Leah Remini and Scientology are going back and forth in court over whether the actress properly served church leader David Miscavige with her bombshell lawsuit.
According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com, the Religious Technology Center, a corporation created by Scientology and one of the defendants in the case brought by Remini, claimed the actress had not officially served Miscavige and asked that she not be allowed to serve him via an alternative method.
Last year, Remini sued Scientology, Miscavige, and the Religious Technology Center. She accused the defendants of conducting a decades-long harassment campaign against her.
The actress said the defendants targeted her after she left the church. Remini had been a member of Scientology from 1979 to 2013. After she left, Remini spoke out against the church and its policies.
Remini launched a television show that featured interviews with ex-Scientology members slamming the church.
In her lawsuit, Remini claimed the church and its agent had launched websites that attacked her, called up any advertisers who placed ads on her television shows, and had people show up at her mother’s home.
“For the past ten years, Ms. Remini has been stalked, surveilled, harassed, threatened, intimidated, and, moreover, has been the victim of intentional malicious and fraudulent rumors via hundreds of Scientology-controlled and -coordinated social media accounts that exist solely to intimidate and spread misinformation,” the suit read.
In October, Remini said she had served Miscavige by having a process sever hand a copy of the lawsuit to a security guard outside the Scientology Celebrity Centre in Hollywood.
Miscavige denied he had been served. His lawyers claimed, “[Remini] has not bothered to serve Mr. Miscavige with the Summons or Complaint. Instead, she sent her process server to purportedly attempt service at two Scientology-related locations, neither of which are Mr. Miscavige’s residence nor usual place of business. [Remini] seems to believe that her statutory obligation to serve Mr. Miscavige can be sidestepped by unilaterally selecting any Church of Scientology or related organization around the world and throwing papers at a security guard.”
Remini then had a process server make another series of attempts. Recently, she asked that the court rule that the church leader had been served.
The actress said she spent $10k to have the process server make 32 separate visits to 9 different Scientology addresses on 16 separate dates.
Her lawyer wrote, “The multitude of documented service attempts upon Miscavige, and the numerous individuals involved in protecting him from service, leaves zero doubt that Miscavige is not only aware of this lawsuit, but is actively thwarting his legal obligation to play a role in it.”
