Like most of the “unvetted” sources Leah Remini dusts off for her reality TV show, Gary “Jackson” Morehead was dismissed and later expelled from the religion for a laundry list of transgressions. In Morehead’s case, his list was long—not the least of which was randomly torturing dogs and cats for his own sadistic, sick pleasure.
By his own admission, Morehead was never a “high ranking” staff member. To compensate for his shortcomings and lack of accomplishments, Morehead routinely inflates his responsibilities to sound important. Since being kicked out, he has spun tales that are not only false and unsubstantiated, but which continually change and morph, a sure sign that he is lying.
Morehead was never anything more than a low-level staff member who worked in security and as a watchman manning the guard booth. He had no special access to senior Church executives, and no responsibilities beyond routine security. In a nutshell, Morehead was incompetent and illiterate, someone who one of his bosses compared to the dimwitted character “Jethro Bodine” of The Beverly Hillbillies sitcom.
Said one former Security Chief: “His bosses would work with him just to get this guy to learn to read basic primer English. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it. He’s a loser. You know. He’s a complete, dedicated loser.”
Ironically, another Leah Remini “unvetted” subject, John Brousseau, wrote the following of the job Morehead was doing on maintenance and construction work with him around the property:
“Gary worked for me. Instead of following my instructions, he lifted the cement out of the trench which did damage wires. He always wants a job that requires a difficult task and I don’t feel he is competent enough.
“I found it best to use Gary only for simple cycles he couldn’t possibly mess up. He knew it and would say things like, ‘Why can’t I do that?’ ‘Am I too big of a fuck up?’ etc. Also I found him forgetting cycles although I did not write them down on paper.”
Morehead also repeatedly failed when it came to meeting the Church’s stringent ethical standards. He was constantly stealing, from loose change in the laundry room and shoplifting items from the canteen to equipment belonging to the local fire department and even an $8,000 diamond ring belonging to another staff member.
Here is Morehead in his own words, detailing a history of theft and lies in a sworn affidavit:
“I have repeatedly attempted to make myself look better by making false reports to my superiors and fellow staff regarding the quantity and quality of my work.”
“In 1991, I was rightfully removed from my position as Security Chief after I was found to be falsely reporting the level of my production.”
“Although entrusted as a security guard to protect the Church and its staff from theft, I routinely took snacks and drinks from the canteen without paying for them. I also stole a motorcycle part from another staff member, as well as a piece for a television and an antenna. In 1991, I took a valuable diamond ring that had been found and turned into security for safekeeping…”
Morehead also put the safety of others in danger when he failed in his role as an Emergency Medical Technician. Rather than help those who were injured, he mistreated and misdiagnosed situations to where he could have put the lives of staff members at risk.
But Morehead’s worst offense was his sick history of sadism toward animals.
Here in his own words he describes an incident in which he went ballistic, pummeling his wife’s dog, Corgy, when the animal didn’t relieve herself when he took her out:
“I physically hurt Darlene’s dog Corgy.
“I arrived to the room and I let her out to take a piss or shit & to go get some space. I also gave her some water. The dog wouldn’t shit nor do anything.
“So I took her into the house pissed off as she didn’t piss or shit like I had expected so I started to get undressed and saw that Corgy was just moping around with her tail between her legs. I went over & picked her up by the collar and held her by her collar.
“Hanging there in front of me from my hand looking so sympathetic. I was saying to her why are you so scared, what did you do, how come you acting so petrified. I then threw her with my hand through the air to the foot of a wall that is cement and she hit it with her back & made a weird vocal noise. She continued to look like a whimp so I picked her up again and threw her down on the bed. She just laid there looking at me with bulging eyes…”
Dismissed from the Church, Morehead was unable to make it on his own.
A Church chaplain graciously extended a hand. “He was a mess, quite honestly, so I helped him. I helped him find a job. I helped him get to Los Angeles, find an apartment, have a place to stay and start a new life. And at that time, he was very thankful for that,” the chaplain said.
In fact, extensive efforts were made on the part of the Church to assist Morehead in securing a job with a fire department, as he requested. One Church staff member who was working to assist Morehead recalled, “I set up all interviews with recruiters of the (City) Fire Department. I gave Morehead the materials to prepare and he went there twice and he came back and he flunked. He didn’t pass the test. There was a problem with his IQ and also other things and they didn’t feel he was up to being a firefighter.”
All told, the Church tried to get Morehead a job with six different fire departments—Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, all of which found Morehead unqualified.
The Church then assisted him in obtaining a job with a computer company owned by a Scientologist. His work performance (as a janitor) was inadequate. Morehead was also found to be abrasive and insubordinate. He currently works as a fuel truck driver.
At the same time, Morehead drifted away from his family, to their disappointment. He was a no-show at family reunions. Eventually, they gave up trying to reach out to him. His sister recalls that the only time she heard from him was when he borrowed $1,200 (which he never returned) because he had no money and was stuck eating “Top Ramen.”
A former security guard who worked with Morehead, who also no longer works for the religious organization and who was there during Morehead’s tenure, said in response to hearing Morehead’s latest lies:
“Gary Morehead’s making up these stories only because he lives lies. And he’s creating more lies for his own financial aid…It’s a matter of integrity and Gary Morehead’s missing his integrity and making all these stories up just for a paycheck.”
“Gary Morehead’s making up these stories only because he lives lies. And he’s creating more lies for his own financial aid…It’s a matter of integrity and Gary Morehead’s missing his integrity and making all these stories up just for a paycheck.”
Mark Rathbun, who turned down Remini’s offer of a blank check if he would join her show and spread lies about the religion, notes how Morehead’s tales constantly evolve, change and are embellished over time to where one can’t take them seriously: “And so I kind of watched this as people’s stories over time, they just get more and more embellished. I mean, like he [writer Lawrence Wright] brings up Gary Morehead, and again, I am not trying to put the guy down, he is just saying things that are false… Gary is into this embellishment for fame or Wright has invented this.” See it for yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwVDuTnBYrM
Gary Morehead himself, before he realized he could lie for money, completely refutes in detail the notion that anyone needed to “escape” from Golden Era Productions. Here are just some of the excerpts from Morehead’s sworn statement:
- “As shown by my own experience, Sea Org members are free to leave whenever they want. I am aware of stories of individuals claiming to have been held against their will, but I know for myself and from my security position, that the stories are completely false.”
- “Such individuals who no longer wish to participate, as is now the case for me, are assisted in wrapping up their affairs as Sea Org members so that they can pursue lives in other fields…”
- “I have always been and continue to be treated very well by the staff and have been well fed, have had plenty of food, rest, clothing, vitamins, medical care and anything else I needed.”
- “In all of my dealings with the Church and my time in the Sea Org, I have observed that the Church has taken scrupulous pains to abide by the law and has demanded the same of its staff. I know that Church policy requires that all staff and parishioners abide by the law. I have not observed any illegal activities by Church staff and know that honesty, integrity and ethical conduct are emphasized at all times.”
But Morehead is hungry for attention and money, and will happily embellish and revamp his story if it gets him one or both. When Morehead appeared on TV last year the Church responded by pointing out an egregious example of when Morehead was caught embellishing his story: “In Morehead’s 2009 interview with (a local tabloid newspaper), he claimed to have recovered 75 staff who left (with the wisecrack ‘I lost count there for a while’). Later, the same claim suddenly morphed to 400. In fact, during the time Morehead was a security guard at Golden Era, a mere handful of staff left.”
Now, Morehead has been telling media that he was instructed to create a security system to prohibit members from leaving—an outright lie. The security system around the Golden Era Production facilities, which Morehead was never in charge of setting up, is there to protect the expensive, state-of-the-art production equipment in the studios as well as to keep wild animals living in the nearby hills off the property.
Here is a video tour of Golden Era Productions, the resort-like studio that features a golf course, a swimming pool, tennis courts, five-star dining and numerous amenities for its staff. Having lived there, Gary Morehead knows full well his characterization of the property is a baldfaced lie.
