Church of Scientology convicted of fraud in France

Daily Mail
By Peter Allen
Last updated at 12:35 PM on 27th October 2009


Convicted: The Paris branch of the Scientology Church's Celebrity Centre and Bookshop
was ordered to pay a £600,000 fine after being convicted of fraud

The self-styled ‘celebrity’ Church of Scientology was today found guilty of fraud in France and fined more than £500,000. Prosecutors in Paris were told that the only reason the cult was not banned from the country completely was because it would carry on anyway ‘outside a legal framework’. The conviction will come as a huge shock to the church’s millions of followers around the world, who include Hollywood actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

Convicted: The Paris branch of the Scientology Church's Celebrity Centre and Bookshop was ordered to pay a £600,000 fine after being convicted of fraud. Examining judges sitting at the Paris Correctional Court found six leading Scientologists guilty of fraud, including Alain Rosenberg, the sect’s leader in France. Rosenberg was given a two-year suspended jail sentence and fined the equivalent of just under £30,000.

The church’s so-called Celebrity Centre and Bookshop – both of which make up the HQ of Scientology in France - were ordered to pay the equivalent of £600,000. All were accused of extorting money from ‘vulnerable’ people who had become Scientology followers or employees.

The Paris case was launched following a complaint from two women, one of whom said she was tricked into handing over £20,000 towards dubious projects, including the development of an ‘electrometer’ to measure mental energy. The second woman said she was forced by the Scientologists to undergo embarrassing tests, and to enrol in courses about the sect in 1998. When she refused she was sacked.

Judge Jean-Christophe Hullin, who spent years examining the cult’s activities, attacked the Scientologists' ‘obsession’ with financial gain and practices he said were aimed at plunging members into a ‘state of subjection’.

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