Within the organization, the Watchtower has final say over who is considered a serial child abuser. According to a 2012 Watchtower memo: “Not every individual who has sexually abused a child in the past is considered a ‘predator.’ The (Watchtower), not the local body of elders, determines whether an individual who has sexually abused children in the past will be considered a ‘predator.’ ”
When his case against the Witnesses concluded in October, a judge awarded Lopez $13.5 million, a remarkably large sum in an era of frequent payouts in abuse cases. The decision rested in part on the Witnesses’ refusal to hand over documents in the case, prompting the frustrated judge to ban the organization from making a defense.
The Lopez case was remarkable for another reason. It forced the Witnesses into a rare admission: Somewhere within the organization, there is a trove of documents with the names and whereabouts of known child sexual abusers in its U.S. congregations.
"During the trial, a senior official from the Jehovah’s Witnesses headquarters, Richard Ashe, told Lopez’s attorney, Irwin Zalkin, that the organization had collected and electronically scanned internal documents on decades of known abuse cases. Ashe said that the Witnesses keep their child sexual abuse reports in a Microsoft SharePoint database but that it would take years to extract.."
"Zalkin called in a software expert who testified that by using simple search terms, the Witnesses could produce the information in less than two months, or maybe two days. At that point, the Watchtower simply refused to provide the database."
During Lopez’s trial, Ashe testified that the Watchtower instructs elders that child abuse must be kept confidential.
“And it directs that that should be kept confidential from prosecuting authorities?” Zalkin asked.
“Yes,” Ashe responded.