repost: Widow Paid Church $400,000 to End Husband's `Suffering in Hell'

[Tilman Hausherr]

Widow Paid Church $400,000 to End Husband's `Suffering in Hell'

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 4 1996
The Washington Post

TOKYO -- Atsuko Nakajima was about 40 when her husband died of heart disease
in February 1988, leaving her with a young daughter to raise. During her
grieving, a neighbor stopped by to offer her condolences.

According to her lawyers and court documents, this is what followed:

The neighbor was a member of the Unification Church, but did not mention
that at the time. She suggested going to an art show to take Nakajima's mind
off her tragedy. At the show, she persuaded the widow to pay about $2,200
for a painting. It later turned out the painting was purchased from a
company owned by Unification Church members.

Two months later, the church member told Nakajima that a "very famous
teacher" would be speaking nearby and invited her to come hear him. When the
widow met the teacher, he began crying and trembling. "Your husband is
descending. I can see your husband's body suffering in hell. I cannot stop
myself from shaking. Your husband is saying he wants you to donate" $50,000.

When Nakajima resisted, the teacher told her, "If you delay your answer,
your husband's body suffering in hell will appear to you in your dreams. You
had better decide soon." Nakajima paid the money.

Several weeks later, the church member and other church members told her
that her husband was still suffering in hell. They persuaded her to help him
by purchasing a small holy statue and two pairs of prayer beads for about
$70,000. She bought a set of signature stamps, commonly used in Japan
instead of a handwritten signature, for another $2,000.

She had turned over a total of about $124,200.

In June 1988, four months after her husband died, Nakajima went with several
church members to an apartment, where she met a man who appeared to be
praying. He told her: "Your husband is suffering in hell. Your husband
desires [about $500,000]. But your husband says that at the least he wants
you to donate [about $300,000]."

Nakajima replied that if she paid that much, it would drain the remainder of
her husband's life insurance payment. She said she needed the money to send
her daughter to college. She was told that her husband died because of bad
karma from his ancestors and that if she did not donate, her daughter's life
would be shortened by the same bad karma.

Fearing that the church members would never leave her alone, Nakajima
relented. She turned over the cash to a church member who told her the money
would be used in a Unification Church project to build a tunnel between
Japan and South Korea. At a party at a Unification Church to celebrate her
donation, she received a photograph of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife.

In 1989, Nakajima hired lawyers to sue the Unification Church. In
settlements reached with several church members and church-related companies
in 1991, she recovered the initial $124,200 she had donated.

In May 1994, a district court in Fukuoka prefecture ordered the church to
pay back Nakajima's $300,000 donation, calling the church's actions
"socially unacceptable." The church appealed, arguing that the widow had
donated of her own free will and that, even if she had not, the church could
not be held responsible for the actions of individual followers.

In February, an appellate court upheld the lower court ruling. It said the
church members were essentially employees of the church and that the church
was liable for their actions. The church has appealed.

Masuo Oe, chief spokesman for the Unification Church in Japan, said the
church was prepared to give the woman her money back. But he said the church
contested the case because it believed the court was wrong to hold the
church responsible for the actions of individual members who might have
applied excessive pressure.

Oe said the pressure put on the woman to donate was not as malicious as she
had described it in her testimony. "However," he said, "I heard she was
deprived of almost all her assets, so I think that was excessive."

Oe said he believes Nakajima donated the money freely, then changed her mind
and was encouraged to file her suit by lawyers with an anti-Unification
Church agenda.

--- Tilman Hausherr [KoX, SP4]
til...@berlin.snafu.de http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/

"So from this time of peak every people or every organization
that goes against the Unification Church will gradually come down
or drastically come down and die."
(Convicted felon Moon in Master Speaks 2/14/74)