“Cancer Ain’t Wrong”: ZeroDarkTony Names Jeffrey Augustine, Says He “Deserves” His Diagnosis

“He Absolutely Deserves to Be Where He Is”

D’Amato opened the segment by asking his audience to signal in chat whether they knew Augustine. He stated on stream that Augustine was “right now sitting in a Los Angeles hospital because he had a tumor the size of a lemon removed from his brain.” He then acknowledged the framing of what followed, saying he was “torn” but would say “one thing,” before delivering a series of characterizations of Augustine as evil and deserving of his medical situation. 

D’Amato also stated on stream that Augustine’s wife was “probably in there putting a pillow over his face,” framing it as a joke. He added that Augustine “really brought it on himself” and that “what goes around comes around.” Chat message content is not available for this window, so audience reaction cannot be assessed from the record.

Exhibit A

D’Amato tells his audience to put a number in the chat to identify whether they know Augustine, then announces Augustine’s hospitalization and says, “but in his case cancer ain’t wrong so how about that… he is evil… He is an evil piece of garbage, and he absolutely deserves to be where he is.”

Timestamps: 00:11:34 – 00:16:17 | Watch with a free account

D’Amato explicitly acknowledged on stream that he was exercising restraint (“I’m only going to say one thing”), then continued with sustained negative characterizations over several minutes. The clip establishes that D’Amato identified Augustine by full name, disclosed his current medical status and location to his audience, and expressed that Augustine’s serious illness was deserved. The September 15, 2026 broadcast is preserved in full transcript and chat metadata, providing a timestamped record of D’Amato’s statements about Augustine during a documented medical crisis.

D’Amato’s account of Augustine’s hospitalization matches reporting published the same week by journalist Tony Ortega at The Underground Bunker, which described the tumor as “the size of a lemon” and detailed an eight-hour surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy. Ortega’s report, sourced to Augustine’s wife Karen de la Carriere, characterized Augustine’s condition as serious but improving. D’Amato’s on-stream framing of the same facts, that Augustine “deserves” his illness, stands in direct contrast to the tenor of the original reporting he appears to be drawing from.

Jeffrey Augustine has spent well over a decade investigating the Church of Scientology, publishing at The Scientology Money Project since 2012 and building an archive of more than 1,200 articles on financial fraud, money laundering, and organizational corruption tied to the church.  His goal is to influence the 501(c)3 non profit status of the Church of Scientology.   He is married to Karen de la Carriere, a former high-ranking Scientologist who trained personally under L. Ron Hubbard aboard the Apollo and rose to Class XII within the organization before leaving. Together they’ve become fixtures in the broader community of former Scientologists and independent journalists who cover the church, work that has drawn citations from Forbes, Reuters, Fortune, and appearances on Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. Augustine also hosts Surviving Scientology Radio and has run two additional investigative outlets, CrimeBeatNews.com and dirtycopsandpis.com. Colleagues in that reporting community, including journalist Tony Ortega, have described him as a longtime friend and collaborator whose work has been “invaluable to helping expose the truth about Scientology,” in the words of one fellow investigator interviewed on Mike Rinder’s podcast.

In a February 2025 post about D’Amato’s arrest, Augustine wrote that D’Amato’s attacks on prominent Scientology critics had given rise to speculation that the church’s Office of Special Affairs pays him to carry them out. D’Amato denies any tie to the church (“I don’t get paid by the church,” he said on May 24, 2024), and HNZ has found no evidence that he is paid or directed by it. What the stream shows is narrower: D’Amato mocked the illness of a man who has written about him, using details from that critic community’s own reporting on the diagnosis.

HNZ extends its own well wishes to Jeffrey Augustine for a full and speedy recovery.

Sources

• Original YouTube Video
• Full SRT Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Full Text Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Full Chat Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Date: 2026-09-15
• Stream ID: YOUTUBE · HdzoMmevJso
• The Underground Bunker: “Scientology critic Jeffrey Augustine is facing the fight of his life” — Tony Ortega, source for the tumor/surgery details
• The Scientology Money Project — Augustine’s primary blog
• CrimeBeatNews.com — About
• dirtycopsandpis.com — About
• Jeffrey Augustine — IMDb
• Episode 43: Investigator and Whistleblower Jeffrey Augustine — Mike Rinder’s Blog 
• Zero Dark Tony a/k/a Anthony D’Amato Arrested in Los Angeles Courthouse — The Scientology Money Project — Augustine’s post raising the paid-operative speculation, dated February 20, 2025

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