Conviction New religious movements La Matanza, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina · 2024

Abba Krishna: four convictions for aggravated human trafficking

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

secondary participants in an unrecognized cult, spiritual-guidance facilitators

Organization

Abba Krishna

Spiritual nexus

The cited record identifies promised spiritual advancement, devotional labor, economic control, isolation, relationship approval, and chakra and tantric-sex claims as the material spiritual doctrine, practice, authority, or pretext connected to the documented harm. The relevant authority role is secondary participants in an unrecognized cult and spiritual-guidance facilitators.

Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2024-07-03 · abbreviated judgment and sentence

Federal Oral Criminal Court No. 2 of San Martín, Argentina. The court sentenced Francisco Aurelio Pugliese, Leonardo Abel Gandarinho, Carina Lorena Cardoso and Lisa Beatriz Baissetto to four years in prison as secondary participants in aggravated trafficking involving eight victims, one of whom was under eighteen at the time.

Appellate history

2025-04-29 · undefined

Federal prosecutors and the public victims' defender sought liquidation of forfeited property to fund the court-ordered reparations. The public source reports post-judgment enforcement, not an appellate merits ruling.

Documented coercion mechanisms

promised spiritual advancement
devotional labor
economic control
isolation
relationship approval
chakra and tantric-sex claims

Primary record

Sources

prosecuting authority judgment report Ministerio Público Fiscal de la Nación, 'San Martín: en un juicio abreviado, condenaron a cuatro miembros de una secta a cuatro años de prisión por trata de personas agravada' (July 8, 2024).: Argentina's federal prosecution service records the four convictions, sentences, eight victims, reparations and forfeitures. It describes recruitment through spiritual guidance, promised advancement through service and donations, isolation, economic and relationship control, and sexual conduct presented as a spiritual or chakra-opening path.
prosecuting authority post judgment enforcement Ministerio Público Fiscal de la Nación, 'San Martín: solicitaron la liquidación de los bienes decomisados a cuatro miembros de una secta condenados por trata de personas para reparar a sus víctimas' (Apr. 30, 2025).: The federal prosecution service records the post-judgment request to liquidate forfeited property for reparations and restates the defendants' secondary-participant convictions and the July 3, 2024 judgment.

Contextual record

Background & context

Institutional and pattern-level sources on New religious movements, not specific to this one case.

ABC News (2005) ''Prince' of Former Cult Commits Murder-Suicide', ABC News, January. Available at: abcnews.go.com (Accessed: 15 July 2026).: The documented aftermath of the Children of God's abuse system: Ricky Rodriguez, raised as the movement's 'prince' and heir, 'stabbed his former nanny to death before committing suicide' in January 2005, after videotaping a statement about his childhood: 'How can you do that to kids and sleep at night?' Note: Rodriguez died the same day and was never prosecuted; this entry documents an outcome of the abuse system established in the Ward judgment above, not an adjudication — and his characterizations of individuals are his own claims, not court findings.
Wikipedia (2026) 'Richard Bandler' [summarizing the 1988 Santa Cruz murder trial and acquittal]. Available at: en.wikipedia.org (Accessed: 15 July 2026).: Richard Bandler, co-founder of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, was acquitted — that verdict leads this entry, which documents a trial, not a guilt. 'In 1986, Corine Ann Christensen... a former girlfriend of Bandler's friend and cocaine dealer, James Marino, was shot dead in her Santa Cruz townhouse with a .357 magnum owned by Bandler. Authorities charged Bandler with her murder. Bandler testified that he had been at Christensen's house, but that Marino had shot Christensen. After a short deliberation, a jury found Bandler not guilty.' The trial — and the contemporaneous reporting around it — remains the most extensively documented court event in the history of the human-potential movement's founder generation, and a window into the coercive-influence milieu from which NLP marketing later grew. Bandler was and remains legally innocent of the killing.

Related record

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