Supreme Court Judgement & Gubler's Affidavit
Contents:
* Gubler's affidavit: The confession of Macgregor's accomplice.
* Gubler's attempts to recant his confession, and Justice Muir's Judgement.
View the affidavit of, Tom Gubler, who participated in a Hate Group scheme to steal Elan Vital documents and publish them on the internet in September 2003.
Affidavit PDF file: Click here N.B. If you are unable to view this document in your browser, go to the Adobe web site, download Acrobat Reader (free), and install the PDF Viewer plug-in.
--------------- Gubler's attempts to recant his confession Gubler attempted to recant his confession during a Supreme Court hearing, Feb 25th 2004, during which he claimed to have signed the affidavit under legal duress. The court refused to accept a new affidavit. finding that all evidence refuted his claim. He has since claimed on the internet that he was "coerced" and signed under duress. He remains unable to explain how he was coerced and unable to explain the alleged duress. Relevant sections of Justice Muir's (Supreme Court of QLD) judgement, and Gubler's bizarre, contradictory statements are transcribed below.
Transcript (in part) of Proceedings before Justice Muir, March 1 2004
"Mr Gubler swore, in effect, that he had been approached by Mr Laver to repair his and his wife's computers and that, in doing, he copied some files off the computers without the Laver's knowledge or permission.
He further swore that in September 2003 he had some communications with the respondent (Macgregor), informed the respondent of what he had done, and in response to a request from the respondent forwarded electronically to him material that he had taken from the Lavers' computers.
Mr Gubler swore another affidavit in these proceedings, filed on 25 February 2004, in which he swore to the inaccuracy of a number of matters deposed to by him in his previous affidavit under duress. He claimed to have been coerced into signing the affidavit by the applicants' solicitor Mr Scattini and contended that Mr Scattini did not tell him and he then did not know "how Mr Scattini intended to use this affidavit."
An employee of Quinn and Scattini ( Mr Scattini's firm ), Ms McDonald, gave evidence as to what occurred on the occasion on which she and Mr Scattini called at Mr Gubler's residence to obtain from him his first affidavit. I accept Ms McDonald's evidence. That evidence is quite inconsistent with Mr Gubler's. It is inconsistent also with Mr Gubler having been overborne in any way by Mr Scattini and indeed with significant parts of Mr Gubler's evidence.
I do not intend, having regard to the lateness of the hour, to canvass this evidence in great detail. It is sufficient for present purposes to say that Ms McDonald Swears that Mr Gubler was informed by Mr Scattini, in effect, that if there were any parts of the draft affidavit that he wished to change, he could make appropriate alterations and initial the changes. In other words, it was made plain enough to Mr Gubler that he could, and should, alter the document so as to accurately state the facts.
The affidavit also makes it plain that the interaction between those present on this occasion was not stressful and that no illegitimate pressure was brought to bear."
"Mr Scattini, it seems, also made an assertion at or near of the commencement of proceedings that Gubler was in breach of an undertaking to the Court. There is nothing however which persuades me that Gubler's will was overbourne or that the applicants' legal representative knew or ought reasonably to have known that what was being deposed to by Gubler did not accord with his knowledge and belief.
Gubler, of course, suffers from the credibility handicap of having sworn one thing on oath on one occasion and another on a later occasion after having spoken to a party to the proceedings about his evidence.
It is, in my view, quite improbable that Mr Gubler did not know the intended use of his affidavit as he swears in the affidavit filed on 25 February. Indeed he recanted from that evidence to a considerable degree in the course of cross examination.
Generally I did not find Mr Gubler's evidence persuasive. To give but one other minor example of a difficulty with it, I refer to an explanation he gave with a view to defusing the effect of a comment made to Miss McDonald when she was about to depart from his residence. The comment was to the effect that he hoped that Mr Scattini treated her as well as he had treated him. He was not prepared to deny that he had made the comment but explained that his mouth ran away with him in the presence of beautiful women."
Gubler's bizarre, contradictory statements Gubler actually wrote the following statements on the same web page (monitored April 22nd 2004). * "I had never charged any follower of Maharaji (or anybody else for that matter) to repair their computer."
* "I think I charged them $120 for nearly 2 days work on her PC..."
* "I have never considered myself to be a student of the "teachings" of Prem Rawat."
* "I enjoyed practicing knowledge (as taught by Prem Rawat) enormously. I loved satsang and the concentration and bliss of it and I think Kim O'Leary was a really talented ballad writer and singer and Ross Hannaford was a beautiful guitarist and nearly all the other people in the organisation only ever wished me well."
* "There was also the large change that had come over my attitude during my decade of practice. I had become optimistic and cheerful and while I agree that M is a dirty dog that should be kicked around the quadrangle I'm not going to cast the first shoe while out strolling with my wife." 2007 Update: Gubler's wife has since divorced him. At the time of writing he is attempting to sue her for a slice of her inheritance.
* Gubler thinks it is impossible to obstruct the ability of Maharaji's students to practice Knowledge "short of killing them." We find Maharaji uniquely inspiring: most people consider attending events when they have the opportunity to be a part of their practice. Harassment of people attending events, and contacting venues attempting to have events canceled are forms of obstruction.
* Gubler objects to this part of the affidavit: The Ex-Premie website and chatroom serve as information centres for Ex-premies to coordinate plans to obstruct the ability of Maharaji's students to practice Knowledge, to foster ill-will and negative publicity by disseminating defamatory statements about Maharaji and his students, and to interfere with Premies' rights to express to the public their experience of Knowledge. The website and chatroom contain hundreds of pages of obsessively negative statements about Maharaji and his students. They also now contain pages and extracts from documents that have surreptitiously been obtained from Elan Vital.
However he writes, "The forum does contain much negative information about Maharaji and many personal negative comments also.... I have seen posts by an obviously deranged person making crazy statements and threats on the Forum..."
* "I believe they try to convince members of the public to enter their tightly scripted, structured process of indoctrination that is required before one is initiated into this so-called process or Realising Knowledge." This is typical hate group propaganda. There is no belief system to follow, and nothing is tightly scripted. People are given whatever time they need to decide whether or not Knowledge is something they want to pursue. "I have grave suspicions that Elan Vital Australia is used to provide opportunities for Prem Rawat to gain finances illegally but I am quite sure that Elan Vital's raison d'etre is a source of finance and for Prem Rawat." Prem Rawat's tax returns and finances and the tax returns and financial arrangements of EV and IRCC are subject to audit. They have always emerged with a clean bill of health. An investigation by U.K. tax authorites (2005), probably instigated by U. K. hate group member Nick Wright was dropped when no irregularities were found.
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