

All the money he had went to pay for Scientology courses, he said. He signed up for “auditing,” a Scientology practice in which an “auditor” asks a member questions while a device called an electropyschometer is used, reportedly to help locate areas of mental distress. Scientologists believe that auditing can help rehabilitate the human spirit and is the path to spiritual enlightenment.

For 11 years, Wollersheim said, he believed that too. He signed a billion-year contract, which the church describes as a symbolic gesture of eternal commitment, and devoted his life to Scientology. At one point, he said, he lived with other Scientologists and spent all his waking hours working for the church. He also operated several businesses, including a photography enterprise. Occasionally, he slipped away to race motorcycles. But mostly, he said, he lived for the church.

Then things went bad. In the mid-1970s, according to court records, Wollersheim agreed to undergo auditing sessions aboard a ship in Long Beach. It was a strenuous regime of little sleep, paltry food and hours of auditing that experts testified helped bring on his mental illness.

At another stage, according to court records, Wollersheim said he agreed to disconnect from friends and family who had expressed concerns about Scientology.

Wollersheim said he went along with those church practices. But he also said he began to have suicidal thoughts and developed signs of mental illness.

When he started to question his belief in Scientology, he said, retribution followed. Wollersheim said Scientologists drove his business into bankruptcy. Church officials said members stopped patronizing Wollersheim’s business because they discovered he was disreputable. They also deny pressuring him to disconnect from friends and family.

Wollersheim said he left the church in 1980 a broken man.

He moved to a tiny town in northern Wisconsin, he said, where for four months “I was being nothing, going nowhere, just kind of psychologically gutted. Not knowing how to think; not knowing what to do. And gradually, I started coming out of it.”

Then he filed a lawsuit. In 1986, a Los Angeles County jury awarded him $30 million. An appellate court later cut that amount to $2.5 million, but upheld the case. Over the years, the judgment grew to $8.67 million with accrued interest.

Much of the money is owed to lawyers and others who helped bankroll Wollersheim’s legal battle. He hasn’t had a long-term job in the last decade, he said, because harassment from those angry at his suit against Scientology has forced him to stay on the move, at times armed with a gun and a bulletproof vest. What kept him going was the conviction that he was fighting, not just for himself, but for others hurt by the church, he said. He lives in a recreational vehicle equipped with four-wheel-drive and solar power so he can go “off the grid” to hide if necessary.

That suits him fine, he said. He loves the solitude of the desert and mountains, reading books on metaphysics and cooking meals.

He has also discovered a new passion: designing health-related software. During his long years of legal fighting, he said, he picked up computer skills, and he now works freelance from the road.

Wollersheim said he has made no real plans for his money, except to invest and buy presents for his family. He also wants to spend more time with his adult son.

Church officials said they are happy to have the matter behind them and wish no harm to Wollersheim. Despite his legal battle, Wollersheim has no ill will toward individual Scientologists, only toward some of the church’s actions, he said.

“I’m not a zealot,” Wollersheim said. “They’re not my enemies. I actually pray for these people.... If I didn’t pray for them, they’d get me so angry I’d lose my balance.”

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Times staff writer Hector Becerra contributed to this report.