MEDIA WATCH | DAILY NEWS

Daily News: Your Reliance on Rick Ross, a Convicted Felon, is Ridiculous

For your edification, quoting Rick Ross about the Church of Scientology is tantamount to quoting Joseph Goebbels, of Nazi Holocaust infamy, delivering his opinion about the Jews and Judaism. It is that repugnant.

June 24, 2019

Shayna Jacobs
NY Daily News

Dear Shayna,

You quoted Rick Ross’s statement about the Church of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard in your article of 12 June on NXIVM.

However, it goes one step further. Quoting Rick Ross on religion positions the Daily News as not unlike the German newspapers of the time like Der Angriff or maybe Berliner Arbeiterzeitung—newspapers in which Goebbels published his virulent, anti-Jewish propaganda.

Professor of sociology of religion Nancy Ammerman investigated and wrote a book about the BATF and FBI siege of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas, implicating Ross—who posed as a “cult expert” during the siege. She said he was behind the mass deaths because he “has a personal hatred for all religious cults” as recounted in FBI interview notes. In other words, after months and months of investigating, this professor determined that Ross was behind the deaths of nearly 80 men, women and children in the Waco inferno due to his stirring enmity against people of faith.

For your further edification Rick Ross is a convicted felon.

In December 1974, Rick Ross and another attempted to commit a burglary by kicking in the door to a building in Phoenix, Arizona. They were caught in the act by the police and arrested. Ross pled guilty to a charge of trespass and was sentenced to 10 days in jail and placed on probation for one year.
In July 1975, Rick Ross embezzled $50,000 worth of diamonds from Kay-Bee Enterprises, a jewelry store located in Phoenix. Ross presented the clerk a phony note demanding the diamonds be placed in a box or Ross would detonate a bomb. Ross and his cohort were arrested and charged with Grand Theft by Embezzlement.

Ross declared bankruptcy to avoid paying the judgment.

In a plea agreement, in April 1976, Ross was found guilty of Conspiracy to Commit Grand Theft, a felony, and was sentenced to four years of probation and a fine.

Unreformed, in 1996 Rick Ross was found liable for conducting an involuntary deprogramming of an 18-year-old Pentecostal Christian man. That case was tried in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle. At trial the jury found in favor of plaintiff Jason Scott and awarded him compensatory damages of $875,000, punitive damages of $1,000,000 against CAN, and punitive damages of $2,500,000 against Rick Ross and the other deprogrammers. CAN and Ross sought a new trial. On April 8, 1998, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a jury’s decision in Scott v. CAN.

Ross declared bankruptcy to avoid paying the judgment.

And you call him an “authority?”

I sincerely recommend that in the future you conduct your research more thoroughly before publishing.

Sincerely,

Rita Solfa