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“The Bundesrat (Upper House of the German Parliament) has submitted a proposal for the insertion of a paragraph...in the Criminal Code ...Therefore, (CCHR’s) demands (regarding outlawing psychiatric sexual abuse of patients) finds broad support”.
—Dr Edzard Schmidt-Jorzig Federal Minister of Justice, Germany, 1996
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Psychiatric crime and fraud
Bringing justice to an abusive profession
With a strong sense of justice and morality, Scientologists believe it only fair that those who break the law should face criminal prosecution.
But the victims of psychiatric abuse are at a great disadvantage in obtaining justice; stigmatised by psychiatric labels and debilitated by brutal “treatments”, they are often terrified of being returned to a psychiatric hell. Thus many turn to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights—a voice for those unable to speak for themselves.
Hundreds of patients or their families report instances of psychiatric abuse to CCHR chapters each year, many seeking redress. CCHR members help to get their cases documented, complaints filed and remedial actions and prosecution executed by the proper authorities, medical licensing boards and law enforcement agencies.
Greed is, of course, what motivates the fraudulent—a category of criminal that is no stranger to the ranks of psychiatry. Judging by the outcome of the many investigations into the profession by CCHR, the mental health system is riddled with them. This is corroborated by statistics that show psychiatrists, as a profession, are very over-represented in the area of fraud.
In 2000, Mainz, Germany, the state prosecutor issued an order of punishment against psychiatrist Otto Benkert of 11 months in jail, suspended in lieu of probation, a fine of E204,500, and a payment of E818,000 in compensation for defrauding the university where he worked as the Chief of Psychiatry.
On December 1, 1998, police raided three private psychiatric hospitals in Ticino, Switzerland, arresting psychiatrist Renzo Realini (above right), for fraud and falsifying documents. Records showed Realini had been billing patients for “30-hours-per-day” treatment.
In December 2004, criminal proceedings began in Italy against employees of a major pharmaceutical company and several doctors for corruption, charging them with providing gifts and free travel for the doctors’ families in exchange for the exclusive use of their drugs.
It is the same around the world. In Japan, in 1998, the discovery that private psychiatric hospitals were committing widespread fraud and inflating the numbers of doctors and nurses in facilities to obtain more money from the government, led to the conviction and jailing of several psychiatrists.
