Now if we could relay this information to the rank and file somehow.
Watchtower Society Sued For Covering Up For Molestor Derek Packowski
by qua 50 Replies latest jw friends
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qua
That should be easy. Here I've rewritten it just a little to make it worth anyone's photocopying and distributing to various news editors, mailing to the friends and the like I'll put one on a separate string for those interested since this string is now being buried under others.
LEGAL EMERGENCY GRIPS GOVERNING BODY OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES: Court documents issued November 2003 charging Derek Packowski and the Watchtower Society corporations over Jehovah's Witnesses were filed by the legal firm of Nolen Saul Brelsford of Sacramento, California. The child molestor and corporations listed as headed by the Governing Body over Jehovah?s Witnesses, were charged with not reporting to law enforcement and systematically conspiring and suppressing information about sexual molestation committed by Packowski when he was in a congregation in Des Plaines, Illinois, also after about 1984 and later in California at the Loomis Congregation from which formed the Rocklin and Sunset Congregations. At Loomis and Sunset congregations he was allowed unsupervised interaction with children including plaintiffs Tim C, Robert C, Andrew C and Trevor L about 1986-1998. Later as a Ministerial Servant he was allowed unsupervised contact with congregation children. Defendants routinely maintained secret archival files regarding sexual abuse by Elders, Ministerial Servants, Pioneers, and other leaders. The file's existence and contents were not disclosed or made available to law enforcement or others in order to investigate the crimes. This became probably the largest lawsuit to date regarding Watchtower pedophile policy. The Governing Body says scripture demands there be two witnesses to a pedophile act although exceptions have sometimes been made and some have cited Solomon's "there is a time and place for everything." Members and former members have also decried the leadership's having been a ten year Non-Governmental Organization of the U.N., an affiliation renewed annually by leaders until discovered at which time it was said membership was just to get a U.N. library card, although the U.N. does not actually require such. Watchtower elders disfellowship (severely shun) those who openly protest, labeling them as apostates (enemies of God), and warning members to ignore media accounts.
Regarding the lawsuit refer to Rudy Nolen, Esq SBN 59808 Jonathan Saul, Esq SBN 189271 William Brelsford, Esq SBN 202839; Nolen Saul Brelsford; 350 University Ave Suite 280; Sacramento, California 95825 Telephone: (916) 564-9990; Facs (916) 564-9991. Item posted in full at silentlambs.org or http://silentlambs.org/newsletter/NewsLetterItem.cfm?SendoutID=159 -
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Oxnard Hamster
If you try to distribute these to dubs, won't they just dismiss is as apostate literature and throw it away without even reading it? That's what I'm afraid of.
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Oxnard Hamster
Crap. Sorry about up above. I accidentally hit submit post, then hit stop on my browser, hoping it wouldn't post. I should really get some sleep.
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qua
deleted: spamming and off-topic
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minimus
There's no Senator Bednar!......."qua"----where do you find this stuff?.....Sounds like someone is posting under a new name again.
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chasson
bttt - is someone has news about this case ?
Bye
Charles -
nelly136
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Nolen+Saul+Brelsford++Sacramento+jehovah&meta= lots of links about it here.
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nelly136
2003 news report on it
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/29/national/main565579.shtml
AP) Four lawsuits filed in California claim Jehovah's Witnesses officials have been covering up alleged sex abuse of children by congregation leaders, adding to a series of similar suits nationwide.
The law firms involved in the suits filed last week in three northern California counties are holding public meetings this week in search of more victims and witnesses.
"It is a widespread problem and nothing's been done about it to protect these children, to protect future children," said Bill Brelsford, one of the Sacramento attorneys who filed four lawsuits Thursday in California.
"Once they (church leaders) know about it, they don't do anything to stop it," Brelsford said.
Church general counsel Philip Brumley said the church's own investigation of previous lawsuits found church elders did nothing wrong as they tried to protect victims, comply with sexual abuse reporting laws and adhere to biblical admonitions against accepting accusations by a single witness.
"We abhor child abuse," Brumley said. "The assertion or allegation of a cover up, or a nonchalance about child abuse, is just so far from the truth."
Brumley said ten lawsuits were filed before the California suits. William H. Bowen, who was excommunicated from the church after he set up a critical Web site and hot line for abuse victims, estimated 15 to 17 suits are pending, not counting the California cases.
Bowen said he has posted more than 1,000 abuse stories on his Web site, and fielded more than 6,000 complaints since 2001. Some of the allegations date to the 1970s.
The church puts its membership at 6 million worldwide, including 1 million in the United States.
"I have literally the last couple months been bombarded with this stuff. These are not liars, they're abuse survivors," Bowen said. "It never stops. New victims are coming in on a weekly basis."
Last year, church members or elders in Tennessee and Kentucky were banned from the church after they went public with allegations the denomination has protected pedophiles.
One member, Barbara Anderson of Tullahoma, Tenn., worked as a researcher at Watchtower Bible and Tract Society headquarters in the early 1990s, when she said a church official asked her to look into the handling of sexual abuse cases. She said she found hundreds of allegations kept secret in church files.
Lawsuits have been filed in Nevada, Minnesota, Texas, New Hampshire. Suits filed last year by members in Maryland, Oregon and Washington also claim church elders told them they would not be believed if they reported the molestation without corroboration by witnesses.
Brumley explained the requirement stems from biblical references that no single witness should rise up against any man. But he denied the church discourages victims or their parents from going to police.
Where molestation allegations are corroborated, the abuser is banned from the church and is never again allowed to hold a position of authority if the excommunication is rescinded, Brumley said.