DIVORCE, BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES AFFECTING CHILDREN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

 
 
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
CHILD MOLESTATION and SEXUAL ABUSE
COURT CASES
 
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DEBORAH HINES,  aka DEBORAH BRIGGS, aka DEBORAH VOLLMER v. WATCHTOWER SOCIETY ET AL was a confidentially settled 2021-23 New York civil court case. Allegedly, Plaintiff's stepfather, William Briggs, has been shipped by the Defendants to Ecuador, and allegedly/reportedly has been posting on social media as "ecua_gringo" from there as a WatchTower Missionary. The following are edited excerpts from Plaintiff's Complaint (allegations denied entirely by defendants):

PLAINTIFF was raised a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses. She primarily attended meetings at various congregations in Arizona. PLAINTIFF became a Pioneer in approximately 1987 or 1988.

Plaintiff's stepfather, William Briggs, was employed by WATCHTOWER and GOVERNING BODY to produce videos at Bethel. Due to his position, Plaintiff and her family split their time between Arizona and New York. Plaintiff and her family would spend three months in New York, where they lived at Bethel, then return back to Arizona for one month, and then go back to New York for three months, and so on and so forth. WATCHTOWER and GOVERNING BODY assigned elder Ted Adams as Briggs' Overseer while at Bethel.

From approximately 1982-1988, when PLAINTIFF was approximately 10-16 years old, PLAINTIFF suffered horrific sexual abuse by Briggs. The sexual abuse occurred three to five times per week, and included, but was not limited to, sodomy, rape, forced oral copulation, and Briggs urinating in Plaintiff's mouth.

While at Bethel, Plaintiff was assigned to work various jobs, including, assisting with video production, working in the laundry facility, and as an elevator operator. While at Bethel, Plaintiff was assigned by WATCHTOWER and GOVERNING BODY to live in the same room as her mother and Briggs. At all times relevant, Plaintiff's mother suffered from alcoholism. While Plaintiff's family was living at Bethel, Plaintiff's mother would frequently consume alcohol to the point of incapacitation. Once she was incapacitated, Briggs would sexually abuse Plaintiff in their room at Bethel.

In approximately 1986, Plaintiff reported her sexual abuse to Michael Filla, an Elder who worked at Bethel. Mr. Filla did nothing in response. Briggs' sexual abuse of Hines continued at Bethel after Hines' report to Mr. [Mike] Filla.

A couple weeks after reporting to Mr. Filla, Plaintiff reported her abuse to Ted Adams, an Elder at Bethel, the Overseer of all video projects at Bethel, and the elder who WATCHTOWER and GOVERNING BODY assigned to oversee Briggs while Briggs was at Bethel. Mr. Adams told Plaintiff that she should not talk about her abuse with anyone. Mr. Adams was removed as an Overseer shortly thereafter. Briggs' sexual abuse of Hines continued at Bethel after Hines' report to Mr. Adams.

Plaintiff then reported her abuse to Mr. [Donald] Underwood, an Elder at Bethel and the Overseer of all international construction at Bethel. Mr. [Don] Underwood did nothing in response. Briggs' sexual abuse of Hines continued at Bethel after Hines' report to Mr. Underwood.

Plaintiff then reported to Jack Barr, an Elder and a member of the GOVERNING BODY at the time. Mr. Barr told Plaintiff that he would relay her report to the entire GOVERNING BODY. Briggs' sexual abuse of Hines continued at Bethel after Hines' report to Mr. Barr. About one week after her report to Mr. [John] Barr, Mr. Barr informed Plaintiff that the GOVERNING BODY had "taken care of it", that she should feel privileged for having the experiences that she had, that Briggs was too important to be disciplined because of his role in creating videos at Bethel, that they couldn't do anything about her abuse because Briggs had only admitted to digitally penetrating and not raping Plaintiff, and that if she continued to talk about her abuse, she would be stripped of her privileges as a Pioneer. Following her report to Mr. Barr, Plaintiff was removed from her mother and stepfather's room at Bethel. Plaintiff was told that Briggs would not be told why Plaintiff was being removed from his room. ... Briggs was told that Plaintiff was removed from his room due to her accusations that he was sexually abusing her. 

Briggs' sexual abuse of Plaintiff continued when they returned to Arizona. ... while in Arizona Briggs escalated his behavior, including by physically abusing Hines, in retaliation for Plaintiff's aforementioned reports.

In or around 1987, Plaintiff reported her ongoing sexual abuse to [GERRIT] LOSCH [, who then was not yet a GB member]. LOSCH responded that it had been handled, that Briggs was sufficiently repentant, and that Plaintiff should not talk to anybody else about the abuse anymore. Following Plaintiff's report to LOSCH, Briggs continued to sexually abuse PLAINTIFF at their home in Arizona.

... Briggs was never disciplined by WATCHTOWER or GOVERNING BODY for admitting to sexually abusing Plaintiff. Plaintiff ignored WATCHTOWER's and GOVERNING BODY's directive to keep quiet about her abuse and continued to report her abuse to several other Jehovah's Witness members, including several more elders. As a result, WATCHTOWER and GOVERNING BODY retaliated against Plaintiff by removing her privileges as a Pioneer in 1991. On the day that Plaintiff's privileges were removed, she was publicly reproved, and Briggs was elevated to the position of Elder.


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"THAT'S INCREDIBLE!"
 
From 1980 to 1984, ABC Television hosted a weekly segmented reality program called "THAT'S INCREDIBLE!", which evidently had a Producer or other ranking employee with connections to the WatchTower Cult -- given that the program broadcast multiple segments which provided the WatchTower Cult with free publicity and gave JW door-knockers something to discuss with householders across the United States for months thereafter. Those segments of "THAT'S INCREDIBLE!" were repeatedly mentioned for years thereafter at Kingdom Hall meetings, Circuit Assemblies, and at District Conventions. The JW rumor mill even eventually claimed that "THAT'S INCREDIBLE!'s" co-host John Davidson had converted to the JWs after Davidson also began co-hosting Jehovah's Witness Dave Del Dotto's nationally-broadcast Real Estate Investment infomercial.

One segment of "THAT'S INCREDIBLE!'" propagandized the recent 1970s development of the WatchTower Society's"Quick-Build" Kingdom Hall construction program. Another segment and its followup featured the recent 1970s development of the WatchTower Cult's "Bloodless Surgery" program, which "used" non-JW doctors and non-JW medical facilities.

The"BLOODLESS SURGERY" segment propagandized pioneering bloodless surgeon Ronald Lapin's experimental use of a then newly developed Japanese artificial blood substitute called "Fluosol" (which continued to be used until the 1990s, when its detrimental side effects were finally acknowledged) on selected Jehovah's Witness patients, who soon after the airing and re-airing of that reenacted segment became "mini-celebrities" within the Jehovah's Witness community. One of Ron Lapin's celebrated Jehovah's Witness patients was Donna Graham, then of Winchester, California, who was shown recovering from an emergency hysterectomy. Donna Graham had received approval for a transfusion of Fluosol due to her extreme loss of blood prior to admission.

Donna Graham's celebrity became even greater as the "First Named Plaintiff" in the early 1980s California federal lawsuit, DONNA GRAHAM ET AL v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CALIFORNIA. That eventually unsuccessful WatchTower-instigated lawsuit was filed by selected individual Jehovah's Witnesses living in California who alleged that the State of California was unlawfully infringing on their Constitutional right to elect BLOODLESS MEDICAL PROCEDURES by selectively harassing Ronald Lapin and other California doctors who were providing BLOODLESS medical services, and the medical facilities used by those doctors, via the state's various medical licensing and regulatory agencies.

What the WatchTower Cult had successfully HIDDEN for decades until we posted this expose in 2015 was the fact that one of those so-called "heroic" Jehovah's Witness Families chosen to be featured on "THAT'S INCREDIBLE!" were longtime SECRET PRACTICERS OF FAMILY INCEST. Appearing in that "THAT'S INCREDIBLE!" segment initially had been celebrated by that JW Family, but they soon realized that their recent "celebrity-hood" also brought unwanted scrutiny to their family. Soon, that impoverished middle-aged JW Family (with some teenage children still living at home), whom had never lived outside their general home area, was "helped" by "someone" to pack-up and relocate over 2000 miles away to an isolated rural area "where the need was great", where that JW Family was able to secretly return to practicing FAMILY INCEST -- not bothered by worldly or JW officials for years thereafter. This still active JW Family has prospered for decades, and as best as we know, none of the still active JW Family members have ever been disfellowshipped, nor otherwise publicly sanctioned, despite the fact that their FAMILY INCEST secret has been known by WatchTower HQ for decades. (Thanks goes out to the WTS for keeping us on this trail until we finally fully understood the info we already had in our hands. Unbeknownst to us, we have had this info in our possession for years, but we had never put "1" and "1" together to come up with "2". We kept coming back to this file due to the WTBTS's peculiar handling of our continuing inquiries. Finally, we made the connection despite the obfuscation.)
 
EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, we too are interested in knowing more about the "HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY", which supposedly offered health insurance coverage ONLY to Jehovah's Witnesses back during the 1970s and 1980s, which is vaguely mentioned in Gene Church's 1982 book, "No Man's Blood". (Gene Church also may have worked on the two or more"THAT'S INCREDIBLE!" television segments.) Church's book also briefly mentions that "Jehovah's Witnesses" were also seriously exploring the possibility of purchasing a Hospital in California during the 1970s and 1980s. Readers should note that Church's book, which is a highly propagandized account of Ron Lapin and the early days of bloodless surgery, reads as if it had been co-authored and edited by the WatchTower Cult itself. There is/was a JW named "Gene Church", but we don't know if they are one and the same.
 
Church's book relates that Hercules "Herk" Hutchins M.D., the Jehovah's Witness surgeon who eventually became Ronald Lapin's surgical assistant, was the "Medical Advisor" to that Jehovah's Witness health insurance company. This "secret" group of Jehovah's Witnesses also installed free-of-cost watts-lines into Ron Lapin's office and home conditioned on Lapin's 24/7/365 answering all calls and recommending bloodless treatment for injured Jehovah's Witnesses to JUDGES, ATTORNEYS, hospital officials, doctors, etc.
 
First, we suspect that that "insurance company" was either a now-defunct WatchTower owned subsidiary, or was a small, unknown company purchased by that "group" of wealthy JWs used by the Cult during that time period. Second, Ron Lapin did not answer for FREE telephone calls 24/7/365, plus everything else that he did FREE, unless he and the Cult had cut a secret financial deal which blanketly took good care of Lapin for serving as the non-JW "face" of bloodless medicine. Like everyone else that the Cult partners with that partnership eventually backfired due to the character of the people with whom the Cult partners. However, the WatchTower Cult's decades-long secret behind-the-scenes crusade to make "BLOODLESS MEDICINE" a routine part of modern medicine worldwide has unquestionably been one of the WatchTower Cult's greatest successes (even a stopped watch is correct twice a day). Cult observers wondering where some of the Cult's BILLIONS of income have gone typically fail to consider how many hundreds of millions that the Cult has pushed across -- as well as pushed beneath -- tables worldwide to get bloodless medicine where it is today.
 
As an aside, the Cult is nowhere close to being in as large of a financial distress in 2015-16 as it is leading its membership to believe. Are Cult "cutbacks" hurting the Cult or hurting its members? There is a difference. The Cult's decades-old SOP for "expansion" has ALWAYS been to leave untouched its OLD MONEY, and proceed forward with "expansion" using ONLY NEW MONEY. "New money" has not been as readily available in 2014-2015 as during some past time periods -- thus the need for the unprecedented "money grab", which was "risky", but succeeded, as anticipated. Besides, Cult observers really didn't expect the Cult to fail to take every bit of financial advantage as possible of those suckers who believe that October 2014-15 is of some prophetic significance, do you??? Centennial anniversaries only come around every so often. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

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NEW YORK v. BRUCE ELDON COULTRUP was a 2010 New York criminal court case in which a former SECOND GENERATION WATCHTOWER BETHELITE, named Bruce Eldon Coultrup, then age 57, then of Newburgh and Middletown, New York, was convicted of "Criminal Sexual Act-1st Degree: Victim Less Than 11 Years Old". Bruce E. Coultrup pleaded GUILTY to having sexually abused a young "non-stranger" female from the time that she was 5 years-old until she was about 12 years-old. Bruce Coultrup was sentenced to 8 years in prison, where Bruce Coultrup was designated as a "Sexually Violent Offender" (SVO). Bruce Coultrup has been released as a Registered Sex Offender.

INTERESTINGLY, Bruce Coultrup's guilty plea and sentencing came about as FAST as possible after his arrest. Arrested 3/22/2010. Convicted 5/04/2010. Sentenced 6/29/2010. Bruce Coultrup is believed to have served as a WATCHTOWER BETHELITE during the early 1970s. Bruce Coultrup's father, Eldon Lee Coultrup, longtime circuit-prominent COBE at the Johnstown, New York Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, had served as a WATCHTOWER BETHELITE during the latter 1940s. Bruce Coultrup's Uncle Charles Russell Coultrup (WatchTower Farm Overseer) and Aunt Lucille Coultrup, are buried at the WATCHTOWER FARMS CEMETERY. Given the proximity of Coultrup's residence to WATCHTOWER FARMS, and the stealth and speed that his prosecution was moved through the system, we can't help but wonder whether Coultrup still had an ongoing relationship either with the Wallkill or Patterson office.

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WESTON COOTE v. TROY TAYLOR, FORDHAM HEIGHTS CONGREGATION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ET AL is an ongoing 2021-23 New York civil court case. Edited excerpts from Plaintiff's complaint (allegations):

Plaintiff Weston Coote is a 37-year-old resident of New York. Plaintiff was approximately 16 years old at the time of the sexual abuse alleged herein. ... In or around 1999, when Plaintiff was approximately 15, he met Defendant Minister Taylor through the friend and the friend's family.

The friend's grandmother was very involved in Defendant Kingdom Hall Jehovah's Witnesses, and took Plaintiff and his friend with her on Tuesdays and on the weekends. They would spend long hours listening to parishioners sharing their experiences, then enjoy a big meal all together. 

Defendant Minister Taylor conducted Bible study at Plaintiff's friend's house, which is how they became acquainted. Defendant Minister Taylor knew of Plaintiff's family turmoil, and exploited Plaintiff's trust by encouraging him to open up and make himself vulnerable to Defendant Minister Taylor. One night in or around 2000 or 2001, when Plaintiff was approximately 16 or 17 years old, Defendant Minister Taylor invited Plaintiff to his home ... in the Bronx. 

... Defendant Minister Taylor gave Plaintiff beer and Plaintiff ended up sleeping over, feeling drunk. That night, Plaintiff woke up to find Defendant Minister Taylor performing oral sex on him. When Plaintiff awoke, Defendant Minister Taylor jumped up and left the room. Plaintiff was frozen, in shock and extremely confused. Some time later, Defendant Minister Taylor came back into the room and told Plaintiff that they needed to pray. Defendant Minister Taylor apologized, saying he had struggles with Satan and that praying would help.This abuse occurred on multiple occasions over the course of more than a year. On another occasion, Plaintiff woke up to find Defendant Minister Taylor rubbing his penis around Plaintiff's anus. 

Plaintiff told two Elders about Defendant Minister Taylor's sexual abuse. In the Jehovah's Witnesses faith, each congregation has a body of Elders, who are responsible for governance and discipline of the members within their purview. First, Plaintiff told Brother White, an Elder. He recalls Brother White's reaction as being one of condescension and callousness; Brother White brushed Plaintiff off and nothing further happened. 

Then, Plaintiff also told another Elder ... Brother Swoger instructed Plaintiff not to tell anyone, because if he did then Satan would use it against the whole society of Jehovah's Witnesses, which would harm the faith and result in fewer people being saved. Brother Swoger assured Plaintiff that Jehovah would handle it. He then led Plaintiff in a prayer. ...

The abuse stopped when Plaintiff served time. Later, once he was out of prison, Plaintiff would occasionally see Defendant Minister Taylor around his neighborhood. On one occasion in the mid-2000s when Plaintiff was in his early 20s, Plaintiff saw Defendant Minister Taylor and confronted him. Defendant Minister Taylor apologized for the abuse and said he was still praying over it.

Several years later, Plaintiff texted Defendant Minister Taylor, expressing that he was still suffering the consequences of his abuser's actions. Defendant Minister Taylor again admitted the sexual abuse, apologized to Plaintiff, and referred him to a Bible passage for comfort. Plaintiff has maintained screenshots of the text messages.

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OHIO v. KIEL D. LORENZEN was a 2021-22 Ohio criminal prosecution. Between August 2011 and May 2012, in Ottawa County, Ohio, Kiel Lorenzen, then age 26, on multiple occasions furnished an underaged Jehovah's Witness female with alcohol, and engaged in various sexual activity. In 2020, after the unidentified JW female had married, Kiel Lorenzen attempted a "sextortion" scheme in which Kiel Lorenzen threatened to send videos and photos of the victim to her family and the BOE at her local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. Lorenzen sent examples of such to the victim to prove their existence.

The victim obviously reported the "sextortion" attempt to the police. In 2021, the Ottawa County, Ohio grand jury returned an indictment charging Kiel Lorenzen with 37 sex offenses, including 14 counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, 8 counts of sexual battery, one count of voyeurism, one count of rape, 6 counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented matter or performance, and 7 counts of pandering sexually-oriented matter involving a minor or impaired person.

In August 2021, Kiel Lorenzen entered pleas of guilty to two counts of sexual battery and two counts of pandering sexually-oriented matter involving a minor or impaired person. In October 2021, the trial court held a sentencing hearing and imposed maximum consecutive prison sentences for all four of the convictions, totaling 26 to 30 years in prison. Appeal failed.


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CALIFORNIA v. DALE LESLIE STANDRIDGE is an ongoing 2015-16 California criminal prosecution in which a PROMINENT northern California Jehovah's Witness Elder named Dale L. Standridge, age 54, of Eureka, California, has been charged with engaging in Three or More Acts of Substantial Sexual Conduct With a Child Under the Age of 14 years-old whom resided in the same home as did Dale Standridge, between the dates of June 2007 and June 2013. Dale Standridge pled "Not Guilty", and was released on $100,000 bond.
 
In addition to being the owner/operator of Sharp Auto Graphics & Signs Inc., Dale Standridge is a longtime prominent Jehovah's Witness Elder who has previously served as a Coordinator of the Body of Elders at the Eureka California Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. Dale Standridge also has spoken at multiple WatchTower District Conventions over the years, and a well known JW website even posts online two of Dale L. Standridge's sermons.
 
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UNITED STATES v. CRAIG A. CAPSON was the famous 1960-66 JEHOVAH'S WITNESS DRAFT DODGER court case which went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. SCOTUS refused to hear this case of Craig Capson's conviction for refusing to be inducted into the United States military. Craig Capson was a third-generation Jehovah's Witness who proclaimed that he had been "ordained" as a JW Minister when he was 9 years-old. This federal court case made Craig Capson and his extended Capson family one of Utah's most PROMINENT Jehovah's Witness Elders and Jehovah's Witness families during the latter half of the 20th century.

UTAH v. CRAIG A. CAPSON made Craig A. Capson one of Utah's most INFAMOUS Jehovah's Witness Elders during the early years of the new 21th century. In the early 2000s, Craig Capson was convicted of LEWDNESS INVOLVING A CHILD, and served a short stint in jail, and was registered as a Utah sex offender. Capson died in Murray, Utah, in February 2011, leaving three daughters, eight grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and a prominent JW Brother and his family.

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MISSOURI v. CLARENCE K. BOUSE was a 2002-04 Missouri case in which Clarence K. Bouse was convicted of three counts of attempted sexual misconduct involving a child for his having transmitted a series of six photographs of his genitals via the internet. In November 2001, Clarence Bouse, then age 38, and then working for the Sedalia, Missouri school system, thought he was emailing the photos to a 13 year-old girl living in Livingston County, Missouri, but was in fact exchanging emails with the Sheriff of Livingston County. Bouse made plans with "Carrie" to meet so that they could engage in sex. He also emailed several pictures of unidentified couples engaging in sexual activity. Clarence K. Bouse and Carrie eventually made plans to meet at a motel on November 16, 2001, and on November 19, 2001. Bouse, however, never showed up at the motel on either of the planned dates.The state charged Bouse with two counts of attempt to commit statutory rape in the first degree, two counts of attempt to commit statutory sodomy in the first degree, and three counts of attempt to commit sexual misconduct with a child. Bouse waived a jury trial. At the conclusion of the state's evidence, the circuit court granted Bouse's motion for judgment of acquittal on the attempted statutory rape and attempted statutory sodomy counts. The circuit court found Bouse guilty of three counts of attempted sexual misconduct with a child. Bouse's conviction was upheld on his appeal, which mainly dealt with the then poor wording of the relevant Missouri statutes.
 
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Although it is not known if he is the same "Clarence Bouse" convicted in the above criminal prosecution, in 1993, a Jehovah's Witness, also named Clarence Bouse, of Harrisonville, Missouri, (two counties west of Sedalia, Missouri) filed a federal lawsuit alleging religious discrimination against Capital Cities ABC Inc. and its' newspaper subsidiary, The Kansas City Star, which had fired Bouse in June 1992 from his job as a pressman. (Did Bouse receive his "pressman" training at the WatchTower Society's world headquarters, as have a multitude of former Bethelites who have gone to work for newspapers after leaving "Bethel"???) 

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MASSACHUSETTS v. JOEL C. BIAS (2000) was a 1999-2000 Massachusetts criminal court case which involved an African-American Jehovah's Witness named Joel C. Bias, who likely was a congregation Ministerial Servant at his local Amherst Massachusetts Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. Limited details. In April 2000, Joel Bias was convicted of RAPE AND ABUSE OF A CHILD. Sentence unknown.
 
Possibly, one or both parents of Joel C. Bias previously served as BETHELITES at both WATCHTOWER HQ in Brooklyn and WATCHTOWER FARM, and one or more siblings or other relatives may be former or even current BETHELITES, including one male who was a "Traveling Bethel Speaker". Thus, there is the possibility that Joel C. Bias was also a former WATCHTOWER BETHELITE.

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MASSACHUSETTS v. JOEL C. BIAS (2003) was a 2002-03 Massachusetts criminal court case involving Joel Bias, which likely was motivated by his earlier prosecution and conviction for RAPE AND ABUSE OF A CHILD. After a two-day JURY trial in November 2003, which undoubtedly excluded any mention of his previous conviction, Joel Bias was found "not guilty" of two counts of assault and battery on a person 14 years-old or older.

This second prosecution stemmed from two "incidents" that transpired in 1998 at a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Amherst, Massachusetts, when Joel C. Bias was 28 years-old and the complaining victim was only 14 years-old. The victim claimed that TWICE in 1998 while she was attending services at her local Amherst Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses that Joel Bias touched her on her buttocks without her consent. The victim claimed that both incidents occurred while services were ongoing and while she was returning to her seat after using the restroom. The victim claimed that each time that the incident occurred that Joel Bias was an "attendant" or "usher" stationed at the rear of the Kingdom Hall to guard the main entrance, and that as she was returning to her seat, Bias reached out and hugged her, while allowing his hands to wander to her buttocks. (Apparently, the building layout was such that the restroom entrances were not visible from the auditorium.)

INTERESTINGLY, Bias's attorney apparently did not deny that the incidents happened, but rather successfully claimed that neither incident rose to the legal definition of an "assault" because the 14 year-old victim had failed to complain to Bias or say anything at all to anyone else at the time that the incidents occurred. In fact, the Prosecutor related that the incidents had eventually been reported to the congregation's Elders by the victim, and that Bias had suffered unidentified congregation sanctions (where Joel C. Bias' father is believed to be the COBE/Presiding Overseer). Bias allegedly acknowledged such to police when he was initially questioned. What all this seems to tell us is that the JW Elders did NOT show up and testify at this trial.

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This case reminded this editor of an African-American Ministerial Servant in his early-30s who served in a suburban congregation which included multiple African-American Elders and Ministerial Servants, and which was located in a northern suburb of a large mid-west City -- back in 1996. This MS and his new family were relocated from either Toledo or Cleveland to our large city by his employer. He was a recent Divorcee with custody of one child who had recently married an A-A Divorcee with custody of three children. African-American MS was AGGRESSIVELY AMBITIOUS, and was quickly re-appointed as a Ministerial Servant in our congregation by the mixed-race BOE. MS actively campaigned for Public Talk assignments and other congregation assignments/responsibilities, and openly complained when he didn't receive such, plus he let everyone in the congregation know that he wanted to be promoted ASAP to "Elder". The local Elders frequently cited this extremely ambitious MS as an "example" for all the other males in the congregation to follow.

Amusingly, even before the first anniversary of MS's arrival in City, MS's extracurricular congregation ambitions finally caught up with him. MS's "house of cards" came tumbling down when MULTIPLE unmarried A-A females in our congregation, multiple unmarried A-A females in the congregation that shared our Kingdom Hall, and even multiple unmarried A-A females in other local congregations gradually revealed that MS was a SERIAL SEXUAL PROPOSITIONER who made his moves right inside the Kingdom Hall, or at other WatchTower events. What was more shocking to this editor was the fact that the local BOE -- again with several African-Americans -- did not appear to be shocked or even surprised at the "inside the congregation" modus operandi of this Ministerial Servant. A-A MS was disfellowshipped for unknown reasons. Given MS's ability to play the Elders like a banjo, it is hard to believe that he was DF'ed for mere "propositioning". It is more likely that MS had been somewhat successful with his intra-congregational trolling scheme, which would involve A-A JW females willing to fornicate within the congregation

This editor has known of many Caucasian JW Males who carried on affairs with non-JWs, or at least limited themselves to one female inside the congregation with whom they had fallen in love. In fact, in this same congregation, a Caucasian MS recently had left his JW Wife to marry a non-JW co-worker. However, Dude MS was the only JW Male of any race that this editor has known who REGULARLY trolled for casual sex with multiple unmarried adult JW females at multiple Kingdom Hall meetings and even at the local Assembly Hall. His latest wife quickly divorced him, and he eventually moved elsewhere. Because this sexual predator's then KNOWN targets were all adults, this editor will wager much that this Dude simply moved to another City, got reinstated, and replayed his intra-congregation trolling modus operandi. (For those IDIOTS who like to mis-characterize this editor's sporadic rants which don't hesitate to call a spade a "spade", I gave Dude's A-A ex-wife significant funds to pay her bills multiple times after she kicked his sorry arse out. And, I did so despite the fact that only a few months previous she had proclaimed to a crowd of JWs to whom I was speaking after a KH meeting that I KNEW NOTHING about what I was speaking -- which just so happened to be my area of expertise, in which I trained others. I just wrote that incident off as "TYPICAL" for the situation -- a "strong black woman" whose mouth was bigger than her brain.)

Maybe this also is a good time to finally reveal that just a few months before I relocated out of that congregation, the A-A wife of one of the aforementioned African-American Elders began to flirt with me both at the Kingdom Hall and during the few scatter times when I had telephoned her home to speak with JW Elder when he turned out not to be at home. I wrote off JW Elderette's flirting as merely being awkward attempts to be friendly to a whitecollar Caucasian. However, only 3-4 months after moving out of the congregation, while still in communication with members there, I learned that JW Elderette had been disfellowshipped for adultery.

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J.B. v. INTERLAKEN CONGREGATION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ET AL is an ongoing 2021-23 New York civil court case. Edited excerpts from Plaintiff's complaint (allegations):

... [ROBERT] VANN was a ministerial servant appointed by Defendants. When Plaintiff was approximately nine (9) to eleven (11) years old, between the approximate years of 1990 and 1991, VANN sexually assaulted and abused Plaintiff on multiple occasions. 
The acts of sexual abuse and assault perpetrated against Plaintiff by VANN included, but are not limited to: VANN's fondling of Plaintiff's genitalia; Plaintiff's forced fondling of VANN's genitalia. ... the sexual abuse also included anal penetration when Plaintiff was unconscious. Plaintiff endured a "game" of choking. Plaintiff was choked until he briefly lost consciousness. Upon regaining consciousness, Plaintiff would have the sensation that he had defecated.

 The acts of sexual abuse and assault perpetrated against Plaintiff by VANN took place on multiple occasions in VANN's residence over a period of approximately two (2) years from approximately 1990 to 1991. VANN would invite Plaintiff to his residence for bible study which frequently resulted in Plaintiff spending the night at VANN's house and sleeping with VANN in his bed. Frequently, in the presence of other church members and elders present at VANN's residence, VANN would force Plaintiff to sit on his lap. Other church members and elders were aware that Plaintiff slept with VANN in his bedroom.VANN's inappropriate behavior with Plaintiff was open, obvious and notorious.

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JENNIFER BANLAKI v. JOHN ROGERS, NAUGATUCK CONGREGATION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ET AL is an ongoing 2021-23 New York civil court case. Edited excerpts from Plaintiff's complaint (allegations):

Plaintiff and her family who were Jehovah's Witnesses knew ministerial servant JOHN ROGERS from their ... Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witness in Naugatuck, CT where ROGERS served as a ministerial servant. In or about 1984, Plaintiff was approximately nine years old when she attended ... an assembly of Jehovah's Witnesses in Monroe, New York.

Ministerial servant JOHN ROGERS repeatedly sexually abused plaintiff by kissing her, fondling her breasts, vagina, and butt and exposing his penis to her asking her to touch it at this assembly in Monroe, New York inside of his camper. Plaintiff also recalls leaving with ministerial servant JOHN ROGERS in his camper from the assembly in New York back to the congregation in Connecticut.

... despite their knowledge that ROGERS sexually abused children ... Defendants failed to remove defendant JOHN ROGERS from his position as ministerial servant or take any steps to keep the dangerous predator away from children and attempted to silence Plaintiff and her family from reporting said sexual abuse outside of the organization. 


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DENISE J. JACKSON v. CENTRAL RIVERSIDE CONGREGATION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ET AL is an ongoing 2021-23 New York civil court case. Edited excerpts from Plaintiff's complaint (allegations):

Matthew Jones ... was a baptized publisher of CONGREGATION. Jones was JACKSON's stepfather. ... Jones is deceased.

David Davenport ... was an elder of CONGREGATION. ... Davenport is deceased.

At various times between the years of 1972 and 1974, when JACKSON was approximately seven to nine years old, Jones sexually abused JACKSON. Jones used his position as a baptized publisher to sexually abuse JACKSON. The sexual abuse of JACKSON by Jones occurred at different locations, including at Jones's home, which he shared with JACKSON. Jones's sexual abuse of JACKSON included Jones vaginally raping JACKSON, Jones digitally penetrating JACKSON's vagina, Jones anally raping JACKSON, and Jones fondling JACKSON's genitals.

JACKSON's grandmother witnessed Jones's abuse against JACKSON. JACKSON's family reported Jones's sexual abuse of JACKSON to the elders of CONGREGATION. The elders did nothing in response to this report of sexual abuse against a minor. Receiving no assistance from the elders, JACKSON's family reported Jones's sexual abuse of JACKSON to law enforcement.

[NEW YORK v. MATTHEW JONES.] As a result of this report to law enforcement, Jones was arrested and convicted of crimes relating to his sexual abuse of JACKSON. Jones was sentenced to prison and served approximately 10 years in prison for crimes relating to his sexual abuse of JACKSON.

[David] Davenport used his position as an elder to gain access to JACKSON and used that access to molest her. Davenport's abuse of JACKSON occurred when she was approximately 10 years of age in approximately 1975. The sexual abuse of JACKSON by Davenport occurred at a Jehovah's Witness Convention in Utica, New York.

JACKSON was volunteering at the convention. In accordance with Jehovah's Witness policies and procedures, JACKSON, a child volunteer at the convention, was removed from the custody of her family while serving as a volunteer. While JACKSON was walking to her volunteering duties at the convention, Davenport invited her to walk with him. As an elder, Davenport exerted authority over JACKSON, and she had been trained to respect and obey Davenport. In fact, Davenport had been assigned to be JACKSON's Bible study partner ... Consequently, JACKSON thought that she had to follow Davenport when he invited her to walk with him. Davenport took JACKSON into a stairwell at the convention hall and raped her. Davenport's sexual abuse of JACKSON included Davenport vaginally raping JACKSON. ... at the convention at which Davenport raped JACKSON, there was no security or supervision of the minor children volunteering at the convention.

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SHJUAN GRANT v. JEFFREY BUTTS, HEMPSTEAD NY CONGREGATION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ET AL is an ongoing 2021-23 New York civil court case. Edited excerpts from Plaintiff's complaint (allegations):

Plaintiff and her mother who were Jehovah's Witnesses knew elder JEFFREY BUTTS from their congregation ... in Hempstead, NY where BUTTS served as an elder ... In or about 1982, Plaintiff was approximately five years old when her mother would drop her off at elder JEFFREY BUTTS home for babysitting in Hempstead, NY, while she handed out Jehovah Witness pamphlets. The elders of the church were considered male leaders of the congregation who were supposed to be considered trust worthy. JEFFREY BUTTS repeatedly sexually abused plaintiff at his residence in Hempstead by fondling plaintiff's genitals, forcing her to touch his penis, and sticking his tongue in her mouth. The sexual abuse described herein occurred a minimum of approximately ten different occasions when Plaintiff's mother would drop plaintiff off at the BUTTS residence.

JEFFREY BUTTS would frequently stare at plaintiff in church ... in a sexual manner and wink at her. ... despite their knowledge that BUTTS sexually abused children ... Defendants failed to remove defendant JEFFREY BUTTS from his position as elder or take any steps to keep the dangerous predator away from children.

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SUSAN D. WRIGHT and EVELYN D. DAVIS v. CLINTON (Brooklyn) CONGREGATION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ET AL is an unknown status 2021 New York civil court case. Edited excerpts from Plaintiff's complaint (allegations):

Beginning in or about 1965, Julius Griffin began sexually abusing [his daughter] Evelyn D. Davis ... on a regular basis, this continued until on or about 1971. Beginning in or about the winter of 1970, Julius Griffin began sexually abusing [his niece] Susan D. Wright ... for approximately 3 months.

The Elders of the ... Clinton Congregation ... on Halsey Street in Brooklyn, New York, were advised, by his then spouse, that he had been sexually abusing his daughter (Evelyn) and niece (Susan). In or about April 1970, the elders ... requested that my 5-year-old sister and I provide testimony at a hearing ... We both testified at the hearing ... [Julius] Griffin [was] ... disfellowshipped from the church. [H]owever the Kingdom Hall did not report his crimes to the proper authorities. ...  Mr. Griffin was later reinstated as a member of the church.

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MASSACHUSETTS v. ROBERT K. MATHESON and NEW HAMPSHIRE v. ROBERT K. MATHESON were related 2008-09 compatible multi-state criminal prosecutions. In July 2009, Robert Matheson, then age 60, of Concord, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty in Massachusetts to four counts of Indecent Assault and Battery on a child under the age of 14. Bob K. Matheson also pleaded guilty to Felonious Sexual Assault - Victim age 13 to 15 in New Hampshire. Sentence unknown, but New Hampshire parole date is 2029. Matheson also had been convicted of Assault and Disorderly Conduct in 1978.

Bob Matheson and his JW Wife owned a vacation home in Newbury, Massachusetts, to which they occasionally invited their New Hampshire Jehovah's Witness "friends". In 2004, Robert Matheson began sexually molesting the 13 year-old daughter of one of those JW "friends" when that JW Family visited with the Mathesons at their Massachusetts vacation home. Those molestations evolved into an "affair" during which Matheson and his teenage victim regularly discussed running off together. In August 2008, Matheson's JW Wife discovered a letter from the then 17 year-old victim in which the relationship was discussed. JW Wife reported the matter to New Hampshire's Dept of Child Services, and of course, THE ELDERS.

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CALIFORNIA v. HARLAN RUSSELL STEINER III (1994-95) and CALIFORNIA v. HARLAN RUSSELL STEINER III (2014-16) are related California criminal court cases which involved Harlan R. Steiner III, DOB: 06/21/1955, recently of Hemet, California. In March 1995, Harlan Steiner, then age 39, then of San Diego County, was convicted of LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH A CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS OF AGE. Harlan Steiner was sentenced only to ONE DAY IN JAIL, along with three years probation. In 2015, Harlan R. Steiner's petition for a certifiicate of rehabilitation and pardon was granted by the Riverside County Superior Court. On the state's appeal, the California Court of Appeals reversed that decision holding that persons convicted of this particular crime are ineligible for a certifiicate of rehabilitation and pardon under California law.
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CALIFORNIA v. GIACOMO ENRICO DEMATA was a 2004 California criminal prosecution in San Joaquin county. James Demata aka Jim Demata, aka Giacomo E. Demata, aka Giacomo Demata, DOB 2/25/1947, was convicted in 2004 on the charge of LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH A CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS OF AGE. Unconfirmed source reports that James E. Demata was sentenced to 3 years in prison, and 5 years probation, and was released early in 2005.

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NEW YORK v. JUDD A. GAUTHIER was a 2008-12 New York criminal prosecution. In July 2009, Judd A. Gauthier, age 22, of Hudson Falls, New York, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual misconduct committed against 16 year-old JW Victim A in 2007, and one count of second-degree rape against 14 year-old JW Victim B in 2009. In December 2009, Judd A. Gauthier pleaded guilty to criminal sexual act in the third degree against an underaged JW Victim C in 2008. Media reports indicated that law enforcement believed that Judd Gautheir actually had had inappropriate sexual contact with five or more underaged females, but prosecution went forward on only these three victims. Sentence unknown, but when Judd Gauthier was approaching release from prison in 2011-12, Gautheir was classified as a risk level III sex offender pursuant to the Sex Offender Registration Act. Judd Gauthier appealed that "high" risk level, but lost.

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ALABAMA v. WILLIAM WESLEY BRYANT was the 2015-17 Alabama criminal prosecution of William Wesley Bryant Jr., age 65, of Elkmont, Alabama. In August 2017, William W. Bryant was found guilty of three counts of sexual abuse of a child under age 12, and one count of first-degree sodomy of a child under age 12. Sentence pending.

We know that this family has connections to the WatchTower Cult only because it was briefly mentioned during the trial that the maternal grandmother is one of Jehovah's Witnesses. The young victim was sexually abused and sexually molested multiple scattered times over a period of eight years -- when she, her older sister, and Mother lived off and on with Bryant and his JW Wife, because the victim's father was an OTR truck driver, whose own family lived in Memphis, Tennessee. 

Allegedly, the victim was abused and/or assaulted more times than the perpetrator was indicted. At trial, the victim testified that she was sexually abused by William Bryant when she was ages 5 and 10, and later sodomized at age 11. Bryant was ages 55, 60, and 62 at the times. She testified that her grandfather repeatedly touched her genital area at his home on Christmas Day evening, and the next day, in 2007. She said he told her it was okay when she questioned the behavior. She testified that he again touched her genital area while they were on a deer-hunting outing during the 2012-13 hunting season, when she was 10, but she made him stop. She also testified that her grandfather attempted to perform oral sex on her during a snow day from school in February 2014, when she was 11, but she made him stop. Bryant eventually confessed to the crimes -- in front of both police and his most recent wife.

The victim disclosed her abuse multiple times over the years. In 2008, she told a school official in Missouri, while attending first grade. In 2012, while visiting her paternal grandparents in Memphis, she told her outraged father and outraged grandparents. Her mother, Bryant's daughter, called the victim a liar. In 2014, she told school officials in Tennessee. In 2015, the victim finally told school officials in Alabama, who initiated this prosecution. All too typical of child molestation prosecutions, NO ONE stood up for the by-then 14 year-old victim at the trial. Not her JW GrandMother. Not her own Mother. The victim's 21 year-old sister, Patra Salgano, gave testimony denying that any sexual abuse had occurred at Xmas time in 2007. A female minor cousin gave testimony denying that any sexual assault had occurred in 2014 to herself or the victim. The defense even attempted to retract Bryant's confession.

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ALASKA v. DUANE ALAN CARR was a 1997 Alaska criminal prosecution which involved what has been reported to be a onetime PROMINENT FAMILY of Jehovah's Witnesses. In November 1997, Duane A. Carr, by then age 26, was convicted of sexually molesting a 15 year-old female babysitter, who also was a fellow Jehovah's Witness. Duane Carr and his 6 siblings were the children of JW Elder Jerry Neil Carr, Sr., and his wife, Marilyn Carr, of Wasilla, Alaska. Duane Carr was sentenced to 28 months in state prison.
 
Given the PERP's age at time of conviction, and other evidence, we suspect that this may have been yet another instance of where the Jehovah's Witness Victim did not come forward until the PERP was being investigated for other matters by his Congregation's Judicial Committee. In 2002, Duane Carr's re-married ex-wife publicly alleged that Duane Carr, while a Ministerial Servant at the Palmer, Alaska Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, had "abused" their two daughters. She claimed that she reported such both to the BOE and the local Police. She further claimed that three additional unknown victims came forward during the Judicial hearings. These events apparently occurred prior to the 1997 criminal prosecution.
 
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ALASKA v. KELLY RYAN CARR was the 2004 Alaska criminal prosecution of Kelly R. Carr, then age 38, also of Palmer, Alaska. Kelly Ryan Carr also is the son of JW Elder Jerry Neil Carr, Sr., and his wife, Marilyn Carr, of Wasilla, Alaska. In March 2004, after a grueling jury trial that lasted 8 days, the jury was out only three hours. Kelly Carr was convicted on 4 counts relating to child molestation and 6 counts relating to filming and possessing child pornography -- two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor; two counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor; one count of exploitation of a minor for video taping a sex act; and five counts of possessing child pornography. Sentenced to 29 years in prison, with 14 years mandatory before eligible for parole.
 
Over 220 still images of child pornography were found on Kelly Carr's laptop computer. Carr's two alleged victims were his 4 year-old niece and his 9 year-old daughter. In a November 2001 secretly recorded conversation, which had been authorized by a warrant, Kelly Carr admitted that he had videotaped himself engaging in sex with the 4 year-old victim.
 
UNBELIEVABLY, Kelly Carr was supported during the trial by a number of his immediate family members, including at least one of the two victims. Brother Duane Carr's ex-wife (see above) also publicly alleged that there is a THIRD MEMBER of this PROMINENT JW FAMILY who has been accused of child molestation. Another Tipster alleges that the Carr Family had converted from the LDS Church (Mormons), and believes that one or more members of this family are active online on ex-JW discussion forums, where they pose as both ex-Mormons interested in JWism and as ex-JWs.
 
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OREGON v. JAMES DEAN THOMPSON was a 2011-14 Oregon criminal prosecution of James D. Thompson, age 46, of Sublimity, Oregon -- reportedly a Jehovah's Witness Elder in one of the greater Salem Oregon Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. James Thompson was convicted of two counts of first-degree Sex Abuse in May-June 2012, and was sentenced to a mandatory six years in prison before eligible for parole. Appeals denied.
 
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HAWAII v. RAMIL FERNANDO DULDULAO was a 2014-15 Maui, Hawaii criminal court case which involved a 44 year-old Jehovah's Witness Minister named Ramil F. Duldulao, of Kihei, Maui, Hawaii. In late 2013 or early 2014, a 13 year-old boy who attended the Kihei Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses reported to his Jehovah's Witness Parents that fellow Jehovah's Witness Ramil Duldulao had been repeatedly sexually fondling him and sexually harassing him opportunistically at the Kihei Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, while engaging in field service, at the Duldulao home whenever the victim visited the Duldulao children, and at the victim's home when the Duldulao family socialized at the victim's Parent's home.

The 13 year-old victim's JW Parents reported the matter to the Body of Elders at the Kihei Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, whom formed a "judicial committee" to investigate the child molestation allegation. In accordance with WatchTower Cult standard-operating-procedure, the 13 year-old victim was FORCED to confront Ramil Duldulao face-to-face and make his accusations while Duldulao was present. The crying child victim described how Duldulao had repeatedly fondled his buttocks on multiple occasions, and how Duldulao had repeatedly put his hands down into the child's pockets, and how Duldulao had repeatedly made obscene hand gestures and spoken to the child using sexualized language.

Apparently familiar with the WatchTower Cult's RULE that requires there to be TWO WITNESSES to an act of child molestation, Ramil Fernando Duldulao simply laughed-off the child's tearful testimony. Duldulao claimed that on all those multiple occasions that he had simply been "playing" around or horsing around with the victim during "sports play". Apparently, no formal action was taken against Duldulao by the Kihei Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. Sometime thereafter, "someone" reported the matter to the police, who arrested and charged Ramil Fernando Duldulao with continuous sexual assault of a minor. Interestingly, this "alien" PERP managed to be LICENSED as a "Security Guard" by the State of Hawaii in April 2015 -- while he was under indictment for "continuous sexual assault of a minor".

In 2015, Ramil Fernando Duldulao, a Filipino National, accepted a plea deal offered by the LAZY Maui Prosecutor to plead Guilty to a lesser single count of third-degree sexual assault. In November 2015, Ramil F. Duldulao was sentenced to one year in jail with five years probation, forced to register as a sex offender, and ordered to pay $5400.00 restitution. Repeating Duldulao's statement that he had made saying, "I am 100 percent against violence. [Sexual] acts outside the marriage [are] detestable and against Bible principles," the no-nonsense female Judge stated, "I really wish you'd practice what you preach. I think you need to take a good look at yourself. You can laugh all you want, and you can joke all you want, but I think the joke's on you. You're going to laugh all the way to [Maui Community Correctional Center]."

Ramil Fernando Duldulao apparently is part of a large extended Jehovah's Witness family from the Phillippines, who all live in the Anchorage, Alaska area, or on Maui. Ramil F. Duldulao, and his wife and children, also recently lived in Anchorage, Alaska. Notably, Duldulao's sister testified as a character witness for the PERP, stating that Duldulao was a good husband and a good father, who regularly performed volunteer work for his church, and who had "always been a good, law-abiding person". Once again, a snickering Jehovah's Witness "Satan" gets off with a wrist-slap.

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UNITED STATES v. LESLIE ALLEN LETTS (2004) and UNITED STATES v. LESLIE ALLEN LETTS (2010) were related Wisconsin federal court cases in which Leslie A. Letts, ages 35 and 41, of Janesville, Wisconsin, pleaded "Guilty" to using the Internet and telephone to persuade a 13-year-old South Beloit, Illinois girl to engage in a sexual act. Lett also admitted to traveling across state lines to South Beloit, Illinois, for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a person whom Lett believed was a child. Letts was originally sentenced to 60 months in prison without parole, with 60 months supervised release to follow. However, after Leslie Letts was released from prison in January 2009, Letts violated one of his release conditions by repeatedly accessing a public computer at the Milton, Wisconsin Public Library to make contact with females. Letts was tried in 2010 for such, and sentenced to another 12 months in prison.

Originally, Leslie A. Letts was caught in a police "sting", and apparently never ever actually communicated with the young girl. Instead, after Letts located the girl's online profile and sent her a message, the teenage girl's Mother intercepted Lett's messages, which even included a sexually explicit photo, and turned such over to the police, whom began an undercover sting on Letts. Letts was highly surprised when he traveled to Illinois to meet for sex a person Letts thought was going to be a 13-year-old girl. Interestingly, Leslie Allen Letts initially was released on bond, but confined to the home of his "exemplary" Jehovah's Witness Parents, Amos Letts and Ruth Letts, in Janesville.

JENNIFER L. ELLIS LETTS v. LESLIE ALLEN LETTS was a 2001 Wisconsin Divorce case.

LEANNA LYNN HANSEN LETTS v. LESLIE ALLEN LETTS was a 2011 Wisconsin Divorce case.

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WISCONSIN v. WAYMON CHANDLER IVERY was a 1992 Wisconsin criminal court case. In December 1992, married African-American Waymon C. Ivery, then age 42, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was convicted/pled to one count of First Degree Sexual Assault On A Child -- his 9 year-old step-daughter. Waymon Ivery reportedly served only one year of a multiple years prison sentence. Waymon Chandler Ivery recently lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and is on Colorado's Sex Offender Registry.

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OHIO v. RICHARD ALLEN KANDRA was the 1989 Ohio criminal prosecution of Richard A. Kandra, then age 28, of Lagrange, Ohio, on one count of statutory Rape. Richard Kandra served an unknown length prison term, and was required to register as a Sex Offender at least as late as 2003, when he registered in the state of Florida.

FLORIDA v. RICHARD ALLEN KANDRA and FLORIDA v. RICHARD ALLEN KANDRA. Richard Kandra was arrested in Fort Myers, Florida in May 1996 and in May 2000 on charges of failing to register in Florida as a Sex Offender. Richard Kandra was arrested again in Fort Myers in October 2001 on unclear charges. Outcomes unknown.

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KATHY VAULS MOLESTATION. In 1976, 14 year-old Kathy Vauls was sexually molested by a 27 year-old "Ministerial Servant" from the same Baltimore, Maryland area Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses which Kathy Vauls attended with her JW Parents, John and Bette Vauls. That married JW MS allegedly fondled Vauls breasts and digitally penetrated her vagina as he drove her home in his car from babysitting his two children. Kathy kept the sexual assault a secret until after she turned 18 years-old, when in 1979 she finally told her mother, who in turn reported the 3 1/2 year-old rape to the Congregation's Body of Elders.

A judicial committee was formed, and the by-then 18 year-old Kathy Vauls was grilled for 3-4 hours without the presence of her JW Parents. Vauls reported that the three Elders perversely wanted to know every minute detail of the sexual assault -- down to "how many fingers" had the JW MS used during each part of the assault. Alleging that the 14 year-old Vauls then had had "big boobs" and "dressed provocatively", the 3-member judicial committee reportedly decided that the then 14 year-old girl was as much, if not more, responsible for her RAPE as had been the JW MS who raped her. Reportedly, the three Elders decided to discipline the Rapist by merely "reproving" him "privately", while also "reproving" Kathy Vauls -- but "publicly".

Bette Vauls obviously was very unhappy with the way the BOE had handled the matter -- not to mention their decision and "sentence". However, all three Vauls still maintained the WatchTower-taught "code of silence", and no report of the RAPE was made to the authorities. Yet, the whole matter became an ongoing irritant to Bette Vauls, and she apparently wore on her sleeve her displeasure with the BOE, who in turn returned the favor. Bette Vauls was hounded by the BOE until they finally had grounds to disfellowship her in 1983. Bette Vauls eventually filed a failed, but well-publicized, civil lawsuit against several individual Elders in 1985. See BETTE VAULS v. NICK G. LAMBROS ET AL.

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INDIANA v. GLEN M. FLESHER is an ongoing 2015 Indiana and Texas criminal prosecution. In September 2015, a reportedly "never-married" onetime Jehovah's Witness Ministerial Servant at the Terre Haute, Indiana Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, named Glen Flesher, age 33, was arrested at the home in Terre Haute which he shares with his JW Mother, Rhonda Flesher. Computers and other property were seized from the home. Glen Flesher is accused of beginning an online sexual relationship with a 15-year-old Texas girl in 2014, and now faces criminal charges including child exploitation, possession of child pornography, child solicitation, vicarious sexual gratification, and dissemination of sexual material to a minor -- all of which resulted from the exchange of nude photographs between Flesher and the female minor. Flesher and the minor female also used Skype to facilitate their illegal relationship. Glen Flesher remained in jail on $75,000.00 bond. Outcome pending.

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OKLAHOMA v. KENNETH L. WOODRUFF was a 2011 Oklahoma criminal prosecution of a 77 year-old Jehovah's Witness Minister, father, and grandfather, who was arrested in August 2011, in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, on charges of CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE, and held on $100,000.00 bond. Outcome unknown. Kenneth Woodruff died in July 2015, and received a Kingdom Hall funeral in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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CALIFORNIA v. FALKO NOFRIED FORBRICH (DOB: 10-13-1943) (Multiple aliases: Falco, Norfried) Date unknown, Falko N. Forbrich, of Cupertino, California, was convicted of LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH A CHILD 14 OR 15 YEARS OLD. Sentence unknown, but Falko Forbrich was once listed on the California Sex Offender Registry. Falko Forbrich is one of three brothers reared in communist East Germany by active Jehovah's Witness Parents. Forbrich has boasted that his JW Father spent 8 years in an East German prison due to secret activities performed inside East Germany for the outlawed WatchTower Society. The JW Family eventually somehow managed to escape into West Germany. Falko Forbrich immigrated to the United States sometime prior to 1984 -- probably using his controversial "Jehovah's Witness" religion as a primary reason for entry, as do many immigrants. Research raises a question about the GENDER of the child whom Falko Forbrich sexually assaulted. Interestingly, in 1984, Forbrich's older brother, Ernst Forbrich, was caught in an FBI SPY STING in Florida and convicted on two counts of ESPIONAGE against the United States.

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PENNSYLVANIA v. TERRY JEANNE MONHEIM was a 2012-13 Pennsylvania criminal court case in which a Female Jehovah's Witness named Terry Monheim, aka Terry Jeanne Seipp, then age 58, then of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, was arrested and charged with statutory sexual assault, indecent assault on a person younger than 16 years old, and corruption of a minor. Outcome unknown.

In 2011, the alleged Female victim, by then age 22, whom had been reared as a third-generation Jehovah's Witness, reported to law enforcement that she had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by Terry Monheim between 2003 and 2005, when the alleged victim was 14 to 16 years-old, and while the alleged victim and Monheim had been fellow members of the Spring Grove Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, in York County, PA. The alleged victim further alleged that both she and Terry Monheim had been "publicly reproved" by the Congregation -- for what the Elders at the Spring Grove Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses apparently had considered to have been a consensual homosexual relationship. The alleged victim thereafter publicly alleged that she also had been sexually assaulted by an unidentified Male Jehovah's Witness when she was only 4 years-old. Outcome unknown.

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PENNSYLVANIA v. MERVIN TORIAN SR. Mervin Torian Sr., African-American male, DOB 2/21/1969, started serving a lengthy prison sentence in the mid-1990s, on charges of incest, rape, and corruption of a minor.

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PENNSYLVANIA v. TROY ADAM SHADE was a 2003-04 Pennsylvania criminal prosecution. In March 2004, Troy A. Shade, then age 35, was convicted in Schuylkill County of statutory rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and other sex crimes. He was sentenced to serve 5 1/2 to 20 years in prison.

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OHIO v. JW STEPFATHER. Sparse details. In the latter 1980s, an anonymous 16 year-old Jehovah's Witness girl living in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, disclosed to her mother that the "devout Jehovah's Witness" Step-father had repeatedly abused her during her earlier childhood. Together, the JW Girl and her JW Mother confronted JW Step-father, who CONFESSED. However, since the abuse had already ceased, JW Mother and other family members urged JW Girl to keep the JW Family's secret a secret. JW Girl eventually disclosed the prior abuse to the authorities, and eventually filed criminal charges against her stepfather. At the trial, JW Step-father pleaded NOT GUILTY. JW Girl sat alone with the Prosecutor as JW Mother and JW Step-father sat on the other side of the courtroom. JW Girl did her best for the prosecution, but she only was able to recall scattered bits and pieces of the sexual assaults which had occurred years earlier when she was much younger. JW Step-father was found guilty of only a minor charge and was sentenced to only 60 days in jail. If you read this JW Girl, please send us the specifics.

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OHIO v. JERALD JORDAN was a 2010-14 Ohio criminal court case which involved a practicing Jehovah's Witness Minister named Jerald Jordan, age 62, of Crestline, Ohio. Jerald Jordan eventually accepted a plea deal for 9 years in prison (minimum of 7 served) in exchange for pleading guilty to one count of Unlawful Contact with a Minor, two counts of Illegal Use of a Minor in Nudity Oriented Material or Performance, and one count of Attempted Use of a Minor in Nudity Oriented Material or Performance. Multiple attempts at appeal have failed. Typically, this was the Jehovah's Witness Minister's first ever run-in with the legal system.

In February 2010, Jerald Jordan's JW Wife of thirty years, Brenda Jordan, and possibly one of his four daughters, reported to local police that Jerald Jordan had sexually assaulted a 13 year-old granddaughter who had spent the night during early February 2010. Jordan eventually admitted to police that he had rubbed the granddaughter's vagina while snuggling under a blanket while watching a movie together. Jerald Jordan was arrested and incarcerated -- where during a visit with his brother, Lloyd Jordan, Jerald Jordan was taped asking Lloyd Jordan to go to his home and remove a certain garbage bag from the bedroom. That garbage bag was intercepted, and inside the bag were found 24 secretly recorded VHS tapes of multiple different minors in various stages of nudity while visiting at the Jordan home.

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OHIO v. MICHAEL HARRIS and OHIO v. MICHAEL HARRIS are/were somewhat related 2007-13 Ohio criminal court cases in that an African-American Jehovah's Witness named Michael Harris, of greater Cleveland, Ohio, was convicted of repeatedly raping a 6 year-old step-daughter during 2007-08, plus Harris was also convicted of raping an adult step-daughter in 2007.

Michael Harris and Robin Harris married in 2004. They initially lived in Euclid, Ohio, before then moving to Cleveland Heights. Michael Harris was alleged to have repeatedly performed oral sex on the 6 year-old female, plus repeatedly forced her to perform oral sex on him under threat of spanking. Harris also watched pornographic movies in front of the 6 year-old. Michael Harris was sentenced to 30 years to life on the first conviction. The second conviction has been overturned and remanded for a new trial due to errors relating to the possibility that the multiple sexual contacts between Harris and the adult step-daughter may have been consensual. Quite a top quality JW family we have here. Outcome of new trial unknown.

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OHIO v. AARON M. MAY. Aaron May, African-American male, DOB 3/23/1973, started serving a lengthy prison sentence in the early 1990s, on charges of first degree rape of a male minor, and first degree rape of a female minor.

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VERMONT v. THOMAS F. BATHRICK. Limited details. Tom F. Bathrick was convicted on 05/21/1998 of "Non-NYS Felony Sex Offense". Vermont's Sex Offender Registry specifies as "sexual contact" with a "non stranger".

MASSACHUSETTS v. THOMAS F. BATHRICK. In January 1998, Tom Bathrick Jr., of Bellows Falls, Vermont, was also arrested and charged with stealing a 1988 Saab at gunpoint after he hitchhiked a ride with the owner. Mass State Police stopped the vehicle with spike-strips. Outcome unknown.

Informant alleges that Thomas Bathrick was reared in a JW Family, and was baptized at age 22, in 1999.

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PENNSYLVANIA v. GREGORY J. YARBENET was a 2002-03 Pennsylvania state criminal prosecution of a Jehovah's Witness Minister named Gregory Yarbenet, then age 55, of Girard, Pennsylvania, who had been employed as an award winning Rice Avenue Middle School science teacher for 32 years. In April 2002, Greg Yarbenet was arrested for repeatedly -- sometimes almost daily -- sexually molesting a female student named Stacey S. between February 1999 and June 2000, while the girl was in the seventh and eighth grades, and while Yarbenet was the girl's homeroom teacher and adviser. In a March 2003 plea deal, Greg Yarbenet pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, three counts of indecent assault, and three counts of corruption of minors, and was sentenced to 11-22 years in state prison.

 
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PENNSYLVANIA v. GREGORY J. YARBENET was a second 2003 Pennsylvania state crimnal prosecution of Gregory Yarbenet for repeatedly -- again, almost daily -- sexually molesting a second female student named Leigh Ann A. between March 2001 and April 2002, while that second girl was in the sixth and seventh grades. In a June 2003 plea deal, Greg Yarbenet pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault, and two counts of corruption of minors in exchange for only an additional 6 to 18 months in prison -- making a total of 11-23 years in prison.
 
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STACY S. and LEIGH ANN A. v. GREGORY J. YARBENET was a 2004-06 Pennsylvania federal civil rights court case filed by the above two students and their parents. This lawsuit was settled in September 2006, with Stacy S. receiving a judgment of $250,000.00, and Leigh Ann A. receiving $100,000.00. Notably, Yarbenet's $3000.00 per month state pension, and all assets also co-owned by Yarbenet's wife, could not be seized to satisfy these settlements. However, the Girard School District's insurer paid a total of $400,000.00 to the two victims.

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WASHINGTON v. JAMES ACE SALMON II was a 2015 state of Washington criminal prosecution. In September 2015, James A. Salmon, then a transient living in Port Angeles, Washington, pled guilty to a single count of "Communication with minor for immoral purposes". Sentence unknown. Registered sex offender. James Ace Salmon is believed to have JW Family in Idaho, California, and Washington state.

In Januray 2015, James Salmon was arrested on charges third-degree rape of a child, communication with a minor for immoral purposes, and possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Police stated that, from December 2013 until February 2014, that James Salmon had exchanged texts and pornographic selfies with a 14 year-old girl whom knew that Salmon was 21 years-old at the time. Salmon confessed that he had communicated with the girl via digital media and had met up with her and had sexual intercourse on multiple occasions.

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OREGON v. DONALD MERLIN SERJEANT was a 1990 Oregon criminal prosecution of a 58 year-old Jehovah's Witness Minister and SERIAL CHILD PREDATOR named Donald Merlin Serjeant (DOB: 6/18/1932), then of Albany, Oregon. Donald Serjeant, aka Donald M. Serjeant, aka Don Serjeant, aka Don M. Serjeant, aka Donny Serjeant, aka Donny M. Serjeant, actually resided in multiple locations in Washington state prior to relocating to Oregon from Washington, where he also had frequently moved about, although a significant term of residence was spent in Bottell, Washington (see below).

It appears that the Linn County Grand Jury may have been presented with evidence of three possible victims, but returned an indictment only with regard to one of those possible victims. In April 1990, Donald Serjeant was indicted on 4 counts of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, 2 counts of Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree, 1 count of Attempted Sodomy in the Second Degree, and 1 count of Attempted Rape in the Second Degree. Those incidents occurred between 1984 and 1989 to a female under the age of 12 years-old who was the daughter of close family friends of Serjeant.

In July 1990, the Prosecutor cut a deal with Donald Merlin Serjeant to plead "no contest" to the four counts of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree. Serjeant was sentenced to only 5 years in prison, but was out on parole by December 1992. Don Serjeant was also ordered to pay $3000.00 restitution for counseling for his young victim.

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WASHINGTON v. DONALD MYRLIN SERJEANT was a 1993 Washington state criminal prosecution of 39 year-old Donald Myrlin Serjeant (DOB: 6/16/1954). In December 1993, Donald Myrlin Serjeant was convicted of sexually molesting a 13 year-old female.

Donald Serjeant, aka Donald M. Serjeant, aka Don Serjeant, aka Don M. Serjeant, aka Donny Serjeant, aka Donny M. Serjeant, actually resided in multiple locations in Washington state prior to relocating to South Dakota after serving time for this conviction. Sergeant is believed to have graduated from Bothell High School in Bothell, Washington.

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BELEN CASTRO v. VIRGIL BUSHMAN, TOPPENISH WASHINGTON KINGDOM HALL, WTBTS, ET AL was a 2014?-2015 state of Washington civil court case. Belen Castro, now age 24, alleged that a fellow member of the Toppenish Washington Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses named Virgil Bushman began sexually abusing her around 2002 when she was 11 years-old. Castro alleged that Bushman's attentions became physical in May 2003. Castro claimed that Bushman first kissed and intimately held her during a Memorial Day weekend camping outing with several families in the Toppenish Congregation. (Was this a "JW get-together"??? Were Congregation Elders in attendance???) Bushman allegedly next had sexual contact with her at Bushman's parents' home, where he had invited her, her brother, and several other children(Jehovah's Witnesses???) to go swimming (Was this a "JW get-together"??? Elders or Elder's children ever in attendance???). Castro alleged that Bushman touched her vagina with his fingers while they were all in the hot tub, and later kissed her in his parents' kitchen. Castro further alleges that Bushman had unwanted sexual contact with her during a sleepover party at his home in June 2003, while his wife, Lisa Bushman, was out of town (Was this a "JW get-together"???). Finally, Castro alleged that there were several times when Bushman would touch her or "try to talk me into something" during church related events, including while attending meetings at the Toppenish Kingdom Hall. Castro testified that Bushman would come up behind her and "grab her butt" behind the large sound box in the back corner of the Kingdom Hall. (Was Bushman responsible for some or all of the sound system??? What were Bushman and Castro doing "out-of-sight" at the Kingdom Hall? For the sake of argument, assume that this accusation is accurate and true. That would certainly make EXTREMELY BRAVE and EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE someone who held no prominence or position in the Congregation. Why did someone with no position and no prominence in the Congregation have the CONFIDENCE to repeatedly "be around" congregation Minors, much less have the CONFIDENCE to assault them without fear of immediate report???? Had Bushman ever been appointed as any type of "pioneer" -- "auxiliary" or "regular"? Had Bushman ever appeared in SAD, Circuit Assembly, or District Convention programs??? Had Bushman ever acted as an attendant or performed other function at a SAD, Circuit Assembly, or District Convention??? Non-JWs should KNOW that EVERY Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses has a long list of "privileges" extended to "exemplary" male JWs who have not yet been "promoted" to Ministerial Servants -- attendant, security, field service conductor, sound system servant, microphone servant, literature servant, magazine servant, etc., etc. Any of these "privileges" would signal to congregation members that Bushman had met certain standards within the organization and had met the approval of the Congregation's BOE. PS: If certain "people" reading these notes don't know for what some of the above abbreviations stand, then that could explain some things.)

In late June 2003, Castro confided in a cousin about Bushman's alleged abuse. Someone thereafter notified the Congregation's Elders. A meeting between Castro, her mother, and two Elders took place in July 2003. Ms. Castro revealed at least some of Bushman's actions to the elders. Bushman never again molested Castro following that meeting.

Belen Castro reportedly did not file a police report until 2012, and one or more federal and state lawsuits may have been filed thereafter. All claims against Virgil and Lisa Bushman were SETTLED. In this state case, in 2015, the Washington state trial court summarily dismissed the Congregation and the two WATCHTOWER corporations from the case after the twoWATCHTOWER corporations claimed without adequate rebuttal that they no longer exercised any input over individual Congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses after 2001 (Apparently, the plaintiff failed to name as DEFENDANTS the plethora of WATCHTOWER corporate affiliates, particularly the pertinent CHRISTIAN CONGREGATION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, INC. in this lawsuit. It would be interesting to know whether certain Bushman relatives were JWs, and whether they had ever held a position of responsibility within the Watchtower organization???), and after the Congregation claimed without adequate rebuttal that Bushman had never held any position of responsibility within the Congregation (Really, then how did Bushman get invited to so many social functions with other Congregation members, including the ABILITY to hold without question sleepovers for possibly children of other Congregation members?????), plus that the Congregation was totally unaware (Really???) of any criminal propensity whatsoever on the part of Bushman, and thus no duty ever arose to protect Castro from Bushman (What about the duty to protect Congregation children from adult males with no known criminal propensities, but who have the propensity to constantly interact with young underage females???). On plaintiff's appeal, the Court of Appeals of Washington affirmed the trial court's summary dismissal of the Congregation and the two WATCHTOWER corporations, in September 2015. WOW!!!!! ... ... WOW!!!!! ... ... WOW!!!!!

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CALIFORNIA v. SCOTT GILMAN was a 1999-2000 California criminal prosecution case involving a Jehovah's Witness named Scott Gilman. In 1998, then 18 year-old Scott Gilman was accused by fellow Jehovah's Witnesses, Winford Roberson and Kim Roberson, of taking their 3 year-old daughter into the restroom at the Adelanto, California Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, and there sexually molesting her. When the BOE at the Adelanto, California Congregationl of Jehovah's Witnesses investigated, but did nothing, the Roberson's reported the matter to the Adelanto Police Department. Gilman was also accused of molesting a 4 year-old girl in her playhouse -- possibly the same child.

In April 1999, Scott Gilman was arrested and charged with two counts of lewd acts with a child. Due to the improbability of proving either charges in court, the local Prosecutor and Gilman agreed for Gilman to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of child annoyance in exchange for serving 210 days in county jail, and only on weekends. Scott Gilman was ordered to pay the Robersons more than $3,000.00 in restitution, and serve three years supervised probation. Although media reported that Gilman was to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, we find no such registration.

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IN THE MATTER OF K. J. HAMMONS was a 2010?-2013 Michigan state court decision in which the parental rights of a Michigan Jehovah's Witness Father were terminated after he had "inappropriate sexual conduct" with his 4 year-old daughter on at least four separate occasions. Interestingly, HAMMONS successfully argued at trial level that he was "sleeping or in a confused state" when the "inappropriate sexual conduct" occurred, and that he thought that his sexual conduct was directed at his wife, not his child. JW Father admitted to a "longstanding pornography addiction", and posited that it may have contributed to the sexual misconduct at issue and "the lack of intimacy in his marriage". While the Michigan trial court failed to rule HAMMONS sexual conduct to have been "intentional", his parental rights were still terminated. In 2013, the Court of Appeals of Michigan affirmed the trial court decision.
 
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MICHIGAN v. DARWIN ANDREW BEATTY JR was a 1996-97 Michigan prosecution of African-American Darwin A. Beatty Jr., of Detroit, Michigan, on unknown sex related charges. In February 1997, Darwin Beatty Jr. pled guilty to second degree Criminal Sexual Conduct, and was required to register as a sex offender. Sentence unknown.

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ARIZONA v. LEROY GILBERT was a 2003-06 Arizona criminal court case which involved a Jehovah's Witness Elder named Leroy Gilbert, age 78 at time of conviction in December 2004, of Sierra Vista, Arizona. Gilbert pleaded guilty to attempted molestation of a child, and was given the minimum prison sentence of five years. In 2006, the Arizona Court of Appeals denied Gilbert's appeal of the minimum sentence based on his eligibility for probation due to his age and failing health.

Leroy Gilbert's victim was his own granddaughter, whom he repeatedly molested when she spent the night at his home during the 1980s -- when she was under 15 years of age. Granddaughter suffered extensive mental harm from the repeated molestations, including low self-esteem, anger, self-doubt and depression. The victim finally reported her molestations to her Jehovah's Witness Elders around 1997, but Gilbert apparently denied her accusation, and was believed by his fellow Elders. Granddaughter attempted suicide in 1998. In 2003, Granddaughter again raised the matter with local JW Elders and law enforcement. This time, Gilbert admitted the molestations. In Gilbert's prosecution, Granddaughter requested but was denied reimbursement for her mental health expenses due to Gilbert's lack of assets.

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KEVIN ROY v. LAKE COUNTY JAIL, ET AL was a 2009-2010 Indiana federal court case. Kevin Roy, approximately age 50, and confined in the Indiana Department of Corrections, filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Lake County Jail officials violated his right to practice his WatchTower religion while he was confined at the jail as a pretrial detainee for nine months in 2007-2008. In 2010, the USDC denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment. Here is a pertinent excerpt:

Roy alleges that the defendants prevented him from practicing his religion while he was at the Lake County Jail. He specifically asserts that he is a Jehovah's Witness, that jail officials would not allow Jehovah's Witnesses to conduct group worship in the jail chapel even though other denominations were allowed to do so, and that jail officials made it difficult for his minister [a local JW named CHASE] to give him spiritual guidance and eventually refused to let him come in the jail. ... "

Googling key terms yields a sex offender website, which lists a Kevin Roy, who then was a 47 year-old African-American male, who had been charged in Lake County, Indiana, under Indiana Criminal Code 35-42-4-3: Child molesting. Googling key terms also yields a Kevin Roy who held a school teacher's certificate (Physical Sciences) in the state of Indiana from 1989 until August 2006, when such expired.

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PATTERSON v. PATTERSON and OHIO v. JAMIE LEE PATTERSON were related 2004-5 Ohio civil and criminal court cases which involved a Jehovah's Witness Family in Alliance, Ohio. In 2003, Jamie L. Patterson, then age 35, and Regina Patterson, then age 33, had three children -- the oldest being a boy, and the two youngest being girls. Gina Patterson began to observe situations which made her suspect that improper sexual activity was occurring between her husband and their oldest daughter, who was only six years old. After an incident in October 2003, when her daughter had physical signs of molestation, and told her that such were caused by touching by the father, Gina Patterson separated from Jamie Patterson, and filed for divorce in February, 2004. Gina Patterson reported the situation to Department of Family Services, who in turn notified local police. After a thorough investigation, Jamie Lee Patterson was indicted in December 2004 by the Stark County Grand Jury on a charge of Gross Sexual Imposition On a Victim Under Age 13. A jury found Jamie Patterson guilty of one count of Gross Sexual Imposition. The trial court sentenced Patterson to a three year term of imprisonment, and adjudicated him a sexual predator.

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NORTH CAROLINA v. JOHN NICOLL (2005) and CROWN v. JOHN NICOLL (2010) are multiple criminal cases in the United States and Scotland involving John Nicoll, who was reared with a strict Jehovah's Witness upbringing. John Nicoll's Scottish parents immigrated to Wendell, North Carolina in 1983, when he was one year-old. John Nicoll graduated from East Wake High School in 2000. In March 2005, John Nicoll was convicted in North Carolina for sexually assaulting a 10 year-old girl as the child slept in her own bedroom. Nicoll broke into the sleeping family's home in August 2004 for the sole purpose of attacking the child. Nicoll was sentenced to state prison for a period of 19-23 months, but his prison sentence was suspended -- possibly because of his status as a "Jehovah's Witness". Nicoll was placed on probation and ordered to reside at a state-run specialist residential unit for a 12-month period. However, Nicoll failed to comply with the conditions of probation, and he was sent to prison to serve out the full term of his original 19-23 month sentence.

After John Nicoll's release from prison and placement on the sex offender's registry list, Nicoll moved to Scotland, in 2008, to be with his father, who had returned there after splitting with Nicoll's mother in 2003. In February 2010, John Nicoll pled guilty in Scottish Court to entering a local home without permission. Although details are unclear, Nicoll evidently entered a stranger's home during an ongoing party, and he was discovered snooping through the bedrooms. Thereafter, in mid 2010, John Nicoll was sentenced to 12 months in Scottish prison on possession of child pornography charges that resulted from a police investigation that grew out of the aforementioned criminal case. The court was told that John Nicoll had been assessed as posing a "very high risk" to the public by both social workers and psychologists who had worked with him.

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TEXAS v. JOHNNY WALDEN was a 2001 Texas murder court decision. Limited, incomplete details. In May 2001, a 93 year-old "devout" and "active" Jehovah's Witness, named Julia Walden, of Brazoria, Texas, was murdered by her 39 year-old son, Johnny Walden. Walden was convicted, and he may have received a 40 year prison sentence in a plea deal.

Johnny Walden and his 18 month younger brother, Tommy Walden, were adopted by Julia Walden when they were babies/infants, and when she was in her mid to late 50s. Julia Walden's husband, Bill Walden, left her not long thereafter, and she reared the boys by herself. There is a good possibility that the two boys were children of one of Julia Walden's relatives. Johnny Walden had lived a troubled life -- from childhood right up to the murder. He was the "bad" son, while Tommy was the "good" son. Over the years, Johnny Walden had claimed that his troubled life was the result of mental issues caused by his having been sexually molested when he was around 3-4 years old by a late-teens male relative who also lived in the household at that time.

Possibly after serving a tour in the Army, Johnny Walden returned to Brazoria and married Sheryl Anderson, and they had a son sometime around 1984/5, named Jonathon Walden. Johnny Walden and Sheryl Walden divorced around 1992/3. Prior to April 2001, Johnny Walden had lived away from Brazoria. It is not clear whether this was his choice, or whether he had been incarcerated. In any event, Johnny Walden asked his mother's permission to move into a small house behind her home, and she allowed him to do so, in April 2001, despite protests from Tommy Walden, Sheryl Anderson, and Jonathon Walden.

On the evening of May 20, 2001, Johnny Walden and Julia Walden argued over whether or not Johnny had been molested by a relative when he was a child. Apparently, this had been a decades-long issue between Johnny and his mother, who apparently had always denied that the molestation had occurred. Julia Walden still would not admit such. Johnny Walden apparently stewed overnight on the issue, and re-initiated the argument on the morning of May 21. Apparently, when Julia Walden still would not admit that Johnny had been molested, he attacked her, and smothered her to death with a pillow.

Tommy Walden found his mother's body when he got off work that afternoon. She was in her bed, as if she had died in her sleep -- except for the signs of a struggle on both her forearms. Johnny Walden was the main suspect, and he apparently confessed a few days after the Kingdom Hall funeral.

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MARK O. BARTON - JW DAY TRADER On Thursday afternoon, July 30, 1999, in what was deemed Atlanta's worst mass murder, a recently converted Jehovah's Witness, named Mark Orrin Barton, 44, who was an unemployed chemical salesman turned "day trader", walked into the offices of two Atlanta stock brokerage firms, Momentum Securities and All-Tech Investment Group, and announced, "I hope this doesn't ruin your trading day." Mark O. Barton then opened fire with two 9mm and .45 caliber handguns -- killing 9 people and wounding 7 others at the two offices. After a five-hour manhunt, police stopped his van at an Acworth, Georgia, BP gasoline station, where Barton committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with both pistols at the same time.
 
When police went to Barton's apartment, they discovered the bodies of Barton's wife, Leigh Ann (Vandiver) Barton, 27, his son, Matthew, 11, and his daughter, Mychelle, 7. The childrens' bodies were found in their beds, and the wife was found in a closet. Barton murdered his wife Tuesday evening, while she slept, and then he murdered his children the following Wednesday night, while they slept. All three had been bludgeoned to death with a hammer. The Bartons had only recently reconciled after Leigh Ann Barton had moved out in April -- possibly because Mark Barton was demanding that she also join the Jehovah's Witnesses.
 
Barton left hand-written notes on all three bodies, and a typed suicide note, which explained, in part:
"It just seemed like a quiet way to kill and a relatively painless way to die. There was little pain. All of them were dead in less than five minutes. I hit them with a hammer in their sleep and then put them face down in the bathtub to make sure they did not wake up in pain. To make sure they were dead.
 
"... I have come to hate this life and this system of things. I have come to have no hope. I killed the children to exchange them for five minutes of pain for a lifetime of pain.
 
"... I know that Jehovah will take care of all of them in the next life.
 
"Please know that I love Leigh Ann, Matthew and Mychelle with all of my heart. If Jehovah is willing, I would like to see all of them again in the resurrection, to have a second chance. ... ."
 
Barton was apparently distraught over the heavy financial losses that he recently had suffered while day-trading at the two stock brokerage firms. Barton had reportedly lost $20,000.00 on Tuesday, and over $100,000.00 over the past couple months. Barton had lost his home and possibly several hundreds of thousands of dollars of his life savings (and life insurance proceeds) over the previous year.
 
After these murders, it was disclosed that Barton had been considered the main suspect in the 1993 deaths of his first wife, Debra Barton, 36, (the mother of Matthew and Mychelle), and her mother, Eloise Spivey, 59, both of whom had been hacked to death inside a camper at a crowded Alabama lakeside campsite over Labor Day weekend. Barton had taken out a $600,000.00 insurance policy on that first wife just weeks before her murder. Barton had not been charged, despite a ton of circumstantial and some physical evidence. Barton and the married Leigh Ann Vandiver were even dating at the time, and Vandiver even accompanied Barton to the funeral.
 
Three months after the death of her father, a day-care worker reported that Barton's then 2 year-old daughter, Mychelle, told her that her father had been sexually molesting her. An investigation by Georgia's Department of Family and Children Services was inconclusive mainly due to the child's age.

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CHILD-MOLESTING PRESIDING OVERSEER KILLED BY JW SON-IN-LAW. We have received a submission which we cannot verify, but which has the "ring of truth". The Editors would appreciate hearing from anyone else who lived in the Atlanta area back in the 1980s who can confirm this case or who knows anything about this case. Around 1985, the 18-20 year-old step-daughter of an Atlanta JW Elder married a 20-21 year-old male JW. Shortly thereafter, JW Wife revealed to her new husband that her JW Elder step-father had repeatedly sexually molested her while she was a child. That fact, plus the fact that JW Elder was promoted to Presiding Overseer, plus the fact that arrogant P.O. repeatedly butted into the business of new couple led JW Son-in-law to quickly HATE his P.O. Father-in-law. (We do not know whether this "matter" had been previously revealed to the congregation, or how handled if revealed, or even if the Child Molester was a JW at the time that he was molesting his step-daughter. Whatever were the circumstances, SIL apparently did not have the option of taking this matter to the congregation, and for whatever reason or reasons, did not take the matter to the police.) SIL apparently reached his breaking point with FIL after a minor legal incident which gave FIL the opportunity to repeatedly deride his new SIL. SIL purchased a firearm and went to FIL's home and shot and killed him. Again, we are seeking confirmation and clarifying details of this submitted account.

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In October 2005, a former Jehovah's Witness Elder at the Cowlitz Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, in Longview, Washington, named Steve Mansfield, voluntarily surrendered his State of Washington Educational Certificate to the State of Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction, thereby ending a three year investigation by the Office of Professional Practices. By that point in time, Steve Mansfield had already retired as a School Teacher from the Longview School District, and was receiving a substantial retirement pension.
 
In March 2002, 51 year-old Cascade Middle School Physical Education and Health Teacher Steve Mansfield (described by one reporter as having a "weightlifter's build") was placed on PAID administrative leave after repeated complaints of improper conduct with multiple female students. In June 2002, Steve Mansfield signed a Settlement Agreement with the Longview School District, under which Mansfield received $33,895.00 annually, plus benefits, until his 30 year retirement date in August 2004, when Mansfield agreed to resign. The settlement also stipulated that Mansfield could not teach in the State of Washington, or anywhere else, until September 2009.

Steve Mansfield reportedly had previously been placed on PAID administrative leave in 1986 and again in 2000. According to a 2002 investigative report compiled for the Longview School District by personnel consultant Jan Marchbanks, in 1986, a local mother reported that she had found 82 "love letters" from Steve Mansfield to her teenage daughter, who previously had been one of Steve Mansfield's middle school students. According to the investigator's report, in September 2000, Steve Mansfield was again placed on paid administrative leave for seven months after an incident at his Castle Rock home. Mansfield and a 13-year-old female student were allegedly seen in his hot tub, with the 13-year-old female student sitting in his lap, with her arms around him. No criminal charges were filed after the girl and her mother said Mansfield was a close family friend and denied that anything inappropriate had happened.

At the May 12, 2003 BOD Meeting of the Longview School District, a parent named Suzanne Yule had some choice words for the Board for not previously publicly disclosing everything that it knew about Mansfield, but only after first acknowledging that she and her daughter had taken the side of Steve Mansfield in two earlier investigations after Mansfield had initially gained their trust, which Yule stated that they now regretted having done. Yule even used the "P" word, and even stated that "Steve Mansfield deserves to be in jail".

Despite numerous allegations of misconduct made over many years, some of which can be found online elsewhere, Steve Mansfield, now in his mid-60s, has never been criminally charged, and many of Steve Mansfield's former students still have fond memories of him.

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NEW YORK v. ROBERT MERCADO (1992). Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law, and matter remitted to the County Court of Washington County for a new trial. In November 1989, defendant was indicted and charged with nine counts of sodomy in the first degree and five counts of endangering the welfare of a child. The charges stemmed from allegations made by defendant's stepchildren, one male and one female, that defendant had orally and anally sodomized them on several occasions.

At the jury trial, the People's case rested primarily on the testimony of the two children, who were at that time 10 and 12 years old. The expert testimony of a social worker who had examined the children was also introduced, as was evidence of the "sexual climate" in defendant's home. The defense called the victims' mother, their maternal grandmother, defendant himself, and several others who testified regarding the food trailer (from which defendant sold hot dogs and hamburgers) where some of the incidents allegedly occurred.

Evidence of nudity in the household, defendant's possession of pornographic pictures and video tapes, and the family's one trip to a nudist camp was neither necessary to demonstrate the relationship between the parties nor to complete a sequence of events. These facts, like defendant's expulsion from military school many years earlier because of an allegedly homosexual encounter, were aimed at convincing the jury (and may well have done so) that defendant had a propensity for child abuse. The enormous prejudice generated by this sort of testimony outweighs any slight probative value that it may have. Lastly, we note that although it does not furnish a basis for reversal in this case, the People's questioning respecting the victims' ardent devotion to their religious beliefs (they are Jehovah's Witnesses) to enhance and bolster their testimony is inappropriate and should not be repeated.
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MICHAEL E. CORRELL v. SCHRIRO, ARIZONA v. MICHAEL EMERSON CORRELL, ARIZONA v. MICHAEL EMERSON CORRELL, Etc., Etc. Michael Emerson Correll currently sits on Arizona's "death row" after being convicted in 1984 of three first-degree murders, one attempted murder, one count of armed robbery, one count of first degree burglary, and four counts of kidnapping. Michael E. Correll's most recent "death penalty" appeal was in May 2008. The USCA ruled that Correll was entitled to a new penalty phase trial, because:

"Correll was constitutionally entitled to the presentation of a mitigation defense. He did not receive one, although substantial mitigation evidence existed."

Reared by Jehovah's Witness Parents, Michael Correll is NOT one of those Jehovah's Witness Children over which people scratch their heads and wonder what went wrong. Apparently, Michael Correll never stood a chance. Michael Correll was born in January 1960 -- with club feet. The family reportedly moved 20 times during Correll's youth, and Correll's father was frequently "absent" from whatever home was had. Incest was the family pastime. One of Correll's two sisters testified that while growing up, she had been repeatedly and continually molested by her father and her four brothers, including Michael, who himself was a victim as well as victimizer. At some point, the father was convicted of child molestation.

Michael Correll's mother, Joyce Elene Callahan Correll (remarried Knobel) was described as a "fanatical" Jehovah's Witness, whose commitment to the WatchTower Society came before her commitment to her family. She spent most of her time with JW activities, and often neglected her six children's basic needs. Her six children were required to attend all meetings at the Kingdom Hall, and if they misbehaved, or even indicated that they were confused, or did not understand WatchTower doctrine, they were punished.

As a result of their rearing in this abusive Jehovah's Witness household, all six Correll children (Robin Darlene, Patricia Williams, Michael, Daniel, Terry, and Timothy) reported that they had or have had substance abuse problems beginning in childhood or adolescence. At least five of the six children spent time in juvenile correctional facilities, and all four of the boys in the family have spent time in adult correctional facilities.

Michael Correll's problems with drugs and alcohol began early. In response to Correll's obvious substance abuse problems, his parents intervened with beatings and threats of kicking him out of the house. He was arrested multiply times before he was 14 years-old. Correll's JW Parents were not entirely remiss in his rearing. After Correll was expelled from the eighth grade for threatening a teacher with a knife, his parents took him to a private psychologist, and participated in a six-month treatment program with him.

However, shortly thereafter, when Correll was 14 years-old, he got into another incident in which he was shot in the arm. After he recuperated from such, Correll's parents petitioned the State of Arizona to sever their parental rights and make him a ward of the state. According to the court record, Correll's parents had done such in accordance with the WatchTower Society practice of "shunning", which is treating an excommunicated member as if they were already dead, which would also seem to indicate that Michael Correll may have been a "baptized" member, and that he may have been "disfellowshipped", which would further indicate that Correll's local JW Elders may have played an "unadvertised" role in all of the aforementioned.

Within months of becoming a ward of the state, 14-year-old Correll became addicted to heroin. Amongst the various state institutions where Correll spent his teenage years, Correll was committed to psychiatric institutions at least twice, and at age 16, Correll was described as "severely psychologically impaired". Correll was treated with tranquilizer/anti-psychotic drugs while institutionalized, and he attempted suicide on two occasions. Correll's criminal history also included numerous escapes from mental health treatment facilities, as well as hostage taking and armed aggression against mental health workers.

Methamphetamine eventually became Correll's drug of choice. At the time of the April 1984 murders, Correll's meth use put him in the top 1% of meth users quantity-wise. Michael Correll's life as a druggie was one of continuously trouble. The court record also included brief remarks about Correll's knifing of one man, and his stabbing of a pregnant woman. Except for 229 days, Correll was incarcerated for the 9-year period between October 1975 and March 1984.

During the early AM hours of April 12, 1984, Michael Correll and John Nabors went to the home of a friend/co-worker of Nabors, pulled a gun, and demanded money and drugs. After Correll secured the homeowner and his girlfriend with duct tape, a tenant and her boyfriend arrived at the home, and Correll secured them with duct tape as well. For whatever reason, the Duo left the home with the friend, tenant, and the tenant's boyfriend in the tenant's car. Curiously, the homeowner's girlfriend was further bound by Nabors, but left at the home. She was later found in the house dead from strangulation.

Correll drove the stolen auto to a deserted area where Nabors's truck was parked. Nabors took his truck and followed Correll to a desert area north of Phoenix. There, they forced the three victims out of the car and made them lie face down on the ground. Correll shot the homeowner in the back of the head. Nabors then shot and killed the tenant's boyfriend, and then tried to shoot and kill the tenant. The gun misfired a couple of times. After reloading the gun, Nabors was finally successful in shooting and killing the tenant.

Miraculously, the homeowner, whom Correll had shot, did not die, nor even lose consciousness, and he reported the crime as soon as Nabors and Correll left the scene. Nabors committed suicide while police were attempting to arrest him a few days later. On April 20, 1984, Michael Correll was apprehended at his father's residence in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he had fled to be with the father and other family members.

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