L Ron Hubbard's CONVICTION IN FRANCE

BY NOW, most people have learned that France has decided to prosecute scientology’s French organization, along with seven of its top managers, on fraud and drugs charges.

Long before France pressed these latest fraud charges against Scientology, however, church officials were successfully convicted of fraud in Lyon in 1997, and again in Marseille in 1999.

More importantly, L Ron Hubbard, the cult’s founder, was convicted of fraud in that country in 1978 and sentenced to four years in prison. However, he never served his prison sentence despite pleading guilty.

After a seven-year public inquiry and a lengthy trial, the Paris tribunal found four top scientologists, including Hubbard, guilty of making fraudulent claims that physical cures and professional success could be achieved through scientology.

Hubbard, who did not attend the trial, because he had already fled the country, was sentenced to four years imprisonment in his absence.
The judge concluded that the facts and statements made by the witnesses were ’ample proof’ of the veracity of the charge that scientology made false promises “with the sole aim of increasing financial revenue”.
Scientology also declared that psychotherapy and other medical treatments were being dispensed by members with no medical qualifications.
They also claimed that Scientology was capable of curing 70 per cent of human illnesses, including radiation burns and poisoning from atomic bomb testing.
Hubbard never served his prison sentence because he was essentially on the run from the law, sailing in the Caribbean on his yacht Apollo, trying to avoid not only French authorities but the US authorities as well.
In 1978, the US federal government was preparing for the trial of Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue and numerous other scientology officials, on conspiracy and burglary charges.
Hubbard, along with scientology lawyer Kendrick Moxon, was named as ’unindicted co-conspirator’ in that case. This means the federal prosecutors were sure they were involved, but couldn’t quite generate the evidence for a certain conviction.
Sue and the others ended up serving several years in federal prison. In addition, the internal revenue service had evidence that Hubbard was creaming hundreds of millions of dollars ’off the top’ of scientology profits and hiding it in overseas banks.
Hubbard never returned to France and was additionally banned from the United Kingdom because he would not discuss his conviction with British authorities. Hubbard died in 1986 on his secluded California ranch.
Presumably his thetan is discovering the great mysteries of the Universe and having breakfast with God.