Sotirios Arambatzis has failed in a NSW Supreme Court bid to recover more than $700,000 he invested in a mid–north coast property he hoped would become a “Kindom Motherland” community, after a judge rejected claims the landowners were cult leaders or sovereign citizens.
Arambatzis transferred $784,459.99 to Arthur and Fiona Cristian between August 2017 and October 2022 to fund Ironbark Farm at Temagog, near Kempsey.
He alleged the couple used “undue influence and unconscionable conduct” to compel him to invest while he was in a vulnerable state, and said they led a cult that promoted a church “where members would congregate in the church of nature, and not the church of concrete, plastic and steel.”
Justice Michael Meek rejected those claims, describing some of the evidence as “all over the shop” or “gobbledygook,” and writing that the case “tests the bounds of the notion that ‘truth is Stranger Than Fiction’.”
He found the project amounted to a rural gardening and farming venture intended to allow the participants to avoid regular employment.
While Arambatzis argued the “Kindom” was “illusory”, “intangible and vague and imprecise”, Justice Meek ruled the payments were gifts and dismissed the case.
“Ultimately, I reject Mr Arambatzis’ claims that Fiona and Arthur were cult leaders and Arthur was a Sovereign Citizen, and also reject his claim that the payments made by him were infected by unconscionable conduct for vague and illusory purposes,” he said.
Fiona Cristian denied any cult activity and said the money was given to help create “a community on the land.”
Source: Daily Telegraph.
