16 Canadians moved to Florida in 2022 on instruction of cult leader Liana Shanti. After years of legal battle, 3 get $56 million in defamation case

Liana Shanti has denied the allegations and said she would appeal against the court order.

Three Canadians from Saskatchewan have been awarded more than C$56 million in damages after a Hawaii jury found that an online spiritual teacher had defamed them through an alleged campaign of online harassment, accusing them of child abuse, supporting paedophiles and practising black magic. The jury ordered Liane Wilson, who operates online under the name Liana Shanti, to pay Paula Haygarth and Byron and Stefanie Horvath US$40.1 million (more than C$56 million). The award is among the largest civil damages verdicts in Hawaii's history. The verdict followed a four-year legal battle that began after Shanti sued the Canadians, accusing them of defaming her through online posts that described her as a fraudster and cult leader who broke up families. The three Canadians filed counterclaims, alleging that Shanti had targeted them with an online hate campaign. An eight-member jury in Honolulu rejected Shanti's allegations and found that she had defamed the three Canadians.

What is the cult controversy?

The three Canadians were not members of Shanti's online community. However, they became targets of her online attacks because of their connections to former followers. Paula Haygarth, one of the people awarded damages, was the stepmother of Amanda Brady, a former Shanti follower from Regina who had been part of her online community for eight years. Brady told CTV News that Shanti had systematically turned her and her daughters against Haygarth. "She would message me and say, 'Oh, your energy came into my awareness today. And so I looked at it, and Paula's doing witchcraft on your family. You're in danger. You need to book a session with me,'" Brady recalled. Brady said she spent tens of thousands of dollars on Shanti's sessions and courses, partly because the latter presented herself as a psychic. Former students told CTV's investigative programme W5 that they had approached Shanti for advice on personal matters, including marriages, children and careers. UK-based cult expert Kacey Baker, who has interviewed around 30 people affected by Shanti, said former followers described an environment in which people became dependent on the online spiritual teacher through coercion and control. Baker alleged that personal information shared by students in confidence was sometimes used as material for smear campaigns or intimidation when they decided to leave the community or challenge Shanti.

'Canada becoming dangerous'

During the Covid pandemic, Shanti reportedly warned her Canadian followers that the country was becoming dangerous and that they should leave to protect their children. Around two dozen Canadians eventually moved to Florida, which Shanti had promoted as a safe haven. Almost all of them later left the community and returned to Canada. Shanti then attacked former followers and their family members online, calling them demonic, Satanic and child abusers, according to the CTV investigation. Brady described the experience of seeing private information about her life made public. "I shared my whole life with this woman. Everything. She knows everything and all of it was put out," she said. Haygarth, who said she had endured years of online abuse, described the jury's decision as a relief. "It's just so traumatic to be accused for all of those years for something you never did," she said.

'We sold our home to bear legal expenses'

The financial award could help the three Canadians recover the substantial legal expenses they incurred during the lengthy dispute. However, they have not received any money from the verdict so far, and it remains uncertain how much they will ultimately be able to collect. Haygarth said her legal bills alone exceeded US$600,000. She and her husband Wade were forced to sell their Saskatchewan home and move into a trailer to manage the financial burden of the case. Shanti said she intended to appeal the verdict. She declined multiple requests from W5 for an interview. In an email to the program, she rejected the allegations against her, writing: "I'm actually not a central character in any story, only a fiction that violent abusive men, child molesters, and the women under their control want so desperately to create. … I sued them. I exposed them. They lashed out."