Natasha Lakaev has sued author Carli McConkey for libel
The Examiner, New Zealand/September 28, 2024
By Benjamin Seeder
Natasha Lakaev has denied she claimed to followers that she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Photo by Ben Seeder
The founder of a new age organisation has detailed the career damage she said she suffered after the publication of a 2017 book claiming that she was a cult leader that defrauded and abused her followers.
Natasha Lakaev, who now resides in Tasmania, has filed a libel lawsuit against The Cult Effect author and former follower, Carli McConkey, who is representing herself in the Supreme Court case.
Ms Lakaev is seeking damages and an injunction against further publications.
Ms Lakaev founded and managed the Universal Knowledge organisation in NSW from the late 1990s to the mid 2000s.
Taking the witness stand on the first day of the defamation trial in Hobart, she said the organisation offered members self-development courses.
But Ms Lakaev said she was sacked from various positions, despite outstanding performance, following the publication of Ms McConkey's book in 2017.
She said she was suddenly removed from a doctoral program at the University of Leicester in the UK and had seen referrals to her Gold Coast psychology practice "dry up" after 2017.
She moved to Western Australia to take up a position with WA Health.
In a voice crackling with emotion on the witness stand, she said her contract there was not renewed.
"I ended up being shoulder-charged, spat on, locked out of staff meetings, clients that had been progressing extremely well were stripped from me," she said tearfully.
She claimed Ms McConkey had been fixated on her from as early as 1996, when she began writing the new age leader love letters.
She said in one case, she woke up to find Ms McConkey standing over her bed in the middle of the night.
After leaving the organisation, she said Ms McConkey had been contacting Ms Lakaev's workplaces and universities in an attempt to destroy her professional career.
She said she moved to Tasmania in order to escape the "tentacles" of Ms McConkey.
But there, she said a psychologist with Headspace mental health agency found her story on the internet, and sent emails around Tasmania detailing her history.
"He arranged for me to be sacked," Ms Lakaev told the court.
"He then sent out emails across Tasmania to have me blackballed and I couldn't get employment in Tasmania."
Under examination by her own counsel, Daniel Zeeman, Ms Lakaev denied many of the claims made in the book and other media articles reprinted in the book.
She denied that she had claimed to her followers that she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, that she had unlawfully taken money from Ms McConkey and other followers, or that she physically and emotionally abused her members.
Earlier, during her opening statement, Ms McConkey cried as she drew a picture of Ms Lakaev as a pathological liar, a fraud and a bully that abused her close acolytes and left them scarred for life.
'The Cult Effect' author and former Universal Knowledge member Carli McConkey is representing herself in the libel case. Photo by Ben Seeder
Ms McConkey, who joined Ms Lakaev's northern NSW organisation Universal Knowledge in the late 1990s, has claimed she was indoctrinated and ultimately enslaved in the organisation.
She said Ms Lakaev was guilty of a raft of crimes, including modern slavery, violent extremism, terrorism, fraud, serial bullying, sexual violence, physical assault and battery, suffocation, strangulation, and kidnapping.
"Ms Lakaev was in fact the leader of a doomsday cult, one in which she prophesied the end of the world by November 11, 2011," Ms McConkey told the court.
She said Ms Lakaev had claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
"I will prove that the statements I have made are all true and that I have made them in the public's interest to protect society from the plaintiff."
The trial continues on September 29.
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