PARIS (RNS) — The Church of Scientology and seven of its members will be tried for fraud and other allegations in a groundbreaking case that could lead to a ban on the church's operations in France, legal sources cited by local media say.
The allegations stem back a decade, and were originally leveled by a woman who claims she paid the church more than $28,000 for lessons, books, drugs and an “electrometer,” which church members claim can be used to measure a person's mental state.
The trial in Paris is the first time the church would be judged on charges of swindling.