Lawsuit targets Ore. Jehovah's Witnesses leader
12 hours ago
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A woman and a man who allege they were sexually abused as children by a leader in a suburban Portland Jehovah's Witnesses congregation have filed suit, seeking $10.5 million.
The Oregonian reports (http://is.gd/IB6zNn ) that lawyers for a 39-year-old woman and an unidentified man filed suit Monday in Multnomah County Circuit Court. They contend Jehovah's Witnesses' leadership has covered up sexual abuse against children by leaders.
An attorney for the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mario Moreno, said he hadn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment.
The lawsuit alleges that a man who held the equivalent position of a baptized ordained minister in the North Hillsboro Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses molested the female plaintiff in the mid-80s when she was 11 or 12 years old. The suit claims the man also molested a boy who was at the time 8 to 10 years old. The newspaper reports that the woman says she eventually told her mother, who went to the Hillsboro congregation's elders but was told to tell no one.
Oregon's statute of limitations doesn't allow criminal prosecution because too many years have passed. Lawyers filing the case say they don't know where the man lives now.
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Information from: The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com