The Church of Scientology has filed a motion with a Los Angeles federal court, demanding that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) hand over all records related to a 2013 missing\u2011persons report that the church claims was fabricated by former member and outspoken critic Leah Remini. The church\u2019s legal team argues that the police failed to identify the source of the leak and that the documents could shed light on whether Remini\u2019s allegations were a publicity stunt.<\/p>\n
According to court filings obtained by TMZ, the Church\u2019s attorneys are asking a judge to compel the LAPD to produce documents \u201cimmediately.\u201d The request follows a series of events that the church says demonstrate a pattern of false reporting and a lack of police transparency.<\/p>\n
In the filings, the church accuses the LAPD of \u201cfailing to identify who leaked the Missing Persons Report filed in 2013, which claimed Scientology leader David Miscavige\u2019s wife, Shelly, was missing.\u201d The church argues that the police investigation was closed as \u201cunfounded\u201d without a thorough review of the source of the report.<\/p>\n
Leah Remini, a former Scientology member for more than three decades, left the church in 2013. Since then she has become one of its most vocal critics, accusing the organization of abuse, financial exploitation, and other misconduct. In 2013, a detective named Kevin Becker\u2014who the church claims was a personal friend and security guard for Remini\u2014filed a missing\u2011persons report alleging that Shelly Miscavige, David Miscavige\u2019s wife, was missing.<\/p>\n
The church maintains that the report was fabricated. It says Remini filed it \u201cknowing it was false and did so as a publicity stunt for her own personal benefit.\u201d The LAPD, according to the church\u2019s documents, sent two officers to speak with Shelly in person. They confirmed that she was not missing and apologized for the disturbance. The investigation was reportedly closed as \u201cunfounded\u201d a few days later.<\/p>\n
In 2017, the San Bernardino Sheriff\u2019s Department also met with Shelly and determined she was fine. Despite these findings, the church claims that Remini continued to make public statements suggesting Shelly was missing, thereby \u201cgaining more publicity for herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
The church alleges that the missing\u2011persons report was leaked to journalist Yashar Ali, who published the document in 2023. The church claims that the LAPD investigated the matter but was unable to identify the source of the leak. The church\u2019s legal team is now seeking a court order to force the LAPD to disclose all related documents, hoping to uncover whether the leak was intentional or accidental.<\/p>\n
While the church\u2019s motion is still pending, the case has drawn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Church of Scientology has filed a motion with a Los Angeles federal court, demanding that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) hand over all records related to a 2013 missing\u2011persons report that the church claims was fabricated by former member and outspoken critic Leah Remini. The church\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}