Some Facts Tory Christman Won't Discuss

[imgright]http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/extremists/images/10-11-06-Tory-Christman.jpg[/imgright]When a woman in her 50’s grows tired of her marriage and leaves her husband because some strangers she met over the internet promise her an exciting new life, then a reasonable- sounding cover story can be expected. Especially when her escapade doesn’t work out the way she hoped.

On July 20, 2000, Tory Christman abandoned her husband of 25-years and fled to Florida lingering for months with people she had met on a newsgroup.

Like the “runaway bride,” Christman isn’t the first woman to suddenly desert her family in order to explain her bizarre behavior. However, she too found it more expedient to paint herself as a victim rather than accept any personal responsibility for her actions. The truth wasn’t likely to get her a favorable divorce settlement or garner the kind of media attention she hoped would be part of her exciting and lucrative new life. So Tory Christman lied – to her internet friends, the tabloids, and anyone who would listen, because she knew the truth wouldn’t make a sympathetic news story.

So what actually happened on that 20th of July? Christman’s husband was out of town on a business trip earning money to pay the household bills – among them the credit card purchases his wife was ringing up on the “Home Shopping Network” (not Church donations as Christman often claims, to bolster her image as a victim). Christman had been planning her escapade to Florida in secret. An anti-religious extremist, appealing to her naiveté, had been working her over, luring her away from her religion and her husband, in the hope that a Florida “vacation” could be publicized as a Church defection and somehow aid the antireligious cause. Prior to this, the extremists had only known Christman by her anonymous online identity. They had no idea they were recruiting a bored housewife.

Christman waited until her husband was out of town, then, with promises that included first class airline tickets and luxury accommodations, she got on a plane and left. Christman never consulted her husband nor did she communicate a hint of her intention to leave him, but leave him she did. When her husband reached her by phone she told him she was going away for a few days to relax with some new friends, lying to him about her true destination – an obvious fiction which left him panicked for her unusual story. When he managed to figure out where she was going, he discovered that her connecting flight would put her near where he was and rushed to the airport to meet her. Despite his pleas to her for the two of them to take some time by themselves to talk things out, she threatened him with a call to the police and told him not to get on that flight. He managed to determine her final destination in Florida and bought a ticket and took the next flight. Upon his arrival the husband went to the hotel room, that had been prearranged for her, to try to communicate with his wife, but again he was ordered to leave and threatened by her with calls to security. Instead, she opted for the company of a stranger in her hotel room.

Christman dismisses this act of desertion as incidentally as if she’d gone to get her glasses out of the next room. Here her husband had flown halfway across the country to try to save his marriage and she refused to even speak with him. Christman continued to refuse any contact with her husband except for a vague mention of a phone call at some indefinite future date. And so, having been coldly cut off and threatened with the intervention of civil authorities, her husband returned home.

Within a few days a long time friend of the family traveled across country to try to help patch things up and salvage the 25-year marriage. After some extraordinary efforts on his part, Christman agreed to meet with him. At the meeting she solicited his help in “letting her husband down easy”. She said:

“I have been carrying him for years and he’ll never be a success. It’s over between us.”

Christman then told her friend that she should have married him instead of her husband.

Later on she finally called her husband. He implored her to consider his offer to go away with him, just the two of them, and reconcile their relationship. She refused and remained in Florida for months going to parties, being wined and dined by her Internet friends and sticking her husband with credit card bills whenever she couldn’t get someone else to pick up the tab.

At one of the parties, a new Internet friend meeting Christman for the first time had this to say about her:

“There’s something innately dishonest there but it’s combined with a nutty quality AND she’s somewhat man hungry.”

Christman continued to put her husband off, finally returning home months later when the gravy train derailed and she had maxed-out the credit cards. Despite Christman’s betrayal, her husband took care of all the bills she’d racked up. He continued to seek reconciliation until, after months of being turned away, he finally gave up, disillusioned and heartbroken because Chrisman insisted she wanted a divorce.

[imgright]http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/images/extremists/tory-christman-lrg.jpg[/imgright]Now left to make her own way in the world, Christman seeks publicity by blaming her former religion for the breakup of her marriage and the fact that her friends of 30 years no longer wish to speak to her. This statement reveals, at best, a staggering naiveté for, after the way she treated her husband, this response from their mutual friends is far from surprising.

The following letter is written by Tory Christman’s exhusband, which gives an account of what really happened with his ex-wife.

March 8th, 2006

To Religious Freedom Watch: I was married to Tory Christman for 26 years. She left me in July 2000 while I was away on a business trip.

When I spoke to her the night of July 19, 2000, she said she was leaving for a while and would be home in a week or two. She lied repeatedly about where she was going, and refused to talk to me any further about what was going on. When I asked her why she was leaving, she told me to call our friends and they’d tell me what was happening. She said she had to go and hung up.

I called our friends and they told me that Tory was going to Florida and would be changing planes in Chicago the next morning. I drove to Chicago and stopped at my sister’s house. She said she’d had a long talk with Tory and Tory told her that she was leaving me, saying she was leaving Scientology and was unhappy with our relationship. Tory also told my mother, step-father and brother that she was leaving me, saying it was no big deal as we weren’t getting along anyway. (All this from a woman who told me two weeks earlier that I’d thrown her the best birthday party ever and that I was the most wonderful husband in the world.”)

I drove to the airport and met Tory as she was changing planes. I told her I’d cancelled the rest of the business trip and wanted to go to a resort and talk with her and find out what was going on. She told me she did not want to be a Scientologist anymore and that she was leaving the Church. I said, “Okay, you don’t have to be a Scientologist if you don’t want to, just don’t leave me. Let’s go away by ourselves.” She told me, “No way, my ticket is paid for, I have to go.” She then threatened to have me arrested if I “bothered” her again. I then told her I’d get a ticket and fly with her and we could talk. She repeated that she’d have me arrested if I didn’t leave her alone. I took a later flight to Florida and found her in an airport hotel.

I tried to talk to her again in private but she refused, saying she’d only talk to me in the presence of her new friends. She again threatened to call security if I insisted on talking with her away from her new friends. I took a room and invited her up for dinner and a movie. She said “maybe later” but she never called me.

The next day I called her to talk and she said she was sleeping and asked if I could bring her some toiletries. When I went to set them outside her room, the door of the next room opened and she was sitting on the bed talking to one of her new friends. She was in her night gown. She didn’t want to talk to me and she got angry when I questioned the motives of her new friends. I talked to her once more that night with her friends waiting in the next room.

After that night, she was out of touch for weeks. Whenever she called me she needed money and her epilepsy medicine, both of which I arranged for her. As a side note, Tory has complained to reporters that the Church ordered her to stop taking her medication. This is a complete fabrication. She wanted to quit taking the medicine because she didn’t like it, but she was never told to do so by the Church at any time since I’d met her in 1974. In fact, she was told by the Church and by a Scientologist doctor that it was not necessary for her to stop taking her medicine.

Several months later Tory called me saying she was going to move to Florida permanently and was coming home to pack. She wanted her car serviced so she could drive it cross country. When she finally arrived home, she showed up with her friend Nancy Many who helped her set up an inexpensive divorce agreement by recommending we utilize “We the People” – a business which does this. Tory made the appointment and she wanted me to be the petitioner, as she was going to move to Florida and it’d be easier for them to contact me.

After helping her pack for a month, she decided she wasn’t going to go. She thought we could live in the house and split the rent. I agreed to this in the hopes of repairing our marriage. But in the six months we lived under this arrangement, I never saw a dime from her. I covered all the rent, utilities, phone, food, etc. During this time she tried several jobs, but never made a go of it. I helped her and coached her and set up a financial plan for her, but to no avail.

She finally left permanently.

She now has been quoted a number of times over the years as saying I left her. It is time to put this lie to rest once and for all. She left me and our 26- year marriage with no notice at all and resisted all attempts to put our relationship back together. That is a truth she can never run away from no matter how far she goes.

Harold Bezazian

Religious Freedom Watch investigates and exposes individuals who breed racism and anti-religious intolerance through hate speech. Should you observe anything illegal or peculiar from the extremists featured in this publication report them to your local authority.