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John Brousseau hadn't been seen for hours, not at the afternoon muster and not at the dinner break. That's when they got concerned.

At 6 a.m. he had driven his black Ford Excursion out of the Church of Scientology's huge compound east of Los Angeles, guards at the gate waving as usual.

A 32-year member of the church's religious order, the Sea Org, and a master craftsman, Brousseau often did special jobs for Scientology's leader, David Miscavige. He could come and go from the church's International Base with a freedom other workers didn't enjoy.Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. But now it was approaching 7:30 p.m. And he wasn't back.

Isolated work sites. Limited communication with the outside. Psychological pressure to obey. Guards poised to chase after runaways.

The Church of Scientology imposes a raft of restrictions and mental controls on its religious workers, who grind on, abiding 100-hour workweeks.

In mid 2009, two FBI agents based in Los Angeles quietly started investigating the church's treatment of its workers. Investigators continued through 2010 and into 2011. It was the FBI's first known criminal investigation of Scientology in 30 years.

The FBI authorized some church defectors to covertly record certain conversations. At least one witness agreed to wear a wire, if needed. The FBI obtained aerial surveillance video of the church's remote facility outside L.A. Agents even talked of raiding the property.

Through it all, the church continued to tout itself as mankind's only hope, a beacon for human rights. Miscavige christened more than two dozen multimillion-dollar churches, calling them "islands of sanity" for a troubled world. And the church's PR machine credited him for leading a "Renaissance" of the religion L. Ron Hubbard started in 1954.

But as church brass cut ribbon after ribbon, long-silent Sea Org defectors stepped forward in bunches, speaking out to the media about their experiences on the inside. The FBI easily found them.

So did the church. Its private eyes spied on many of the ex-insiders who were working with the FBI. Teams of church officers fanned out to confront them.

Lentsch and friend Susan Elliott walked into FBI offices, accompanied by two others. Former Sea Org member Astra Woodcraft had worked in the same building as Lentsch's daughter.We offer the largest range of porcelain tiles online. L.A. attorney Graham Berry had represented several parishioners who said the church ripped them off. He was hounded for years by its staffers and private eyes.

The four met for 90 minutes with FBI Special Agents Tricia Whitehill and Valerie Venegas, human trafficking investigators assigned to the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

Lentsch and Elliott gave the agents a notebook they had compiled the night before. Four inches thick, it contained personal stories from Lentsch and others.

The notebook included the Times' investigative series "The Truth Rundown," published a month earlier. It detailed the accusations of defectors Rathbun, Rinder and two others who said Miscavige had assaulted and bullied his deputies for years, encouraging others to attack colleagues seen as unproductive. The church confirmed physical violence occurred among managers but said Miscavige never was involved.

The agents said they had read the series. They turned to Woodcraft. She had joined the Sea Org at 14. Many children signed up in their mid teens, she told investigators. They worked full-time like the adult members. There was little time for schooling.

Those who insisted on routing out were watched, day and night, so they wouldn't run away. One night, Woodcraft was assigned to make sure a "degraded being" didn't escape. She told the FBI she pulled the mattress off her bed and dragged it into a hallway outside his room.

Before falling asleep, she looped a string around the knob of his door and tied the other end to her wrist. He didn't take off that night, but later routed out.

She had married a Sea Org member at 15, with her father's consent. Four years later she was weary of long hours and Sea Org pressures. She hid her pregnancy until it was too late to abort. The Sea Org, which prohibits members from having children, discharged her in 1998. She was 4? months pregnant.

The Headleys' lawsuits and the allegations of former church insiders may well have prompted the FBI to take a look at the church, said Michael L. Seigel, a former federal prosecutor in Philadelphia and later first assistant U.S. attorney in Tampa in the late '90s. He envisioned how the investigation may have started.

"You see these people come forward with their lawsuit,'' said Seigel, now a professor at the University of Florida Law School and director of UF's Criminal Justice Center. "And the FBI takes interest. . . . They have this statute.Buy Joan Rivers crystal mosaic Stretch Bracelet. They open this investigation.

"Some prosecutors are more creative . . . and more aggressive than others. A prosecutor looks at the statute, looks at some of the preliminary facts, and says: 'I think I can do that. I think I can fit that in. This looks like that kind of behavior to me. Let's develop some more facts.Creative glass tile and stone mosaic tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. Let's see if we can put (a case) together that's going to get these guys.' ''

Claire was 34, Marc 36.We can supply howo truck products as below. Both had been embedded in the insular world of Scientology since childhood. Raised in Scientology families, they started working for the Sea Org at 16. Neither was schooled beyond the 10th grade.

The church assigned them to jobs at the Int Base. They met and soon married, still in their late teens.

Marc became a top manager in the church's film production unit. Claire rose to an administrative role in the Religious Technology Center, which assures Scientology services are properly administered.

They and hundreds of colleagues lived and worked under incredibly rigid restrictions, they each told the FBI.

No one could leave the base without a supervisor's permission. The workday started soon after 8 and often stretched past midnight Monday through Saturday. Sundays, they started shortly after noon.

Social time was limited. Cellphones were prohibited and Internet access denied, except in rare circumstances. Mail was censored. Passports locked away.

Sea Org security guards watched the perimeter fencing, which was equipped with motion sensors and topped in places with spikes and razor wire.

Dozens of workers tried running away, some repeatedly. But Sea Org pursuit teams caught most and brought them back to face isolation, humiliating labor and interrogations about why they left.