20:44
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LONDON: A fake guru was sentenced to eight years in jail Tuesday for swindling three generations of an aristocratic French family out of their fortune and their chateau after convincing them they were the targets of a masonic plot.
The judge who handed Thierry Tilly the sentence described him as the perpetrator of a “Machiavellian plot” against Ghislaine de Vedrines and 10 members of her family.
His accomplice Jacques Gonzalez, 65, was sentenced to four years in jail by the court in the south-western city of Bordeaux. Both were also stripped of their civic rights for five years.
The family of Protestant nobles remained under Tilly’s sway from 2000 to 2009, locking themselves away in their home, selling their belongings, including the family chateau, and giving him 4.5 million euros ($5.7 million).
They were dubbed the “recluses of Monflanquin” by the French press because of the sequestered lives they lived for years in their chateau near the medieval village of that name.
The so-called Oxford guru, after the British city where he had his base, claimed descent from Austria’s royal Hapsburg dynasty and said he had been a prisoner of the Freemasons.
Tilly, 48, who used manipulation techniques to convince the family their lives were at risk from an international plot by Freemasons that only he could defeat, was convicted of false imprisonment and psychological abuse.
The presiding judge in Bordeaux said that among the techniques the self-styled guru used were “creation of group paranoia... exploitation of family weaknesses... (and) a constant presence by their side, physical and then by telephone or email”.
French tax authorities eventually seized the chateau when the family stopped paying taxes, after which Tilly took them to Oxford to live.
Tilly was arrested in Switzerland in 2009 following a complaint by a family member who had escaped his clutches in Oxford. Ten of Tilly’s victims attended his trial.
The eleventh, named Guillemette, died two years ago aged 97. Tilly argued during this trial that he had been trying to protect the family.
The judge who handed Thierry Tilly the sentence described him as the perpetrator of a “Machiavellian plot” against Ghislaine de Vedrines and 10 members of her family.
His accomplice Jacques Gonzalez, 65, was sentenced to four years in jail by the court in the south-western city of Bordeaux. Both were also stripped of their civic rights for five years.
The family of Protestant nobles remained under Tilly’s sway from 2000 to 2009, locking themselves away in their home, selling their belongings, including the family chateau, and giving him 4.5 million euros ($5.7 million).
They were dubbed the “recluses of Monflanquin” by the French press because of the sequestered lives they lived for years in their chateau near the medieval village of that name.
The so-called Oxford guru, after the British city where he had his base, claimed descent from Austria’s royal Hapsburg dynasty and said he had been a prisoner of the Freemasons.
Tilly, 48, who used manipulation techniques to convince the family their lives were at risk from an international plot by Freemasons that only he could defeat, was convicted of false imprisonment and psychological abuse.
The presiding judge in Bordeaux said that among the techniques the self-styled guru used were “creation of group paranoia... exploitation of family weaknesses... (and) a constant presence by their side, physical and then by telephone or email”.
French tax authorities eventually seized the chateau when the family stopped paying taxes, after which Tilly took them to Oxford to live.
Tilly was arrested in Switzerland in 2009 following a complaint by a family member who had escaped his clutches in Oxford. Ten of Tilly’s victims attended his trial.
The eleventh, named Guillemette, died two years ago aged 97. Tilly argued during this trial that he had been trying to protect the family.
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