Let's play a game of Believe It Or Not, shall we? I'll relate a story, and you decide whether you believe it or not.
What would you think of an elder who told his daughter's fiance that he would kill him if he ever did anything to hurt his daughter? The presiding overseer in my former congregation admitted to me that he had said that very thing to the young JW who married his youngest daughter. At the time, I was shocked that he would admit saying such a thing, but I didn't know the rest of the story at the time.
Some time after I disassociated from JWs for conscientious reasons, an elder from my former congregation--whom I will call TW--also disassociated, and subsequently called me up to tell me about all the corruption that had existed in that congregation, some of which he admitted to having taken part in and said he was racked with feelings of guilt. Among other things, TW told me details about the PO and his daughter that I found shocking despite the fact that I thought I was beyond being shocked by anything I might ever learn about JWs.
According to TW, when the PO's daughter was 16-years old, a 19-year old JW from another city met her at a convention and became infatuated with her. During a weekend when the PO permitted the young man to stay overnight in his home, the teens had sex. A judicial committee was convened for the 16-year old daughter, and TW was selected as a member of the tribunal. After listening to the young girl, TW said that she should be publicly reproved, and that her father should be deleted as a elder. The other two committee members overruled TW, saying that the girl would be privately reproved, and that her father would retain his powerful position in the congregation.
But TW was not finished. Since the girl was a minor and the young man was an adult at the time of the incident, thus possibly constituting statutory rape, TW insisted that the matter be reported to the local police. The Branch was consulted and directed that the incident be reported to authorities. Since the girl's father refused to press charges, the police took no action against the young man, but a record of the incident had been made.
The girl's father informed TW and the other committee members that the young man would be subjected to a judicial committee hearing in his own congregation. The two youngsters subsequently got married in a typical JW wedding, except not in a Kingdom Hall, which some attendees found strange since her oldest sisters had both had KH weddings.
The young man's father--whom I will call DF--was serving as an elder in his congregation at the time of the incident, and the young man was living in his father's home. It just so happens that DF was also a musician with whom I had played music on several occasions; in fact, DF used to schedule his visits to our town so that he could sit in with the band I played in. After some time, DF awakened as a JW, ceased serving as an elder, faded, and moved to a city which is a renown live-music center in our State.
When I eventually moved to a town near that live-music city, DF and I played music together once again. While visiting, DF mentioned certain things about having served as a JW elder which made me wonder if he was aware of the situation involving his son. When I told him the story TW had told me, DF said he had never heard the story before but, knowing his son, he did not doubt it. Later, he called another couple of elders in his previous congregation with whom he had served, and they confirmed that his son had never faced a judicial committee in that congregation.
Could it possibly be that the girl's father--in an attempt to protect his family's reputation--had circumvented the young man having to face a judicial committee in his own congregation by never reporting the incident to the young man's father and the other elders in that congregation? That would seem to explain his telling the young man that he would kill him if he ever did anything to hurt his daughter. All that I needed was someone who could corroborate TW's story about the incident having been reported to the local police.
Would you believe it if I told you that the public information officer for the local police department was a former JW whom I will call RT, that RT is a friend of mine and TW's, and that he corroborated that the incident had, indeed, been reported, but that the girl's father refused to press charges?