Scientology Exposé by Tony Ortega Reveals Brutal Persecution of Paulette Cooper

Journalist and author Tony Ortega previews his upcoming book - a new scientology expose - that exposes the great lengths and tactics employed by the Church of Scientology to discredit and ultimately destroy the career and personal life of journalist Paulette Cooper.

“I knew her story had a lot of twists and turns, and was very dramatic and has never been told in full before,” Ortega explains, adding that he started working closely with Cooper about two years ago.

He describes the upcoming book – entitled The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper – as a “fascinating tale” of a young woman in a male-dominated industry trying to make her way as a Manhattan magazine researcher in the 1960s.

Ortega said the Scientology was just one topic Cooper was focused on at the time, and that it was the church that decided to go after her for her coverage of the religion. “Scientology is known for retaliation against former members and against people who write about the church. And if you ask anyone, who got the worst retaliation ever? They will tell you without a doubt that it was Paulette Cooper.”

He says that for some reason, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard decided that he wanted her destroyed and instructed church operatives to expend great resources in an attempt to destroy Cooper’s life.

Ortega said that during the course of his investigation, he tracked down individuals who witnessed the persecution of Cooper – some of whom had never spoken with reporters before - and in some cases even people who participated in it.

He explains that Cooper’s wrath by the Church of Scientology was provoked by an article she wrote for a British magazine called Queen, which came out in December 1969. “They way she found it had hit the newsstands is that she got two death threats the same day,” he said.

Cooper later did more research and decided to release a book that expanded on the original article.

In December 1972, the church received two letters about a week apart, each threatening to carry out bombings against the church. When the FBI asked the Church of Scientology about the threats, they named Cooper as someone who might have made the threat.

“So at the time, the FBI began investigating Paulette,” Ortega said, adding that at the time she was not worried when she was questioned by the agency because she knew she was a well-known expert on the religious group and assumed they were seeking more information on the church.

But eventually, Cooper was indicted in 1973 on charges related to sending the bomb threats and was facing 15 years in prison if convicted of the crime.

As a result, Ortega said Cooper knew her journalism career would be destroyed if the indictment went public, and she became suicidal due to the false allegations. The government eventually decided to drop the case, but the circumstances have to date never been fully explained.

Ortega said he finally snagged the first interviews with attorneys in the case and details their descriptions of events in his upcoming book.

He does say that several years later, prosecutors decided not to prosecute when they discovered that the Church of Scientology admitted to manufacturing the evidence themselves.

But Cooper was then caught in another church trap in 1980, according to the Ortega, who adds that he found evidence that they “caught her in a trap just four years ago” are still keeping tabs on her today. “Their still keeping tabs on her, that’s what’s so amazing and that’s Scientology.”

Watch the full interview for more from Ortega on Cooper’s fascinating case, including an in-depth description of the Church of Scientology’s extensive surveillance and intelligence gathering methods against her.