The testimony of youths may be considered; it is up to
the elders to determine if the testimony has the ring of
truth. The testimony of unbelievers may also be considered, but
it must be carefully weighed. If there are two or three witnesses to the same kind of
wrongdoing but each one is witness to a separate incident,
their testimony can be considered. Such evidence may be used to establish guilt, but it is
preferable to have two witnesses to the same occurrence
of wrongdoing.
Notice that it says that Youths MAY be considered and two to three wirnesses to the same type of abuse CAN be considered, and such evidence MAY be used to establish quilt. When it comes down to it, the WTS stand is that they could care less! I have a copy of a letter from a circuit overseer to the WTS in the Daniel Fitzwater case. I recieved it as part of public record as it was turned over from the WTS as discovery on this case. Dateline briefly made mention of it on their show. In the letter the circuit overseer writes to the WTS that there are 17 girls that have accused Daniel Fitzwater of sexually molesting them. His letter states that he just does not understand why so many in the congergations are upset. He talks about how they need to wait on Jehovah. He had to get this number from the congergation files. The district attorney in Yerington Nevada could only come up with 4 witnesses.
In this case, Daniel Fitzwater was convicted of abuse against an 8 year old girl. He was imprisoned for 6 years and has NEVER been DFed or publicly reproved for it. He denies, to this day, that he did anything wrong. The WTS has stood behind him. They know 17 names and WILL NOT turn the names over to authorities. 4 victims testified in court. They ALL had gone to the elders first.
When I continued to ask why he was not being DFed they said that there had to be 2 witnesses to EACH incident. I got that answer over and over. My husband got that same answer from Mario Mareno, the big wig WTS lawyer. The WTS was directly involved in this case and even settled a civil suit out of court with the little girls family. There is currently another lawsuit that has been filed by Kim Norris in behalf of 4 other victims.
Daniel Fitzwater was released from prison at the end of May. He remains a JW in good standing. You can find his name on the Nevada sex abuse registry.
Another point to this story is that we know that 17 victims came forward at least to the elders. I wonder, over the past 20 + years how many never said a word. ???