Scientology Lies

by L. Stuart Ditzen

Two insurance companies have accused John W. Kramer in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia of setting up the 1985 murder of David Artz, 33, of Lancaster, a Kramer business associate, to collect $1.75 million in insurance on his life.

Artz, former president of Conestoga Fuels Inc. of Lancaster, was shot to death in Coral Springs, Fla., on Feb. 19, 1985, in an apparent contract killing. The murder has not been solved.

The insurance firms, Continental Assurance Co. and Constitution Life Insurance Co., both of Illinois, are seeking a court order to nullify policies on Artz, contending that the insurance was fraudulently obtained by Kramer and another associate, Samuel G. Lombardo.

A claim for the insurance has been made by Lombardo, 62, formerly of Lancaster and now of Hollywood, Fla., who was in the process of buying Conestoga Fuels at the time of Artz's death. Lombardo also is accused in the lawsuit of participating in the alleged Artz murder plot and of acting as a front man for Kramer in claiming the insurance.

Lawyers for the insurance companies contend that Kramer "subverted the free will" of Artz, drew him away from his family and business in Lancaster, immersed him in mysterious financial dealings in Florida, placed excessive insurance on his life and then set him up to be killed.

Both Kramer and Lombardo deny all the allegations.

In an interview in Florida, Kramer declared:

"I am innocent of everything that they are alleging. . . . I don't have horns. I don't kill people on sight."

Lombardo, whose Florida home has mirrored windows on the outside and a ferocious watchdog within, declined comment except to say, "I'm perfectly innocent in this whole thing."

Lombardo has filed a counterclaim to the lawsuit demanding payment of the $1.75 million insurance money and accusing the insurance companies of "malicious and oppressive attempts" to avoid paying his claim. Kramer, whose name does not appear on policy documents, has said in court pleadings that he has no interest in the insurance money.

No criminal charges have been brought against Kramer or Lombardo in the Artz murder. Law enforcement officials in Florida said the two men were under investigation in the case.

Kramer was much investigated - but never charged - in a series of insurance-related crimes in the 1970s around York.

Old acquaintances say "Father John," a title Kramer bestowed on himself years ago, was always a colorful figure - believed by some to be possessed of psychic powers - whose businesses and partners seemed remarkably ill-fated and accident-prone.

"He is a real storybook character," said Richard E. McGee, a former U.S. postal inspector who investigated Kramer in several suspected insurance frauds in the mid-1970s. "For a small-town guy, it's really amazing."

Kramer contends that he was persecuted and ultimately ruined as a businessman by federal agents who quested to "burn (him) at the stake."

Kramer's criminal record consists of a single guilty plea in 1980 to evasion of $20,998 in federal taxes for which he was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

The Internal Revenue Service placed a $711,258 tax lien against him in 1984 that Kramer said had grown, through accumulated interest, to more than $2 million.

But he added cheerily that the IRS never would collect because he had no assets and no bank accounts. As the interest continues to mount, he said, he just keeps telling IRS: "Hey, put it on my bill."

The current federal lawsuit against him has been spiced considerably by the emergence of Raymond L. Bostic Sr., a longtime Kramer associate, who has agreed to be a witness against him - for $58,000 from the insurance companies.

Bostic has testified in a deposition that he carried out murder attempts, burglaries and bombings at Kramer's instruction in the 1970s and even faked his own death in the hope of collecting life insurance on himself - only to find out later that Kramer wanted him killed, too.

---

Just two years before he died, David Artz took over Conestoga Fuels, an industrial-chemicals distributorship, from his father, Roy Artz, who had founded the firm in the mid-1950s.

It was a prosperous little company, and Artz, at the helm of it, seemed assured of a secure and comfortable future.

But Artz, according to relatives and friends, had a taste for flashy living and high-risk ventures not well-suited to the family business and quiet, conservative Lancaster.

"David liked wheeling and dealing," said Brad Singer, manager of Conestoga Fuels.

It became clear to those around Artz that he quickly felt weighted down by a $600,000 agreement with his father to buy Conestoga Fuels over 17 years.

Friends said he was yearning to break away. He already had taken one step in that direction by leaving his wife and two children.

Then, in February 1984, Artz met John Kramer. The occasion was a meeting in Orlando, Fla., at which Artz was helping an uncle negotiate the sale of a fuel-oil business to Samuel Lombardo. Kramer was handling negotiations for Lombardo.

Artz and Kramer formed an instant friendship that developed quickly into what several people said was almost a father-son relationship.

"We got to be real close friends," Kramer said in an interview in Florida. "The kid really had a lot on the ball."

Two months after they met, the plan for Lombardo to buy the uncle's oil business was dropped. Instead, Lombardo, with Kramer handling the negotiations, agreed to pay Artz $1.2 million for Conestoga Fuels - double the price Artz had agreed to pay his father a short time earlier.

As part of the deal, Artz hired Kramer as a $25,000-a-year consultant to assist in implementing the deal, in which no money was to change hands for three years, and gave him an expense account and a Cadillac Eldorado. While the deal was pending, Lombardo also was put on the payroll of Conestoga Fuels and given a car and expense account.

The insurance companies contend that although Lombardo was party of record in the purchase, Kramer was a secret partner. Kramer and Lombardo deny that.

Artz then purchased $750,000 in life insurance from Continental Assurance and $1 million in insurance from Constitution Life, the beneficiary of which was a company formed by Lombardo called Conestoga Holding Co.

Friends and relatives say Artz became increasingly remote during his association with Kramer and Lombardo, acting secretive about his business dealings, withdrawing large sums from Conestoga Fuels and making frequent trips to Florida.

Shortly after 8 p.m. on Feb. 19, 1985, an anonymous telephone caller directed Coral Springs police to an upscale stucco house that Artz was in the process of buying on Shadow Wood Court.

Artz was there, sprawled in a recliner chair in the living room with one .38-caliber bullet wound in his head and three in his chest.

There was no indication that he had tried to defend himself, leading police to speculate that he knew his killer.

Police found some fingerprints at the scene that could not be matched with those of any known criminal.

Both Kramer and Lombardo were far away from Coral Springs on the day of the killing. Lombardo, according to the insurance-company lawsuit, was at Walt Disney World near Orlando. Kramer, by his own account and that of others, was in Lancaster working on a deal to sell the building occupied by Conestoga Fuels to a pretzel company.

In July 1985, Kramer and Lombardo signed an agreement with Artz's widow, Patti, rescinding the contract to buy Conestoga Fuels. Patti Artz then took over the company. In turn, she agreed to make no claim on the $1.75 million insurance on Artz.

Lombardo then made a claim for payment.

Continental Assurance and Constitution Life hired Alvin B. Lewis Jr., a Lancaster lawyer and former chairman of the Pennsylvania Crime Commission, to investigate the case and to fight the claim in federal court.

In an extraordinary step, Lewis has alleged outright in his civil lawsuit that Kramer and Lombardo commissioned the murder of Artz.

"David Artz was murdered as a result of a conspiracy organized and implemented by the defendants," Lewis contended in court papers. "(He was) shot to death by a killer who was under a crime contract with defendants."

The lawsuit, filed in August 1985, says Kramer converted Artz to the Church of Scientology and used principles of the church to exert "a masterful control" over him.

Several people who know Kramer or have researched his background say he has claimed a variety of supernatural gifts over the years, including the ability to read minds, to read crystal balls, to engage in out-of-body travel or "astral projection," to move objects with his mind, to talk to the dead and to recall his own past incarnations on Earth, including one long-ago life as an oyster.

Kramer deflected questions on those topics. "I don't even know what astral projection is," he said, and asked: "Do you believe in those things?" Kramer said he made but one spiritual claim: "I am a full-time minister. Scientology has been the love of my life."

He said he was a spiritual counselor to people in the Netherlands, England, Costa Rica, Nova Scotia and elsewhere throughout the world.

Kathy Thorn, a spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology in California, said Kramer did take ministerial training in the church in the mid-1970s and early 1980s but never became an ordained minister. She said he had no official role in the church and was not even an active member. Thorn also said Scientologists vehemently opposed any form of mind control.

---

When Alvin Lewis filed his lawsuit, newspapers in Lancaster and York published stories about the allegations he had made against Kramer and Lombardo.

Reading those stories, Raymond Bostic, 57, a longtime partner of Kramer's in construction and real estate businesses around York, got an idea.

Bostic, who said he was down on his luck, approached Lewis with a proposition to tell - and sell - all he knew about Kramer. He proceeded to lay out a dazzling tale of alleged past crimes, cabals and catastrophes.

Bostic provided no information on the Artz murder, but attorneys for the insurance companies viewed his story as circumstantial evidence in depicting a history of alleged racketeering and fraud by Kramer.

After putting Bostic through a lie-detector test, which he passed, the insurance companies agreed to pay Bostic a total of $58,000 in several installments to repeat his story under oath.

In June, Bostic testified in a deposition that Kramer approached him in 1972 and asked him to kill a man.

The intended victim, Bostic said, was Wayne Bunn of Olney, Ill., who was in an oil-drilling partnership with Kramer that had gone sour.

According to Bostic, Kramer had purchased about $250,000 worth of life insurance on Bunn and wanted to collect it.

Bostic said he had agreed to do the job - and proceeded to make nine attempts to kill Bunn in 1972 and 1973 but failed each time.

Once, Bostic testified, he planted a bomb beside the porch of Bon Terre Petroleum Inc., the business Bunn and Kramer owned in Olney. But when Bunn stepped up on the porch, he said, the bomb failed to explode.

Another time, Bostic said, a bomb was placed in Bunn's car in the driveway of his home, but his wife discovered it and called the police.

Still another time, Bostic said, a bomb was hidden under what he believed to be Bunn's bedroom window. The bomb exploded but blew up the wrong part of the house.

Bostic said that after each failure, Kramer encouraged him to try again. Kramer gave up, he said, only when Bunn obtained a court order voiding the insurance that Kramer had taken out on his life.

Illinois Circuit Court records in Richland County, Ill., show that Bunn twice filed petitions in 1973 stating that he was marked for death as long as insurance policies of which John Kramer was beneficiary remained in effect on his life.

A Circuit Court judge issued orders in 1973 and 1974 prohibiting payment of any insurance money in the event of the murder of Bunn. In light of the court orders, Bostic said, he ceased his efforts to kill Bunn.

Bunn, now living in Florida, declined to comment when contacted by telephone, saying he went through "a year of hell" during the attempts on his life and did not want to rekindle old troubles.

Continuing with his story, Bostic said Kramer suggested to him in 1974 that he leave his wife and seven children and stage his own death to collect and split more than $500,000 in life insurance. Once again, Bostic said, he agreed.

Bostic outlined the plan as follows:

The beneficiary of the insurance was to be York-New Salem Construction, a firm owned by Bostic and Kramer. Kramer removed his name from the corporation to conceal his interest. At the same time, he drafted two notes stating that Bostic owed him $250,000. Then Bostic "died" in a boating accident. The intent was for Kramer to collect his $250,000 "debt" from Bostic's estate after the insurance proceeds were paid - but it never worked out that way.

On June 23, 1974, Ray Bostic went fishing in an 18-foot boat in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Assateague Island, Va. A comrade named Billy Joe Whetzel was with him.

Bostic testified that he and Whetzel set the boat on fire, then jumped into the ocean and swam for shore. He said Whetzel reached safety first. He said he began to weaken as he swam, and he called to Whetzel to help him, but Whetzel just watched and did nothing. It was not until years later, Bostic said, that Whetzel told him Kramer had secretly suggested to him that "it would be better if I didn't come back at all."

Bostic said he managed to reach shore on his own, made his way to a car he had hidden on Assateague Island and drove away. Whetzel then reported him drowned.

A memorial service later was held for Bostic in York.

A hearing was held in York County Court at which details of the boating "accident" were spelled out by Whetzel, and York County President Judge Richard E. Kohler declared Bostic dead on Nov. 1, 1974.

All the while, Bostic said, he was living with a girlfriend in Florida, working as a painter and using the name Raymond L. Burton.

Bostic's association with Kramer prompted U.S. postal inspectors to investigate his disappearance. In 1974, Bostic was arrested by federal postal inspectors in Florida in connection with the sham death and charged with mail fraud and conspiracy.

In July 1975, he pleaded no contest in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg to a single charge of conspiracy. Bostic said in his deposition that he refused to cooperate with federal investigators seeking evidence against Kramer. He was sentenced to three years of probation. He was never charged in connection with any of the other alleged crimes itemized in his deposition.

Billy Joe Whetzel also was charged in the faked death, for which no insurance was ever paid, but the case against him was dropped. Kramer was never charged.

"For three months, they tried to prove that I had him killed," Kramer said of the Bostic episode. "Then when he was found alive, they said I planned it. Now which way was it?"

Shortly after postal inspectors ushered him back into the world of the living, Bostic testified, Kramer asked him to blow up a bar he owned, Father John's Tavern, in York.

Again, the ever-agreeable Bostic said he agreed - and proceeded to plant a bomb in the basement of the bar.

At 3:56 a.m. on Sept. 7, 1975, shortly after all the patrons and employees had left the bar, Father John's Tavern was leveled by an explosion.

A Pennsylvania State Police report said the blast was an intentional bombing that caused $150,000 worth of damage. No arrest was ever made for that crime.

The police report said Kramer stood to gain $75,000 free and clear from insurance on the tavern.

Bostic testified in his deposition that Kramer paid him $10,000 from the insurance money for his demolition work.

Bostic said the insurance proceeds also were to have been shared with Roy Ham, a 23-year-old neighbor of Kramer's in York who had managed Father John's and purportedly was buying the tavern from Kramer.

But about five months after the bombing, on the night of Jan. 26, 1976, Ham was found dead of a single .38-caliber bullet wound to the chest in a parking lot in Baltimore County, Md.

Police records show that the case initially was listed as a suspicious death. Later, it was ruled a suicide, related to rejection by a woman Ham wanted to marry.

A police report said that at the time of his death, Ham had been interested in astral projection and a theory that "the inner self lives on even after physical death."

Ham's father, Raymond Ham of York, said in a recent interview that his son had been studying Scientology under John Kramer.

As to the insurance proceeds on Father John's Tavern, the elder Ham said, "Roy didn't get a thing - nothing."

---

Sitting in a Howard Johnson's coffee shop in Pompano Beach, John Kramer replied to Bostic's long story with wide eyes and a hearty laugh.

"It's a great story," Kramer said. "If Ray Bostic was sitting here right now," and he patted the seat beside him, "we'd be laughing together."

On that point, Bostic might not agree. "I'm afraid for my life," he testified in his deposition. "If they find out where I am at, they will probably kill me."

"I can't believe that they bought that story," said Kramer, referring to the $58,000 the insurance companies agreed to pay Bostic. Then he laughed again. "I could tell them a better story than that," he said. "Ask them what they want me to say for a hundred thousand."