Silent Lambs is reporting that the Watchtower Society has been successfully sued for a large cash payout. And actually, I’d say this news makes good old Sparlock pale in comparison. I can’t take credit for uncovering it. I learned about it from JWD on this post. The actual PDF file can be found here.
Now, here’s the big news.
An Alameda County Superior Court jury has found the Jehovah’s Witnesses legally responsible for the sexual abuse of a 9 year old former Fremont girl. The verdict, announced Wednesday June 13, found that the Elders who managed the North Fremont Jehovah’s Witness Congregation in the 1990s knew perpetrator Jonathan Kendrick had sexually molested another child, but kept his child abuse secret from the parents and families with children in the Congregation. Kendrick went on to repeatedly sexually molest Candace Conti, now 26, over a two year period, using Jehovah Witnesses activities such as door to door neighborhood soliciting as his way to secretly gain control over his young victim. Kendrick was eventually convicted in 2004 of the sexual abuse of another young girl, and is now a Registered Sex Offender in California.
Holy crap.
The key issue in the case, according to the victim’s attorney Rick Simons of Hayward, was the written policy of Watchtower New York, Inc., which instructed all Elders in Jehovah’s Witnesses Congregations in the United States to keep reports of child sex abusers within Jehovah’s Witnesses secret to avoid lawsuits. The case is believed to be the first in the nation to directly address the policy of secrecy, adopted in 1989, and still in force today.
It’s about time.
Ms. Conti stated “I once wanted to be the best Jehovah’s Witness I could be. Now I feel I’m doing more to help other children in Jehovah’s Witnesses than I ever did walking door to door to spread the ‘good news’. The jury awarded $7 million dollars in damages, and will return Thursday to deliberate on whether or not punitive damages should be awarded.
I think we can all agree with Ms. Conti’s feelings on this one.
Candace Conti spent 2 years trying to convince the Jehovah’s Witnesses, both in Southern California and in Fremont, to change the secrecy policy, but finally gave up and filed her lawsuit in 2011. “This young woman, who experienced brutal abuse as a child, could not tell anyone for several years, and has walked for many years in a nightmare of depression and isolation, has shown incredible courage in facing the powerful and secrecy laden organization that betrayed her into the hands of a monster” said Mr. Simons of his client.
Um…wow. This is the kind of news that should get someone’s attention. Of course, that doesn’t mean it actually will. In fact, I have yet to see anyone reporting on it so far.
We can do something about that. Heck, I think we should.
We need to start spreading this information as far and wide as we did with Sparlock. Because people deserve to know the truth. Contact major and minor news outlets to make sure they take notice, guys. It will not only draw attention to the pedophilia cases within the organization (this is hardly the first) but it will encourage people to question the Society’s practices generally. Maybe even spur big media to look at other practices, like shunning.
More information can be found here as well. Click on case summary (about halfway down the page) and type in case number HG11558324. The case has been dubbed “Doe VS The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, I.”
UPDATE: News is starting to spread about this. At least videos are starting to appear on YouTube about it. Note, once again, that the pedophile problem is nothing new. You can find other videos from past transgressions on YouTube and elsewhere online. Why not look for them if this is all new to you?