Fishman joined dozens of class action lawsuits by presenting stock purchase confirmations he had stolen from his employer and forged.
[5] Fishman's attorney, Marc Nurik, had planned to use an insanity defense, offering false memory syndrome theorist Richard Ofshe and psychologist Margaret Singer as expert witnesses.
Fishman claimed that church staff had ordered him to murder his psychologist, Uwe Geertz, who had knowledge of his Scientology involvement, and then to commit suicide.
According to Anthony, who had opposed Ofshe and Singer, Fishman's criminal case was one of several in which they had attempted to introduce their ideas of coercive persuasion by religious groups.
[6] In 1991, while Fishman was still incarcerated, Time magazine published a highly critical cover story on Scientology by Richard Behar.
In support of his contention that he had been brainwashed and ordered to murder Geertz, Fishman attached a series of documents to a motion to reconsider venue.
In the declaration (affidavit), Fishman alleged the Church had drowned the trial judge's dog and made harassing phone calls to Wollersheim at night.
[11] The allegations calling Fishman's involvement into question initially came solely from the Church (CoS) itself and their legal representation, who pursued the libel suit after discovering that he was not in their member data or records.
Fishman himself has long asserted that he received OT levels I to VII and VIII respectively from two Sea Org members on separate instances.