An entire church has been convicted of fraud. That's right, the Church of Scientology has been convicted of fraud by a Paris court. The group's French branch immediately announced an appeal.
It's been a bad two days for the Church of Scientology. Yesterday, Hollywood film-maker Paul Haggis announced that he had left the church, over their stance on same-sex marriages, as well as overall gay-bashing.
Convicted of fraud were not just the Church of Scientology's French office, but also its library and six of its leaders. Prosecutors had said the group pressured members into paying large sums of money for questionable financial gain and used "commercial harassment" against recruits.
While prosecutors had requested that the group be dissolved in France and be fined Є2 million, the court declined banning Scientology, saying that it would be likely to continue its activities anyway, "outside any legal framework."
Rather, the Church of Scientology was fined Є400,000 ($600,000) and the library Є200,000. Four of the aforementioned leaders were given suspended sentences of between 10 months and two years. The other two were given fines of Є1,000 and Є2,000.
This case was an old one, with the original complaint dating back more than a decade. A young woman said that after being recruited in 1998, she took out loans and spent the equivalent of Є21,000 on books, courses and "purification packages." When she sought to leave the group and gain reimbursement and to leave the group, the Church balked.
The Church of Scientology, based in Los Angeles CA, was founded in 1954 by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. It has been active for decades in Europe. Its most visible member has been Tom Cruise. A controversial video of Cruise speaking of Scientology went viral last year.
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