In the UK the Inner London Crown Court opened the retrial of Chris Brain, former Church of England priest and leader of Sheffield’s Nine O’Clock Service. In the Czech Republic police charged the head of AllatRa’s Czech branch with inciting hatred against journalists. In France investigators pursued Thierry Casasnovas over a forged doctor’s stamp, and Le Parisien returned to the polygamous Pécourt brothers of Berck-sur-Mer.

In the Netherlands a couple described years inside Shincheonji. On Réunion the Catholic diocese warned against Abouna-Aera.

In Germany a Münster study of spiritual abuse took in the Christusgemeinschaft and the dissolved Totus Tuus. Scotland’s When Prophecy Fails drew a Guardian review.

France Télévisions prepared Féminin sacré on cult drifts in the sacred-feminine wellness market. In Italy la Repubblica opened on “medici guru” after the Pietralata family tragedy.

Beyond Europe: Utah’s suit against the Mormon Stories podcast; Julia Molchanova’s first public account of Epstein’s cult; Argentina’s “sanadores egipcios” trial; Katie Hobbs’s campaign ad tying Andy Biggs to FLDS; and a $24 million Ohio judgment against Dove Outreach.

Chris Brain’s Nine O’Clock Service retrial

In the UK, Chris Brain, 69, went on trial again at Inner London Crown Court on 4 September accused of one count of rape and four counts of indecent assault against four women from the Nine O’Clock Service, the Sheffield evangelical movement he led between 1986 and 1995, the BBC reported. He denies the charges.

Last year a jury convicted him of 17 indecent assaults against nine women and cleared him of 15 further counts. It could not agree on the five counts now being retried.

Prosecutor Tim Clark KC told the jury that the Nine O’Clock Service began as a “groundbreaking” Church of England service with live music and progressive theology, then became a closed group dominated by Brain. Some women were assigned to a “homebase team”, known among members as the “Lycra Nuns”, put on a rota to put him to bed with sexual favours and summoned for sexual massages, the court heard. When Sheffield diocese leaders confronted him over allegations he had abused up to 40 women, he replied, “I thought it was more,” jurors were told.

Clark told the jury:

“This was a cult, in which the young women were reduced to such an emotional reliance on the defendant’s approval that they no longer had the capacity to freely consent to the sexual behaviour involved.”

Brain, of Wilmslow in Cheshire, England, was fast-tracked for ordination in 1991. Large sums were spent on robes once worn by Robert De Niro in the film The Mission, the court heard.

The Service collapsed in 1995 after women went to Church leaders. The retrial was listed last September to last about four weeks.

Casasnovas and a forged doctor’s stamp

In France, investigators are examining whether Thierry Casasnovas, 52, the Catalan raw-food YouTuber nicknamed the “gourou du cru”, used a stamp bearing a doctor’s name to help obtain a loan in 2022. Casasnovas, under formal investigation since 2023 for illegal practice of medicine, abuse of weakness, forgery, misuse of company assets and money laundering, says the stamp belonged to a former employee. Several ex-collaborators told police they knew of the forged stamp.

Detectives are also looking at a state-guaranteed pandemic loan of €450,000 obtained in late 2020. Neither Casasnovas nor his lawyer answered interview requests.

Pascale Duval of Unadfi, the French national association that assists families harmed by cults, said healer-gurus often attack “Big Pharma” while running parallel businesses. Casasnovas has sold training courses and partnerships on juice extractors and trampolines to more than three million subscribers.

Actinidia, his company, posted €1.9 million in turnover in 2019. Around that time he was buying land and property near Taulis in the Pyrénées-Orientales worth an estimated €1 million.

Unadfi’s lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut, who filed a complaint in 2021, said the spending shows the supposedly disinterested posture is not the heart of the case. Casasnovas is the person most reported to Miviludes, the French government mission that watches cults, with more than 700 alerts since 2011.

In videos he has claimed that “diseases do not exist”, that chemotherapy is “massive poison”, and that mammograms likely cause breast cancer. The inquiry notes that between 2019 and 2020 he himself attended numerous conventional medical appointments.

Former associates describe a “different man” behind the cameras: a manipulator hungry for power and money. Alice, a former follower’s wife whose name was changed, said her husband grew hooked on the videos, ate raw, fasted, lost a lot of weight and tried to impose the lifestyle on the family:

« Au début, on se dit qu’il n’y a pas de danger. Il nous faisait des jus. Mais au fur et à mesure, il est devenu plus rigoriste »

She said he quit medicines and refused to vaccinate the children, and that some of Casasnovas’s content was read as encouraging concealment on the children’s health booklets. Investigators have heard that some followers interrupted medical treatment; nothing so far establishes a causal link to later deaths.

Judicial supervision was eased in January after Casasnovas announced a presidential bid, restoring his right to speak on social media, though he remains barred from presenting raw food as a cure. The inquiry opened in 2020 continues.

The Pécourt brothers of Berck-sur-Mer

In France, Joël, Jérôme and Jonathan Pécourt, three brothers from Berck-sur-Mer on the Channel coast in Pas-de-Calais, lived for years in a polygamous clan with cult dynamics. Joël is under investigation for coercing his partner into prostitution, among other charges. Christelle L., his former partner, gave a witness statement on 17 June 2024 after years of silence, after her daughter Annick, 29, had spoken two months earlier in another case.

At the gendarmerie in Marquise she described meeting Joël as a teenager in Berck-sur-Mer and having four daughters and a son with him between 1995 and 2009. From the early 2000s another woman was installed in the family home on rue Sainte-Agathe; Christelle said she was forced to share the household until 2018.

Daily life, she said, included extreme and coerced sex, including threesomes. Refusal brought punches, kicks and humiliation.

One day he tried to push her through a first-floor window with an electrical extension cord around her neck; another day he held a firearm to her temple. She tried at least twice to kill herself with rat poison; he mocked the attempts at family meals.

From about 2015 Joël sold her sexual services online. She said clients came while he watched and sometimes filmed.

In August 2018, after a final encounter inside a van, she fled to a shelter for battered women, leaving behind their then nine-year-old son. A death-threat complaint was dropped; she obtained a divorce in 2020 but stayed silent under family pressure. In a civil-party hearing she said:

« Joël ? C’est un malade. Il est violent, pervers, manipulateur »

Jérôme and Jonathan, the younger brothers, also lived in Pas-de-Calais with several women under one roof, with parental backing. Witnesses cast the mother, Annick, as matriarch: she monitored daughters-in-law’s movements and spending, tended injuries when the sons hit too hard, scolded complainers, and allegedly took a cut of Christelle’s prostitution income.

The household ran more on family benefits than wages. Women were cut off from their birth families; children were pressed for school results. The eldest daughter, now a specialised educator, told gendarmes of a “fonctionnement sectaire” (“cult-like functioning”):

« On nous inculque l’idée de se sacrifier les uns pour les autres, que c’est ça qui nous mettra en sécurité et que ce sont les gens de l’extérieur qui sont une menace »

The structure began to crack in autumn 2022. One of Jonathan’s companions filed a complaint alleging incestuous rapes.

One of Jérôme’s three companions, after twenty years together, reported habitual rape and violence. Both younger brothers were indicted and remanded.

Testimony in Jérôme’s case then reached Joël, who was indicted for rapes of both companions, habitual violence, pimping and violence against a minor under 15, and remanded too. Days later Jonathan, 38, died by hanging in prison.

In June 2026 the Pas-de-Calais criminal court sentenced Jérôme, 45, to twelve years; after denying the charges he dropped an appeal. Joël still contests every allegation.

Counsel for the civil parties, Fabienne Roy-Nansion, said his file adds an aggravated-pimping dimension beyond the brothers’ shared violence. Fresh complaints for rape and sexual assault have been filed against other family members.

Czech police charge AllatRa’s Prague head

In the Czech Republic, police have charged Dušan Valeček, head of AllatRa’s Czech branch, with inciting hatred against journalists, Seznam Zprávy reported on 1 September. The main injured party named in the charging decision is the paper’s own reporter Kristina Ciroková. Ukraine’s security services classify AllatRa as a pro-Russian cult; Freedom Times has covered the movement’s European Parliament seminar and Slovakia reporting on founder Igor Danilov (30 August weekly; 22 June weekly).

About two years ago Valeček posted YouTube videos claiming journalists, including Ciroková, “programme people to violence” with Nazi-style remote mind control, and that media bore blame for the assassination attempt on Slovak prime minister Robert Fico. Commissioner Pavel Šimůnek’s charging order, which Seznam reviewed, said the videos showed conspiracy, disinformation and manipulation capable of stirring hatred and fear of journalists. Media scholars at Charles University, cited in the order, said the clips mobilised anger and painted journalists as “morally defective” and potentially as targets.

Valeček later deleted the videos. Copies remain elsewhere.

He submitted a written defence that police called purposeful and legally irrelevant. He did not comment to Seznam.

In Slovakia a parallel prosecution track against cult researchers, including Ciroková, echoes AllatRa narratives, Aktuality.sk reported. Valeček faces a possible sentence of six months to three years if convicted.

Shincheonji survivors in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, Marko and Anastazya Bajić told Reformatorisch Dagblad how a friendly couple’s Bible study drew them into Shincheonji, the South Korean church founded in 1984 by Lee Man-hee, without hearing that name for months. Instructors fronted the work as the Zion Christian Mission Center.

Marko, a TikTok influencer who had been agnostic, described a conversion experience on a flight from China in 2019. By year’s end the couple were in deep study. Freedom Times noted Lee’s Seoul arrest in the 28 June weekly.

They cut family ties, skipped a best friend’s stag party for an exam that was sold as entry to God’s kingdom, and were told other churches were “Babylon churches” of demons. Recruitment pressure included street evangelism and social apps, even Tinder. Anastazya said:

„Soms stond ik huilend onder de douche”

Marko said his mother warned he was in a cult, which instructors treated as proof they were the true church under persecution. Doubt grew over Lee claiming multiple biblical titles at once and over deception as policy.

The couple later spoke publicly about recovery, including in a podcast. They left after about two years.

Rose McGowan and the Children of God

In Poland, WP Kobieta marked Rose McGowan’s 53rd birthday on 5 September with a feature on her childhood in the Children of God, later The Family, the high-control Christian cult notorious for sexual exploitation of women and children. McGowan, born in Florence to a writer mother and an Irish emigrant father, has told The Irish Times that women in the group “served men sexually,” and that her father extracted the family when the movement began promoting sex with minors.

She has described an adult cutting a wart from her thumb with a razor in a corridor, and hiding in a stone house while a man tried to smash the door with a hammer as they fled.

La Réunion diocese warns on Abouna-Aera

On Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, Bishop Pascal Chane-Teng warned Catholics on 4 September against “dérapages” linked to the church Abouna-Aera (also styled AREA), the group Yeshua, and Jean-Pierre Grondin. The bishop said the “Jésus est Roi” (“Jesus is King”) rally planned for 5 September at the Grands Kiosques on the Plaine des Cafres was not a diocesan event, and urged the faithful not to answer invitations from those groups circulating on social media.

A 2018 public warning by then bishop Gilbert Aubry against Grondin’s “manipulations” remains posted in churches. Aubry wrote:

« Je fais une mise en garde publique et solennelle contre les manipulations de Jean-Pierre Grondin, originaire de Saint-Joseph. J’attire l’attention des catholiques qui seraient “avec Jean-Pierre Grondin” : Il faut faire un choix clair. Ou bien vous êtes dans une secte, ou bien vous êtes dans l’Eglise catholique avec la fidélité à la grâce de votre baptême »

Chane-Teng repeated that choice and told Catholics in doubt to contact their parish or diocesan services. Grondin’s Abouna association has existed since about 2010 and now counts roughly 400 followers; its YouTube channel has nearly 3,000 subscribers.

He presents himself as an evangelical pastor of a registered religious association, denies leading a cult, and says he takes no money from anyone. “If we were a cult, the justice system would have taken an interest in us long ago,” he told Imaz Press, calling Catholic attacks an attempt to dirty a man who had left that church.

The mayor of Le Tampon refused municipal facilities for the 5 September rally on laïcité and neutrality grounds and asked the organiser to cancel. Grondin confirmed the cancellation and said about 500 people had been expected.

He added that he left the Catholic Church because he no longer recognised himself there and had hoped to be accepted as he is. It was the first time a town hall had cancelled one of his events; he had been in La Possession the previous Saturday and still planned a gospel concert in Trois-Bassins on 19 September.

Italy’s “medici guru” and the Pietralata family

In Italy, la Repubblica on 6 September published Corrado Zunino’s piece “Beveroni anti-cancro, terapie con le tisane e diete miracolose: i disastri dei medici guru” (“Anti-cancer potions, herbal therapies and miracle diets: the disasters of the guru doctors”). It opens on Valentina Pambianco and Luca Abbasciano of Rome’s Pietralata district, who on 31 August killed their five-year-old daughter Bianca, born premature with cerebral palsy. The couple had made three trips to Monterrey, Mexico, spending at least €300,000 on an experimental Cytotron treatment from Dr Roberto Trujillo that uses radiofrequencies and electromagnetic fields.

The device traces to work by Bangalore researcher Rajah Vijay Kumar. Promotional material cites a US Food and Drug Administration “innovative device” label for some cancers; that is not commercial approval, least of all for disability, and phase-three trials are lacking. Oncologists and international health bodies, the paper reported, say there are no miracle machines that reprogram diseased cells with magnetic fields.

Zunino then surveys other Italian alternative-cure cases. Adriano Panzironi, a journalist-entrepreneur rather than a doctor, was sentenced in May 2025 to two years and eight months for illegally practising medicine over his “Life 120” longevity diet and supplements.

Rita Benini and her husband were convicted of manslaughter after their daughter Eleonora died of leukaemia at 18 without chemotherapy; Benini followed the Hamer Method of German doctor Ryke Geerd Hamer, later struck off in his own country. Catania surgeon Salvo Di Grazia calls that method a death sentence: it tells patients they have no tumour, only unresolved trauma. The piece also names struck-off or prosecuted practitioners who pushed bicarbonate, kitchen-table mole removal with herbal teas, or plant distillates against cancer.

Spiritual abuse study in Münster

In Germany, the church portal Aussicht flagged a University of Münster study of geistlicher Missbrauch (spiritual abuse) for public presentation on 25 September 2026 at 16:30 in Hörsaal S10 at Schloss Münster. The project examines how spiritual abuse is defined in the church and the roles of two groups from the dioceses of Osnabrück and Münster: the “Christusgemeinschaft” and the now-dissolved “Totus Tuus.”

Kirche-und-Leben reported in April that Judith Könemann leads work based on about 120 interviews, with the public invited to the presentation. The university project page says the study runs to the end of 2026. The Diocese of Osnabrück says a hotline and independent contact persons are planned after publication.

When Prophecy Fails at Edinburgh

In Scotland, The Guardian on 30 August reviewed Groupwork’s physical-theatre piece When Prophecy Fails at the Studio Theatre during the Edinburgh International Festival. Freedom Times covered the same run from The Scotsman in the 30 August weekly. The stage work takes its title from the 1956 social-psychology study by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter.

That book follows a Midwest group later called the Seekers, led by Dorothy Martin, whom the authors named Marian Keech. They expected a flood on 21 December 1954 and rescue by spacemen from Clarion.

When the flood failed, many members doubled down. Festinger later called the pattern cognitive dissonance.

On stage, Amy Kennedy plays Keech. Much of the narrative runs in academic voiceover and believer quotes while Vicki Manderson’s choreography supplies the texture. The festival run was 27–30 August.

Féminin sacré on france.tv

In France, France Télévisions will publish Féminin sacré. Enquête sur des dérives sectaires (“Sacred feminine: inquiry into cult drifts”), a 46-minute Slash enquêtes documentary, on Wednesday 9 September on the Slash enquêtes YouTube channel and on france.tv. Journalist Astrig Agopian, with director Nadège Justiniani for Urbania Productions, follows the “féminin sacré” (“sacred feminine”) wellness market that grew on social media after medical systems left menstrual and other pain unanswered.

Agopian, a war-zone reporter, turned to those feeds after intense period pain left contraceptives and other drugs useless and doctors without a diagnosis. She found influencers claiming magical healing powers and preaching that every woman holds a sacred divine force in the uterus that must be freed, that life should track menstrual cycles and the moon, and that true femininity means reconnecting body, cycle and spirit.

Women are reduced to reproductive organs and hormones. Under Justiniani’s camera she joined women-only retreats where participants shared grief and rubbed cacao on one another’s bodies.

That circle offered emotional support rather than a substitute for medicine. Harder ground lay beyond.

Allésia, 28, spent seven years away from prescribed anxiety treatment after entering the milieu. Others paid between €1,500 and €5,000 for spiritual trainings; no retreat or course is free.

In a Jura village a shaman named Colette told Agopian that ancestral trauma from the Armenian genocide explained her menstrual suffering and that a family constellation would unlock it. Group members circled the journalist to “feel” her ancestors’ lives; one adept closed her eyes and channelled a dead relative: “I was raped and placed in a convent.” Agopian was then declared cured. The film shows how easily despair and medical wandering open the door to psychological hold behind sisterhood language.

Unchosen climbs Netflix search charts

In the UK and on global Netflix, Julie Gearey’s six-part cult thriller Unchosen was again among the platform’s most-searched titles in early September, more than four months after its 21 April debut. FlixPatrol engagement tallies put lifetime views at about 28.4 million. The series opened at No. 1 worldwide English TV with 10.4 million views in its first week.

Molly Windsor plays Rosie inside the fictional Fellowship of the Divine, opposite Asa Butterfield and Fra Fee, with Christopher Eccleston among the cast. In that invented church, technology is banned, women must submit to husbands, and outsiders are “unchosen.”

The Sunday Times said the series draws on the Plymouth Brethren and other ultra-conservative groups. Gearey told Netflix Tudum she spoke to former cult members and that more than 2,000 cults exist in the UK, some closed, many in plain sight.

Polish psychologists on conspiracy and hatred

In Poland, Marta Marchlewska and Dominika Adamczyk of the Institute of Psychology at the Polish Academy of Sciences told Science in Poland / Nauka w Polsce that spreading conspiracy theories is among the most effective ways to build inter-group hatred. Their discussion, tied to a Psychological Inquiry publication, was issued in English and Polish around early September.

Marchlewska said conspiracy stories offer false predictability by blaming a secret powerful group for harm to “us.” Adamczyk pointed to Great Replacement theory, which claims indigenous Europeans are being replaced by migrants, refugees, people of colour and Muslims, as a frame that can harden hostility in the Polish context too.

Beyond Europe

Outside Europe and the UK:

LDS trademark suit against Mormon Stories

In the United States, Intellectual Reserve Inc., the intellectual-property arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is suing podcaster John Dehlin and the Open Stories Foundation in the District of Utah over alleged trademark and copyright infringement around the Mormon Stories podcast branding. The complaint was filed in April 2026 after mediation failed (Intellectual Reserve Inc. v. Open Stories Foundation, 2:26-cv-00321).

On 20 August the church filed opposition papers arguing the case is about consumer confusion from similar logos and photographs, not about silencing criticism or owning the word “Mormon.” Dehlin, excommunicated in 2015, has conceded use of some church photographs and similar marks while denying confusing affiliation. Mormon Stories’ motion to dismiss is pending.

The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation filed August amicus briefs supporting dismissal. The church framed the case as the “cardinal sin” of consumer confusion.

Return to the Land in Arkansas

In the United States, tagesschau on 2 September reported from Arkansas on Return to the Land, a settlement of about 40 people in the Ozarks near Ravenden that admits only whites of European heritage and excludes Black people, Jews and gay people. Co-founder Eric Orwoll told ARD the aim is preserving European heritage; applicants face online vetting and interviews. Expansion talk points to Tennessee, West Virginia and Idaho.

A federal Fair Housing Act suit by Michelle Walker, who has Jewish ancestry, a Black husband and biracial children, challenges the admissions rule. The NAACP is involved.

Orwoll cites private-property association and is represented by a Jewish lawyer. Pennsylvania Democrats have pushed legislation to hinder similar settlements. Neighbour Teresa Galloway called Orwoll a Nazi seeking an “Aryan nation.”

Epstein survivor Julia Molchanova

In the United States, Julia Molchanova, 37, gave her first public account to the Wall Street Journal’s Khadeeja Safdar, published 5 September, describing years inside what she called Jeffrey Epstein’s cult and her exit. She was the lead Jane Doe in a class action against Bank of America.

A federal judge recently approved a $72.5 million settlement for dozens of Epstein victims. She has started a fashion brand and plans to advocate for crime victims.

She was 22, living in Russia and speaking little English, when Epstein approached her near Barneys on Madison Avenue in December 2011, commented on her blue eyes and steered her toward his townhouse as if pointing out a landmark. Through a young Russian translator he invited breakfast, asked what she dreamed of doing, and offered to help her enrol at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York when she said fashion design.

Back in Russia he paid for sewing classes. In January 2012 he brought her to New York, showed her the Fashion Institute of Technology campus and put her in an apartment he controlled.

There he sexually abused her for the first time; when she objected he said sexual openness was part of American culture. The next month in Paris, after an abusive fight with her boyfriend, she texted Epstein, who was also in the city; he got her away and onto a flight home to Russia. That, she said, closed the trap.

She later moved to New York. No Fashion Institute of Technology place materialised.

Epstein cast her as an “assistant” with no real work, demanded constant thanks and cheer, coerced sex, and pressed women to recruit others. Because she brought no one, his anger grew; on a few occasions he sent her to isolate for days in a room in his house.

He controlled her spending (often under $3,000 a month), clothes, hair length, doctors and company. Documents show he arranged for her and another woman to marry around 2013.

In 2014 his lawyer Darren Indyke helped form JSC Interiors under her name, presented as her design firm; she ran errands such as arranging flowers while he moved money through the company’s account without her knowledge. He dictated messages when she dated and demanded full reports.

A Next Management interview arranged via Faith Kates ended with Epstein emailing “i am angry” after she declined desk work. Internships arranged by his friends, including a 2016 stretch with publicist Peggy Siegal, left her stranded by limited English.

As her weight fluctuated he called her fat. At her lowest she thought of suicide; he barred a therapist.

A 2016 tabloid ran photos of her with him. In 2017 his lawyer handled her divorce paperwork.

A serious boyfriend she hoped might free her eventually left, never told of the abuse. In early 2019 a friend mapped an exit.

A credit-monitoring app showed cards and spending she did not recognise, including later a nearly $40,000 furniture order found in Justice Department files. She emailed the bookkeeper and accountant Richard Kahn seeking removal from cards and JSC Interiors.

On 4 April 2019 she messaged Epstein that she felt “uncomfortable to discuss future,” knew nothing of the entity in her name, and wanted “my normal life.” He invited her to Palm Beach; she refused, fearing she would end up “on the bottom of his pool.” Lesley Groff and another woman in his orbit kept calling. She did not go back.

Long before, she had coded him “mishka” (“little bear”), from a Russian song about a criminal bear; in June 2019 she painted the bear arrested and decapitated. Epstein was arrested on 6 July and found dead weeks later.

She told the Journal:

“He was a very manipulative man. It was an illusion that you have something. In reality, I had nothing, and it was only beneficial for him.”

And:

“It was like a cult.”

Attorney Brad Edwards, who represented her and other victims in the bank suit, said she chose to stand up for herself and for women whose names the world may never know. Bank of America said it did not facilitate sex trafficking and that the settlement provides further closure.

Counsel for Indyke and Kahn said she appeared to be an assistant through a design LLC and never told them she was trafficked; both men have told Congress they did not know of Epstein’s crimes. Next Management said it had no relationship with Epstein; Kates’s personal ties were unknown to its executives. Lawyers for Groff said she did administrative work and had no knowledge of the crimes.

Trial of Argentina’s “sanadores egipcios”

In Argentina, oral trial began in Córdoba’s federal courts against Álvaro Juan Aparicio Díaz, who called himself Sahú Ari Merek (also rendered Ahú Sari Merek), and Carolina Laura Cannes (“Maestra Zaturrá”), leaders of the “sanadores egipcios” group based at Pozos Azules in San Lorenzo, Traslasierra, MDZ, La Nación and La Voz reported. Charges include trafficking for servitude, labour exploitation and sexual offences against about 11 victims, covering 2014–2021 activity under the Fundación Académica Sêshen.

Aparicio Díaz denies the case and calls it fabricated. A victim who testified said she was drawn in as a student after a fake cancer diagnosis, that miracle stories were manufactured, and that workers barely slept or ate.

Cadena Láser reported fake diagnoses, a split between “blood family” and “cosmic family,” and unpaid farm and construction labour. The defendants appeared free at trial after earlier detention.

Katie Hobbs ad on Andy Biggs and FLDS

In the United States, Arizona governor Katie Hobbs’s re-election campaign on 1 September released “Crimes,” an ad accusing Republican rival Andy Biggs of protecting a “pedophile cult” around Warren Jeffs’s FLDS network in Colorado City while Biggs was state Senate president, the campaign said. The spot quotes a Republican colleague that women and children “suffered three years longer” because reforms were blocked, and uses Biggs’s line that he “knew what was going on.”

azfamily reported dueling ads the same day. Biggs’s camp says police groups opposed the Ugenti-Rita bill and that it never reached a floor vote, and counter-attacks Hobbs vetoes.

A precursor Hobbs video, “Red Line,” covered the same Colorado City peg in late August. The Democratic Governors Association amplified a Biggs “I knew what was going on” clip.

Anthia Gillick pitches The Taste

In the United States, cult survivor, actor and filmmaker Anthia Gillick, in a 3 September EIN Presswire release carried by the National Law Review, argued that cults are not “uniquely American” and pitched her limited series The Taste, drawn from surviving and testifying against OneTaste, the San Francisco orgasm-wellness company whose leaders Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz were convicted in 2025.

Dove Outreach ordered to pay $24 million

In the United States, a federal court in Ohio on about 2 September ordered the now-defunct Dove Outreach cult of Waverly to pay roughly $24 million to the woman formerly known as Serah Bellar, the Athens Independent and Logan Daily News reported. Her 2022 suit said the group’s teachings contributed to physical and sexual abuse by brothers in childhood, and that uncle-minister James Bellar preached that siblings should procreate.

Damages cited in Logan Daily coverage total about $24.1 million across civil conspiracy, state and federal RICO triples, sex-trafficking claims and $3 million punitive damages, after default when the group failed to retain counsel. The group’s charter was cancelled in 2024 and James Bellar’s bankruptcy closed in early 2026. Athens Independent reported the March default on conspiracy, trafficking and RICO claims.

Source citations

BBC (UK): “Chris Brain trial: 'cult' priest sexually abused women, court told”, 4 Sep 2026.

LBC (UK): “Priest who led ‘cult’ used to sexually abuse young women called”, 4 Sep 2026.

BBC (UK): “Ex-priest Chris Brain found guilty of 17 indecent assaults”, 20 Aug 2025.

BBC (UK): “Former priest Chris Brain faces retrial on sex assault charges”, 4 Sep 2025.

The Star (UK): “Priest ran ‘cult’ where he sexually abused young women, court told”, 4 Sep 2026.

ITV News (UK): “Priest ran 'cult' forcing women to carry out sexual favours, court hears”, 4 Sep 2026.

Yahoo News / Yahoo News AU: “'Cult' priest sexually abused women, court told”, 4 Sep 2026.

Knutsford Guardian (UK): “Ex-priest trial second time allegations sexual abuse”, ~4 Sep 2026.

Le Parisien (France): “Faux tampon, soupçons de détournement : le « gourou du cru » Thierry Casasnovas rattrapé par de nouvelles affaires”, 3 Sep 2026. Paywall free: archive.ph/WIU6P.

Le Parisien (France): “Un fonctionnement sectaire : les affaires Pécourt, la sombre saga des trois frères polygames de Berck-sur-Mer”, 5 Sep 2026. Paywall free: archive.ph/kjUqf.

BFMTV (France): “Viols et violences sur fond de polygamie dans le Pas-de-Calais: l’accusé condamné à 12 ans de prison”, 11 Jun 2026.

France24 / AFP (France): “Viols et violences sur fond de polygamie dans le Pas-de-Calais”, 11 Jun 2026.

actu.fr (France): “Viols et violences sur fond de polygamie dans le Pas-de-Calais : 12 ans de réclusion criminelle pour l'accusé”, 12 Jun 2026.

20 Minutes (France): “Pas-de-Calais : « Harem », caméras partout… Un quadragénaire jugé pour viols et violences sur fond de polygamie”, 8 Jun 2026.

Seznam Zprávy (Czech Republic): “Policie obvinila šéfa české pobočky hnutí AllatRa za podněcování k nenávisti”, 1 Sep 2026.

Aktuality.sk (Slovakia): “Sektárska kauza v Česku má aj slovenskú stopu”, Sep 2026.

Reformatorisch Dagblad (Netherlands): “Marko en Anastazya Bajić kwamen in de greep van een Koreaanse sekte”, 3 Sep 2026.

LINDA.nl (Netherlands): “Geloofsbeweging Shincheonji”.

WP Kobieta (Poland): “Dorastała w sekcie. «Kobiety służyły mężczyznom seksualnie»”, 5 Sep 2026.

Franceinfo La 1ère (France / Réunion): “Le Diocèse de La Réunion met en garde contre les «dérapages» de certains groupes”, 4 Sep 2026.

Imaz Press Réunion (France): “Monseigneur Pascal Chane-Teng met en garde contre l’église Abouna”, ~4–5 Sep 2026.

la Repubblica (Italy): “Beveroni anti-cancro, terapie con le tisane e diete miracolose: i disastri dei medici guru”, 6 Sep 2026.

Corriere Roma (Italy): “Strage Roma Pietralata / clinica Messico”, 1 Sep 2026.

Open (Italy): “Luca Abbasciano Valentina Pambianco Bianca”, 3 Sep 2026.

Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy): “Cytotron trattamento sperimentale”, 3 Sep 2026.

Aussicht (Germany): “Schwerpunkt geistlicher Missbrauch”, 4 Sep 2026.

Kirche-und-Leben (Germany): “Geistlicher Missbrauch Studie Münster”, 15 Apr 2026.

The Guardian (UK): “When Prophecy Fails review – gripping dive into a doomsday cult”, 30 Aug 2026.

The Herald (UK): “Festival review: Prophecy Fails”.

france.tv pro (France): “Féminin sacré”, airs 9 Sep 2026.

L’Humanité (France): “Féminin sacré, enquête sur des dérives sectaires”, 3 Sep 2026. Paywall free: archive.ph/nHJSx.

CBR (US): “Netflix's 6-Part Cult Thriller With 28.M Views Returns”, 1 Sep 2026.

Netflix Tudum: “The Unchosen Cast Takes You Inside the Cult Drama”, 29 Apr 2026.

Variety (US): “Unchosen ratings Netflix views”, 28 Apr 2026.

Science in Poland (Poland): “Spreading conspiracy theories ‘builds inter-group hatred’”, 3 Sep 2026.

Nauka w Polsce (Poland): “Psycholożka: szerzenie teorii spiskowych skutecznie buduje nienawiść międzygrupową”, Aug/Sep 2026.

Deseret News (US): “Church says trademark lawsuit is about eliminating confusion caused by podcaster”, 20 Aug 2026.

Deseret News (US): “Church of Jesus Christ sues podcaster over confusion”, 19 Apr 2026.

Mormon Stories (US): “The LDS Church Lawsuit Against Mormon Stories”, updated 29 Aug 2026.

Law News (UK): “The Latter-Day Saints Trademark Infringement Lawsuit Could Backfire”, 1 Sep 2026.

KSL (US): “Lawsuit against podcast is about trademark confusion”, 20 Aug 2026.

tagesschau (Germany): “Return to the Land in den USA: Eine Gemeinschaft nur für Weiße”, 2 Sep 2026.

CNN (US): “Arkansas Return to the Land discrimination lawsuit”, 20 May 2026.

Wall Street Journal (US): “How One Woman Was Caught in Epstein’s ‘Cult’—and Escaped” (Khadeeja Safdar), 5 Sep 2026. Paywall free: reddit.com/r/Epstein/….

Newser (US): “Epstein survivor exposes cultish control money scheme”, 6 Sep 2026.

MDZ Online (Argentina): “Comenzó el juicio contra los «sanadores egipcios»”, 3 Sep 2026.

La Nación (Argentina): “Comenzó el juicio contra los sanadores egipcios de Traslasierra”, 3 Sep 2026.

La Voz (Argentina): “Sanadores egipcios: crudos testimonios”.

Katie Hobbs campaign (US): “«Crimes»: New Ad Details Andy Biggs’ Record of Protecting a Pedophile Cult”, 1 Sep 2026.

azfamily (US): “Hobbs, Biggs both accuse each other of protecting pedophiles”, 1 Sep 2026.

National Law Review / EIN (US): “Anthia Gillick Discusses the Dangerous Truth About Cults”, 3 Sep 2026.

Athens Independent (US): “‘Cult-like’ church ordered to pay $24M in Serah Bellar case”, 2 Sep 2026.

Logan Daily News (US): “Court grants former Athens County sex abuse victim over $24 million”, 3 Sep 2026.