This is Religion News Blog's news page on Fraud. See our front page for more religion news.

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]
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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]
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Three religion-related fraud schemes that didn’t have a prayer.
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‘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’.
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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.
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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.
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Churches have become a prime breeding ground for multi-million dollar affinity frauds, in which con artists convince others to invest in scams.
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Lindani Mangena, 24, posed as a top City trader to con more than 1,000 Seventh Day Adventists.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Radic pleaded guilty to betraying his flock and selling the tiny town’s oldest house of worship and its rectory out from under them.
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Nigerian evangelist Ezekiel Uzoechi is charged with swindling a woman by use of a false prophecy.
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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.
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A former pastor who was arrested after selling his church without telling the congregation will not be sentenced until next month, court officials said.
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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.
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1. Religion-based scams take Lord's name in gain
2. Religion-related fraud getting worse
3. Alleged scam connected to British Columbia church
4. Nigerian email conmen fall into their targets' net
5. Wild CIA story scams 22 out of almost $1 million
6. Pastor John Henry Walker Walker, accused of bilking thousands from church, gets more than 5 years
7. BBB warning consumers of new pyramid scheme
8. Sylvia Browne: Is she for real?
9. Pastor secretly sells church
10. Fraudster dubbed 'Modern Moses' in GBP3m church swindle

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