Romanian guru suspected of running international sex sect handed preliminary charges with 14 others

By ELAINE GANLEY
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — A 71-year-old Romanian yoga guru and 14 others have been handed preliminary charges by a Paris magistrate on a raft of counts linked to an international ring that for years allegedly subjected followers seeking enlightenment to sexual exploitation.  The Paris prosecutor’s office said that six of the 15 people interrogated were ordered held on Friday and nine others freed but under judicial surveillance. Guru Gregorian Bivolaru, whose arrest this week ended a years-long manhunt, was among those charged. The arrests occured in the Paris region with 26 people whom authorities described as sect victims of his tantric yoga school freed.