Marc and Claire Headley

Marc Headley is a disgraced former staff member who had a mid-level audiovisual job and bolted from the Church after it was discovered he sold Church equipment on eBay and pocketed the funds. Specifically, while working as an audiovisual technician for the Church’s Golden Era Productions, Headley was caught embezzling Church funds by selling at least $15,000 of equipment on eBay and funneling it to his personal account.

After Headley confessed, and knowing he faced further investigation, he took off in the middle of the night to try to run from his crimes. When further investigation revealed the full extent of his criminal conduct, Headley was expelled from the Church. Any organization would fire an employee caught selling organization equipment and secretly depositing the proceeds into a personal account.

When his scam was discovered, Headley and his wife Claire left, vowing to seek revenge. In 2009, they filed two frivolous lawsuits against the Church making incendiary allegations of “human trafficking” and seeking millions in damages. To flank their lawsuits and further harass the Church, Headley and his cohorts conspired to file complaints with federal officials in a failed effort to have the Church investigated on the same bogus allegations. The suits were dismissed as meritless and the Court ordered the Headleys to pay the Church more than $40,000 in costs.

[The Court] ordered the Headleys to pay the Church more than $40,000 in costs.

When the decision was upheld by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Headley v. Church of Scientology International, et al. 687 F.3d 1173 (2012), the Court, after careful deliberation, found:

The record overwhelmingly shows that the Headleys joined and voluntarily worked for the Sea Org because they believed that it was the right thing to do, because they enjoyed it, and because they thought that by working they were honoring the commitment that they each made and to which they adhered. We think it telling that the Headleys protest very little about their actual day-to-day jobs with the Sea Org—for Marc, film creation and production; for Claire, management and supervision.

It also emerged in the case that Headley admitted under oath that he was on the payroll of some of the media’s sleaziest tabloids where he spread lies about Scientology. Specifically, Headley admitted he had been paid at least $16,000 by the now-defunct News of the World and Bauer Media’s Life & Style. (See Headley deposition testimony; Receipts from media.)

Headley admitted he had been paid at least $16,000 by the now-defunct News of the World and Bauer Media’s Life & Style.

News of the World imploded during the British phone-hacking scandal when, among other things, it was revealed it had hacked into the phone of a 13-year-old girl after she had been abducted and murdered. As for Bauer Media, an investigation by The Wrap found “there is a darker side to the privately held company, including publication of at least one magazine appealing to neo-Nazis, as well as significant involvement in the distribution of pornography—including Nazi-themed porn movies.” These are the kinds of publications Headley worked for.

Headley’s judgment and morals are also questionable, in particular in the pride he takes in lurid postings on anti-Scientology websites about his now failed litigation. One included a disgusting, insensitive reference to a Church attorney’s daughter who had died in a tragic electrical accident:

I am getting deposed by Ken Moxon tomorrow, so will let you know how that goes. Sounds like lots of fun. I will tell Ken Moxon “hi” for everyone in between talking to him about his daughter. Was thinking about bringing him some KFC, but figured that might appear to be bad taste on my part. Maybe El Pollo Loco? We’ll see what happens. I know I should be better prepared, you would think with all that OSA has been doing to get prepared for this, I would at least know what kind of chicken I would be bringing. Before I forget, I want to say hi to Davey, Tommy, Warren and Kirsten as well as any other RTC or OSA guys I forgot. Hope you got the lube I sent and if you do end up in Supermax, I can get you a deal on a subscription program!

The “lube” reference above was to another scatological posting by Headley about the Church’s ecclesiastical leader, in which he stated:

I just sent Costco size tubs of lube and first aid/sewing kits to both Dave Miscavige and Tommy Davis [CSI Spokesperson]. If that does not give them a heads up, nothing will.

And another:

I sure hope Tommy Davis and Dave Miscavige get in a lot of quality time with each other over the next few weeks. … “Don’t Explain. Penetrate. Don’t overwhelm. Penetrate.” This is one of Dave’s favorite things to quote from and now I think I know why. Now I am sure that Costco size tub of lube I sent them will get used up fast.

Headley’s self-published memoir was so filled with incendiary hate language that at least one individual admitted to law enforcement investigators that it incited him to threaten to send an explosive device to the residence of the Church’s leader, to a Church and to a school utilizing Mr. Hubbard’s education methods, forcing evacuations by law enforcement personnel.

Headley became an active member of the cyberterrorist hate group Anonymous, some of whose members were convicted and sentenced for hate crimes against Churches of Scientology. Headley willingly and publicly associated with Anonymous, “demonstrating” with them in front of the Church in 2008, wearing their chilling mask, and appearing with a crowd of Anonymous at a hate rally in Germany, that time without the mask.

Headley and his wife are also biased sources for Alex Gibney’s Going Clear, although the dismissal of their phony lawsuit so undermined the whole point of the film that Gibney could not feature them and only used them as background sources.

As Claire’s mother said in a recent interview about her daughter and son-in-law: “Claire and Marc both have become professional anti-Scientologists.”

For further information, see the video profile of Marc and Claire Headley.