The Church of Scientology prevented a woman from seeking mental health treatment before she took her own life, a lawsuit states.
The woman, Whitney Mills, 40, was a high-level Scientologist who worked as a real estate agent before her 2022 death, her mother Leila Mills said in the lawsuit.
Mills had been battling with her mental health, and twice had to be hospitalized. Before her death, Mills experienced insomnia, anxiety, and an increased heart rate, according to the lawsuit. The suit alleges church officials failed to prevent her death while she was under their supervision.
A spokesperson for the Church of Scientology told the Tampa Bay Times that while Mills’ death was an “unfortunate tragedy,” the church never assumed her care.
“Church policy is crystal clear: if a Scientologist is in need of medical care, he or she must see a medical doctor,” the spokesperson told the paper. “Any and all decisions regarding medical treatment are solely the decision of the individual. The Church does not provide medical advice.”
The Independent has reached out to the Church of Scientology for comment.
The lawsuit, filed by Leila Mills on May 11 in Florida’s Pinellas County Circuit Court, claims that in February 2022, members of Scientology's staffing organization, Sea Org, were assigned to live with Mills at her apartment in downtown Clearwater, Florida, and to give her 24-hour monitoring.
The lawsuit includes emails between Mills and Sea Org staff in which she discusses her symptoms, which included anxiety and extreme pressure in her head. She also said she felt her condition was worsening.
“It’s causing me to feel like I’m dying and causing me psychosis, anxiety, panicking. … I’m getting intrusive bad thoughts,” an email, sent by Mills on March 12, 2022, said.
A Scientologist doctor, David Minkoff, had been tasked with treating Mills, and he allegedly misdiagnosed her with suffering from Lyme Disease and cancer, and ignored "her very real psychosis and mental health crisis," according to the lawsuit.
Instead of recommending mental health treatments, Minkoff allegedly prescribed her a $20,000 anti-parasitic, according to the lawsuit.
Mills reportedly begged the doctor for "anything else" to treat her, but the doctor allegedly responded with "quackery," according to the lawsuit.
The Independent has reached out to Minkoff for comment. Minkoff was not named in the lawsuit, but a Miami-based law firm representing Mills’ estate put him on notice, which is required by law before a medical malpractice suit is filed against a doctor.
She texted one of her Sea Org caretakers on May 1, 2022, that she “literally can’t take another day of this horrific movie I’m living.”
The lawsuit seeks to establish that Mills was suicidal based on a request she made to receive a Scientology rite that prepared the body’s spirit — thetan, in Scientological terms — for its exit from the body. On April 20, 2022, Mills reportedly asked a caretaker to oversee an “auditing” session to help her “drop the body” and noted she had learned about the practice from another caretaker.
The suit claims that after making that request in April 2022, Mills’ caretakers “either intentionally or negligently” left her alone for several hours on May 12, 2022. Mills died by suicide that day.
The spokesperson for the Church of Scientology told the Tampa Bay Times that there is no rite in Scientology to prepare a body for death, but a former Sea Org member who administered auditing sessions told the paper that not only did the rite exist, but that it was created by founder L. Ronb Hubbard himself.
“If she was asking for it, she clearly wanted to die,” the former Scientologist, Bruce Hines, told the paper.
The lawsuit by Leila Mills claims it was a church aversion to modern mental health treatments that prevented "here from obtaining the exact treatment [Mills] needed."
“Minkoff had a duty of care to refer Mills to a mental health professional, even if his religious beliefs forbade it,” the lawsuit says.
The family claims because the Church of Scientology assumed the responsibility to care for Mills, it bears the responsibility for her death. The lawsuit names six Scientology corporate entities as defendants on three counts of negligence, including wrongful death. The filing does not specify how much money the family seeks.
