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Watchtower Society/Jehovah’s Witnesses GUILTY – Must Pay Millions in Punitive Damages in Child Sex Abuse Case

Watchtower Society/Jehovah’s Witnesses GUILTY – Must Pay Millions in Punitive Damages in Child Sex Abuse Case

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I am overjoyed to see some traction on this issue at last.

The jury found that the elders who managed the Fremont congregation in the 1990s and who were under the supervision of Watchtower knew that Kendrick, a member, had recently been convicted of the sexual abuse of another child, but they kept his past record secret from the congregation, said Simons. Kendrick went on to molest the plaintiff, who was a Jehovah’s Witness member in Fremont, over a two-year period beginning when she was 9 years old, the lawsuit contended. Kendrick was eventually convicted in 2004 of the sexual abuse of another girl, and is now a registered sex offender in California, Simons said. He has not been criminally charged with abusing the plaintiff, but Simons said the case is under investigation by law enforcement.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ legal entity, is responsible for the entire punitive damages amount and 40 percent of the compensatory damages, said Rick Simons, attorney for the plaintiff. Sixty percent of the compensatory damages was assessed against Jonathan Kendrick, the man accused of abusing her.

Yes, the Watchtower Society (along with their other “arms,” aka the “Jehovah’s Witnesses,”) have a policy of secrecy, as has been proven through the elder’s manual, “judicial” correspondence, the database of abusers that a Bethelite discovered, and numerous court cases that show that they neither notify the congregation nor even attempt to protect children when they are aware of sexual predators and violent abusers in their midst.

The key issue in the case, according to the victim’s attorney Rick Simons of Hayward, was the written policy of Watchtower New York, Inc., which instructed all Elders in Jehovah’s Witnesses Congregations in the United States to keep reports of child sex abusers within Jehovah’s Witnesses secret to avoid lawsuits. The case is believed to be the first in the nation to directly address the policy of secrecy, adopted in 1989, and still in force today.

Yes, they have a policy of requiring two witnesses to any act of abuse (any attempt by a victim of any kind of abuse to get help from the elders, even with support from someone else, is considered “slanderous.”) They have to twist a rather obscure bible verse out of context to support this doctrine. And – of course – they encourage spying and reporting for all kinds of other things, some of them rather trivial.

Yes, they have a history of discouraging members from seeking help from any “worldly authorities” such as police or therapists. Such “worldly authorities” are believed to be ruled by Satan and therefore cannot be trusted. This effectively cuts off all possibility of help for those who wish to remain “in good standing.”

Yes, they have a policy of lying in court, which they call “theocratic strategy.” They comply with the law only just as far as they have to, but prefer to be the only authority in their member’s lives. They hide their totalitarianism with “servant” language, but some people might have a better historical idea of what a “circuit overseer” or “district overseer” might really be.

They need to change these policies, and others (such as the demonizing and shunning – even by their families – of those who eventually choose a different path in the freedom of conscience that they freely claim when trying to convert others).

In 2007, 17 victims shared a $13 million dollar settlement from church officials. It involved victims in three states California , Texas and Oregon and six Jehovah Witnesses perpetrators.

To those who have been making unfounded accusations about Candace Conti’s motives, please note that she requested 144,000 cents in punitive damages, and the jury instead granted 21 million (plus one!) dollars. I hope that his case – and the financial costs to Watchtower Society, including those of the many others who were silenced with settlements including gag orders – will force whatever section of the legal organization currently responsible for “new light” (changes in doctrine) to be less paranoid, misogynistic, and uncaring when they exercise their “guidance” as “God’s only channel.”


144000 cents requested, 21 million +1 awarded in punitive damages
Punitive Damages: 144,000 (!) cents Requested – 21 million plus 1 (!) dollars Awarded. Thanks to Steven Unthank at JWNews.net for the graphic.

“Until now, a jury has virtually never held the JW national headquarters responsible for repeated heinous child sex crimes and cover ups by church members or officials,” said William H. Bowen of Nashville, TN, who founded and heads a support group for those molested by Jehovah’s Witnesses. “This is a ground-breaking case and a watershed award against an especially callous group of church bureaucrats.”

The Watchtower legal troops haven’t given up yet:

“We’ve got a long ways to go yet before this one is resolved,” he said of the planned appeal. Simons said Jehovah’s Witnesses has sufficient resources, including valuable real estate, to cover the judgment but an appeal could drag out for years.

Whether Jehovah’s Witnesses are correct in their humble claim that they alone possess “the TRUTH” or not (and personally speaking, I don’t believe theirs is a very spiritually mature view of the divinity), they have a responsibility under the law to be less destructive.

“Nothing can bring back my childhood,” Conti told the Oakland Tribune. “But through this (verdict) and through, hopefully, a change in their policy, we can make something good come out of it.”

More! Added 6/17/2012:

Roundup of JWs in the News

Roundup of JWs in the News

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Recent conversations in the comments have reminded me that I haven’t done my posting of recent news related to Jehovah’s Witnesses. The purpose in doing this is simply to highlight, over time, the kinds of issues that the JW mindset and set of demands can create or intensify in some. It is meant to encourage more compassionate and ethical policies and behaviors within the Watchtower organization and to help former JWs understand some of the clusters of danger that may be worthwhile to (even further) transcend.

Ex-JWs: Use What You’ve Got

First off, there is a very humorous treatment of growing up as a JW in a new book by Kyria Abrahams called I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing. It’s on my wishlist, and I’ll let you know what I think of it once I’ve had the chance to read it. It looks promising as a bit of comic relief.

Given that Abrahams is now a stand-up comic and spoken-word poet, it makes perfect sense to begin her very funny memoir with her performance debut at the Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Kingdom Hall, at age 8 (her presentation was about freedom from demon possession). She describes the children’s books she read as a child as a cross between “Dr. Seuss rhymes and tales of how sinners would scream and gnash their teeth at Armageddon.” In her world, Smurfs were “little blue demons” and yard sales were enticements from Satan. As a bored teenager with OCD, she didn’t know what to do with herself or how to make sense of the world. On the verge of 18, she married a 24-year-old part-time college math teacher because, even if his interest in her was, at best, halfhearted, she wanted a boyfriend and didn’t know any other Jehovah’s Witnesses who liked her. Anyway, she reasons, “this is what adults did, and I was an adult.” It wasn’t long before she longed to be out of the marriage.

Author Lisa Foad writes in a fractured, variable, and somewhat surreal style – trying to say the unsayable takes you on some funky roads sometimes. She thinks her approach to writing might be a side effect of her Jehovah’s Witness upbringing.

“After an assembly where they were talking about the folly of music,” Foad recalls from her early childhood, “I went home and broke records with my dad. We broke Led Zeppelin, Cream. But I had this Wham! record I really liked. I didn’t want to break my Wham! record but then he reminded me that in the paradise I would have a pet tiger, a pet lion. What are you going to do? It was a trade I was willing to make. There’s so much fodder in that.”

Check out her book: The Night Is a Mouth

In other, depressing but illuminating JW book news, get a child’s eye perspective on Jehovah’s Witnesses by reading William Coburn’s The Spanking Room: A Child’s Eye View of the Jehovah Witnesses.

I had stopped vomiting, but still shook and sobbed. Mom returned to the room to sit on the edge of my bed. Again she asked, “Billy what’s wrong?” “That was my bus route,” I whispered when I could get words out. “What if someone I knew came to the door?” “So?” “They’d find out I was a Jehovah’s Witness.” Mom’s hand met the side of my head in a flash of brilliant white light and an explosion of pain. I collapsed onto the mattress while she flailed at me, her rage-clenched fists thudding into my eight-year-old body. “How dare you?” she shrieked. “You awful, rotten child! How dare you be ashamed of Jehovah? I hate you! I hate you!”

The Spanking Room is the true story of a young boy’s upbringing, and how the unorthodox doctrines of the Watchtower Society encourage violence against its most helpless members–the children.

Artist Lindsay O’Leary’s piece “Pedaling Backwards, Moving Forward: How to Lose 100 pounds in 365 days” is part of an exhibit in the opening of “Gestures 13” at the Mattress Factory. She has created a scaled model of her childhood home that is controlled by a stationary bicycle to represent her “old self and old habits.”

“Inside my childhood home, there’s a silhouette of me praying,” O’Leary says. “All of the silhouettes of me (except the biking one in the garage) are of me when I was obese. I was a Jehovah’s Witness from birth to (age) 21. We had to pray every day and attended five ‘meetings’ at the Kingdom Hall each week.

“It’s a really strict religion, so, to say that it has had a huge impact on who I am today would be an understatement,” she says. “From not being able to recite the Pledge of Allegiance throughout elementary school to not celebrating birthdays to being forbidden from participating in any competitive sport, again, the imprint it has had on my life was/is massive.”

O’Leary says the real irony is in where she has found her new home. The Mexican War Streets is where Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the precursor to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, lived and preached.

Media Talk

Katherine Jackson has been taking Michael Jackson’s three children to the meetings at the Kingdom Hall (of Jehovah’s Witnesses) to “help them deal with the death of their famous father.”

Michael stopped being a Jehovah’s Witness 1985 but reportedly resumed attending the Church’s meetings throughout his child molestation trial. Katherine and the eldest child Rebbie are the only two remaining Jehovah’s Witnesses in the family.

I would prefer to remember Michael for his music and performances, and his work to help fight AIDS. I wish I’d gone to talk with him as I felt called to do.

Oh, and this season of Big Brother features a former JW, Kevin.

He is a 30 year old graphic designer who was excommunicated at 21 from his Jehovah’s Witness raising. Therefore has lost contact with his family and friends. However, he has chosen to work through it instead of letting it tear him down. He is of Japanese/ African-American heritage. Adversity is something he is used to overcoming so the prediction is he will do well in the house.

Murder

The most horrific story in the news right now has to be about the Texan JW Otty Sanchez, 33, who decapitated, dismembered, and partially cannibalized her 3-1/2-week-old baby, Scott Wesley Buchholtz-Sanchez. She claims the devil told her to do it. She told him Scott W. Buchholz, the infant’s father, that she was schizophrenic a week before the slaying. She was diagnosed, however, with depression. Buchholz, who said he is schizophrenic, has announced that she said that she was going to leave him, and he wants her to receive the death penalty.

McManus, who appeared uncomfortable as he addressed reporters, said Sanchez apparently ate the child’s brain and some other body parts. She also decapitated the infant, tore off his face and chewed off three of his toes before stabbing herself.

In Bielefeld, Germany, an 82-year-old man who blames the Jehovah’s Witnesses for making him lose contact with his daughter, stormed a gathering of some 80 Jehovah’s Witnesses. He was wearing a mask and was armed with a machine gun. No-one was injured; the gun didn’t fire. He was seized by two congregation members as he headed back to the car. Officers also found a samurai sword, three clips of bullets and a knife in the man’s car, parked nearby.

In the tiny hamlet of Porth Kea, near Truro in England, Jonathan Cock – a 24-year-old RAF veteran from Moor Vue Fram, Penzanze – murdered his girlfriend’s Jehovah’s Witness father (41-year-old Adam Hustler) and shot her mother (Amanda Hustler) in the back in revenge for ending the couple’s “forbidden” love affair. Ex-girlfriend Danielle Hustler, 20, (are they for real with these names?) had a minor injury in the arm from a bullet graze. Mr. Cock was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Jonathan Cock blamed Jehovah’s Witnesses Adam and Amanda Hustler for thwarting his romance with their daughter Danielle because the religion bars relationships with outsiders…. The court heard Cock and Danielle fell in love while working for her dad’s drain clearing firm. He converted to her religion, but she later split with “controlling” Cock. He carried out the killing three weeks later.

Estranged JW husband Michael Smith, 37, is on trial for first-degree murder of Eugena Smith. Eugena had written a letter of disassociation from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, saying that her decision was final. The letter, which was read aloud to a trial jury, was found by investigators “lying among a pile of clothing on the floor of Eugena Smith’s bedroom, shortly after the 33-year-old St. Thomas woman was found murdered.”

The Crown argued in an opening statement Tuesday that Eugena Smith was trying to leave both her husband, and her church, just days before she died on June 7, 2007. Michael Smith, the Crown says, thought she was having an affair.

After JW William Redman murdered his 12-year-old daughter, he told a 911 operator that she was dead because that was “…the way Jehovah does things.” Evidently he “fell on her” with a knife.

Police arrived at the Roadrunner RV park to find the father covered in blood in front of the home, the mother, Rosemary Redman, screaming, “What did you do to my baby?” Inside, their daughter was lying in a pool of blood, a knife lying under her chest and her neck deeply gashed.

Sexual Violence / Pedophilia

New Hampshire resident JW, Robert Matheson, pleaded guilty repin Salem Superior Court to four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14. He had been planning to run away to Plum Island with a girl he had been molesting at his beach house for the last three years. The JWs alerted authorities (this must be a state where it’s required to do so).

Matheson told police that he began molesting the girl during a time when he was struggling with unemployment and disconnected from his faith, and said he was “persuaded” by Internet pornography. The sentencing was pushed to Friday in order for Matheson to face sexual assault charges on a “compatible case” in New Hampshire.

Wigan Today reports that Daniel Simonetti, a 31-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, let himself into the home of an 89-year-old woman and brutally assaulted her. He denied rape, which was dropped, but admitted assault by penetration. Jailing Simonetti indefinitely, Judge John Roberts branded him “dangerous to vulnerable females.” Simonetti had previously assaulted a 4-year-old girl, for which he was never prosecuted.

Francis Gandhi a Jehovah’s Witness elder/ministerial servant (the article says “pastor”) was detained at the Kailahun Police Station for the alleged rape of an 11-year old student of the SLMB Mission in Kailahun.

On 4th of April 2009, she said that they came home from work and discovered that the girl has not returned home and immediately they contacted her grandmother who told them that the young girl had left for her home around 5pm. “We went in search of her moving from one place to place, relatives to relatives we could not find her and we returned home as it was getting close to 10pm” she said while in bed somebody knocked on her window and when asked she heard the voice of her daughter. “I jumped out of my bed and enquired from her where she was coming from only to tell me that she was in the room with a man of God.”

Robert Edward Bill, 54, a former teacher, businessman and “senior Jehovah’s Witness” attempted to abduct a five-year-old and was sentenced to six years in prison.

He has been found guilty at separate trials of the attempted abduction of the girl in Holywell two years ago, of indecently assaulting a seven-year-old 10 years ago, and of possessing 730 pornographic images of children. … Mr Medland said Bill of The Roe, St Asaph, Denbighshire, had been driving slowly around areas where he was likely to come into contact with children that same day. He’d claimed that he was trying to fix a mechanical problem with his car.

His wife and son were also sentenced:

Jacqueline Bill, his 51-year-old wife, received a suspended six-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to trying to pervert the course of justice by destroying a laptop hard drive, and must do 250 hours unpaid work. Bill’s son David, 24, of Mount Road, St Asaph, must do 150 hours unpaid work after also admitting that he tried to pervert the course of justice.

Thirty-five-year-old JW Shane Thomas Thorne had a child pornography collection of more than a thousand images, many of which involved children as young as five years old. He was sentenced to two years, but is due to be released on November 16, 2010.

Evidence was heard that Thorne grew up in a violent family environment and was sexually abused as a teenager. …”There is nothing to indicate that he has acknowledged the injury caused by his actions,” Mr Johnson said. “There is no realisation expressed or reported of any acknowledgement of the harm done to children in child pornography.” He told Thorne that a sentence must be imposed that would reflect the community horror and the disgust for the use of children for sexual gratification.

Selective Clampdown on Freedom of Religion, or “The Persecution Justification for Claims of JW Righteousness”

Novoshakhtinsk prosecutors from the Rostov region in Russian have sent case files to an investigative body to consider a criminal prosecution local members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization for preaching in public places, propagating the exclusivity and supremacy of the Jehovah’s religious doctrine above all others and promoting refusal from civil duty, voting at elections and serving in the army. The regional prosecutor also asked the Rostov regional court to order the closure of the organization in Taganrog for extremist activities, including the incitement of religious hatred and human rights violations. This situation is heating up…

The deportations of four lawyers since March strike at the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ already pressed defence against attempts to ban their literature as extremist, one of those deported, Mario Moreno, has told Forum 18 News Service. The lawyers – two Americans and two Canadians – were defending in four out of seven simultaneous local extremism cases against Jehovah’s Witnesses. A recent police detention allegedly involving torture and a raid on a Sunday service – after which one worshipper had a miscarriage and another was sent to a children’s shelter – suggest the law enforcement agencies continue to view Jehovah’s Witnesses as religious extremists even without a ban.

In Israel, the Human Rights Report for 2008 shows that police needed to be reminded (again) that it is their duty to fully investigate crimes against minority religious communities:

Members of Jehovah’s Witnesses reported an increase in assaults and other crimes against their membership in 2007 and during the year and noted the difficulties their members faced convincing the police to investigate or apprehend the perpetrators. Between September 2007 and September, members of Jehovah’s Witnesses filed 46 criminal complaints against antimissionary activists, most of whom belong to the Haredi antimissionary organization Yad L’Achim. The crimes ranged from harassment to assault. Police responded to 15 of 35 calls for assistance during the same time period, according to the Jehovah’s Witnesses legal department. The JIJ noted a similar increase in crimes and violent assaults against members of the congregations it represents.

JW Disappearance

Eridania Rodriguez, a 46-year-old married mother of three, disappeared from her night job as a cleaning woman in Manhatten. Police found her cleaning cart on the eighth floor and her street clothes and purse in her locker.

“I think she was kidnapped,” said Figueroa. She said she was suspicious of a DOT worker who her mother often saw on the eighth floor. “She was really terrified of him,” she said.

Rodriguez’s brother, Cesar, 28, ruled out the possibility of a jealous lover. “My sister is not like that,” he said. “She does not have a boyfriend. She is a Jehovah’s Witness.”

Money, Money, Money

Securities industry regulators report that say Kenneth George Neely, a Jehovah’s Witness stockbroker from St. Peters, MO ran an eight-year ponzi scheme in which he swindled brokerage customers, fellow church members and a cousin. It seems that Neely ran up some bills buying dinners and drinks for clients and friends at his country club just at a time when his personal income had declined.

“It was during this period of personal financial stress that (Neely) conceived and effected his ponzi scheme,” FINRA said in its order. He invented the “St. Louis Investment Club” and the equally phony “St. Charles REIT,” promising 20 percent returns. He made up investment “certificates” for the club and REIT to give to clients. His first investor was a cousin who invested $30,000, expecting returns of up to 10 percent.

Neely portrayed membership in the investment club as exclusive. He told a retiree, a longtime friend and fellow church member (Neely is a Jehovah’s Witness) that he would tell her when “openings” occurred in the club. “Seven or eight” other church members invested in the scam, said James Shorris, executive vice president at FINRA.

Maxine Kennedy, the JW school secretary for Scotlandville High School in Lousiana, ran amok with the school’s credit card. For some 28 months, she bought groceries and furniture, paid bills, and got cash advances. She also allegedly allowed her daughter, Toni, to use the card, including for large cash advances, and a Jehovah’s Witnesses convention.

Legal News

Lawrence Hughes abandoned his Jehovah’s Witness faith to fight for a blood transfusion for his daughter, Bethany, who had acute myeloid leukemia. He has since lost his daughter and been disfellowshipped. But he’s still fighting, even after divorce and bankruptcy.

What it most clearly does not say is that Mr. Hughes is necessarily wrong in claiming that his daughter received problematic advice from lawyers working not just for her, but also for a religious body intent on seeing her denied the blood she needed. “If I was advising [the Watchtower Society and its lawyers] I would now say, ‘At some point, this is no longer going to work out for you,’ ” Ms. Woolley says.

When Bethany Hughes died in the summer of 2002, her story was national news; the girl, just turned 17, had been diagnosed earlier that year with acute myeloid leukemia, but had fought, legally and physically, blood transfusions prescribed by doctors on religious grounds, her resistance abetted by lawyers from a firm that, by all available evidence, is a branch of the Watchtower Society itself, retaining the church as its primary client – a “captive law firm” as one judge described Glen How and Associates, employer of Bethany’s lawyers David Gnam and Shane Brady. The firm is even located within the Watchtower Society’s Georgetown, Ont. compound.

Armageddon’s Gonna Git-choo

A sweet blog post on the moon landing reminds us that on the day in 1969 in Chicago, 38,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, who had crammed into Comiskey Park, saw the landing as “a sign that our universe is in its last days.”

I get the sense that there has been a serious effort towards positive PR. To a current JW, this must be a little bit humorous, in a macabre sort of way. Here’s the new approach:

JWs “don’t mean to scare people,” they say, but just to “provide believers with a revelations roadmap. A spiritual survival guide to emerge from Armageddon intact.” The May assemblies offered guidance on how to “avoid Satan’s snares. Because we know that the goal of Satan is to hamper people from surviving.”

The summer assemblies deny that JW’s approach Armaggeddon in a “fanatical way” but only to use “careful judgment in everyday life.”

Along with spiritual gains, he added that avoiding negative behaviors has very real benefits: money can be spent in better ways and a greater focus can be on family, for instance.

“People are being barraged all the time by different viewpoints of morality, different concerns for the economy,” West said. “We know by trusting God that we can cope with the most difficult situations in life and it gives us a positive hope in him.”

By lunchtime on Friday, the thousands of Witnesses and others who packed the Convocation Center, Northern Illinois University’s sports arena, had just finished listening to the keynote speaker. Darien Hanson called on the group to be “watchdogs” and to be alert to the signs of Jesus’ presence. A slackening of Christian expectations, he said, is detrimental to this.

Hanson also announced a very exciting offer: A DVD on creationism was being released that weekend, and each family in the audience could take home a copy. This is what Jean West was most excited about, as it would help illustrate God as a creator, she said.

“It tells us we have a maker who’s intelligent,” her husband added.

Though the Bible teaches that God both created the world and will someday end the world, neither the 24th chapter of Matthew nor Jehovah’s Witnesses know when that will be.

“We feel that there is going to be this change,” West said.

As written in Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples that preceding this time will be wars, famine, false prophets and the like. This makes the 2009 district convention theme very “timely,” West said, noting how much has changed since the onset of World War I.

Research

The Pew Forum comparative study on religious beliefs and practices is very interesting and worth a read.

JWs in the News

JWs in the News

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Antonie Dixon’s sister gives evidence in court

When Antonie Dixon told the jury an astonishing tale of sexual abuse by his mother and beatings at the hands of Jehovah’s Witnesses, they must have wondered whether any of it was believable. Today they heard from someone else who was there at the time and she confirmed much of what he said. According to Dixon’s sister Carla, he was dubbed “devil spawn” by their mother. (more…)

Murrieta Man Convicted Of Molesting Sisters Ages 9, 10

A 49-year-old man was found guilty Thursday of molesting two young sisters at his home in Murrieta, City News Service reported. Gilbert Simental was accused of molesting a then-9-year-old girl in 2005 and her 10-year-old sister in 2006. It took less than a day for the eight-woman, seven-man jury to find him guilty of three counts of lewd acts upon a child under 14. (more…)

See also the involvement of local elders at the Silent Lambs link:
http://www.silentlambs.org/ElderprotectPedophile.htm


Jehovah’s Witness Elder Accused of Raping Daughters in El Salvador

In the original Spanish at http://www.laprensagrafica.com/nacion/1095874.asp

Being discussed at http://jehovahs-witness.com/8/161809/1.ashx

Agentes de la delegación de la Policía en Mejicanos arrestaron a Carlos Martínez Castillo, de 40 años de edad, acusado de abusar sexualmente —desde hace seis meses— de sus dos hijas de ocho y 10 años respectivamente.

Partial translation:

PASTOR ACCUSED OF RAPING HIS TWO DAUGHTERS:

Going by the National Police Commission, the accused took advantage of visits by the minors to his house located in Soyapango. “The kids lived with their mom in Mejicanos but used to visit the guy who’s under investigation. There he’d get one of the girls to play while he raped the other and vice versa,” an official of the PNC explained. The capture of Martinez, who according to the authorities is a pastor of the church of Jehovah’s Witnesses, was effected yesterday morning at a framing and painting workshop, where he works. According to the police, the arrest was realized after representatives of an NGO whose name they did not want to reveal, they interposed the denunciation in which they showed that the little girls had said that their father had abused them.

The authorities have given assurance going by the crime of violating an innocent minor and, the organs of justice will be ordering a penalty of seven to 14 years of jail time, but in this case, due to relationship with the person being charged, it could be decreed at more than 15 years. Martinez denied the charges against him and claimed everything was a set-up by his daughters’ mother, because he does not want to be with her at their home. The office of the public prosecutor says that it has for proof the children’s testimony and the results of exams from Legal Medicine.

And… a very touching video about what has happened to those dedicated (and exploited) workers in Watchtower Corporation Service as they have aged:

Serve Jehovah in Your Youth!

Former Jehovah’s Witnesses – Take care, please

Former Jehovah’s Witnesses – Take care, please

Comments 1 comment

I am becoming a bit concerned about the safety of former Jehovah’s Witnesses.

When I received this latest email, I asked permission to post it.

Reports of various annoyance activities toward vocal former Jehovah’s Witnesses seems to be increasing. I will try to do a post very soon about how things are heating up in the public sphere for JWs.

Already Ex-JWs are demonized – at any sign of escalation, please never hesitate to contact the police.

Barb and I are back in our house though remodeling construction work continues to kick up some dust.

Today 11-11-07 I filed report number 2007-024301 with the Overland Park, Kansas, Department of Public Safety (police), the attending officer being Officer “Carrillo” with badge number 673, after having received a criminal telephone call from a person at 2:52 AM (i.e. in the morning), our phone recording that the call had come from 613 212-1419 in Ontario, Canada. (I’m guessing the number is a deadend or somehow they re-routed it)

The person sought for approximately fifteen minutes to talk me into “returning to Jehovah” and he offered me a $10,000 bribe to do so, the person’s motive for this speculatively being because of my anti-child molestor efforts in backing Silentlambs, my having an online fellowshipping website where 1,207 persons have signed in with two years which is viewed as possible down-the-road competition by the Watchtower Society, and implicitly my “needing to shut up or be shut up.”

A friend had just the day before spoken with me of ritualistic abuses other than those I too have experienced which, if they were to become widely known, would be of tremendous embarrassment to pedophile leaders embedded in the Watchtower Society. The caller did also use obscene language vile enough that, although put into writing by myself as asked for by the police, is really too repulsive for me to repeat to you here.

Officer Carrillo said that there would be other officers assigned to look into the matter. As those of you who have been on the ExJWs&FriendsNet for a long time already know, I have had to file past reports; for example, previously my wife and a neighbor friend were on the phone when two men broke in calling them vile names and the like, whom my wife and the neighbor believe may have been and be part of the general harassment campaign we have been regularly subjected to.

I told the officer that also a while back I did not report it (not wanting to have the police running out to us so often as to annoy them) but there was a young adult Afro-American male dressed in a loud necktie and blue suit shirt whom I spotted from my upstairs den window after he had knocked on our door (this time for a change in broad daylight) then scurried away. I believe that back when a JW I had seen him at one or more Bible conventions in Kansas City.

Such knocking then leaving while we are upstairs and can’t easily get to the front door in time has occurred many times before as well as for example pebbles or rocks being hurled up against our upstairs bedroom and den walls, some kind of electronic device being used to raise our garage door, what the police have described as a “professional” crow-bar effort being perpetrated to try to break inside our front room door (found out it had happened after a night when I had especially complained about the Watchtower Society’s sending pedophiles among those JWs unknowing or unbelieving of the pedophiles among them preaching at doors or the like), assorted monkeying around with and even inside our car.

These things are documented by me for the police and also here to you guys in email so that in the event that serious harm or death ever occurs to myself, my wife or other loved ones, then there is a record.

This email is not a direct accusation against the Watchtower Society for I cannot prove such, but it is a statement of factual observation that the events as stated in the police reports have occurred including that the person today offered a bribe to get me to re-enter the Watchtower Society organization, in other words to shut up and get back on their side.

I told him No then said they need to reform and end their sheltering of pedophiles as I said I supposed he himself probably is (his vile words caused me to believe this too) and although awakened and thus tired I also calmly if exhaustedly “witnessed” to him pertaining to three doctrinal lies the Watchtower misteaches JWs and the Public.

I pointed out that Luke 10:7 don’t be transferring house-to-house but rather Christians can go from a house with interested persons to a house in a different town where similar interest exists; that the Christmas tree began with the Tree of Paradise in church plays about the Garden of Eden in the Middle Ages rather than originating from Druid tree worship; and the Watchtower Society teaches many now living will never die, the many being JWs loyal to the Watchtower Society’s governing body members increasingly and wrongly held to be over even the Annointed, and that this idea of “many now living will never die” flies directly in the face of the apostle Paul’s having said all humans sin and therefore all humans die.

When my wife handed the phone to me early this morning I got to speak with only the one person who to me appeared to be faking an Oriental accent. She said she herself had also been spoken to by a second person.

Anyway, after I pointed out the contradiction between what Pauls said about all having to die as opposed to the Watchtower misteaching that many will never die, he ceased to say anything more (I believe I hit the target with that point), it was clear that although I was speaking into the mouth piece what I said was somehow not going through (it was like speaking into and having your words muffled by a wall), yet I could tell there was some manner of continuing electronic connection (possibly what I believe detectives call a hook-switch by-pass), and I said this into the mouth piece whereupon there were 2-3 small clicking sounds then a sudden abrupt full and fairly loud termination of the electronic connection.

I was in then out of the Watchtower Society twice so am what they see as a “two-timer” and whom they would like to get back and seek to “mold” (brainwash) etc to neutralize me. I am also a very good, powerful writer (so I’ve been told) who is able to hit them in various different languages beyond English alone. My helping Silentlambs including by a reminder in the last email that it’s good for us to remember to donate to it so that it can keep helping the kids is also a pain in the rumps of pedophiles.

As stated previously I believe the perpetrators of such harassment are most probably pedophiles, some of whom are, as seen this time, given to “return to Jehovah” type statements and the like, enhancing the likelihood most are active JWs; although I also hold belief that pedophiles such as among JW do also collaborate across and regardless of religious belief differences, for example, as when my wife has told me that Mormons (possibly themselves pedophiles or acting on the behest of a pedophile Mormon elder) have appeared at our door and simply stood standing and facing it about twenty minutes before suddenly quietly leaving.

That two older elders of Jehovah’s Witnesses sought to set up fellow exJW Danny Haszard in Maine (who has posted signs they saw clearly, and who has delivered hours of videotapes to the police showing previous harassment) as they did therefore does not seem the least implausible to me, and I know of at least one other person in the Net reading this email right this second no doubt (also on the East Coast) who has had similar harassment experiences. If any of you also have such to happen or if you know of another exJW (especially those in and out of the organization twice as I think those including myself get especially worked over) then please let me know.

The Watchtower Society not only has had to pay out to settle with 16 victims of sexual harassment (Silentlambs) earlier this year but at a guess there will be more such lawsuits. In fact I told the harasser this morning after he made his $10,000 bribe that I found it interesting how they lost millions of dollars (one guess is up to $1.5 million for each of the 16 earlier this year) and given how they refuse to reform and keep enabling the harming of children, I have no doubt they will be paying out more.

If any of you know victims please urge them to come forth and sue the perpetrators of such sexual or other crimes (phone harassment etc) against them. Let’s also keep each other informed, speaking up, spotlighting the darkness so that it keeps fleeing into the shadows, and trying to document matters so that if law enforcement may do more in the years ahead, then there will be a strong paper trail lending credibility strong enough to be used as evidence when the creeps are brought to justice.

I showed Officer Carrillo the silentlambs.org website’s photos of JW elders convicted of sex crimes including one just sentenced to several years in Ontario, told him about the 16 settlements etc. He found it interesting and, as said, he says other investigators will pursue this farther – I believe the telephone record of time and location being tangible enough evidence in view of the other things such that it is now seen that the matter is serious for our household even as Danny has concerns about his family in his house in Maine.

The metro areas are where organized crime of diverse types are focused, and this is, I believe, also extremely true for sex crimes perpetrated by pedophiles seeking to hide behind the cloak of religion. Three of the largest U.S. cities are Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. When I think of L.A. I remember what Pat Garza when alive said was done to her there. Chicago reminds me of Laree Slack’s fate. New York also has its skeletons including at Brooklyn where the Watchtower Society is headquartered. Of course Kansas City, St. Louis and other places have them too at least to some extent.

As also said before two of my three dear adult daughters are still in the cult; besides which there are many others in the ranks there who are kind, decent people despite the cult’s misleadership and who do not know what all has been done by Ted Jaracz and others on the Watchtower Society’s Governing Body. In a courtroom they would instantly deny that the Watchtower Society shelters pedophiles etc, that it became an NGO of the UN while having local JW elders keep preaching against the UN; and most are misled into thinking they must die or let their own kids die rather than ever take an emergency transfusion of whole blood to live, not knowing 1 Sa 14:32-34 says Saul’s men ate unbled meat and were forgiven as it was to stay alive. Unfortunately we can be loving and loveable people and yet also wrong and misled by those who are devious.

Well, enough, I’ve written a letter almost enough for a booklet. Thanks for being friends. I told one of you earlier today in an email I would try to not directly ask for donations for Silentlambs (he views it as tacky, counterproductive or whatever) but in that case then he should know that I will give the Silentlambs link more regularly in emails, and so here it is for those who like the reminder of helping the abused kids: http://www.silentlambs.org

Best wishes,

Joe

J. Mason Emerson

The above is posted in its entirety, with permission, from an email dated Sun, November 11, 2007 2:56 pm. Other readers may also print it, but only in its entirety and as is.

I will look at them and repeat here and now in this email to you (please retain a copy) for the record in case the Watchtower Society’s attorneys ever try to claim differently that as said in my email their Watchtower organization per se is not accused of harassment but PEDOPHILES who spoke of wanting me to “return to Jehovah” have done so and the criminal record and convictions among organization’s elders from Bethel headquarters (e.g. Jesus Cano) down speak for themselves loud and clear. Thanks for posting the email and you are encouraged to post this one too.

Which I did.

Hang in there Joe, Barb, Danny – and everyone else, please be a little extra careful.

Serial Child Predator JW Walks

Serial Child Predator JW Walks

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A Jehovah’s Witness pedophile elder (called an “evil monster” by his own sister) was spared prison today.

Michael Porter, 38, of Barnet, north London, admitted to abusing his position of trust, and was convicted of 24 counts of indecent assault and gross indecency on children, including one on an 18-month-old baby.

“He abused dozens of children and even a baby. But he’s still free.”

JWs are discouraged from reporting abuse to police because they are told that all worldly authorities are ruled by Satan – what an interesting negative publicity control mechanism!

Within the organization, victims of abuse are told to subject themselves to the headship of men and elders, and that Jehovah-God will take care of the problem.

The Crown Prosecution Service was not prepared to comment at this stage, but it is understood police officers were disappointed that only four victims were prepared to make statements against Porter. One of the problems was that most of the victims were not prepared to make statements or give any kind of evidence.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses’ policies on sexual predators and abusers need reform. Discouraging victims from seeking help from “worldly authorities,” requiring two witnesses to the abuse before even internal investigating takes place, allowing known abusers to interact with children (unsupervised), not informing congregations of potential issues or problems when predators transfer to other congregations, not reporting criminal behavior to the police despite having no tradition of confession to back up a confidentiality clause – are these defensible positions for religious leaders to take?

Rick McLean, another JW pedophile, is on the US Marshalls Most Wanted List.

Over a five day period in February, 16 civil child sex abuse lawsuits against the Watchtower Society (the Jehovah’s Witness official organization) were quietly settled in three states (CA, TX and OR). The victims were bribed or coerced into signing ‘gag orders’ that prevent them from discussing the cases.

See Silent Lambs for more on this issue.

Murderers Protected by Jehovah’s Witness Policies?

Murderers Protected by Jehovah’s Witness Policies?

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This just in from Silent Lambs

In the article below two smiling accused murders walk free as a Jehovah’s Witnesses refuses to provide evidence of their crime. This appears to be a pattern with regard to how JWs deal with crime, note the following letter sent to two elders that inquired about a confession of several murders in 1992.

http://www.silentlambs.org/education/92_murder_letter.cfm

As the reader can see the fact that the person involved committed the murders before becoming baptized resulted in a directive to not report to authorities. In the story cited below as the accused murders were not baptized members of the congregation it would provide a basis for a member to remain neutral and not get involved in “worldly” affairs of the court. Is there a basis for this policy? The elders book “Pay Attention to Yourselves and All the Flock”, makes the following comment for unbaptized ones that commit murder or other crimes against non JW victims.

“As suggested by the Apostle Paul’s comments regarding Onesimus, a person who was guilty of illegal activities before coming to a knowledge of the truth is not required to settle these things with the authorities prior to baptism.” (The Watchtower, 9/15/1978, pp.30-31)

To clarify what the directive in the elders book means note the quote from the Watchtower article cited as a reference,

“However, in some instances the guilty individual does not know all the places or persons from whom he has stolen. Or the crime may be something that he has no way of reversing. He might have caused someone’s death. Conscience-stricken though he be, he cannot bring that life back—only Jehovah can. (John 5:28, 29) But even though he cannot reverse the past, he should throw himself on God’s mercy and seek forgiveness based on Jesus’ sacrifice. The Bible pointedly tells us that this is what thieves and extortioners did in the first century; they were ‘washed clean, sanctified and declared righteous in the name of Jesus Christ and with the spirit of our God.’—1 Cor. 6:9, 10; 1 Pet. 4:1-4.”

“It must be acknowledged that if someone with a criminal past who accepts Christianity does not get the matter legally straightened out before baptism, his past might later become public knowledge; he might even be apprehended and imprisoned. That development, besides giving him a bad public reputation, might seem to reflect unfavorably on the Christian congregation. But Jesus was criticized for eating with and accepting sinners and tax collectors to be his disciples. His response to that was that he came to save sinners; he came to heal the sick, not the healthy.—Matt. 9:10-13.”

So as the reader can see Jehovah’s Witnesses have a policy to welcome murders and cover their crimes as long as they were committed before they get baptized as a member in good standing. As the article above states, JWs feel it is following Christ example to protect murders from prosecution allowing them to eat with and accept as approved members, privately confessed criminals that request baptism. This offers a possible reason that the Jehovah’s Witness in the article refused to testify against the accused murderers below. If they were studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses or were a possible converts, it would be against the directives of the organization to bear witness against them. When they get baptized law breakers are given a fresh start with all crimes against humanity washed clean by baptism and protected by the policies of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

This little known fact allows for the organization to hide murders, child molesters, illegal aliens, thieves, rapists, and about any other criminal activity. Elders are routinely advised to cover up and protect such crimes by using “ecclesial privilege” as a basis to protect the freedom of criminals. The public and Jehovah’s Witnesses need to be aware of this policy as well as the importance of reporting any past or present criminal activity that you as an individual may be aware of regarding members of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Otherwise you could give an accused murderer a reason to smile as you can see in the picture below.

Silentlambs has noted the reports of several victims that reported their molester was protected as a member in good standing due to the fact they were baptized after they committed their molestation. A young person that molests several children as a member of the congregation as well as a paroled child molester, with “baptism”, can have a clean slate and even qualify as an elder. This provides yet another reason that the organization has been called a “pedophile paradise” by different ones as it shows yet another organizational loophole for child molesters to use in obtaining access to children.

My view differs somewhat from that of Silent Lambs. I see no reason that anyone should be barred from becoming a Christian or being forgiven their sins. Their standing – or not – with God is a private matter. Even in a religious community, there is no reason to think that repentance is impossible. However, other members must be protected, too. It is sheer folly to allow a convicted pedophile, for instance, to be alone with children with no supervision.

My concerns are with codified obstruction of justice, the theocratic war strategy that allows deceitfulness in court for the protection of the organization over help and justice for victims, and the lack of care or protection for children and others.

JWs – if you are experiencing or have knowledge of domestic abuse, rape, molestation, or other predatory and/or abusive behavior, please don’t be silent – let the police investigate. That’s their job. It’s not the job of the elders to mediate such matters. The status of such a person in the organization is a separate issue – two witnesses needed, whatever. But get help outside the congregation. Don’t let the organization tell you that “Jehovah will take care of it.” There are too many examples in the news for you not to take this seriously. Please.

Silent Lambs – Pages of Interest: