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elievers just need to look back into the lives of Bhaktivedanta’s first disciples – Kirtananda, Hansadutta, Jayatirtha, Bhavananda, Guru Kripa, Balimardan … the criminal list goes on and on. People died under these successors, children and women were sexually and physically abused, yet they are not enough for followers nowadays to question their faith.

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g racing is dangerous, but there are worse things out there—things besides a bad crash that can get you killed. Funny Car pioneer Steve Bovan couldn’t have known what dangers lay outside of drag racing, but the sensational end to his life might have been avoided had he stuck with the danger he knew, instead of the danger he couldn’t have imagined.

Bovan was a barnstorming drag racer in the 1960s and early 1970s, something most racers dreamed of doing. Who wouldn’t love to have been a touring drag racer from that golden era?

Bovan raced his Junior Stock Corvette in the early 1960s with Dick Castro, winning NHRA C/Stock in 1964. He also raced a 1956 Chevy in Modified Production, and later in 1964 he was running a Max Wedge Mopar. But he wanted something faster

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Then in 1971 Bovan sold the Camaro. He moved to less expensive Costa Mesa, California, just up the coast a few miles from Laguna Beach and started working first for a VW repair shop and then for Delthic Auto Designs, a car-customizing shop in Costa Mesa. His transition from drag racer to drug dealer must have happened around this time, because he was on probation from an Arizona conviction for selling 1,200 pounds of marijuana. “Once we heard about Bovan’s drug stuff, I could see the connection to money,” Poland says.

At this point, our story takes a detour through a dark journey stemming from drug manufacturing and distribution taking place in Orange County, California, in the 1960s and 1970s, culled from Orange County Grand Jury and Orange County Superior Court testimony, as well as Newport Beach Police Department (NBPD) and Orange County District Attorney interviews of the time. Though some or all of this seems like something out of a movie, rest assured it’s all been testified to under oath.

Delthic was one of many small companies owned by Prasadam Distributors Inc. (PDI), an amalgam of businesses purchased with cash by Joseph Shelton Davis III or “Dritavarata,” as fellow Hare Krishnas religious followers called him. His companies were donating more than $2 million to a Hare Krishna temple in Laguna Beach, according to the NBPD. (Newport Beach Police Department)

The temple, known as International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, was an unorthodox devotional Krishna organization loosely based on the teachings of Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam. The bulk of its assets came from Hindu-related products and fruit juices it sold; from a Laguna Beach restaurant called Govinda’s, a Krishna health-food restaurant; and other less conventional methods.

To the uninitiated, the image of Hare Krishna came from their ubiquitous presence in airports, where young pilgrims cloaked in robes wearing ponytails offered books, incense, and paper flowers to travelers for a donation.

This temple had an illicit drug history going back to the 1960s when Timothy Leary, the long-time proponent of the hallucinogen LSD, and the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a gang of hippie surfers affiliated to and led by Leary who espoused a communal, free-love lifestyle based in Laguna Beach, were cooking the stuff in the Laguna Beach canyons just down the road from ISKCON. LSD was sold through the temple, it was said, because Leary liked their association with Eastern spirituality [Greg Lynd testimony to Orange County Grand Jury, 1973]. Leary would ultimately be arrested in Laguna Beach in 1968 and sentenced in March 1970 to prison for possession of marijuana, LSD, and hashish.

By the mid-1970s, ISKON’s financial portfolio ran the gamut of enterprises, with at least one revenue stream from the distribution and sale of hash oil. They used pilgrims as drug mules, smuggling “honey oil” hidden in typewriter cases from Pakistan through international airports, based on trial testimony. A $1,000 liter bottle could be sold for $11,000 in the United States—a tenfold profit. Once through customs, pilgrims would fly from Pakistan into Canada, mail their luggage and typewriter cases home, then travel back to Laguna Beach.

Though a completely different region today, back in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Middle East was a very open society, easy for carefree travelers to trek along what was called the “hippie trail,” a route running from England through Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. There were nomads on camels, scenic vistas, and travel was made easy with restaurants, cheap lodging, and Western food available all along the way.

The huge sums of cash from drug sales posed the typical problem of laundering it. Prasadam Distributors Inc. funneled ISKCON’s cash through its maze of companies in the classic money-laundering pattern. As PDI became more entrenched in the management and distribution of drugs, it even took on freelance “associates,” who gave a percentage of their profits in exchange for the front PDI afforded.

While PDI was taking in millions of dollars, its loose accounting allowed associates and small-time dealers to skim, including Bovan. He must have known the money’s source and the persistent rumor that PDI investor Alexander Kulik, a frequent visitor to PDI companies, kept more than $1 million in cash buried somewhere. Kulik was a Krishna follower and generous ISKCON donor. His “service” to them was curiously confidential, but enormously important and greatly appreciated.

Eventually, the organization realized Bovan was embezzling. Rather than confronting him directly, they chose to have someone outside take care of it. They contacted Frank Rossi, the brother-in-law of the wife of an ISKCON associate. With help from friends Anthony “Big Tony” Merone and Raymond Resco, Rossi was hired to facilitate Bovan’s quick return of the stolen money, according to Robert Emory’s testimony in court.

The United States Marshals Services newly formed Witness Protection Program had just relocated ex-mobsters Merone and Resco to Orange County after they gave testimony in New York against the mob. In exchange they got a new, clean life in California. Their lives and that of Bovan’s would soon intersect with tragic results.

Rather than resolving Bovan’s embezzling, they muscled in on the fast cash, bringing in Merone’s son, “Little Tony,” to help “manage” PDI’s businesses, squeezing Bovan out. Bovan was surely mad about his ouster, based on what he did next. Bovan assembled former Delthic employees Stan Kieffer and Robert Shea to help hatch a plan. Kieffer and Shea should have known better, having recently been roughed up by Rossi and ISKCON thugs over skimming suspicions themselves, from Newport Police interviews with a confidential informant identified only as “CI.”

Their plan was put on hold when the Huntington Beach Police Department arrested Bovan for drug possession with intent to sell. It wasn’t until August 1977 when Bovan was released and their plan could be hatched.

Bovan rigged Kulik’s car to run out of gas one night, where he waited with a .45-caliber automatic pistol to kidnap Kulik at gunpoint. Bovan shoved him into the back of a pickup, and with Kieffer driving, Bovan and a bound Kulik rode together in the small camper. Bovan tried to coax the location of Kulik’s cool cash with the butt of his loaded pistol. He denied he had a cash stash, but offered up $100,000 in a safe at PDI.

The next day, following instructions the kidnappers gave by phone, three cars were dispatched to the lookout on Interstate 5 just outside of San Clemente, California. Accompanying Big Tony was PDI’s Joe Fedorowski, known as “Gupta,” and Rossi in one car, Little Tony and Resco in the second car, and Joe Davis and another East Coast associate of the Merones named Jerry Fiori. En route, Little Tony and Resco helped themselves to an estimated $70,000 of the $100,000, assuming the kidnappers would not notice until after releasing Kulik.

When the rescuers pulled into the lookout parking lot and saw the pickup, out popped Bovan swinging his .45, crazy with rage, yelling and screaming at Rossi. One car in the trio blocked the exit while Bovan was calmed down and the cash could be laid on the truck’s seat. Then the kidnappers tried to leave without giving up Kulik. Rossi got out of his car and screamed at the truck to release Kulik or no one was leaving. As the kidnappers sped away, Kulik was kicked out the back, blindfolded with his hands taped behind his back. A car with Big Tony, Fiori, and Davis followed them down the interstate toward San Diego, where a cops-and-robbers-type running gun battle exploded.

Somehow the kidnappers successfully outran the gun-waving mobsters. No one was injured in the back-and-forth exchange of gunfire, according to trial testimony by Kieffer. Now Kulik and the ISKCON heads plotted their next move. Hoping to get revenge and eliminate three embezzlers in a single act, they offered Big Tony and Resco a $125,000 contract for the murder of Bovan, Kieffer, and Shea.

The plan was to capture the kidnappers and then kill them by injecting them with pure heroin, making it look like an overdose. Big Tony and his associates staked out Bovan’s home for weeks and just missed Kieffer and Shea, who were spotted by lookouts in a free food line at a Krishna temple in San Diego. Yet the kidnappers managed to elude their capture for more than a month.

Big Tony spread the word he would pay $1,200 to anyone who saw Bovan, according to testimony from Frank Rossi’s brother-in-law, Rick Willis. Finally, in the early misty morning hours of October 22, 1977, Bovan was seen at the bar of a Mexican restaurant in Newport Beach. Big Tony, Resco, and Fiori sped to the restaurant to complete their job...

For the rest of the article, read here:

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"This also becomes evident from the contention of Prabhupada, "in transcendance, notoriousness has the same absolute connotation as eminence." It is not surprising therefore to know that ISKON holds that "the yogi should be able when the occasion arises to reject even moral behavior to do what is necessary to serve Krishna." "A devotee in other words, can commit any evil because no action done for Krishna has any bad reaction."

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The Deity Gopinatha is notorious as a thief because He once stole condensed milk for the sake of His beloved devotee. In the transcendental relationship between the Absolute Godhead and His devotees, both the devotees and God Himself take the risk of serving each other at all costs. In transcendence, therefore, notoriousness has the same absolute connotation as eminence.

The story behind Gopinatha's being notorious as Ksiracora ("the milk thief") was long before narrated to Lord Caitanya by His spiritual master, Isvara Puri, and the Lord wanted to repeat the story to His followers.

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Now, Arjuna was asked by Krsna to kill, but that was an extraordinary circumstance. Since the Supreme Personality of Godhead was personally present on the battlefield, all who died there in His presence were liberated from the material world. So there is no question of violence. Krsna gave them the greatest gift.

Nonviolence, as also humility, tolerance, etc., is not meant to be taken as an isolated aspect of moral behavior. It is one facet of a transcendental process of purification from material contamination. Part of that material contamination is the mode of goodness; so the yogi should be able, when the occasion arises, to reject even moral behavior and do what is necessary to serve Krsna.

Devotees are usually vegetarian, but if they must eat a dog to stay alive to serve Krsna, then they will eat a dog. It is not recommended to eat dogs, however, and similarly it is not recommended to be violent in a bodily sense.

Actually it is possible to become completely liberated from attachment to sense gratification only after the point of being elevated to the material mode of goodness. Suta Gosvami says in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, "As soon as loving service is irrevocably fixed in one's heart, the effects of nature's modes of passion and ignorance, such as lust, desire and hankering, disappear from one's heart, and one becomes fixed in the mode of goodness which makes him completely happy.

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Srila Prabhupada clarifies this in The Bhagavad-gita As It Is: "To pursue the transcendental path is more or less to declare war on illusory energy."
Krsna is supremely destructive. In His form as material time, He is killing millions of bodies daily. But that is all part of our desire; and part of His subsequent plan is to show us that real enjoyment is enjoyment according to His desire, not according to our plan for satisfying a miserable material body. So in the end, Krsna's activities are all nonviolent because His only purpose is to give peace. (The only place where there is no war is in the spiritual sky, where Krsna has His abode.)
We must declare war on maya, or illusion, and on her influence over our activities, if we are to become purified. Once having attained Krsna consciousness, however, there is no more war. The pure devotee is not touched by maya. He sees how the material nature is serving Krsna nicely deluding the fallen souls again and again until they slowly learn to take shelter of the lotus feet of Krsna and become freed from maya's laws.

Our present separation from Krsna is not caused by innocence or lack of knowledge. We are aware of what we're doing. We envy Krsna. We hate Him and the thought of bowing down to Him; we want to be Krsna. We are rebellious criminals; this world is a jailhouse where we continually riot, living like dogs and hogs.
To get out, we have to listen to the spiritual master, who is sometimes compared to a king visiting a penitentiary he is not subject to its laws. But many people are trying to get out the wrong way.

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“There’s some hoops they’d have to jump through if they want to reopen,” said Teitzel.

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One issue that was previously brought to the attention of the county by a concerned citizen was the improper handling and serving of food to church visitors. However, the church contends that they are not out of compliance due to the fact that their food items are all obtained via donations and are then donated back to church visitors free of charge.

Other roadblocks alluded to by Shackman after the conference included general water and sanitation issues as well as wheelchair access.

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However, the church contends that they are not out of compliance due to the fact that their food items are all obtained via donations and are then donated back to church visitors free of charge.

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‘”Lo telech rachil b'ameicha” 'Do not go around spreading slander among your people, but also don't stand idly by when your neighbor's life is at stake; I am ADONAI.’” –Le 19:16.

Looking down on fellow brothers and sisters is in all manners wrong. All are of the same fabric and originate from The One Infinite, Perfect Source. The idea that His children are different in any way, lacking or wealthy, is the sole cause for all division and disharmony. God is the only judge, it is useless and time consuming for a human to try and assume His role. He does not condemn, but corrects, guiding toward an enlightened future." ~ Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan, DOB 2/6/1838 in Zhetel, Poland

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The Chofetz Chaim tells us, “Come see, my brother, how carefully one has to weigh each word [before speaking negatively] when someone has wronged him, because when he speaks he stands in great danger of transgressing the sin of loshon hora (gossip). Clearly, it is regarding this that we can say, ‘Death and life are in the power of the tongue’ (Mishlei 18:21). If one will not consider carefully before he speaks exactly how he is going to present the matter, he will surely stumble, G-d forbid. For at that moment, his anger will get the better of him and it will be impossible to exercise proper caution.”

When someone, without proper forethought, tells others how someone has hurt him or is planning to hurt him, his emotions quickly override his intentions...

Once one has decided exactly what he wants to say, he should carefully examine his presentation in the light of the seven requirements of constructive speech. He should analyze each thought. Does it contain anything inflammatory? Are there any exaggerations? One should consider possible questions which the listener might ask and how to respond. One should be prepared to respond quickly, without stumbling, for once the speaker begins to stumble, it will be hard for him to regain control of the conversation—and that is when loshon hora can begin. Furthermore, if the speaker will not prepare himself well, the listener may elicit information that should not be offered.

If these precautions seem excessive, imagine the precautions a person would take if he were working in a lab where deadly viruses are studied. That is how situations involving potential loshon hora should be treated, for as Shlomo HaMelech declared: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”

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However, there are some situations where we are not just permitted but are obligated to speak negatively of others. Usually (if not always), this is done in the defense of innocent victims and, as you say, is based on the second half of that same verse, “…do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” If Bill is a kleptomaniac, do I have the right to share this information with Tony if there’s no conceivable chance Bill will ever get near Tony’s stuff? No. But if Tony is thinking of inviting Bill to stay for the weekend, I have the responsibility to tell Tony, in order to protect him from loss.

There are many situations where this principle could come into play. The most common is when being asked about a person for a job reference or for a shidduch (a prospective match). We don’t have free rein to go around badmouthing people, but there may be pieces of information that a potential boss or spouse needs to have in order to make an informed decision. You know that Bob made his MBA in PhotoShop? If you’re his reference, you must disclose that to the interviewer. You’re aware that Susie has a husband and six kids in another state? Her fiancé deserves to know that.

There are, however, conditions to sharing the negative that must be met:

(1) You have to know that the information you’re disclosing is true; you may not embellish or exaggerate;

(2) Sharing the information has to be the only way to protect the endangered party, or to accomplish some other necessary constructive purpose;

(3) The speaker’s intention must sincerely be to protect the endangered party or to accomplish the constructive goal. (If one is sharing information about a person he doesn’t like, it can be really hard to be objective about this!);

(4) The consequences of sharing the information cannot cause undue harm to the subject (and certainly not to anyone else!). If reporting that Joe took home a ball point pen from work will get him fired, the consequences are not commensurate with the offense and one might not be permitted to disclose that information.

Of course, there’s harm and then there’s harm. “Joe took home a ball point pen from work” is very different from “Joe is hiding in the alley with a machete, waiting to chop your head off.” The immediacy of the latter is clearly much more urgent. If you feel that a situation is truly dangerous, appropriate steps must be taken. That doesn’t necessarily make it easy.

Let’s take religion out of it for a minute and use the strictly-hypothetical example of someone questioning whether or not they should call Child Protective Services on a friend or neighbor. On the one hand, you’re hesitant to call – it will destroy your relationship, you’re afraid someone’s kids might get taken away unnecessarily, etc. On the other hand, you feel compelled to call – if you don’t and something bad happens, you’ll never forgive yourself! You’ll note how this scenario is a dilemma even before we add anyone’s religious sensibilities into the equation!

If you had a calling-CPS dilemma, you might describe the situation to a friend who’s a social worker and ask for guidance. They’re the expert and you value their insight into the matter. Similarly, if you have a non-urgent disclosure dilemma ...the best course of action is to ask an expert... There are times when we may or must disclose negative information but, when we’re involved, we’re not always the best judges of those situations.

However, as we said earlier, saving someone in imminent danger takes priority. In a case of clear and present danger, appropriate protective action must be taken immediately...and we don’t hesitate to reveal negative information. If your friend’s babysitter is a convicted sex offender, say something. Your neighbor’s daughter has been set up with a known date rapist? Share that information. This is even true in spiritual matters. For example, if your cousin’s new spiritual advisor is a [cult member], tell him.

We usually keep negative information to ourselves but sometimes we must reveal it. Just as we learn when to call an ambulance (for a heart attack, not for a splinter), we have to use good judgment to evaluate when to keep quiet, when to speak up, and when to ask for guidance."

Rabbi Jack Abramowitz, JITC Educational Correspondent