EasyPrompt

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  11

  A registered sex-offender became a ministerial servant; he’s now in prison for assaulting child

  by Tahoe in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/a-registered-sex-offender-became-a-ministerial-servant-for-jehovah-s-witnesses-in-springfield-he-s-now-in-prison-for-assaulting-child/ar-aa1h4vjg.

  a level 3 sex offender who moved to springfield and secured a role with the jehovah’s witnesses religious organization is now in prison.

  jay aaron smith, 62, was sentenced recently in hampden superior court to 15 years in prison for several counts of indecent assault and battery on a child.

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  EasyPrompt

  from the article: “We are deeply saddened by these horrible events,” the religious organization said in a statement in response to questions about the case from The Republican and MassLive. “It should be noted that the allegations had nothing to do with any congregation activity.”
  

  
  

  Yeah, they're sorry it's in the news. They're sorry they got exposed again. If they were really sorry about what happened to the victim then they would say they are sorry and make changes, but they're not sorry and they refuse to change. They'll get shut down soon.

  
  

  from the article: "When the congregation found out about the abuse allegation against Smith, “it promptly reported the matter to the authorities,” a Jehovah’s Witnesses spokesperson said.

  
  

  However, the Springfield Police Department did not get a report from the church, according to spokesperson Ryan Walsh.

  
  

  The victim and a parent reported the abuse to Springfield police in February 2021, according to a report filed in court.

  
  

  When authorities investigated, the church had not filed a 51A report, a report of alleged child abuse or neglect, according to the DA’s office. Clergy members are mandated reporters in Massachusetts.

  
  

  The Jehovah’s Witnesses spokesperson said its policy in responding to abuse allegations is to first comply with reporting laws..."

  
  

  Yeah, that "Jehovah's Witnesses spokesperson" is a liar. The "first" thing Jehovah's Witnesses policy says elders are expected to do is to call Bethel.

  
  

  2012 Letter to elders telling them not to cooperate with police or secular investigators unless instructed to by the branch after calling the Bethel Legal Department...

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  https://files.accessjw.org/s/X2mJqM6M2ySTsxF

  
  

  
  

  2012 Letter to elders telling them to call the Bethel Legal Department before calling the secular authorities, and also that the Branch is the one who decides whether or not the person is a molester...

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

  (Also, the policy says "inform the congregation" but it means only inform specific elders on the body of elders. The rank-and-file in the congregation are not informed because it is considered confidential information to protect the abuser.)

  

  
  

  https://files.accessjw.org/s/DC9wK9kZ7DSNJNQ
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  11

  A registered sex-offender became a ministerial servant; he’s now in prison for assaulting child

  by Tahoe in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/a-registered-sex-offender-became-a-ministerial-servant-for-jehovah-s-witnesses-in-springfield-he-s-now-in-prison-for-assaulting-child/ar-aa1h4vjg.

  a level 3 sex offender who moved to springfield and secured a role with the jehovah’s witnesses religious organization is now in prison.

  jay aaron smith, 62, was sentenced recently in hampden superior court to 15 years in prison for several counts of indecent assault and battery on a child.

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  EasyPrompt

  "The Org. itself is responsible for this, they refuse to take on the Moral Duty to do a Criminal Records check, and then appoint known offenders !

  Small Clubs and Associations here in the U.K, and of course the larger ones, do this. No one is appointed to a position of Authority and therefore power, who has any kind of Criminal Record."

  
  

  What's really crazy is that you don't even have to get a paid Criminal Record check done in the US to find out if someone has a record of being arrested for sexual abuse. All you have to do is search on the sex offender website for a particular state or the public arrest/imprisonment record and you can find out if there is anyone in the area who has a record. (The info below on Jay Aaron Smith was easily accessible for free online.)

  
  

  
  

  
  

  https://services.gdc.ga.gov/GDC/OffenderQuery/jsp/OffQryRedirector.jsp

  
  

  https://state.sor.gbi.ga.gov/sort_public/OffenderDetails.aspx

  
  

  During the COVID lockdown in order to compile ministry lists for letter-writing/phone-witnessing, elders taught the congregation members how to research where people live by means of using the tax records and other free online search methods. The elders/branch/Bethel know how to do research. They could have researched where this guy was from and if he had a record. Likely, they didn't need to research it, because they probably already knew and just didn't care, just like it says in their elder/branch books - as long as most people nearby don't know, it doesn't matter to them what the guy did, even though the government made clear the guy is a Level 3 offender which means he is extremely likely to offend again. Bethel basically says a sexual predator is only considered a "predator" if Bethel says they are a "predator".

  
  

  https://files.accessjw.org/s/DC9wK9kZ7DSNJNQ
  

  
  

  Guess they didn't consider Jay Aaron Smith predator enough to be considered a predator. Guess they don't consider rape and sodomy that bad. Guess they don't mind putting the flock at risk of getting raped and sodomized by someone who even the secular authorities recognized is most likely going to do it again. That's why they appointed him. (It wasn't holy spirit that appointed him, that's for sure.) Birds of a feather flock together.

  
  

  "It is like a mustard grain that a man took and planted in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of heaven nested in its branches." (Luke 13:18)

  
  

  Nasty WTBT$. Just one branch in the leaven/religion-tree. The nasty birds won't play there much longer - their tree's about to be cut down.

  
  

  "And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: “She has fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen, and she has become a dwelling place of demons and a place where every unclean spirit and every unclean and hated bird lurks." (Revelation 18:2)
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  60

  Is There Concrete Evidence That The Org. Has Covered up Child Abuse?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hear of a plenty of personal testimonies of abuse but it is harder to prove organizational complicity.

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  EasyPrompt

  🫶🙂I hope it goes well, your work on the other forum!
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  60

  Is There Concrete Evidence That The Org. Has Covered up Child Abuse?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hear of a plenty of personal testimonies of abuse but it is harder to prove organizational complicity.

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  EasyPrompt

  https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/governing-body-jw-helpers/

  

  The Service Committee and the Legal Department are clearly under the authority of the Governing Body. They are guilty of covering up child abuse.
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  60

  Is There Concrete Evidence That The Org. Has Covered up Child Abuse?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hear of a plenty of personal testimonies of abuse but it is harder to prove organizational complicity.

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  EasyPrompt

  What ends up happening now is that if anyone in the congregation goes against the dictates of the Governing Body/Bethel/WTBT$ headquarters as regards reporting CSA or warning others in the congregation, then that person reporting or warning others will be disfellowshipped rather than the person doing the abuse being disfellowshipped.

  
  

  (Here are two of the Watchtower CSA cases you can find on Court Listener...)

  
  

  https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17099295/caekaert-v-watchtower-bible-and-tract-society-of-new-york-inc/

  
  

  https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17122535/rowland-v-watchtower-bible-and-tract-society-of-new-york-inc/

  
  

  If you scroll through the documents on those cases you can find individual pdfs like these two that show the WTBT$ headquarters leadership effectively deny under oath that the Governing Body has anything to do with giving direction in the congregations, even though the rank-and-file know that they have to listen to the dictates of the Governing Body and Bethel Headquarters or they will be disfellowshipped for "apostasy".

  
  

  https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mtd.63559/gov.uscourts.mtd.63559.192.5.pdf

  
  

  https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mtd.63559/gov.uscourts.mtd.63559.192.11.pdf

  
  

  The screenshots from earlier in this thread make clear that the elders manual and other directions from WTBT$ headquarters demand that the elders consult the Service Department and Legal Department before following through with any action when CSA is involved. The Service Department and the Legal Department are under under the authority of the Governing Body, according to what the WTBT$ teaches (unscripturally, by means of twisting scripture), in essence, that the Governing Body is the Faithful and Discreet Slave, into which Jesus has given all the domestics. "All the domestics" includes the Service Department and the Legal Department, which are under the direct authority of the Governing Body according to what is taught in the Watchtower. Thus the WTBT$ headquarters representatives lied under oath when they claimed to not have anything to do with the goings-ons of the congregations. They are the ones who make the directives for the elders to follow. When the elders fail to warn the flock about an abuser, the elders are just following the direction they get from headquarters. It is organizational complicity.

  
  

  https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/governing-body-jw-helpers/
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  60

  Is There Concrete Evidence That The Org. Has Covered up Child Abuse?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hear of a plenty of personal testimonies of abuse but it is harder to prove organizational complicity.

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  EasyPrompt

  CourtListener.com is also a good source of information on the CSA cases...if you go to the Court Listener home page you can search "Watchtower" or any of the names that have been in the headlines or on the jwchildabuse.org website and find the court documents, including what people like Allen Schuster and Gary Breaux and Philip Brumley other WTBT$ guys said under oath, as well as how the WTBT$ handled CSA...here is an example of some court documents from the Lopez case...

  
  

  https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3194461/lopez-v-watchtower-bible-tract-society-of-new-york-inc/?q=lopez%20watchtower

  
  

  
  
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  60

  Is There Concrete Evidence That The Org. Has Covered up Child Abuse?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hear of a plenty of personal testimonies of abuse but it is harder to prove organizational complicity.

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  EasyPrompt

  (I know Barbara is on this forum 🙂, but here is a link to more info about her experience and also about Bill Bowen...)

  
  

  https://watchtowerdocuments.org

  
  

  
  

  
  

  https://silentlambs.org/resignation-letter

  
  

  
  
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  60

  Is There Concrete Evidence That The Org. Has Covered up Child Abuse?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hear of a plenty of personal testimonies of abuse but it is harder to prove organizational complicity.

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  EasyPrompt

  Even when the elder body knows about the abuse, the organization trains them to care more about the "image" of the organization than about the victims of abuse.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-jehovahs-witness-sex-abuse-judgment-lopez-2014oct31-htmlstory.html

  
  

  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5255629/Jehovahs-Witnesses-leak-sheds-light-child-sex-claims.html

  
  

  https://www.westernmassnews.com/2023/09/01/jehovah-witness-elder-sentenced-jail-child-sexual-abuse-case/

  
  

  part 1 arc

  
  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erWV8YnTFto

  
  

  part 2 arc

  
  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBE_oof1RzE
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  60

  Is There Concrete Evidence That The Org. Has Covered up Child Abuse?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hear of a plenty of personal testimonies of abuse but it is harder to prove organizational complicity.

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  EasyPrompt

  Many of those documents are linked here...

  
  

  https://www.jwchildabuse.org

  
  

  When a congregation member is hurt, the "Governing Body" runs away. They don't apologize. They don't "shepherd". They don't man-up and acknowledge their part in the problem. They hide behind their legal department. There is a reason they are hiding. They are bloodguilty.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  They cannot hide forever. (Revelation 19:1,2)
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  8

  They still call it Pizza but it doesn’t taste like it anymore.

  by Fisherman in

  1. social
  2. current

  i remember as a kid that a slice of pizza was a dime, the same price for a large bag of m&ms or a large hershey’s bar or an ice cream popsicle, box of cracker jacks, bag of potato chips, bus fare.

  the dimes were made out of silver and many of them were mercury dimes with the dates worn off.

  …and while nowadays except for the pizza, everything tastes about the same only now costing 10 times as much, bus fare costs 28x as much and pizza costs 40x as much:.

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  EasyPrompt

  Even though I live in figurative "East Podunk" now, at one time I went to school/worked in an metropolitan area.

  
  

  "The main drawback to a bus, at least in most of the US is that investment in public transit is minimal. I remember in my early 20's, I was without a car for a few months. I took the bus to work, and what would have been a 10 minute car ride took an hour on the bus because of the convoluted route it had to take to try to serve as many people as possible."

  
  

  "Bummed is what you are when you go out to your car and it's been towed" because then you need to take the bus. True dat.😝

  
  

  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MVjxP4vI0rQ