Cult guru who assembled a harem of woman followers convicted of rape and assault

A cult guru who raped a pretty recruit and sexually assaulted another may have attacked hundreds of women, it has been claimed after he was found guilty of rape.

Jet-setting Michael Lyons, 51, wore flowing robes, drove expensive cars and flew around the world boasting of links to the Dalai Lama. He was captured following a trans-Atlantic operation run jointly by Scotland Yard and the FBI.

Masquerading as spiritual leader Mohan Singh, his victims were convinced he was a healer who could help them. But in fact he was a ‘sexual predator’ who preyed upon young, often vulnerable women, after using his harem of apparently respectable female devotees to recruit his targets.

He was convicted on Friday of raping one woman at Wood Green Crown Court and of sexually assaulting a second.

A total of 11 women from London, America and New Zealand gave evidence against him.

He was found not guilty of three rapes and one sexual assault, while the jury could not reach a verdict on a further rape allegation and a further allegation of indecent assault, and these will lie on Lyons’ file.

Sources said the case, which contained allegations made between 1998 and last year, was merely ‘the tip of the iceberg’.
[...]

Lyons’ cult was made up of him surrounded by brainwashed women who pandered to his every demand.

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A source said: ‘It doesn’t have a name – it’s just him and surrounded by a group of women.’

One victim told how they scurried to follow his orders when he ‘clicked his fingers’. But the other women also took on a sinister role, recruiting new members and ‘sucking them quickly into the cult atmosphere’.

Targets were quickly separated from ‘friends, family and reality’, falling for Lyons’ charm and charisma amid the apparently comfortable atmosphere created by the group of ‘respectable’ women.

The women he targeted were articulate and well educated.

Despite appearing to support a simple, spiritual lifestyle, Lyons owned flats in London, Los Angeles and Miami, drove Bentleys and Jaguars.
[...]

Even though his traumatised victims were forced to relive their ordeals at his hands, Lyons declined to take the stand to give the jury the benefit of his account.

As well as persuading victims from all over the world to give evidence against Lyons, prosecutors called parents of women still apparently in the cult. A distraught British father told how his daughter was brainwashed during her gap year after travelling to India before she was due to begin a PhD.

The case was a retrial following a hung jury last year. This time the jury were out for nearly four weeks before returning their verdicts.
[...more...]

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