Posted on 01/28/2002 11:18:00 AM PST by hawkaw
There is a major story brewing in the USA regarding the Jehovah's Witnesses. Please note the following major news stories in the United States, which also includes the NY Post's story, and Great Britain.
This story is about a major pedophile issue in the Jehovah's Witnesses (Watchtower) organization in the USA, Canada, Europe and the world. In the USA, there are about 1,000,000 Witnesses
Apparently the Church's strange stance of requiring two Witnesses to see a crime (which is pretty unlikely when a pedophile like other criminals won't do his criminal act in front of other witnesses) and the Church requiring Elders to only report the incidents if the state law requires it (required only in 14 States), seems to allow pedophiles to be protected. The Church's shunning policy and strict requirements keep victims in line and quiet.
This issue will be getting MAJOR air time on Dateline NBC shortly (within weeks)- contact Richard Greenburg at 1-800-nbcnews
Seeing there are 1 million Witnesses in the USA, 100,000 in Canada and 6 million worldwide, seeing they come to everyone's door, and seeing the Church appears to be keeping all of this quiet - Bill Bowen, as a member in good standing of the Witnesses' organization, many other Witnesses and the press are now alerting the public.
Please note the attached story in this morning's New York Post - "Headline is - "SUIT ALLEGES JEHOVAH'S KIDDIE-SEX COVERUP"
Also check these newspapers out carrying similar stories:
The Seattle Times
"Church protects pedophiles, victim charges in lawsuit", by Janet Burkitt (who can be reached at 206-515-5689 or jburkitt@seattletimes.com).
United Kingdom Guardian Article - January 26, 2002
By Steve Bates
US Newswire: January 22, 2002
"Sexual Abuse Suit Filed Against Jehovah's Witness Leaders; Denomination's NY Headquarters Called 'Negligent'"
Here is also Press Release from Silent Lambs and the lawyers over this issue - Feel free to contact Mr. Bill Bowen at www.silentlambs.org or 1-877-WTABUSE or Email at bbbowen@vci.net. For immediate release:
Tuesday, January 22
Contact:
Laura Barrett 314-645-5915 w 314-443-5915 cell
Jeff Anderson (attorney) 651-227-9990, 612-817-8665
Timothy Kosnoff (attorney) 425-637-3070
David Clohessy 314-869-7436 ext. 2426, 314-903-3498 pager
Sexual Abuse Suit Filed AgainstJehovah's Witness Leaders Denomination's New York Headquarters Called "Negligent" Case May Receive National TV Attention
Child molesters in the Brooklyn-based Jehovah's Witness church are "routinely given sanctuary, protection, sympathy and support" from church officials according to a new civil sexual abuse lawsuit filed today in Washington state. The leadership of the one million member denomination was charged with negligence in the suit.
A Sacramento woman is seeking damages from a Jehovah's Witness leader who repeatedly raped her during childhood and from the New York-based denomination.
Erica Rodriguez, 23 years old, is suing Manuel Beliz, the Othello Washington Spanish Jehovah's Witness congregation, and the church's official national governing body. Last August, Beliz was convicted of raping and molesting Rodriguez and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Rodriguez says that Beliz abused her approximately once a week from the time she was four until she was 11, when her family moved to California.
The case is significant because it is one of a relatively small number filed against the Jehovah's Witnesses' national headquarters.
"The criminal case was to protect other kids from a dangerous molester," said Rodriguez. "This case is to protect many more kids from a dangerous denomination." She contends that "perhaps thousands" of youngsters are victimized because official Jehovah Witness policies enable known molesters to avoid detection and criminal prosecution.
During the three-day criminal trial last year, Rodriguez testified that she reported the abuse to two Jehovah's Witness elders in Sacramento, Carlos Chicas and Milton Malendez. The men pressured Rodriguez to keep quiet, threatened to "disfellowship" or excommunicate her, and promised "we will take care of it," the lawsuit indicates. Chicas contacted Othello elder John White but no action was taken.
After hearing Rodriguez' allegations, the Othello congregation protected Beliz as an elder within the church and shunned her family, Rodriguez said.
Eventually, Rodriguez contacted the Sacramento police and Beliz was questioned and later prosecuted.
"This pattern of forbidding abuse victims to contact police or 'outsiders' is standard operating procedure all Jehovah's Witnesses must follow, by direction of the national organization in New York," said Rodriguez' attorney, Timothy Kosnoff of Bellevue, Washington.
By failing to contact civil authorities, the Jehovah's Witness elders violated Washington's mandatory child abuse reporting law, Kosnoff said.
Rodriguez is also represented by Jeffrey Anderson of St. Paul, Minnesota, who has filed more than 400 cases of sexual abuse cases against clergy across the nation. Last summer, Anderson filed a civil suit against Jehovah's Witness leaders in New Hampshire for failing to report two women's abuse allegations to civil authorities.
"The Jehovah Witness church and the Watchtower Society must protect kids and not molesters," said Rodriguez. "A lot of pain and suffering could be prevented if they would forget about the church's image, take sexual abuse seriously and start reaching out to the victims."
Rodriguez believes Beliz molested other girls too and hopes her suit "will encourage them to seek justice and begin healing as I have."
Two juries found Beliz guilty of victimizing Rodriguez. His first conviction was overturned when the deputy prosecutor admitted trying to exclude younger women during jury selection. An appellate court then ordered a re-trial.
At both trials, dozens of Othello Jehovah's Witnesses and Beliz' family members spoke or wrote to the judge urging a lenient sentence. At the second trial, fifteen current and former Jehovah's Witnesses from across the country came to support Rodriguez and express their disapproval of the church's hierarchy.
Rodriguez' backers were led by church elder William Bowen of Calvert City, Kentucky, who quit his job last year to lobby for improvements in Witness policies towards abuse victims. Bowen heads "Silent Lambs," the only national support group for men and women abused by Jehovah's Witness officials (www.silentlambs.org, 1-877-WTABUSE).
"It took a lot of courage for Erica to overcome her trauma and speak out," said Bowen. "She should be praised for helping to save other children. Instead, her church has vilified her. Witnesses have treated other victims in the same way, and this 'shooting the messenger' has to stop."
Today's civil suit, filed in federal court in Washington's Eastern District, seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Beliz is now incarcerated at the Washington penal institution in Walla Walla.
There are approximately one million Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States and six million across the world.
------------------------------------------------------
David Clohessy
Director of Community Services
Riverview Gardens Schools
1370 Northumberland Drive
St. Louis, MO 63137-1413
dclohessy@rgsd.org * Visit our award-winning website: http://www.rgsd.org
(314) 869-2505, ext. 2426 (work) * (314) 869-6354 (fax)
(314) 645-5915 (home) * (314) 645-2017 (home fax)
That's gonna be one looooooooong trial.
Do they even claim to be christian? The reason I ask that is that I have never seen them or anyone else claim that the Jehova's witness' were a christian organization. I know their religion is somewhat based on the bible, but there ideaology tends to wander and not make very much sense. Anyway, just a question, as I don't know that much about them, and never reall cared to find out.
They probably would have reported it if a non-JW had committed the offense.
They do. In fact they claim to be the only real Christians.
2. Some leaders give in to this temptation.
3. Those who do should be punished and no cover up is justified.
4. It is the individuals who commit the abuse and those who cover it up who have the problems - not the organizations to which they belong.
5. Is the United States currupt because our former president (x42) was an intern molester, or are x42 and the media who tried to cover it up the criminal/corrupt ones?
6. Unless all JW's think molesting and covering it up are acceptable, then I would not cast stones at the Jehovah Witnesses as a church for these individual crimes.
7. Notwithstanding my defense of the JW church in this matter, I am not a JW and think their theology is loony. 7.
The alligation is that Jehovah's Witnesses, a conservative right-wing religious group, was involved in a child-sex coverup. Mr. Bush campaigned in California numerous times advocating education vouchers for religious schools. The same type of religious school that Erica Rodriguez was attending when she was molested for seven years. Both George Bush and John Ashcroft would not comment to us on this case.
Just a hunch I have, but I think every religion has its share of perverts.
They're a work in progress. They've written their own version of the bible with revisions/footnotes added ever so often.
...A man comes home and finds his girlfriend packing. "Where are you going?" he asks.
"I'm leaving you," she answers.
"Leaving me? Why?
"She continues packing and says, "Because I found out today that you're a pedophile!"
"A pedophile?" he shouts. "That's a pretty big word for a ten year old!"
Very true. However, in the case of child abuse, simply being an adult puts you in a position of leadership. Thus it is a broader problem.
You cannot homeschool your kids, you just want to have sex with them.......
They want to deplete the eligiblity pool.
FYI. I don't know where you got that info but it is totally false.
Yes they do, and by any reasonable definition they are.
That's fair enough. I think the confusion lies in the fact they carry a Bible around (including the New Testament) and talk about Jesus, etc. Some may have seen them as such.
Sorry about not adding the word Witness.
Other than Jim is there a way I can do it?
hawk
That's the incentive. If you want to make the cut, you have to earn it by knocking on doors.
Which is to be expected by a religion based on "works"...
It's a self-selected group. The others don't WANT to go to heaven. They believe they will live forever on a restored paradise earth. If you are a member and claim a calling to be one of the 144,000 then that is good enough.
Gee, I thought they believed only 144,000 of em would ever make it to heaven... sucks to be them. A 1 in 50 shot at best even if you are a saint? Not to mention all those that have died already, probably makes it a 1 in 100 shot or less....
Jehovah's, the afterlifes answer to the lottery.
Yes, and they should be found and prosecuted. In addition we need to know and publicize which "Churches" have policies in place to protect the predators and silence the victims.
What other weird things do the Jehovah's believe?
I believe the 144,000 were all supposed to have been born by 1914. No amount of door-knocking will get people born after that into heaven. In fact, I understand that the JW's now hold their annual communion services without anyone actually partaking, because only those born in 1914 (and therefore eligible to be part of the 144,000) can partake, and most of them are dead.
For a lot of information go to The Silent Lambs Organization run by Mr. W. Bowen.
He is still a Witness in good standing and has risked everything to take the lead in this issue.
There are a lot of others now taking up the cause but he was the first to go public with it.
hawk
144,000
All true, but they haven't reached the quota yet. That carrot is still dangling....
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