Hare Krishnas go Bankrupt to avoid lawsuit

by Mindchild 5 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Mindchild

  From Todays News:

  http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_514838.html
  
  Hare Krishnas to declare bankruptcy to avoid abuse lawsuit

  Hare Krishna congregations named in a lawsuit alleging sexual and emotional abuse of boarding school students will file for bankruptcy to avoid being sued.

  A spokesman for the Hindu sect said about a dozen congregations will start filing for bankruptcy reorganisation next week in several states.

  The group hopes that if their plan is approved by federal bankruptcy judges, the

  $400 million (£280 million) lawsuit filed in Dallas by former boarding school students will be dismissed.

  Anuttama Dasa, a Maryland-based spokesman for the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, said: "We don't believe that innocent members and congregations should be held accountable for the deviant behaviour of individual acts committed 20 or 30 years ago."

  ISKCON also plans to set up a fund to compensate children who may have been victimised in Hare Krishna schools during the 1970s and 1980s.

  The Texas lawsuit alleges young children at Krishna schools in India and the United States were terrorised by their instructors.

  There are 94 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, according to the office of Windle Turley, the Dallas attorney who filed the lawsuit.

  They allege that young girls were given as brides to older men who donated to the religious community. Children were also allegedly deprived of medical care, scrubbed with steel wool until their skin bled, and prevented from leaving the schools.

  Mr Turley says the abuse started in 1972 at ISKCON's first school in Dallas, and continued in six other US schools and two in India. He says ISKCON knew that sex offenders were working in their schools.

  ISKCON formed a "Child Protection Office" in 1998 to investigate allegations of abuse and some members have been removed from the Krishna community as a result of the probes, Mr Dasa said.

  Story filed: 01:21 Thursday 7th February 2002
• 

  Skeptic

  "We don't believe that innocent members and congregations should be held accountable for the deviant behaviour of individual acts committed 20 or 30 years ago."

  Reminds me of the Dubs...the Org sets up a system where abuse happens, then claims it was the "individuals" who acts wrong, not the Org itself.

  Richard
• 

  Mindchild

  Richard,

  I bet you the dubs will use exactly the same arguement and even the same strategy to get out of paying lawsuits themselves. I hope they get fined $400,000,000 to keep things out of court.

  Skipper
• 

  waiting

  Anyone familiar with Federal Mogul, usa - and it's filing for bankruptcy (don't know which chapter style, however.)

  According to stock broker, the only real people who were hurt were the stock investors - they lost everything.

  Federal Mogul revamped under another name, employees stayed in place - they dumped their debt, and the game continued.

  Why should they have to pay for the bad investment actions that happened 10, 20 years ago?

  Perhaps this is the new style of business coming to fore? And now religions also? Curious development - and if allowed, startling conclusions. No one is culpable.

  waiting
• 

  Mindchild

  Waiting, I took a class once in college about international business law and learned all kinds of clever strategies that corporations used to avoid actually paying any debts by playing paper games. I do believe this is exactly what the WTS intends to do as well. If they ever get hit hard with some lawsuits they will duck and cover by moving paper around. It is a big shell game and if you look at some of the threads started here previously about the multiple corporations the WTS has you can make an educated guess that they are going to play the role to the hilt.

  It is really an economic Gorilla warfare tactic. They will use the same reasoning too: why should we pay for something someone else did years ago?

  The only real question is: where do they draw the line in the sand? They will likely pay out for small lawsuits because it wouldn't be worth it to do a bankruptcy reorganization unless it was in the millions for damages. But you can bet your ass if they got hit with the $400,000,000 damages award that the smoke and mirrors would be coming on thick.

  Skipper
• 

  Scully

  Skipper:

  They will likely pay out for small lawsuits because it wouldn't be worth it to do a bankruptcy reorganization unless it was in the millions for damages. But you can bet your ass if they got hit with the $400,000,000 damages award that the smoke and mirrors would be coming on thick.

  I'm kinda hoping that eventually they DO declare bankruptcy. Russell said that if the WTS ever became insolvent (which a bankruptcy declaration would imply) then it would mean that "God's will" was to be finished with the WTS. The sooner they go belly-up, the sooner they stop brainwashing people.

  Love, Scully

  In the desert things find a way to survive. Secrets are like this too. They work their way up through the sands of deception so men can know them. - The X Files