Thank you Barbara Anderson for all you do.
Will be setting the dvr to record 20/20 on May 29. Elizabeth Vargas’ “Cults and Extreme Belief” on Jehovah’s Witnesses as well.
Posts by Tahoe
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14Suspect in Jehovah's Witness child sex abuse case arrested
by Tahoe inby david gambacorta, staff writer @dgambacorta | [email protected].
martin haugh rolled out of bed one morning earlier this month, shuffled into his kitchen, and turned on his coffee maker.
while the machine gurgled to life, he glanced at his phone.
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Suspect in Jehovah's Witness child sex abuse case arrested
by Tahoe inby david gambacorta, staff writer @dgambacorta | [email protected].
martin haugh rolled out of bed one morning earlier this month, shuffled into his kitchen, and turned on his coffee maker.
while the machine gurgled to life, he glanced at his phone.
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Tahoe
Martin Haugh rolled out of bed one morning earlier this month, shuffled into his kitchen, and turned on his coffee maker. While the machine gurgled to life, he glanced at his phone. A new voice message was waiting.
He filled up a mug and hit play, and heard the voice of a cop from the York Area Regional Police Department deliver some long-awaited news: The man who allegedly sexually molested Haugh’s then-4-year-old daughter in 2005 at the Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall that his family belonged to in Red Lion, York County, had finally been arrested.
“I had to listen to it three times to make sure I was not having a dream,” Haugh said. After a final replay, he ran upstairs and told his wife, Jennifer, and their children about the arrest.
His daughter, now 16, was overjoyed. “Her response,” he said, “was, ‘Holy s—, dude!”The man was arraigned Wednesday in York County district court.
The story of what happened to Haugh’s daughter all those years ago has been layered with frustration and pain. The identity of her alleged abuser was never a mystery; he was an adopted relative named John Logan Haugh. But Martin and Jennifer had waited years to report the incident to police because their congregation elders — the Witnesses’ equivalent of parish priests — had instructed them to not contact law enforcement, in keeping with the organization’s well-practiced efforts to keep the lid on child sex abuse allegations across the country and around the world.
Police issued an arrest warrant for John Logan Haugh on misdemeanor charges of indecent assault in October, but only recently caught a break in the case. Martin said investigators told him that an elder contacted police and provided an address for the 26-year-old after reading about the molestation last month in an Inquirer and Daily News report on the culture of secrecy that pervades the Witnesses.
John Logan Haugh was arrested on May 3 by police in Dagsboro, a small town in southern Delaware. A court official there said Haugh was released after posting 10 percent of $2,000 bail — and with orders to surrender to authorities in York County.
He finally complied on Wednesday afternoon, when he appeared in court before Magisterial District Judge John Fishel. His father posted bail, which was set at $20,000 this time, according to court records. Haugh’s attorney, Jeffrey Marshall, declined to comment.
Jennifer Haugh was “beyond happy” when she found out about the arrest. “I truly feel that wouldn’t have happened if the article hadn’t run,” she said.
Jennifer and Martin left the religion in 2016, fed up with the way they’d been manipulated and intimidated by an organization that had once been a main pillar in their lives. Witnesses who disobey elders’ orders or reject some of the religion’s teachings can be disfellowshipped or shunned, cut off from their relatives and closest friends — a particularly devastating consequence, since followers often have few close relationships outside of the religion.
Witness officials previously declined to discuss the Haugh case, and instead issued a statement that noted the organization abhors child abuse.
But a growing number of ex-Witnesses continue to go public with their experiences — 267 allegations of sexual abuse were reported in the Netherlands last month — and the organization now finds itself battling litigation on a near-constant basis. (More than 50 women and men have contacted the Inquirer and Daily News through this form to share their stories.)
York Area Regional Police Chief Timothy Damon encouraged survivors to report their abuse to their local police departments. His officers, meanwhile, are trying to determine if elders at the Red Lion Kingdom Hall violated a state law that requires clergy, school employees and health officials to report suspected child abuse.
But the Haugh case isn’t the only potential new legal headache for the religion.
On May 18, Barbara Anderson, an ex-Witness-turned-whistleblower who worked for a decade at the religion’s onetime headquarters in Brooklyn, filed a complaint with the New York State Attorney General’s Office that accused top Witness officials of “covering up criminal activities committed by up to 775” pedophiles who lurked within the organization.
Anderson, 77, spent much of the last year compiling the 113-page complaint, leveraging a trove of internal records and memos that she amassed while she worked in the 1980s and ’90s for the Witnesses’ leadership, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York.
The complaint compares the zero-tolerance policy the religion publicly claims to have regarding child abuse with steps its leaders took behind the scenes to gather and protect damaging information, beginning with a March 1997 letter from the Watchtower, which instructed elders to send information about suspected pedophiles in specially-marked blue envelopes to its Brooklyn headquarters.
A second letter in 1998 reminded elders of the need for confidentiality, and warned that court officials could hold the Watchtower responsible for appointing known child molesters to positions of authority, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Inquirer and Daily News.
At least 775 blue envelopes were mailed to the Watchtower, a figure Anderson derived from the 2017 testimony of an attorney who was hired by the organization to defend it against a lawsuit that was filed in California by Jose Lopez, a San Diego man who was molested as a child by an alleged serial predator. In that case, the Watchtower incurred more than $2 million worth of fines for refusing to share its internal list of accused.
Anderson’s complaint also mentions a letter she received in 1997 from Harry Peloyan, a former editor of a Witness magazine, Awake! Peloyan told her that the organization’s leaders had been slow to understand that child predators are likely to reoffend, and had little interest in publishing information about child abuse. “Had we continued on a blind course,” he wrote, “we would have had more megabuck lawsuits against the Society.”
In an interview earlier this week, Anderson said submitting the complaint felt like a “momentous” development in her life. “I said to myself, ‘If this doesn’t do anything, then I don’t know what will.’ We have to get justice for the victims.”
The millenarian religion was founded in Pittsburgh in the 1870s, and teaches followers that only they will survive a fast-approaching Armageddon. Its members are very much out in the world — going to school, working, trying to attract new recruits through door-to-door missionary work — but their personal lives can revolve almost entirely around the organization.
Some former members told me they weren’t allowed to play sports or have friends outside of the religion as children. Others were instructed to avoid news coverage and entertainment that wasn’t produced by the Witnesses’ online TV network. Ironically, the organization is facing greater scrutiny from the mainstream media than ever before.
Actress Leah Remini is reportedly working on a project for the A&E Network about the Witnesses, following in the footsteps of her three-season show “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.”
And former “20/20” coanchor Elizabeth Vargas is devoting the May 29 episode of her new A&E series, “Cults and Extreme Belief,” to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Vargas said she knew little about the Witnesses before she began working on the series, but was struck by some of the religion’s cultural quirks — followers aren’t allowed to celebrate holidays or birthdays, and are discouraged from attending college — and was disturbed by a rule that required sex abuse victims to produce two eye witnesses to support their claims.
“I’m not a cult expert,” she said, “but we have cult experts who believe, without a doubt, that Jehovah’s Witnesses is a cult.”
The organization has long insisted that it is not a cult, even devoting a section of its website to refuting the idea. But Vargas noted that all of the groups she’s examined share a common trait of cutting its members off from the rest of society and discouraging any dissent.
“You start to lose your perspective,” she said.
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Leah Remini Returning to A&E to Investigate JWs
by AMNESIANO in“the first episode will be about jehovah witnesses and another episode will be about nxivm, a controversial self-empowerment group, according to the source.”.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/leah-remini-returning-to-ae-to-investigate-other-cult-like-religions/amp/.
amnesian.
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Tahoe
Leah Remini to tackle Jehovah's Witnesses in new special following 'Kevin Can Wait' cancellation
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Judgment Day in Russia
by Tahoe inhttp://www.newsweek.com/jehovahs-witnesses-russia-are-having-their-homes-raided-even-remote-towns-934734.
law enforcement officials in birobidzhan, russia, a small town close to the border with china, raided 20 homes belonging to jehovah’s witnesses, according to members of the religious organization.. the raids were conducted by around 150 police officers, who nicknamed their operation “judgement day,” jarrod lopes, a member of the jehovah’s witnesses, told newsweek.
police confiscated photographs, bank cards, money and electronic devices from the houses they searched, said lopes.. a criminal case was opened against a man named alam aliev, who will be kept in pretrial detention until july, members of the religious group said.
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Tahoe
Law enforcement officials in Birobidzhan, Russia, a small town close to the border with China, raided 20 homes belonging to Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to members of the religious organization.
The raids were conducted by around 150 police officers, who nicknamed their operation “Judgement Day,” Jarrod Lopes, a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, told Newsweek. Police confiscated photographs, bank cards, money and electronic devices from the houses they searched, said Lopes.
A criminal case was opened against a man named Alam Aliev, who will be kept in pretrial detention until July, members of the religious group said.
The raids are part of an ongoing crackdown against the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. In April 2017, a Russian court officially labeled the Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organization. The group’s administrative center in St. Petersburg has since been seized, and Jehovah’s Witnesses have been forced to practice their religion in secret.
Despite staying out of the public eye, members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses have had their houses raided on numerous occasions, and some have been charged with extremism. A similar raid took place a day earlier in the Orenburg region, in southwest Russia, where three people were allegedly brought into custody.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are calling on the international community to help them protect their right to worship freely.
“These raids are further evidence that Russia is brazenly persecuting Jehovah’s Witnesses, despite the fact that respected international human rights organizations have condemned their actions. These outright abuses of our religious freedom are not going unnoticed,” David Semonian, international spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses at their world headquarters in New York, told Newsweek.
“We hope that the harassment of our fellow worshippers will end and that those taken into custody will be released and returned to their families as soon as possible,” Semonian said.
At least 175,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses live in Russia, and an estimated 250 reside in Birobidzhan, which has three congregations. Birobidzhan is a historically Jewish town, but today, only a tiny fraction of the local population is Jewish.
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"The last DAYS?"
by eyeuse2badub ini was asked last sunday, after a meeting that i attended with my wife, by a good friend if i believed that these were indeed the "last days".
what prompted his question was the public talk given by a young man that i have known since he was 7 years old and is now an elder at 30.. the talk made mention several times that we are 'definitely' living in the "last days".
i assume that the expression "last days" was prominent in the outline.. i hope that he way i answered my friend's question jump started his thinking.
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Can anyone name a single incident when bethel has fed the poor ever ?
by Chook incharity is lacking from the house of god.
i remember reading once about some young pioneer sisters who needed emergency accommodation and where turn away from brooklyn because they weren’t special pioneers.
charity begins at home..
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Tahoe
Years ago, brothers and sisters in an adjoining Country were hit by a massive hurricane. Some even losing their homes.
JWs from all over the US donated dry goods and clothing. The eighteen-wheeler carrying it all, backed up to our Kingdom Hall and the brothers unloaded the goods inside. They then called members with large families etc. to come and take what they wanted.I was 9 years old at the time, and was amazed at all of the items and clothing stacked nearly to the ceiling! One of the elders was near by and feeling a little confused as the storm had passed over our city, I asked “What about the needy brothers and their children??” Clear as a bell, I can recall him answering “They will be okay. This is all extra.”I did enjoy gathering a few things, guiltily wondering if this is how Christmas feels.Reminiscing that experience as an adult, kind of makes me sick at my stomach. :/ -
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Tahoe
Shout out to my arms for always being by my side
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In case you want to see mass quantities of ignorance / stupidity on display....a dinosaur thread on JWTalk
by sir82 inhttps://jwtalk.net/forums/topic/34840-what-does-the-bible-say-about-dinosaurs/.
amazing how many words can be expended discussing things that people have utterly no clue about..
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WifiBandit.....is he ok?
by Diogenesister injust haven't heard from him for a while.
it seems to me i don't remember hearing from him around the time he did the prodigal boys podcast interview.. hope nothing has happened post that.
perhaps he's decided to lie low for a bit.
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Tahoe
Glad he is ok! Thanks for the link Ays.
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Tony "Tightpants" Morris Talks Of Tight Pants AGAIN!!
by pale.emperor inagain with the pants... tony, if you can't stop looking at young men in tight pants don't take it out on the rest of us.
https://www.facebook.com/john.cedars.5/posts/868329653345317.
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Tahoe
This is my view of this thread lol