Arnie Lerma
Ex-Scientologist who became Scientology’s fiercest critic
November 15, 1950–March 16, 2018
Ever heard the story of Xenu, the genocidal alien dictator who, when faced with overpopulation troubles 75 million years ago, brought billions of his subjects to Earth to execute with a lethal combination of volcanoes and hydrogen bombs, their disembodied spirits to cling to humans and their removal only to be achieved through the teachings of the Church of Scientology? If so, you can thank Arnie Lerma.
Arnaldo Pagliarini Lerma was born in Washington, D.C., in 1950, to a mother who was an executive secretary to the Sudanese ambassador and a father who was a Mexican agriculture official — and who divorced months after his birth, according to Lerma’s autobiography. His mother was a Scientology official in the D.C. church around 1968, about three decades after American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard published the first texts that would form the basis of his new religion. By the time Lerma joined Scientology at 16 at the urging of his mother, the church had been banned in several Australian states and stripped of its tax-exempt status by the IRS, which deemed it a commercial operation for Hubbard’s benefit (though a U.S. appeals court later recognized it as a religion in 1969).
Lerma ran into trouble with his fellow Scientologists when he and Hubbard’s daughter, Suzette, reputedly fell in love (a claim that has been strongly disputed by the church), and Lerma’s entanglement with Scientology ended after other members allegedly threatened him.
Exiled from the religion that had been his spiritual home for years, Lerma became one of Scientology’s fiercest critics. By 1994, he was posting public court documents involving the church online. The church accused Lerma of copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation, leading to a raid of his home by federal marshals, Scientology attorneys and data technicians. The church’s Religious Technology Center (RTC) sued Lerma, his internet service provider and Post reporters for quoting the affidavit. A federal judge found the reporters had not violated copyright for quoting a publicly available court document, but Lerma was held liable for a small number of non-willful copyright violations and ordered to pay a $2,500 penalty.
On March 16, Lerma, 67, shot his wife, Ginger Sugerman, in the face with a handgun at their Georgia home before killing himself, according to the local newspaper, the Sylvania Telephone. Sugerman, 58, survived and told Tony Ortega — the former Village Voice editor who runs The Underground Bunker, a site that keeps a sharp eye on the world of Scientology — that her husband was taking oxycodone in his last months to deal with back pain and that his paranoia had increased. Ortega last reported that Sugerman, also a former Scientologist, was raising funds for her continuing surgeries and for efforts to honor Lerma’s work, despite his last atrocity.
—Monivette Cordeiro
