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Fraud

This is Religion News Blog's news page on Fraud. See our front page for more religion news.
Wednesday October 28, 2009
FraudQuackeryScientology:
Scientology French judges said they did not order the church offices closed because they did not want to drive Scientologists underground, where they could not be monitored.

At least five other cases involving complaints against the church are under investigation by courts around France, according to press reports. [video]
» Full Story

Tuesday October 27, 2009
FraudScientology:
Scientology convicted of fraud in France A French court on Tuesday convicted the Church of Scientology and six of its members of organized fraud, but stopped short of banning the church.

As part of the penalties, the church was ordered to publish the results of the verdict in several national and international magazines to warn people, the judge said, about what Scientology offers and what was discovered at trial. [video]
» Full Story

Saturday October 10, 2009
FraudQuackery:
Christine Daniel A doctor who is also an ordained minister was charged by federal prosecutors after claiming that her ‘C-Extract’ was an alternative to traditional cancer treatments.

Using her influence as an ordained Pentecostal minister, Christine Daniel tapped into the vessel of faith to entice people from across the nation to try her regimen.
» Full Story

Thursday September 17, 2009
Fraud:
Max Garza A Portland, Oregon clergyman faces possible prison time for helping the owner of a mail-order divorce business evade $220,345 in taxes, a scheme that put an illegal tithe in the pastor’s pockets.

Maximo Garza, the 46-year-old pastor of Victory Outreach Church of Portland, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court to aiding the preparation of a false tax return, a felony that carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 11.

Between 2001 and 2003, business owner William C. Thompson — who ran a mail-order divorce service called Hallwood, Inc. — gave checks totaling $735,441 to Garza for public relations and other services that were supposedly performed by the nonprofit Victory Outreach Church. In fact, the church performed no such work.

IRS investigators later found that neither the church nor its board of directors knew of the scheme.
» Full Story

Monday September 14, 2009
FraudQuackeryScientology:
Scientology A new French law means the Church of Scientology cannot be dissolved in France even if it is convicted of fraud, it has emerged during a trial of the organisation.

A prosecutor has recommended that a Paris court dissolve the church’s French branch, which has been charged with fraud after complaints by former members who say they gave huge sums to the church for spiritual classes and “purification packs.”
» Full Story

Tuesday May 12, 2009
FraudQuackeryScientology:
Scientology A court in Belgium that was to decide whether to prosecute the Church of Scientology as a criminal organization has postponed its decision indefinitely.

Lawyers for the cult filed requests for additional research to be performed.

These requests must first be evaluated on their merit before a decision to prosecute can be made.
» Full Story

Saturday February 28, 2009
Fraud:
Benjamin J. Seigler Benjamin J. Seigler claimed to have earned $40 million as a solo investor. He told clients he had “more gold chains than Mr. T,” bought mansions and owned 10 cars.

But the truth was that Seigler lived in a small apartment, had no income and himself had been swindled by the same scheme he had perpetrated on others – 5,600 others. In a span of just six months, Seigler collected more than $1.4 million.
» Full Story

Monday July 14, 2008
Fraud:
A California pastor and another man were convicted Friday in federal court of bilking more than 500 people out of more than $32 million in a fraudulent investment scheme.
» Full Story

Thursday June 26, 2008
Fraud:
Three religion-related fraud schemes that didn’t have a prayer.
» Full Story

Monday June 16, 2008
Fraud:
Peter Popoff ‘Televangelist’ Peter Popoff’s ministry has reimbursed a Nanaimo woman after she went public with concerns about the fundraising techniques used by the California-based church. Tip: Don’t send him money in the first place. Popoff was exposed years ago for his fraudulent ‘ministry’.
» Full Story

Wednesday June 11, 2008
FraudScientology:
religious insanity Scientologists — and Scientology front groups — have an (understanable) tendency to hide their connections to the cult.

But when they list charlatan and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard as one of five famous human rights leaders they are quickly exposed.
» Full Story

Monday April 7, 2008
Fraud:
During the events, which regularly attracted crowds of over 400 people, a number of associates would “pretend to be possessed by demons” and Fr Bazzoffi would allegedly exorcise them using ancient and obscure rites.
» Full Story

Tuesday March 25, 2008
Fraud:
Churches have become a prime breeding ground for multi-million dollar affinity frauds, in which con artists convince others to invest in scams.
» Full Story

Sunday March 9, 2008
FraudSeventh-day Adventism:
Lindani Mangena, 24, posed as a top City trader to con more than 1,000 Seventh Day Adventists.
» Full Story

Friday January 18, 2008
Fraud:
Time and time again throughout Pritchett’s November trial and Wednesday’s four-hour sentencing hearing, victims said they trusted Pritchett because he was a pastor. Investigators said that by the time Pritchett was arrested in May, his congregation had dwindled to his immediate family.
» Full Story

Saturday January 12, 2008
Fraud:
A jury on Friday found former Colorado Springs pastor Doug Scott guilty of fraud for his role in recommending a hedge fund that left hundreds of investors, many of them churchgoers, with millions of dollars of losses.
» Full Story

Wednesday December 5, 2007
Brent and Stacey FinleyFraud:
Brent Eric Finley — who along with his wife scammed family, friends and neighbors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars with a far-fetched scheme of using the CIA and some of its technology to head off serious medical problems — has been sentenced in federal court to four years and three months in prison.
» Full Story

Tuesday October 30, 2007
FraudPsychics:
Sylvia Browne is famous for telling distraught parents where their missing children are – but she gets it wrong. A lot. So why does she still have such a massive following? Jon Ronson took a cruise with America’s most controversial psychic to find out.
» Full Story

Tuesday September 4, 2007
Fraud:
Celebrity Events International is a company run by Kristin Martin. Authorities and alleged victims say she has spun a web of deceit using God and the Internet to leave countless victims wondering where their money went.
» Full Story

Saturday September 1, 2007
Fraud:
The Rev. John Henry Walker, accused of tax evasion and stealing from his Charlotte congregation, was sentenced Friday to more than five years in prison.
» Full Story

Monday February 12, 2007
Fraud:
Radic pleaded guilty to betraying his flock and selling the tiny town’s oldest house of worship and its rectory out from under them.
» Full Story

Monday January 29, 2007
FraudNigeria:
Nigerian evangelist Ezekiel Uzoechi is charged with swindling a woman by use of a false prophecy.
» Full Story

Monday January 22, 2007
Brent and Stacey FinleyFraud:
She claimed to be a CIA agent who could have satellites scan people’s bodies for disease, then have CIA agents administer secret medicines to them while they slept.
» Full Story

Wednesday January 10, 2007
Fraud:
A former pastor who was arrested after selling his church without telling the congregation will not be sentenced until next month, court officials said.
» Full Story

Thursday September 7, 2006
Fraud:
NEW YORK -- An appeals court said Wednesday it had no reason to find evangelical Christians unusually susceptible to fraud as it ordered a new sentencing for a great-grandmother who received 14 years in prison for duping investors nationwide of nearly $2 million in a religion-laced fraud.
» Full Story

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