Tokyo - Japan's northern Akita District Court on Friday ordered the Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo foot-reading cult and its founder to pay 5.5 million yen (about R395 780) in damages to an Akita woman who claimed she was swindled out of millions of yen in 1994.
The presiding judge, Masaki Sugimoto, said the founder Hogen Fukunaga, 55, pressured the woman in her 50s into paying a total of about 1.3 million yen to have her foot read in June 1994, telling her, "You will have a serious disease in your 60s if you do not pay."
The ruling also said Fukunaga got her to pay 3.3 million yen the following month, telling her, "You are worth being happier," and, "Money will solve your problems."
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The cult founder and three other people are accused of milking a total of 150 million yen from 31 people from 1994 to 1997. The 31 had consulted the cult about illness and other woes.
| 'You are worth being happier' |
Those senior members reportedly warned the alleged victims they would die young or suffer cancer unless they underwent expensive training sessions at the group's headquarters in Shizuoka prefecture, about 200 kilometres southwest of Tokyo.
The cult systematically targeted hospital patients and their families in a scam to sell them expensive alternative treatments.
About 22 000 people reportedly participated in the cult's training sessions. The group was said to have defrauded each person of several million yen by selling them hanging scrolls, ornaments and other goods.
Born Teruyoshi Fukunaga, the cult's founder started preaching in 1980, claiming to be the world's final savior following Jesus and Buddha. He based his claim on what he called a "voice of heaven".
He has claimed the power to read people's past and future by examining the soles of their feet. He resigned as leader of Ho-no-Hana in January after a police investigation.
Fukunaga pleaded not guilty to the allegations at his first hearing on October 12 at the Tokyo District Court.
On October 17, the Tokyo District Court sentenced Michiko Ichinose, the 37-year-old former head of the cult's Urawa branch, near Tokyo, to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, on a charge of swindling about 4 million yen from two women who consulted the cult about illness and child-rearing. -
Sapa-DPA
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