They Went to Work for a Stock Exchange. Then the Scientology Ties Became Clear.
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It started out as a routine workday at the buttoned-up offices of Dream Exchange, a fledgling stock exchange outside Chicago. Then Charlie Bills showed up. In flip-flops.
Bills was there last summer to see Joe Cecala, the company’s founder and CEO. He took a seat on the couch outside the executive office and was told to wait. To those around him, Bills stuck out, and not just because he was a stranger with his toes out.
Time passed and Bills grew impatient. “Joe needs to know,” he told a staffer in a gravelly voice, “he has other obligations,” according to people who heard the exchange.
Bills didn’t spell out what he meant, but the comment led employees to dig into his past. The man had a decadeslong history as an operative for the Church of Scientology and was often deployed to collect money for the religious organization.
Dream Exchange is a tiny startup with big dreams to tap the $60 trillion U.S. stock market. Cecala, who is white, has pitched the venture as a Nasdaq for Black-owned businesses. The company says it is named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famous speech.
There’s more to the story. Dream Exchange and its leadership team have extensive ties to the Church of Scientology and entities connected to the religious institution, according to financial and other records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the company’s inner workings.
The Dream Exchange office implemented Scientology-oriented practices for staff, even if they weren’t members of the religion, such as requiring some employees to spend hours studying the writings of church founder L. Ron Hubbard in an isolated office and in one instance using an “e-meter,” a kind of lie detector used in the religion, according to people familiar with the situation.
Several of Dream Exchange’s top executives are members of Scientology. Cecala, the CEO, is so prominent a donor that he and his family have been honored at an awards gala for their giving, according to a Scientology publication describing the event.
The chief administrative officer, Brian Moxon, grew up in Scientology as the son of a longtime attorney for the church. He previously served in the Sea Organization, the religious order’s elite training ground, according to people familiar with the matter. Another executive who heads public relations previously had a career in the church’s fundraising operations.
Financial records show that funds from Dream Exchange LLC moved into an account at its parent company, owned by Cecala, that made donations to Scientology-affiliated organizations, including after Dream Exchange launched an effort to raise funds from investors in 2018. From 2010 through 2020, there were dozens of such donations from the account of the parent company owned by Cecala, totaling at least $150,000.
According to a person familiar with the group’s finances, donations continued into at least 2023, with amounts as high as tens of thousands of dollars in a month going to Scientology-linked organizations.
Dream Exchange, which is seeking a license from the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch an exchange, didn’t detail the connections to Scientology in its application or in materials provided to prospective investors, which otherwise described the startup’s executives, goals and strategy. The SEC faces a November deadline to decide on the application.
In February, a former employee filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC alleging that Dream Exchange had misappropriated funds to benefit the Church of Scientology, and that the company loaned out employees to work for a local Scientology facility during business hours. The complaint didn’t describe the nature of the volunteer work.
The SEC requires would-be stock exchanges to disclose information about their ownership, affiliates and controlling officers. The religious affiliations of the officers or shareholders aren’t normally disclosed in such applications.
Investors typically want to be made aware of potential risks that could hurt the value of their investments, including outside activities and conflicts of interest for the management team.
Several investors contacted by the Journal were unaware of the link between the upstart stock exchange—which is seeking a foothold in the cash-rich U.S. capital markets—and the religious institution.
Sherman Adkins, a Virginia investor who bought shares in Dream Exchange in around 2021, was one of several Black investors who said they didn’t know about the company’s ties to Scientology. Others included lawyers, business owners and a former professional athlete.
“I haven’t seen any affiliation with anything,” he said. “If there’s something that’s commingled and taken in any other direction, I’m not aware of it.” Adkins said he would take appropriate action if he was misled.
Dan K. Webb, a lawyer for Dream Exchange, said that employees’ religious beliefs were irrelevant to the company’s operations and that the exchange has made all required disclosures to the SEC and investors.
Asked about the donations to Scientology-linked organizations from Dream Exchange LLC’s parent company, Webb described that company as privately held by Cecala and said the exchange had no knowledge of any personal donations that its CEO might have made. “Dream Exchange has never misappropriated investor funds,” Webb said.
Webb denied that employees were allowed to do volunteer work for Scientology during work hours, and he also denied that any employees were forced to learn or practice any Scientology principles. Webb said that Dream Exchange had no knowledge of any whistleblower complaint and hadn’t been contacted by the SEC about such a report.
Content retrieved from: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/they-went-to-work-for-a-stock-exchange-then-the-scientology-ties-became-clear/ar-AA1MxGwC.
