Steven Fishman

Steven Fishman (born 1957) is an American former Scientologist whose inclusion of Scientology's secret Operating Thetan levels in a court filing led to the first public confirmation by the Church of Scientology of its doctrines regarding Xenu and the Wall of Fire.

Fishman is currently serving a 21 year sentence on charges of wire fraud and money laundering. He’s scheduled to be released on October 28, 2028.

The origins of Fishman's dispute with the Church of Scientology lay in a fraud scheme he conducted from 1983 to 1988. Fishman joined dozens of class action lawsuits by presenting stock purchase confirmations he had stolen from his employer and forged. In this manner he made approximately one million dollars, as much as 30 percent of which he spent on Scientology materials and services. Fishman was arrested in July 1988 and charged with several counts of fraud. The FBI also investigated the possibility of church involvement in the scheme.

Fishman's attorney, Marc Nurik, had planned to use an insanity defense, offering false memory syndrome theorist Richard Ofshe and psychologist Margaret Singer as expert witnesses. Fishman sat for a seven-part videotaped interview with Ofshe and Nurik. In the interview, he discussed in detail various aspects of Scientology doctrine, his own Scientology involvement, and the church's response to his arrest. Fishman claimed that church staff had ordered him to murder his psychologist, Uwe Geertz, who had knowledge of his Scientology involvement, and then to commit suicide.

At the same time, according to Fishman, he participated in a conspiracy with church staff to deflect accusations of church involvement, by submitting fake documents and making false statements to his defense team. For these acts he was further charged with obstruction of justice. The court ultimately blocked Nurik's defense strategy by rejecting both expert witnesses, based on the testimony of opposing expert Dick Anthony. Fishman pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of obstruction, and the court sentenced him on July 20, 1990 to five years imprisonment in the Butner Federal Correctional Institution. Fishman later claimed that the church hired Scientologist inmate Luis Martinez to kill him in prison. He was paroled in mid-1993.

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