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PASTOR'S REPORT, May 14, 1979
Page 16
complaint? Someone want to speak out about it? Statements have been
made in class that Mr. Armstrong had made a mistake in taking the position
that we have much to protect, but nothing to hide. Why don't we let
them in? But people �ave expressed a willingness to back Mr. Armstrong
up and back Mr. Helge up on the position that's been taken.
Do you all realize what is at issue here today? Do any of you have a
clouded idea of what the issue is all about? The First Amendment is very
important; so is the Fifth Amendment; so is the Fourth Amendment. We
can't get our job done if we don't have political freedom. We can't
write what we want to write, say what we want to say, assemble when we
want to assemble.
John
thought we were doing something illegal to assemble in our
own building! Amazing. Illegal? Why aren't we all in jail? Did you
ever figure that out? If it were illegal, don't you think they would
have dragged us off? If Mr. Armstrong and I had stolen money, don't you
think they would have put handcuffs on us and taken us out of here? Did
you ever ask yourself, why didn't they?
We /supposedly/ pilfered millions of dollars every year! I get good
tables in restaurants where I've never been before because people think
maybe I'll drop something there, larger than an ordinary tip; like some
of these Arabs have come over here and didn't know the value of our money,
or didn't care about it. Seventy million dollars I heard in court. ABC
reported $45 million on national television. Those are high crimes,
almost treason. Why weren't� carried off from here? Because it wasn't
true and because they knew it wasn't true.
What's more, at the time they brought the lawsuit, they didn't even CARE
that it wasn't true. They didn't make the charges for the purpose of
proving the charges. They made the charges for the purpose of doing three
things: 1) seizing the property, 2) getting rid of Mr. Armstrong and
others who were in control (and rightfully so), and 3) to put themselves
in the position to rip off millions of dollars themselves each year.
Anybody have any doubts what a receivership is all about?
Anybody know?
Mr. Kotora, is he here today? Tell these people about a receivership.
You were involved, I think, in some kind of a court action.
Kotora: Yes, I had some stock in a company that was worth somewhere
around $170 million. In the interim they had one portion of the account
(just a small portion of the company) make bogus insurance policies and
sell them to individuals. The policies were worthless. Now in the pro
cess of being audited this was picked up. So the whole company (I think
the bogus policies amounted to somewhere around $30 million) with $170
million in assets was put into receivership. That was in 1974.
Now, since that time I've received approximately seven .or eight different
statements, and in them was outlined exactly what the receiver and trustees,
the auditors and all have done. And up to this point now (that's from
'74 to
1
79) the stockholders have not received one cent of what we had
invested in that company. They have, to this point now, used up about
$110 million of that company's assets. So that's what a receiver does
in five years' time.