Marc Headley Posts Personal Email to Aaron Smith Levin

Here is a personal email Marc Headley sent to Aaron Smith Levin in confidence, now publicly posted to his YouTube Community page.

Following this is some very constructive and helpful criticism for the board members of the Aftermath Foundation – which they will never listen to.

Why? Because what is going on here is not what it appears to be.

Just like Scientology.

Here’s Marc’s Community post:

This is a personal email that I wrote to Aaron Smith Levin in June, 2023, pleading with him to not burn down everything we built together including our friendship.

I am trying to help you guys see how this went and how this has been going on for YEARS. This did not just happen overnight as some sudden surprise. This is also why we did not want to air any of this out. I feel Aaron does need help and he does need a friend to be with him until he resolves what he needs to resolve.

Here is my email to Aaron from June 2023.

Thanks.

Marc

Aaron,

First off, we’d like to make very clear we love you and we support you. We have always considered you our friend and we still consider you our friend. We will always stand behind you and defend you. No questions asked.

The mission and purpose of The Aftermath Foundation is very close to all our hearts. No question about that. Claire and I have been dedicated to this cause and purpose since well before the formation of the Foundation, we paid out of pocket many many times and worked hard to help people get on their feet.

Your personal life has never been any of our business, nor do we want to make it part of our business as far as judgment is concerned, like I said, as your friend, we stand by you. What you share and don’t share is up to you.

Your choices are for you, and you alone to make. We have all been through years and years of trauma and abuse. Somehow, someway, we persist and move forward.

We want to continue to be friends. We want our wives to continue to be friends. We want our children to continue to be friends. Please understand: there is nothing here that is personal.

However, as board members, we must act in accordance with our fiduciary responsibility to the Foundation, and in the interests of continuing to accomplish the purpose the foundation was established for.

For the last 5 years, there has been a pattern of behavior you have chosen that does not hold up to the Bylaws of the Foundation:

Article VII – Conduct: Because of its strong beliefs in high moral standards based on traditional values, the organization reserves the right to expect from all of its officers and directors to maintain high moral standards and social values that do not conflict with traditional spiritual morals.

Let me be clear: If any one of us were involved in even one such instance, we would immediately resign to protect the Foundation. It’s simply the right thing to do.

With that, we ask that you, please, gracefully resign from The Aftermath Foundation.

We will not take a public stance on this. Period.

We will always defend and support you. We will always give you help, if and when you ask for it. We will always be here for you.

And to reiterate, this is not about you, Aaron. It’s not about any of us, it is about helping those who need and want our help.

There is virtually no one involved in a foundation such as this who wouldn’t step down gracefully who has the best interest of the foundation as their focus.

We are up against a Goliath with Scientology, and simply put, you have put the foundation at risk, a foundation you claim you care about. We have overlooked behaviors that put the foundation at risk because we love you and because with each instance, we (myself and Mike) tried to warn you, and we thought you understood and had heeded our warnings. But these behaviors have continued, several times now.

This is about the Foundation and what is in the best Interest of the Foundation to protect and to continue the good work we have all been a part of. You do not have to be a member of any board to continue your good work and to continue your support. I hope you see that.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Marc

And here is a comment left by an experienced and constructive individual, sincerely trying to give advice to people she believes are what they say they are:

@nicoleseefeldt7857
15 hours ago (edited)

this will be hard to hear but if you care, you will listen, Marc.

The way that you hijacked people asking questions they had every right to ask in the livestream was terrible and errant. You hijacked Claire as well. I’ve been watching for awhile and never really chatted on anyone’s stuff until this all blew up.

Allowing Mike Rinder to insult everyone out of the gate was in bad form, too. Your tit for tat over who did what was petty.

The fact that the Foundation is a closed board, not made of up of rank and file members, and all married couples, is actually frowned upon and considered radioactive in most orgs because it looks like nepotism and cronyism. An open board is a diverse board. This is closed and unhealthy and rife for infighting and [un]ethical conflict. Moreover, people recovering from cults and spiritual harm need secular refuge, not more of the same and not morality clauses.

There’s a lot to fix here for donors and protential partners. Coaches and professionals are available to handle and advise in blow ups. But this was toxic behavior on all sides.

How do I know? I left a toxic board once. I resigned for the good of my membership to stand with them. My org learned from it and is in touch with their members now and grew from it all. But I had to kick over a hornets nest in a dignified way to get it done because I took the high road like Luis did, but people could see something fishy was going on and they started asking questions and demanded fair representation after an exec threw dirt on me and many other people’s name and made it personal trying to incite me to respond in a terrible way to avoid responsibility. It backfired on them.

Every legit charity has a section for the public on their by-laws and a member’s only section for minutes and leadership changes, etc. They conduct votes and meetings according to Robert’s Rule of Order to assure fairness. I looked at the website even before this all happened and alarm bells were going off because I couldn’t see the by-laws at all.

Serving on a board is not about egos, books, clicks or views — it’s about representing people honestly and good governance.

Having mods block legitimate questions and bragging about it is gross. As a board member in times like this you need to listen, and answer questions, not lecture.

I know Mike Rinder is on the board of Child USA, but I doubt he speaks to donors and people there like he insulted people in that livestream.

I’m not excusing any of Aaron’s actions, but they were provoked by toxic behaviors by a closed and toxic board.

You all need to own your actions and be transparent with your members. They are counting on you and have been through enough shoddy representation and having their voices silenced.

Out of fairness, I have said similar things on every channel. This isn’t about choosing sides. It’s about building healthy communities.

This whole board must resign and be rebuilt from scratch to keep everyone fair and honest. You also need outside professionals /people with experience who are willing to coach and mentor and help grow a healthy org. It’s done with others and not by stacking a deck.