I think last year might have been the beginning of a decline. I suspect the decline may have started a few years earlier in the U.S. if just counting English congregations. My suspicion is that declines in English have been masked by increases in foreign language groups for a while.
Chaserious
JoinedPosts by Chaserious
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local memorial attendance
by outsmartthesystem inso i have a friend that is still "in" because of his elderly parents.
he attended the memorial and reported back to me what i thought was encouraging.
we have two congregations in the city i live in.
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Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)
by cedars inpart 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.
for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .
(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.
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Chaserious
If I'm perpetuating the lie, then making her answer the question on the interview is perpetuating the lie. I don't understand why Simons would have her answer these questions that have nothing to do with the case. Maybe it is more of a denial than I originally conceded. But the direct denial is from Simons, and there is a big difference between denying something and your lawyer denying it. There are no consequences if the lawyer is wrong.
Also, the question included allegations about stolen goods and selling drugs. I still don't know exactly what their position is on these two things. Candace only denied the "last thing", which I assume means the prostitution, but Simons' statement also seems to deny anything non drug related, which I assume means receiving stolen property as well. And neither of them said anything about selling drugs, as opposed to just using them. Personally, I don't care if she did any of these things. She is a brave victim regardless and deserves compensation. It just seems like a bad PR move by Simons to take that question that she is not obligated to answer and then not really fully answer it in the end.
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Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)
by cedars inpart 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.
for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .
(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.
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Chaserious
Rip - I disagree that it would have been used in the trial. Under evidentiary rules, usually only convictions are allowed to be introduced to discredit a witness. So if she was convicted for drug crimes, it could be asked, but (and totally hypothetically) if they had evidence she engaged in prostititution they probably would have not been allowed to ask about it at trial since there are no convictions. I am not reading anything into it or perpetuating anything. I'm just pointing out that before I saw the interview I would have thought the accusation was totally BS, but the way she answered it seemed very strange to me. I agree 100% that it doesn't change the facts of the case. That's why I said I would not have dignified it with an answer.
Cedars - The more unequivocal way that I would expect most people to answer a false charge like that is something like "That is a lie. I have never engaged in prostitution." Don't you think that would have been more clear and simple? I agree that Rick was very direct, and certainly different people might perceive it differently.
Mindblown - I don't know what postings you are referring to, if any, other than this one. You can suspect me all you want. Just pointing out my own observation.
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Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)
by cedars inpart 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.
for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .
(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.
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Chaserious
Thanks! Perhaps I am being a bit cynical here, but I can't help but wonder why Candace did not directly answer the prostitution question. She answered it by saying she got good grades in school and she was in a relationship with the same man for 8 years and she made mistakes because it was a way of coping with the weight of the abuse, and made an oblique reference to "that last thing" being "the farthest thing from the truth." And then Simons categorically denies that there is any evidence of the prostitution allegation. Again, perhaps this is cynicism, but it comes across that she answered the question in a very coached manner, perhaps so as to avoid giving a clear answer that she could be confronted with in court in the event a new trial is ordered. Her lawyer of course, cannot be questioned on his denial. I just don't understand why if they choose to take that question, she doesn't issue a categorical denial herself.
Of course, it's totally understandable that whatever mistakes she made were certainly heavily influenced by the horrible abuse she suffered. I wouldn't even have dignified those "blame the victim" allegations with a response.
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Those Working or Have Worked In Accounting At Bethel Listen Up about Whistleblowers Reward
by frankiespeakin inyou can get a reward for blowing the whistle if you got information about fraud.. http://www.fraudfighters.net/?gclid=coj9z6x0p7ycfw7hqgody2waig.
if youre a whistleblower with information about fraud on the government, then you may be able to bring a qui tam lawsuit under a federal law known as the false claims act.
a qui tam lawsuit is one brought by a private citizen, but in the name of the government.
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Chaserious
Tax fraud is explicitly excluded from the qui tam statute.
There is a separate whistleblower/reward provision in the Internal Revenue Code. But since they are not subject to filing tax returns, I still don't see it. Maybe if they were running some kind of business and laundering the money through their nonprofit or something. But it wouldn't be under the qui tam law that the article is talking about.
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Those Working or Have Worked In Accounting At Bethel Listen Up about Whistleblowers Reward
by frankiespeakin inyou can get a reward for blowing the whistle if you got information about fraud.. http://www.fraudfighters.net/?gclid=coj9z6x0p7ycfw7hqgody2waig.
if youre a whistleblower with information about fraud on the government, then you may be able to bring a qui tam lawsuit under a federal law known as the false claims act.
a qui tam lawsuit is one brought by a private citizen, but in the name of the government.
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Chaserious
That's not what I'm saying. There is no qui tam case. You have to defraud the government for there to be a qui tam case. They don't do business with the government, so where is the case?
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Those Working or Have Worked In Accounting At Bethel Listen Up about Whistleblowers Reward
by frankiespeakin inyou can get a reward for blowing the whistle if you got information about fraud.. http://www.fraudfighters.net/?gclid=coj9z6x0p7ycfw7hqgody2waig.
if youre a whistleblower with information about fraud on the government, then you may be able to bring a qui tam lawsuit under a federal law known as the false claims act.
a qui tam lawsuit is one brought by a private citizen, but in the name of the government.
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Chaserious
and numerous other types of entities that do business with the government.
The WT society is not a government contractor. I can't imagine any plausible scenario where any WT insider would have a qui tam case.
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WTS action on Conti's case 3/27/2013
by mind blown inas most suspected, the wts filed their brief, at least it looks that way..... http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.cfm?dist=1&doc_id=2025979&doc_no=a136641.
it also notes aob in excess of word count limit.. wonder if they did that to buy more time?.
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Chaserious
Yes, but Mind Blown, statutory duties to report have nothing to do with the Conti verdict.
"11Your deliberations are to be based solely
12 upon the evidence presented and the instructions given
13 without any consideration whatsoever as to whether there
14 was any statutory duty to report an incident of
15 suspected child abuse.
16 That, again, has nothing to do with what the
17 standards are of care and negligence issues."
That is from page 106 of this trial transcript, from the jury instructions.
For the record, I don't agree with the dating site comparison. In my opinion, one of the worst things the WTS has done is discouraged victims and their families from reporting to police, but I don't believe that is going to be the basis of the appeal because it was not the basis of the verdict. I do hope that Candace gets her verdict upheld, but I have serious concerns that the appeals court is not going to agree with this broad duty to warn/protect.
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WTS action on Conti's case 3/27/2013
by mind blown inas most suspected, the wts filed their brief, at least it looks that way..... http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.cfm?dist=1&doc_id=2025979&doc_no=a136641.
it also notes aob in excess of word count limit.. wonder if they did that to buy more time?.
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Chaserious
Hi Chaserious, I do not want to go into details but happened at that case?
Hi Scott,
The Bryan R case involved a boy who was sexually abused while growing up by a member of his JW congregation. The molester, a man named Larry Baker, had molested someone before and the elders knew about it, and deleted the abuser as a minsterial servant after the first abuse case, but didn't warn the members of the congregation, and then he abused the Bryan R. victim. The victim got a judgment against the abuser, but the court allowed the congregation and the Watchtower to be dismissed from the case before it got to trial and the Maine Supreme Court upheld it on appeal.
It doesn't appear that there was correspondence with the WT Society in that case, unlike in the Conti case, but I don't think it would have mattered at least for that court since the they were very clear that there was no legal duty to protect members from other members.
You might find it interesting also that the local Maine Roman Catholic diocese filed a brief with the court in support of the Watchtower in that case.
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WTS action on Conti's case 3/27/2013
by mind blown inas most suspected, the wts filed their brief, at least it looks that way..... http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.cfm?dist=1&doc_id=2025979&doc_no=a136641.
it also notes aob in excess of word count limit.. wonder if they did that to buy more time?.
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Chaserious
"If that was to happen the WTS will have to have a strong case, because a pure question of law or new issue will have to be presented by undisputed facts."
Well, that's true, but this is basically how all dismissal motions work, and appeals also. You basically have to say that even if we believe everything the other side says with respect to the facts, there is still no legal right to compensation, and therefore the case against you should be dismissed (or overturned on appeal).
My concern is that to my knowledge, a duty to protect ordinary members from one another on their own time has never been imposed on a religion before. Even if the California Supreme Court hasn't spoken on it either way, several other state supreme courts have said there is no such duty.
For example, from Maine:
"The creation of an amorphous common law duty on the part of a church or other voluntary organization requiring it to protect its members from each other would give rise to both unlimited liability and liability out of all proportion to culpability." Bryan R. v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc., 738 A.2d 839, 847 (Me. 1999).
Connecticut and New Hampshire have basically said the same thing, and likely other states as well. While the California Appeals courts are certainly not obligated to follow precedent from other states, I am concerned that they won't want to give their stamp of approval to a new duty that has been fairly widely rejected.