It is interesting to note that Marty "Blood and Guts" Rathbun spotted the Spotlight article and confronted me about it in Los Angeles on July 13, 1998 at the beginning of our 5.5 hour session (including the sushi dinner). He told me that Stacy and Lawrence were using me and had placed that article in the Spotlight under my name. In reality, it seems the church of scientology was the source of this dirty trick which they are now trying to use against me. Surprise, surprise!
Excerpts from a letter from FACTNet's Executive Director to Minton dated August 5, 1998:
Also enclosed is the latest version of Spotlight, August 3, 1998,including a correction on p.23 of their mistake in naming you as the author of the FACTNet article. I also received a note from Willis Carto, dated July 23, 1998, saying in part:
"Dear Ms. Janette:
"Since Fred Blahut knows very well that bylines are not added to articles in The SPOTLIGHT without permission, and Mr. Minton's byline was not on the subject article, we cannot explain how the error occurred.
"Fred, who is supposed to know these things, also tells me that he has never heard of Mr. Minton!
"We are running a correction in this issue which will be on the press tonight. I'll tell him to send you one."
"W.A.Carto"
This is the text of the Spotlight's correction.
CORRECTION
Page 24 of the July 6 issue I of The SPOTLIGHT carried a story, "What's Scientology- IRS 'Mystery"? Mr. Robert S. Minton was credited as author. This was an error. The article was compiled primarily from data issued by Fight Against Coercive Tac-tics Network, Inc. (FACT-Net), of which Mr. Minton is only one director, Additional data was added to the article by The SPOTLIGHT. All data in the article is correct except the identification of the author. The SPOTLIGHT regrets this error.
Bob Minton