Hans Hasslberger on Mike Rinder

I worked with Mike Rinder in the capacity of handling audiovisual productions. We would have staff conferences and he would, he would talk down to everybody. Basically, pick people out of his staff and make jokes about them and things like that. So it wasn’t like a very comfortable relationship.

There’s a particular incident where I came to his office, and I don’t remember particularly why he wanted to see me, but something triggered him and he came around his desk and came towards me and started pushing me physically backwards so I was off balance. And he kept pushing me until I was up against the wall and then had me by the throat, basically pinning me up against the wall. And, you know, I said, “What’s going on?” And he just kept yelling, he just kept yelling at the top of his voice. So after a few minutes, another staff member came in, another executive came in and basically grabbed him and pulled him off of me and told him to knock it off, basically. I stayed away from him after that because, you know, I couldn’t deal with that amount of craziness.

I have other things that are, that sort of show the way he worked. For example, we were putting together a exhibition on, a photographic exhibition, there was about three or four people working on it. And it was commented upon as a very, as a very good product.

Well, Mike Rinder was the one who then took the credit for it and, you know, basically presented it as his product. Yet he wasn’t particularly involved in creating it and thinking it up and, you know, making it that product. So that was the kind of thing he would do. He would, you know, I’ve never seen anything like that anywhere in Scientology before and I’ve worked with a lot of people.

He was a lunatic. Yeah, a real prick.