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  Lawsuit claims Jehovah's Witness church protects pedophiles
  By JOHN K. WILEY Associated Press Writer
  Published 7:00 p.m. PST Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2002
  SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - A former Othello woman whose family was shunned after she reported sexual abuse by a Jehovah's Witness leader claims in a civil lawsuit the denomination protects pedophiles.
  The negligence lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court here on behalf of Erica Rodriguez, 23, contends the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based denomination has a policy that gives pedophiles "sanctuary, protection, sympathy and support," while blaming and shaming the victims.
  She is seeking undisclosed damages from Manuel Beliz, the Othello Spanish Jehovah's Witness congregation and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, the church's national governing body.
  Beliz, a former church elder in Othello, was convicted last August of raping and molesting Rodriguez from the time she was 4 until her family moved to California when she was 11. Beliz is serving an 11-year sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary.
  Othello is located about 100 miles southwest of here.
  Rodriguez's lawsuit contends the church knew Beliz was a pedophile, yet made him a ministerial servant and elder, failing to prevent further abuse of children. Rodriguez contends her family was shunned and threatened with excommunication after her mother reported the abuse to church elders in Sacramento, Calif., and Othello. Rodriguez eventually contacted Sacramento police, who contacted Othello police, leading to Beliz's prosecution.
  "What's important to her is that they knew he was a pedophile and they didn't report him, as required under Washington's child abuse reporting statute," Timothy Kosnoff, a Bellevue lawyer representing Rodriguez, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
  "What gives this case broader significance is the practice within the Jehovah Witness church that, unless there are two witnesses to misconduct, it didn't happen," he said. "That's absurd, particularly in the context of child abuse, which is committed in secrecy."
  Church spokesman J.R. Brown said he could not comment on Rodriguez's lawsuit because lawyers had not received paperwork.
  But he said there is no policy preventing notification of civil authorities of a crime.
  "What we handle is the transgression, or the sin, of child molestation. We distinguish that from the criminal aspect," Brown said. "Our view is, the church handles the sin, the secular authority - Caesar, if you will
  - handles the criminal activity."
  The church - which has about 6 million members worldwide, including 1 million in the United States - requires two witnesses because the Bible requires it for establishing a sin, he said.
  "Where the state requires that this be reported, we comply fully," he said. "We have designed a policy to protect the victim of child molestation; to protect innocent children and to not allow pedophiles to circulate among us."
  Beliz, 48, was first convicted of two counts of first-degree child rape and two counts of first-degree child molestation in 1998 in the case of Rodriguez.
  The Washington state Court of Appeals granted Beliz a new trial because a deputy prosecutor sought to exclude women from the jury panel.
  Beliz was convicted of the same counts by an Adams County jury last August.
  Rodriguez is also represented by Jeffrey Anderson of St. Paul, Minn., who has filed more than 400 sexual abuse lawsuits against clergy across the nation.
  Rodriguez is supported by William Bowen, who resigned as an elder of a Kentucky Jehovah's Witness church last year over the denomination's handling of child sex abuse claims.