Germany: Rinzai Zen temple founder sentenced to seven years nine months for abusing seven boys who came to him through his religious office

Proceedings

1. 2017-07-11 · conviction and sentence

   Landgericht Augsburg (Jugendkammer), Bavaria, Germany. Hans Rudolf Döring, known as Dorin Genpo Osho, who founded the Bodaisan Shoboji Zen temple at Dinkelscherben in 1992 and led it for some twenty years, was convicted by the Augsburg Regional Court of serious sexual abuse of children against seven boys aged four to thirteen, committed between 2001 and 2014, together with production and possession of child pornography (police recovered roughly 2,800 files). He confessed to all counts of the indictment as the trial opened, so the children did not have to testify. He was sentenced to seven years and nine months' imprisonment with accompanying sex-offender therapy, and agreed to pay compensation of between €4,000 and €10,000 to each victim, some €35,000 in total.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• religious standing as the temple's founding priest, which is what brought the families to him
• bereavement ministry sought from him in his capacity as a Zen teacher
• shelter offered to a refugee family through church asylum