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'IT WAS UTTER HELL'
Ex-Scientology member ‘sexually abused and sent to prison camps with paedos aged just 12’
Serge Gil, whose allegations are being investigated by police, says he was abused by six senior figures in Scientology
A FORMER Scientologist has claimed he was sexually abused in the church from the age of 12, forced to interrogate adults on their sick perversions and sent to a "prison" camp with known paedophiles during a horror childhood in the controversial religion.
It comes after Sun Online revealed police in Florida were investigating his claims of child sex abuse.
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Serge claims how he was sexually abused by a total of six adult men from the age of 12 - being regularly molested and even forced to give oral sex, in a legal declaration given to Clearwater Police Department detectives last week.
Now Serge has spoken out for the first time about the "sickening abuse" and "evil practices" he had to endure.
Sun Online has also spoken to another five former members of Scientology, who made their own allegations, including how they were forced to undergo sexually explicit "confessionals" about rape and masturbation as children. One Brendan Tighe, now 38, says he was made to undergo sexually explicit audits from aged 10 and Christi Gordon, now 52, said she was blamed when 45-year-old men "tried to get into her bed" when she was a child.
Serge, 40, alleges he was first molested by a “recruiter” for Scientology’s elite Sea Org, a paramilitary religious order and according to founder L Ron Hubbard, “the best of the best of humanity”.
Serge had only just arrived at Scientology headquarters "Flag" in Clearwater, Florida, with his family, from Mexico, and claims he was so intimidated by his abuser and too embarrassed to tell his parents that he kept the alleged abuse secret.
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Over the next several years Serge would sign a “billion year contract of employment” and his parents would pay over $40,000 for him to train to become an “auditor” - where as a minor - he claims he would interrogate other Scientologists about their darkest secrets and sexual perversions while they were strapped to the religion’s notorious E-meter, similar to a lie detector.
He says he was taught not to react when his subjects confessed to some of the sickest crimes imaginable - including paedophilia, rape and bestiality - and even “acted out” their warped fantasies on him - and just calmly write all his findings downs in reports for his supervisors.
Eventually Serge was sent to what he labels as Scientology “prison camp” the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) - for a minor violation of the religion’s complicated rules, where he claims he "suffered the worst abuse".
He claims he was forced to share a bedroom with a known paedophile - a 32-year-old Sea Org member who had been sent to the RFP as a punishment for molesting a teenage girl.
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The Church of Scientology dismissed the claims as "a disgusting false allegation".
Serge, an artist from Los Angeles, says he’s decided to finally speak out because he wants police to investigate.
“We were shut off from the world by Scientology executives who oversaw this abuse; who took part in it.
“When these crimes were revealed, I was never in a position to talk to the police and felt unable to talk to the police."
Serge claims he felt so brainwashed by the religion he didn't realise what was happening to him was child abuse until years later.
The 40-year-old, who is openly gay, claims he suffered one harrowing incident at age 15 when he says he felt driven to the edge following bullying over his sexuality and attempted to commit suicide by trying to jump from a building.
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Two days after the attempted suicide, a senior member of Scientology - aged approximately 50 - summoned him to a fifth-floor room at the Fort Harrison Hotel, Clearwater.
“He threw me down on the floor and said, ‘What is it going to take to stop you being gay? Do I need to f**k you?’" he says.
"Then he dry humped me while my head was to the floor and he had my mouth covered with his hand.
“He told me ‘You are a fag and you need to knock it off’. He was strong, forceful and stank of cigarettes.”
By this time Serge claims he had come to expect sexual and verbal abuse.
At age 12 he had been trained to be a “ruthless interrogator” where he claims he would listen to the vile confessions of adult Scientologists and sit emotionless when they acted out their perversions on him.
Serge showed Sun Online "commendation" letters from superiors congratulating him on his great work.
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He also shared what he claims are official Scientology "confessional" and "security check" question lists which he says he had to use - which include questions such as "Have you ever seduced a minor?", "Have you ever done something sexually perverted with children?" and "Have you ever had intercourse with a member of your family?"
“L Ron Hubbard said that your secrets are the things that are keeping you from being happy, so these auditing sessions were designed to find out people’s deepest, darkest secrets and perversions,” he said.
“I was so young I didn’t even know what some of these things were - as part of my “training” I was given an ear piece and my case supervisor who was an adult would be on there ‘guiding me’ saying ‘ask him about masturbation, ask him about rape, don’t let the subject misdirect you’.
“The aim would be to have a ‘floating’ needle on the E-meter so if that didn’t happen I’d say, ‘Look it’s very important you come clean with us, we need to know what your perversions are anything you keep secret is going to stop you from becoming spiritually free. Take a look at your life and lets find out what you’re not saying because the meter doesn’t lie'.
More former Scientologists speak out
Sun Online spoke to several former members of Scientology who made their own claims.
Brendan Tighe, 38, former Sea Org member: “When I worked for security at Flag, in the section where all the celebrities would come in to take their advanced levels in Scientology, I would have to write a daily report based on information we received from course supervisors, auditors, all members of staff to David Miscavige’s personal organization. It was called the Report Line.
“But we were told to write reports in an internationally confusing, cloudy style and we were instructed about which words were ok to use. So lots of abbreviations and confusing terminology - for example child abuse would be referred to as ‘out 2D to the extreme’.
“Personally I was also audited and asked explicit questions about sex - things like masturbation - from the age of 10 years old. I didn’t even know what these things were at that time.
“Then there’d be ‘touch assists’ where older members of the Sea Org would touch you as a minor all over your body.
“There was also numerous incidents where as a minor I’d be hit on by the adults I was living with - people in there 30s,40s and 50s. It was so common you’d just shrug it off.”
Christi Gordon, 52, another former Sea Org member, said: “I was sent to the RPF when I was 12 and when I was 15 and it was essentially a prison where we would do manual labour from morning until night. I had unwanted sexual advances a lot from the ages of 12 to 18. Lots of hands on me and things I had to to fight off.
“There’d be men 45 years old trying to get into my bed and trying to take my clothes off. I was pushed against walls and stuff like that.
“I’d report them but it didn’t matter because to Scientologists age is just a consideration and they believe that if you pulled something in then you did something to pull it to you. So it was kind of victim blaming.
“If you got upset about it it’s your fault - you’re told you need to get your ‘confront up’ so you can handle these things.
“If as a kid you attracted too much sexual attention from adults they would accuse you of being ‘2 D flowing’ which meant you were putting out sexual flows to people and they’d blame you for that - not the old man.”
Male victim, who has asked to be kept anonymous: “I started delivering Scientology audits to adults at about 13 or 14 and that was where I had to ask people questions about their darkest secrets especially sexual - you had to get every single little detail.
“If they had committed mastubation I had to ask them, when, where, what they were thinking about? It created a tremendous negative effect of me as a 14 year old boy.
“I remember auditing an older man who was married with a family and when I asked him about his thoughts he eventually confessed ‘I’m thinking about f**king you’. He didn’t want to say it and I didn’t want to hear it but I had to get the answer. It really messes you up.”
“So I’d get people to confess to all these horrendous things like paedophilia, rape, bestiality, financial irregularities, tax evasion.
“I remember men telling me ‘I’m sexually molesting my daughter’."
When a person confessed to paedophilia, Serge said they were usually removed from the Clearwater facility and given an “ethics programs” to complete at their local Scientology organisations.
“It was very common to be touched inappropriately or abused during these audits - it was called re-stimulation and it was seen as part of the cleansing process," he said.
“So I would have 40, 50, 60-year-old men telling me about their sexual fantasies then they’d grab my leg and rub it against their penis.
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“Or they’d touch me and I just had to remain calm and get them to sit back down. It wasn’t seen as a big deal - it was normal and we had done ‘drills’ that played out these ‘scenarios’ so we would be familiar and expecting that to happen.”
As well as conducting hours of interrogations, Serge says he was also subject to hours of them himself.
He claims he remembers being locked in a bank vault and interrogated for hours as a young teen about his sexual thoughts.
“The thing about the Sea Org is that you’re not allowed to have sex or do anything sexual unless you are married," he said.
“But it’s human nature to have sexual feelings and we’re all stuck together in this place, closed off from the outside world, it was very common for adults to strike up sexual relationships with the minors. And age isn’t seen as a factor because L Ron Hubbard didn’t believe in it.
“I remember my friend was 15 and she started a relationship with a 30-year-old guy and I didn’t think anything of it. We were young and we worked all day - it’s only in hindsight I realise it wasn’t normal whatsoever."
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Serge claims the abuse that plays heaviest on his mind is that which he says happened in the RPF - Scientology’s internal prison programme designed as a punishment for anybody who violated rules.
He was sent there after a group of students he was training in Scientology methods failed their exam - and he as their supervisor was blamed.
He said: “The RPF is like a prison camp, you are locked away there, have no contact with the outside world, you have to run everywhere and do hard manual labour such as construction work without any proper precautions.
"We were placed in danger demolishing walls, doing electrical without proper training for hours on end. It is utter hell.
“All my belongings were taken from me, I was given a black uniform and there is an electric fence surrounding the property to stop you escaping. I was not allowed to call my parents, all my letters were opened and read I had zero privacy.
“I was assigned - or ‘twinned’ with a man who I knew had been sent there as a punishment for sexually molesting a 16-year-old girl when he was an ‘ethics officer’.
“For a year and a half I was assigned to be his ‘therapist’ and ‘rid him of his evil purposes to be a pedophile’ this meant that as part of the ‘therapy sessions’ it was my job to get him to confess to me his explicit fantasies, he was able to touch me inappropriately.
"And I would be forced to shower with him and sleep in the same bunk beds with him.
“Another man, also in the RPF, had me rub his body and touch his butt and penis as part of an 'assist process' to help him while he was 'sick'. This happened three times.
“He had been sent to the RPF for having child porn on his computer.
"To make matters worse a man who had abused me previously at Clearwater and had made me give him oral sex was the prison warden there.
“Throughout all of this I wasn’t allowed to contact my parents or anybody - they were my darkest days.”
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He said when child abuse was reported - both the victim and perpetrator would be interrogated and blamed.
“They would put them through this programme that was supposed to eradicate paedophilia because Scientology believes that they have a technology that eradicates that behaviour," Serge said.
“I felt we were never met with compassion and we were never met with the truth, which was we were victims of sexual abuse and no adult had a right to be touching us or doing anything to us.
"As religious workers we were being considered of the same rank and same responsibility as the adults.
Clearwater Police Department confirmed this week that there was an “open and active” investigation into Serge’s claims.
Serge's lawyer Graham Berry said: "Clearwater police are investigating and we are also investigating bringing civil litigation in Florida over this matter.
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The Church of Scientology described all the allegations as false, adding: "There is no evidence other than first-hand accounts of self-proclaimed anti-Scientologists—one of whom was convicted by a Florida court for lying to police," although it is unclear which victim they are referring to.
They claimed that at least two of the victims were not "credible" and allegedly had a track record of making false or changeable claims. They also denied that any minors were subject to sexually explicit "auditing".
The Church believes that it has a robust and tough policy against sexual abuse and harassment and that it does not tolerate such behaviour right from the top down.
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