Conviction Spiritual healing, divination, and mediumship Mediumship, divination, and fortune-telling Xindian, New Taipei, Taiwan · 2026

Taiwan: shrine master convicted of indecent assault committed under the guise of an exorcism

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

shrine master (宮主) of a folk-religion shrine

Organization

No organization assigned

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The court found expressly that the defendant used his standing as shrine master to make the devotee believe the contact was part of the ritual she had come to him for — the religious authority is what produced her compliance.

Exorcism or deliverance
Spiritual healing or treatment
Other spiritual authority or belief

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2026-07-02 · conviction and sentence

Taiwanese district court, New Taipei. A shrine master surnamed Zeng, who operated the Jingxin-fu shrine, was convicted of indecent assault by abuse of authority after luring a female devotee upstairs on the claim that she was severely possessed and required a private exorcism, then groping her while describing the contact as acupressure. He was sentenced to seven months. The court found he had exploited his status as shrine master so that the victim believed the acts were ritual and endured them.

Documented coercion mechanisms

claim that the devotee was severely possessed and required a private exorcism
assault reframed to the victim as acupressure within the ritual

Cited record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report '假驅邪真猥褻！宮主碰觸女信徒…判刑7月', Liberty Times (Taiwan), 2026.: Taiwanese paper of record reporting the conviction, the sentence, and the court's finding on the exorcism pretext.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/society/breakingnews/5491287 Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-and-sentencing-report. SHA-256 6f38f5c74553aee4a06d68fd67f98a981326bf6e5db1c2805ab1fac2639ad2d5
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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