Aaron Smith Levin has benefited from a lot of cover up for his outrageous personal behavior from fellow board members of the Aftermath Foundation.
The Aftermath Foundation is in fact one of the most opaque charitable foundations I’ve ever seen: Apparently, even when people have asked for routine disclosures of registrations, accounting, etc, they are accused of being “OSA! OSA! OSA!”, and either ignored or publicly pilloried to discredit them.
This reminds me of the same behaviors I witnessed as a Scientologist. Every once in a while some discreditable, or worse, act would be whispered among Scientologists in the Church, the reaction to it, inevitably, was “Shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone – the SPs would have a FIELD DAY with this information!”
The behaviors of the Aftermath Foundation’s board members with respect to Aaron Smith Levin’s behavior has been exactly this, but flipped. Instead it’s “Shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone! OSA would have a FIELD DAY with this information!”
Charitable organizations throughout history have been faced with these same types of problems, and the real ones answer: “So What? Our mission is more important.” And they engage in the transparency necessary to retain the trust of the public.
Otherwise they disappear.
Ex-Scientologist Nick Lister, Aaron Smith Levin and The Aftermath Foundation’s Cover Up
I’ve been sitting on this information for many years. I told myself that these were just the personal peccadilloes of Aaron Smith Levin. I wanted to focus on more important reporting about Aaron Smith Levin such as his calling the death of Kyle Brennan a suicide – despite all evidence in the case, his bar fights while out campaigning for his seat on the Clearwater City Council, and his knowing complicity in Mike Rinder & Leah Remini’s “Where’s Shelly?” hoax.
The idea that there would be an organization that helps people get on their feet after leaving Scientology is a good one. And members of the public are constantly having their heartstrings pulled by The Aftermath Foundation. People want to help and they give money to them.
But after learning about Aaron Smith Levin’s latest behavior while reporting on Danny Masterson’s rape trial in Los Angeles, it has become clear to me that my silence has failed to provide the information people need to make informed decisions about Scientology and Anti-Scientology, and I have also failed to warn others who might become potential casualties of Aaron Smith Levin in the future.
I am ashamed of this.
So I’m going to be writing about Nick Lister and Aaron Smith Levin. Hopefully others, more focused researchers than I, will join me in providing more information & transparency that the public can use to make more informed decisions – the information and transparency the Aftermath Foundation has failed to provide.
I’ll start with publicly available information.
This is a Reddit thread begun over 5 years ago discussing an interview Aaron Smith Levin had with Nick Lister about his experiences in Scientology. This interview originally appeared on Aaron Smith Levin’s “Growing Up In Scientology” YouTube Channel.
It’s time for the Aftermath Foundation to grow up and abide by the standards of transparency and conduct required of charitable foundations in the US and abroad. If you take money from people as a charity, you must behave differently than tribal ninnies on the Internet do when they see “OSA! OSA! OSA!” every where.
So I’m asking:
Claire Headley – President of Aftermath Foundation
Luis Garcia | Past President of Aftermath Foundation
Christie Collbran | Secretary of Aftermath Foundation
Marc Headley | Board Member Aftermath Foundation
Mike Rinder | Board Member Aftermath Foundation
Ray Jeffrey | Board Member Aftermath Foundation
Amy Scobee | Board Member Aftermath Foundation
Mark Pesch | Board Member Aftermath Foundation
What happened between Aaron Smith Levin and Nick Lister 5 years ago?
He never “acted like he was happily married”. He never addressed his marriage. Fair enough – it has nothing to do with his YouTube channel.
That video is 3 hours long; maybe that was why it was taken down? Unless you want to say why you think it was taken down instead of implying some nefarious reason I’m not sending 3 hours to find out there is no nefarious reason.
Why should he need to be open and transparent about his marriage? What’s it got to do with you?
Someone said Aaron had a one night stand. That’s his business, he’s an adult, but keeping your FIVE YEAR OLD separation from your wife and having an affair makes you an easy blackmail target. He goes on and on about how open and transparent he is with his viewers when that’s total BS. He always acted as if he was happily married, and everything was good. That’s the opposite of being honest with your viewers about who you are.
That is not your or anybody’s business.
It also has nothing to do with the Foundation either. His ‘friends’ used Scientology tactics to kick him off the board.
What happened in LA?
That is correct. It had been taken down, and now it has been put back up.
Every board member, past and present, of the Aftermath Foundation, knows why.
But they are silent.
Why?
Alanzo
The video URL I posted has been up for 8 years. There are comments on the video from 8 years ago, a few months ago and several days ago. Your screen shot of the “missing” video says at the top of the black rectangle “Sorry, the Wayback Machine does not have this video … archived (or not indexed yet).” Hence, this is not evidence it was “taken down and put back up again”.
When I first heard Nick Lister’s story about 4 or 5 years ago, I checked to see if the video was up. It was not.
That is the part of Nick Lister’s story that, in his ‘radical transparency’, Aaron has failed to reveal – for the reasons I listed in this morning’s post on Aaron’s latest grift.
Ask Aaron about the history of that video. Have him be “radically transparent” about it.
Alanzo
There are comments on the video from 4-5 years ago. The narrative you are spinning looks a lot like someone that can’t admit they made a mistake using the Wayback Machine and jumped to the conclusion that the video had been erased to cover up history.
It’s commendable that you are looking into this. Most people spend no energy whatsoever in examining the claims anyone makes in this space. They just adopt a hero, jump on one side or the other, and start attacking the “enemy” they’ve been told to attack.
So don’t be like them. Your investigation is not done yet.
Before you conclude that I’m just embarrassed that I used the Wayback Machine, find out why Aaron says Nick Lister is “not a fan” of his. Find out the details of what Nick Lister reported to the Aftermath Foundation about Aaron.
Find out Nick Lister’s history with the Aftermath Foundation.
Find out what the board of the Aftermath Foundation covered up about Aaron Smith Levin, and his treatment of Exes who came to them for help.
That’s what is most important here if you are going to trust Aaron Smith Levin to raise money for a new foundation, and to “help” people leave Scientology.
Aaron is NOT being transparent regarding Nick Lister. And neither are his former friends still on the board of the Aftermath Foundation.
You must be able to trust people who run charities. They must be transparent.
So make them be transparent.
Ask them – both Aaron Smith Levin, and the former Executives of the scam called the Church of Scientology who are now running the Aftermath Foundation with 100s of thousands of dollars in donations from well-meaning people:
What is the full story on what happened between Aaron Smith Levin and Nick Lister?
Alanzo
The video hasn’t been taken down, it’s here https://youtu.be/pC1NDUMKiIA?si=TkLenEkhQwM8U74P