Jehovah's Witnesses Lose Big Fremont Molest Suit

SFChronicle ^ | June 15, 2012 | Demian Bulwa

[Steelfish]

Jehovah's Witnesses Lose Big Fremont Molest Suit

Demian Bulwa

June 15, 2012

An Alameda County jury ordered the Jehovah's Witnesses to pay an unprecedented $21 million in punitive damages to a woman who blamed the church for allowing a fellow congregant in Fremont to molest her when she was a child in the mid-1990s.

Candace Conti said elders at Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in northern Fremont knew Jonathan David Kendrick had molested his stepdaughter a few years before, but declined to warn others or tell police. That silence, Conti said, allowed Kendrick to gain her trust and repeatedly assault her at his home when she was 9 and 10 years old.

The jury also awarded $7 million in compensatory damages. Kendrick - who is now a registered sex offender living in Oakley - was ordered to pay 60 percent of that judgment, with the rest coming from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the legal entity of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Attorneys said they believed the damage awards, handed down Wednesday and Thursday, were the largest a single alleged victim of sexual abuse has ever won against a religious organization. They said it may also represent the first time a church has been held responsible for the alleged sexual abuse of a congregant, rather than a priest or high official.

"This is a validation I never thought I would get in my life," Conti, who is now 26 and lives in Stockton, said in an interview. "This won't take away what happened, but I think this will bring to light a very serious issue."

Conti said Kendrick had taken her along when he did fieldwork, going door to door in neighborhoods spreading the Gospel. She said he "was a member of our congregation, and he became a friend of our family.

[Colofornian]

JWs...a cult...hit up for protecting the sex abuser instead of children in its midst...

[ravenwolf]

I am not fond of the J.Vs but i think the responsibility of a 9 year old girl should be the parents and not the Church.

Gee, why did,nt the judge just convict every one in the town to let us all know that it is every ones responsibility except the parents.

[reaganaut]

Good, this should happen in other churches where the leadership hides the behavior of congregants that pose a danger to other members.

When I was LDS, we had a serial rapist in our ward (congregation). The stake presidency (leadership over several congregations) just moved him from one congregation to another. Police were never notified and women who were raped by this man who wanted to go to the police were disciplined by the Church.

I was warned only because my boss (and then boyfriend’s father) was on the Stake High Council and knew about this man and was also the mans psychiatrist and broke patient confidentiality to warn me.

NO CHURCH should cover up for crimes or put other members at risk.

[ransomnote]

The parents trusted the church - and they should have been able to do so. It’s like the ‘trustworthy’ baby sitter who ends up molesting the child to the surprise and horror of the parents who went through so much trouble finding what they thought was a ‘safe’ and ‘kind’ baby sitter.

[ravenwolf]

Yeah i guess you may be right, i guess people who are so stupid to belong to a church that hates the word church needs some one to look after them.

They must not know not to send their nine year old daughter out with a man to spread the news of Jesus,s soon coming visits to the communities, which already happened two thousand years ago.

[reaganaut]

Related ping

[Graybeard58]

Thanks for the ping.

Any church engaged in a cover up of this behavior, whether of a Pastor, Priest, Rabbi, Imam, congregant, etc. should have to pay and pay and pay.

[ransomnote]

The last Jehovah’s Witnesses I knew were a 24 year old wife and her husband about the same age. From their earliest years, they had both been abused by their families and somehow managed to survive. The ‘church’ convinced them that their ‘god’ loved them and it was the first time they ever came to believe that someone thought them worthy of love. I am glad for those who never experience the things these young people did but some people are lost, confused, looking for love etc. and they believe because they needed to believe someone could love them like the church people say they do, that some ‘men of god’ are as good as they say they are. They are lost and I pray that they are found.

You sit in such stern judgement I can only hope that this hard sneering judgement comes from a life better than the ones some other people have been exposed to (therefore no comprehension of how people become lost) and is not the result of bitterness of your own abusive past.

[ravenwolf]

You sit in such stern judgement I can only hope that this hard sneering judgement comes from a life better than the ones some other people have been exposed to (therefore no comprehension of how people become lost) and is not the result of bitterness of your own abusive past.

---

I believe every one is lost until they find Christ, at any rate if these two people did not know what love was how did they happen to be married, if they did not know what love was, they must have at least known what lust was.

A whole lot of people has experienced the kind of lives you probably would not believe.

---

You sit in such stern judgement

---

Maybe you need to look up just what judgement really was back in those days i am not judging any one i was just saying that i thought the nine year old girl was the parents responsibility and not the Jws.

I may have been bashing them which i am not proud of after i think on it, or a lot of other things but i am not capable of judging them.

And yes, i think the J Ws, are as phoney as any of the other cults.

I am not in any position to judge, and i like most JVs i have met but that don,t mean i can not say what i think.

[Elsie]

You sit in such stern judgement ...

It comes with the mission we are given.

---

 

 

 

Romans 15:4
 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

 

 

Romans 16:17
   I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.

 

 

1 Corinthians 4:17
   For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

 

 

1 Corinthians 11:2
 2.  I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings,  just as I passed them on to you.

 

 

Ephesians 4:14-15
 14.  Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
 15.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

 

 

2 Thessalonians 2:15
   So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings  we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

 

 

2 Thessalonians 3:6
  In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching  you received from us.

 

 

1 Timothy 1:3-4
 3.  As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
 4.  nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work--which is by faith.

 

 

1 Timothy 1:7
  They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.

 

 

1 Timothy 2:7
   And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle--I am telling the truth, I am not lying--and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.

 

 

1 Timothy 4:1-2
 1.  The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
 2.  Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

 

 

1 Timothy 4:6
   If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed.

 

 

1 Timothy 4:11
  Command and teach these things.

 

 

1 Timothy 6:3-5
 3.  If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching,
 4.  he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 
 5.  and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

 

 

2 Timothy 1:13
  What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.

 

 

 2 Timothy 2:15-17
 15.  Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
 16.  Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.
 17.  Their teaching will spread like gangrene.

 

 

2 Timothy 3:16-17
 16.  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
 17.  so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

 

 

 2 Timothy 4:3-4
  3.  For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
  4.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

 

 

Titus 1:11
   They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach--and that for the sake of dishonest gain.

 

 

Titus 2:1
  You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.

 

 

Titus 2:15
  These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.

 

 

 Hebrews 13:9
 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.

 

 

 2 Peter 2:1-3
 1.  But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves.
 2.  Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
 3.  In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

 

 

2 John 1:10
  If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him.

[ransomnote]

No - I believe I did not articulate my concern well. We are commanded to love. We are told that He chose us before we chose Him so that no man could boast that they were better than others for having found God. What I heard in that comment string was a profound lack of love and compassion for those whom Christ died on the cross to save. We read of the tragedy of a child being molested and I don’t believe we are called to respond with contempt for parents.