"Good always defeats evil," wrote demagogue Graham Berry in a 6 June 2003 post to alt.religion.scientology. This was his conclusion after summing up the effects of an interview in which he betrayed Bob Minton to the world as having "changed sides" ("Berliner Zeitung," May 30, 2002, Berlin, Germany). Once Ursula Caberta had denounced Minton in German court, explained Berry, she would be free to finally defeat the "evil" cult. The evidence against Bob Minton was the key that would unlock Scientology's legal strategy in Germany. This one victory was the precursor to defeat for all Scientology's other lawsuits, with the grand consequence of the demise of the cult's "political lobbying" in Hamburg. Berry predicted that Scientology had "good reason to be nervous. And it is going to keep getting a whole lot worse."
As can now be seen with 20/20 hindsight, Graham Berry was mostly correct, but in reverse.
In the criminal proceedings from 2000-2002, Caberta, though not convicted of corruption for having taken Minton's money, was fined 7,500 euro in June 2002.
In celebrating her purported victory at only being fined, as opposed to convicted, Caberta made libelous statements about Scientology for which she, supposedly wise to the ways of the Scientologists, was subsequently sued. Caberta was found liable, and this severely restricted her ability to speak at all about the cult she was supposed to be warning people about. Because Caberta was not found liable on all counts, another victory against Scientology was routinely proclaimed and celebrated.
In the case Berry's post was occasioned by, Hamburgisches Oberverwaltungsgericht, 1. Senat, 6 VG 4953/2002 of 15 April 2003, the sole reason Caberta won against Scientology is that she produced Berry's article. According to court rules in that hearing, once Caberta submitted evidence that Minton sided even in one respect with Scientology, Scientology had to present proof positive of the opposite. Failure to do so would be a loss by default; merely asserting the opposite was not admissable. At the time, Scientology was in a predicament because Minton was trying to settle differences, not escalate them. Caberta won on default, not on merit.
Berry was partially right when he mentioned that in Scientologist Heller's lawsuit against Caberta, Heller had to pay Caberta's expenses. What Berry did not mention is that Caberta had to pay Heller's expenses. That case was closed May 10, 2002, and the last appeal action was dated April 2, 2004, the month before Ken Dandar settled the Lisa McPherson case with Scientology May 27, 2004.
In the Hubbard technology exclusion statement for which she was sued by Heller in the US, Caberta's office was again sued in Germany for some sloppy miswording that specified "Scientology" in relation to the exclusion statement. As a result the court found her distribution procedures to be discriminatory, and distribution of the statement was restricted.
These are Caberta's major accomplishments in her fight against Scientology after having denounced Bob Minton as a Scientologist. Can these really be viewed as a series of victories against Scientology, or are these incidents exactly the sort of problem that denouncing Minton was supposed to solve?
The urgency that drove Graham Berry to a Berlin newspaper to give his anti-Minton recitation, published May 30, 2002 now becomes more apparent. It is circumstantially evident that Berry's newspaper interview was not as closely related to the court decision that was issued April 15, 2003 as it was to the criminal case against Caberta, as reported by the Hamburger Abendblatt on June 27, 2002, almost a year before Berry's post. In the 2002 criminal case, the state prosecutor had made a decision that Caberta was going to be convicted for corruption and misuse of office. Suddenly the prosecutor's mind was changed, and a fine was agreed upon. This circumstance indicates that Berry's article was used in Germany against Minton months before Minton's testimony in the United States against Dandar was even deliberated on in court.
The public will never know what happened unless the court pronouncements are leaked by one of the parties concerned. This is because court decisions in Germany, unlike in the United States, are not for public distribution. Therefore, any discussion of the topic, even in Germany, had to be conducted in general ignorance of the situation. As a result, the closest Lermanet staff can come to report on the situation in Germany in 2002 is to present an English-language exclusive on The "correct" version of how Caberta paid a fine purported not to exist.