France also appears to be the only country to have convicted the creator of Scientology of a criminal offense. In 1978, Hubbard was found guilty in absentia of swindling and sentenced to four years in prison. The author, who never came to France, died in 1986. Leaders of France's Scientologists indignantly deny the charges against them. They plan to issue a detailed rebuttal.
French officials reject accusations of harassment.
Like some who have left Scientology, they paint an unsavory picture of a globe-girdling organization obsessed with making money that uses blackmail, harassment and smear campaigns to keep former members or opponents in line. According to French officials and former Scientologists, tight control is exercised from the mother church, located on a Hollywood street renamed in 1996 to honor Hubbard, and from a command center at Gilman Hot Springs in California's Riverside County. Every Thursday, we collected the money from all over Europe and sent it to the United States. Barthelemy, the government panel's secretary-general, said former Scientologists have told French authorities that information collected by the church, including potentially embarrassing or compromising data gleaned from questionnaires and interviews with members, is forwarded to the United States. The French report makes particular mention of Scientology's Office of Special Affairs, which it labels a private police.