Who is Steve Fishman?
Is he really, as he claims in his unpublished “autobiography", the Father of Jesus? Obviously not.
Is he, as he claimed in a resume published in Who's Who in 1989:
Was he, as he has variously stated, a Scientologist?
No, Fishman is none of these things. And if think these claims sound far-fetched, realize they are far milder and more harmless than some of the other fantasies he has indulged in and actually claimed as fact.
Since Steve Fishman is none of these things he claimed, just WHO is he?
Fishman is a felon. He was arrested in 1988 in connection with a securities scam from which he illegally received at least $1.3 million (in fact, according to his partner in the scam, the actual amount was nearer $4 million). Fishman was sentenced to five years imprisonment by a federal court in the United States and served time in a Florida prison.
While still under investigation, Fishman had tried to mislead FBI investigators using the incredible excuse that the Church of Scientology was somehow responsible for his crimes. The FBI found these allegations to contain as much truth as Fishman's claim to have been a “Delegate Laureate at the Symposium for Paramonetary Awareness” in the Grand Cayman Islands. Ie, none.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dondero, who prosecuted Fishman, discovered that Fishman's first documented fraudulent claim was on September 6, 1983 — more than two and a half years before he first contacted the Church of Scientology in 1986.
Fishman's contact with the Church was simply part of his calculated and elaborate scheme to establish an alibi for his securities scam. FBI agent William Kemp uncovered that Fishman had even secretly organized that threatening phone calls and suspicious mailings be made to him, which he then told the FBI came from the Church. Kemp fully documented Fishman's attempted “frame job” of the Church.
As a result Fishman was charged with, pleaded guilty to and was convicted of obstruction of justice.
In sentencing Fishman on both the fraud and obstruction of justice counts in July 1990, District Court Judge D. Lowell Jensen stated, “These are very serious offenses. I've said that before and I think it's obvious to anyone these are offenses carried out over a period of time. There's multiple victims. There is choice after choice after choice to commit crimes, and they do threaten the justice system itself.”
After serving two and half years of his sentence, Fishman was released to a halfway house in January 1993 and was paroled from there five months later. After being paroled, he resorted to the same criminal conduct for which he was convicted. In fact, he has repeated the identical allegations about Scientology for which he received a jail sentence.
Since being back at large, Fishman has woven an even more fantastic history in the Church for himself out of whole cloth, studded with people who never existed and events that never occurred. A videotape exists showing Fishman utterly unable to recognize actual people in the Church he claimed to have known well.
Fishman's actual contact with the Church of Scientology was very superficial.
Almost anyone with even a slight knowledge of the Church would know that it has a long-standing policy that individuals with histories of psychiatric treatment are not eligible for anything more than the most basic services available in Scientology. That is because psychiatric practices such as electro-shock, lobotomy or “mind-bending” drugs often cause permanent damage to a person, preventing him from receiving the full benefits of Scientology.
It was certainly no surprise to the Church that Fishman has a long history of psychiatric and/or psychological treatment. It was precisely this past treatment that disqualified Fishman from ever receiving Scientology services — other than basic introductory levels available to anyone — which is a long standing matter of Church policy.
Fishman's dishonesty and criminality has been frequently commented upon by those who have known him. Dr. Albert Rossi, head prison psychiatrist at Elgin Air Force base where Fishman was incarcerated, went so far as to say: “This man would manipulate anybody including his parents, his family, his closest members, perhaps his wife... he will manipulate all his life until he dies.”
The best epitaph for this devious crook is in his own words, “I am a compulsive liar and proud of it.”
Ordinarily, Fishman would have remained a nobody known only to law enforcement. But in 1993 he wrote a declaration to which he attached as exhibits copies of copyrighted and unpublished scriptures belonging to the Church of Scientology, the originals of which had been stolen from the Church. When the exhibits were repeatedly posted on the Internet, the Church filed suit against the posters for violation of intellectual property rights.
The Church's litigation is expected to set precedents in the protection of rights for authors, artists, scientists, publishers and others on the Internet.
Below is documentation that substantiates the statements about Fishman made above.