The Daily Examiner, 3 October 2019, p.8:
Almost $600,000 was clawed back from the charity founded by a Northern Rivers “cult” leader after the Australia Taxation Office found it was not entitled to receive tax deductible gifts.
Universal Medicine founder Serge Benhayon, who a Supreme Court jury found was “the leader of a socially harmful cult”, founded the College of Universal Medicine (CoUM) in August 2011.
Mr Benhayon started his “esoteric healing” business in 1999 after what he claims was an “energetic impress”.
Mr Benhayon sued blogger Esther Rockett for defamation but the jury ruled against him, finding most imputations made against him to be “substantially true”.....
ABC News, 13 September 2019:
A Brisbane multi-millionaire who
donated $300,000 to a charity associated with a group later found in
court to be a "exploitative cult" has said he gave the
money freely as a reward for treating his chronic pain.
But
software business owner Stephen Ninnes got his cash back, after an
Australian Tax Office (ATO) crackdown forced the College of Universal
Medicine (COUM) to relinquish almost $600,000 in donations.
The
COUM promotes the teachings of Universal Medicine's (UM)
multi-millionaire founder Serge Benhayon — a former bankrupt tennis
coach who claims to be Leonardo Da Vinci reincarnated.
Mr
Ninnes said in hindsight, after damning findings by a New South Wales
Supreme Court jury last year in a defamation case brought by Mr
Benhayon, "without any shadow of a doubt, I would have nothing
to do with it".
The
COUM remains a registered charity, despite being stripped of
tax-deductable gift registration by the ATO, which found it was not
operating a "college" for tax purposes…..
In his
failed Supreme Court defamation claim against anti-cult activist
Esther Rockett, Mr Benhayon gave evidence that UM followers had given
$269,525 towards paying the mortgage.
The court
heard UM was a $2 million-a-year business for Mr Benhayon, who had
accumulated other multi-million-dollar properties and paid wages to
his entire extended family.
It heard
Mr Benhayon flies business class for annual retreats in Vietnam and
twice-yearly vacations on a British country estate…..
The
jury found Mr Benhayon was a "charlatan" who "swindles
cancer patients",
was "engaged in a healing fraud that harms people" and was
"sexually manipulative of his cult followers".
It also
found Mr Benhayon had "an indecent interest in girls as young as
10 whom he causes to stay at his house unaccompanied"…..
Documents
filed in the defamation case detail the tax office action against
COUM, which took $581,775 in donations for its "school building
fund" between 2011 and 2015.
But then
an ATO investigation found COUM was "not operating a school"
because the courses it offered, such as "Being a woman in the
world today", did not qualify as "knowledge-based teaching"
for tax purposes.
It noted
that COUM was fundraising to renovate a building to the "potential
capital benefit" of its owner, Mr Benhayon, who would also earn
$80,000 a year in rent.
Although
there was no indication money was misspent, the ATO found most of the
donations to the building fund were not maintained separately to
COUM's money, meaning it could potentially use the cash "for
other purposes" and "the safeguard of public money is
threatened".
In
February 2015, the ATO retrospectively stripped COUM's deductible
gift recipient (DGR) status and COUM returned $563,282 to donors in
October 2015…..
The
Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) continues
to endorse COUM as a registered charity.
An
ACNC spokesman said it could not comment on individual charities but
"all registered charities must remain not-for-profit [and] have
solely charitable purposes".
"The
ACNC takes all concerns seriously and will investigate where there is
evidence that a charity has failed to comply with its obligations,"
he said.
Lismore
MP Janelle Saffin denounced UM in NSW Parliament last month and
called for a judicial inquiry into its "infiltration" of
government departments.
"It
is a cult that has caused the separation of families, is a wealthy
commercial enterprise … and has targeted those who speak out,"
Ms Saffin said.
"Those
who have escaped its clutches, or had their loved ones snared in its
web of commerce and bizarre beliefs, have told me of its practices
and harm."
UM
devotees include medical practitioners, academics, child protection
workers, and a police officer.
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