Former LDS bishop, exmormon Lee Baker has been arrested on felony charges in Indianapolis. Charges stem from peaceful demonstration outside new LDS temple in Carmel, IN during open house in August 2015. Baker and his wife sat in booth near temple in area designated appropriate by police, distributing information to those interested. Also, a live presentation of the 34 wives of JS, like the one at Manti Pageant, was organized. It appears, Area Authority Seventy Paul Sinclair, a partner at Ice Miller Law Firm in Indianapolis, claims Baker stalked, harassed, and intimidated him. Who can say, but it also appears, Sinclair may have baited Baker to respond to an email he sent him about seeing him in court, putting Baker in contempt of a court order not to have contact with Sinclair. Interesting multi-tasking LDS-style: experienced harassment lawyer Sinclair is the area authority, accuser, and legal representative of himself in court. Many ugly details suggestive of possible corruption involved here. Baker sits in jail waiting for hearing. Want to see news media coverage!



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2015 09:52PM by freetothink.

Lee is a good friend and an honorable man. What a travesty that one working so hard to warn others about the LDS truth claims and its founding leaders' antics should be the one sitting in jail.

Isn't Miller Ice a beer brand?

More multitasking?

Deco - See Section 89 ... mild barley drinks :-)

Ice Miller is a very large law firm in Indy, Chicago etc.

Let me clarify, Sinclair specializes in helping EMPLOYERS avoid convictions for harassment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2015 10:12PM by freetothink.

So, this harrassment attorney contacts someone against whom he has an order of no contact? How is a no contact order one sided? I've had them, and the other party violated it, and it was then declared null, but i also didn't respond to them, i forwarded it to my attorney. Maybe state laws vary?
I'd like to see what grounds this attorney had for the original order and why he felt the need to violate it.

Indiana Legal Service's (non-profit law firm that helps low income Indiana residents) website addresses the question of whether contact initiated by the "accuser" voids the order. They say it does not.

Fucked by lawyers.

So if he picks up the phone and say's, "hello", he violates the no contact order because that is essentially the implication.

I listened to some of Lee Baker's podcasts and thought highly of him. When he asked to link to me on LinkedIn, I was somewhat flattered. The next thing I knew, he had written an "endorsement" of me saying I was corrupt and dishonest and no one should hire me. Needless to say, I did not click to "accept" the endorsement. I found out it was because he was upset with one of my coworkers. He accused my coworker of failing to do something for Mr. Baker because my coworker was biased as a faithful Mormon high priest. But my coworker hasn't attended the LDS church in his adult lifetime. I don't think highly of Lee Baker anymore.

To USN77...this is off topic, but I wondered if you served on the Bush. My son did.

No, sorry. It would be cool to have such a connection, but this isn't one of those times. Thanks for checking.

So how do we help?

Link please???

I read this link earlier this evening on the Mormon Stories Podcast FB group.

Sorry, but there is something amiss here. My bullshit senses are tingling. I really get the sense that I am only being told half the story here.

Rest assured, I am not one to defend the cult. But I will call bullshit whenever and wherever I see it. The only link that I have seen confirming this comes from an obviously Evangelical Christian source. I find Evangelical Christians to be every bit as untrustworthy as Mormons.

I have heard this first hand. He was in civil court and violating the court order didn't get him in jail. He was put in jail when the civil judge found out there was a warrant for his arrest with three felonies that know one knows where it came from. It appears church security pressured someone to issue a felony arrest warrant separate from the civil case. The area authority sixth quorum of 7o was the one in the law suit. The head of security for the Mormons in the area and the temple dedication has just been appointed deputy chief of police in Indianapolis and of course is a Mormon. This is very real and heavily involves church security in SLC. Google Mormon Church and OSAC, the church is a founding member. It is a quasi public private NSA funded partly by the State Department and multi national corporations. They were probably involved in this to. There is a lot here untold and unknown at this time. This could be a big story.

Ooooh! Super conspiracies!

Any US organization can join the Overseas Security Advisory Council. Membership is free, and that gets you an e-mail newsletter!

http://www.osac.gov/

I'm with Strength in the loins here. The story we are being told does not seem reasonable.

In the first place, so far there appears to be only one source--an obviously biased one. The story may still be true, but why hasn't it been picked up by more reputable media? Why hasn't anyone inspected and reproduced the relevant court records?

Second, restraining orders don't generally work the way we are being told. In almost all cases they are bilateral. If you have a restrainig order against me, you can't contact me either. Why? Because you could provoke me time and and again until I snapped and yelled at you, hit you, or sent you an email. Is it possible that this jurisdiction does not follow that general rule? Yes, but highly unlikely.

Third, what are the incidents that led to the outstanding warrants? It appears that Lee Baker has some secrets, things that passed the probable cause test before one or more investigative agencies and judges. We can't possibly determine if he was thrown in jail wrongly unless we know what those other charges are.

Fourth, are we really to believe that the LDS church's political influence extends to Indianapolis? That judges there are afraid of Tommy Monson and the ghost of Boyd K. Packer?

And this nonsense about OSAC. That organization is a Congressionally authorized body that facilitates cooperation between the US government and corporations and other organizations that are active in dangerous parts of the world. "Listen, Chevron, we are hearing terrorist chatter about blowing up US-owned oil wells. You might want to post a couple extra guards." "Mormons, fightig between rival drug cartels in northern Mexico appears to be increasing, so tell the boys to be careful."

Are we really to believe that such an organization, subject to Congressional oversight, is in fact a front for Mormon efforts to control events in the Great State of Indiana? Surely it is time to set aside the conspiracy theories and wait for more credible information before reaching any conclusions about Mr. Baker.

Rereading the thread, I was struck by similarities in writing style between "freetothink" and "very informed." I don't believe either of those people has ever posted on RfM other than in this thread and, again, they both allude to corruption and conspiracies and use similar words and sentence structures.

The only other participant in this thread who defends Mr. Baker is peacefulhappiness. I don't recognize that person as ever having posted on this board either.

Could it be that a single person is taking us on this ride? I, for one, need to see a lot more evidence before taking this story seriously.

Interesting...good points. Nice job.

I think we are being led down the primrose path by a single person who is, or is related to, Lee Baker.

Consider this. Lee Baker's website is leebaker.4mormon.com. The single source for the story of his arrest is 4witness.org, which is a more general evangelical operation. To my mind, the similarities in the two internet addresses suggests that they are closely related. If I am correct, the person posting as "freetothink" and "very informed" is in Lee Baker's evangelical community and appeared here simply to tell Baker's side of the story.

There is also an article on Carm.org about Lee Baker's arrest. That article resembles the story on 4witness.org, suggesting a single author. The writing style in the Carm.org article, in particular, seems a lot like that of "freetothink" and "very informed." So it could be that a single person is posting on RfM and referring us to articles that he or she wrote elsewhere but without acknowledging that they are his or her work.

What is also interesting is that the author of the Carm.org and 4witness.org articles is intimately familiar with Mormon organization and culture. Usually evangelicals make mistakes in describing such arcane posts as "seventies" and yet here we have someone who knows about the various quorums of seventies, correctly discusses "Area Seventies," and knows that Seventies are called "Elder." That author also refers to Baker's persecutor as Paul H. Sinclair, using the man's middle initial.

What does this mean? My surmise is that all of this is generated by a long-time Mormon who has switched to the evangelical camp and is trying to drum up sympathy for Mr. Baker. Could that be Baker himself? His wife? One of his children? It is worth noting that the websites ask for both prayers and financial donations.

Thank you for pointing all this out Lawyer. The Holy Ghost was not needed to help us discern this.

"Strength in the Loins" and "Lawyer," if you go back and read my first post, you'll notice how vague it is. With a desire to be accurate, I limited my words to what I felt comfortable sharing at the time. Baker's ministry website, and other websites aren’t my source for information. I didn't write on exmormon.org because I think it's fun to "play debate" or “detective” with other exmormons. Nor did I do it to gather up the almighty dollar for fraudulent purposes. Nevertheless, I respect your serious consideration of what I wrote; you’re serious enough to pick it apart. This isn't a game to me. I'm not an evangelical. Who I am is a person lured into the mormon church years ago, who stayed for years, and who has suffered for it along with my family, as has Baker. I also learned incredible lessons through my mormon experience such as: don't separate the complex human beings of the world into groups based solely on stereotypical views of philosophies. Everyone has a philosophy or two they live by, and these never completely mesh with the stereotypes. As people rack up experiences, their philosophies often change. I in no way support evangelical philosophy, but I'm not going to put evangelicals in a "nonmember" group and dismiss them as untrustworthy/nutty. Baker's a human being, a pained man, and a gutsy man. I refuse to put him in a box that makes him less than this because six years out of mormonism, he has some evangelical ideas among his many ideas. I loved the day I threw away my garments (without cutting out the special embroidery) and headed to the mall to buy underwear. I was part of all of humanity! The woman behind the cash register was now "my sister," too. Why categorize human beings by their religions whether they’re selling you underwear or fighting for justice? One's religion only gives you a possible starting point for trying to understand someone. For example, your "this sounds like bullshit" attitude, appears to suggest you haven't moved out of the black and white thinking of mormonism. However, since I don’t know you, I’d never label you as exmormons who haven't yet outgrown this most limiting philosophy of Mormonism- it’s important to categorize all of complex humanity into groups or something really bad will happen to you now or in the eternities.

Baker sits in jail in Indianapolis. In my original post, I expressed my desire for the media to report. If they haven't reported, why not? Baker sent out multiple emails to Sinclair's clients and others, informing them of Sinclair's church's beliefs. The suggestion being, "Do you want a lawyer who thinks this way?" Rather than acting on an impulse to categorize Sinclair and hurt him, I believe the messages were an attempt to force Sinclair to publicly address the controversial issues in church history such as racism against Blacks and sexual perversion (polygamy stuff). Baker’s thinking and hope being to get Sinclair’s back up against the wall, to force him to publically disclose and address the facts of mormonism. In other words, Baker appears to have been attempting to get Sinclair to speak. At the Indianapolis temple open house, while Sinclair was being asked questions by the media, Baker said to Sinclair that he wanted to ask a question(s), too. Sinclair said, in front of the media, that he would talk with him. He said he had to do something first and would be back shortly to talk with Baker. He never came back. Baker crossed paths with Sinclair again at the open house, and called out to him that he was waiting to have the conversation Sinclair committed to when the media reps were watching. No comment from Sinclair this next time around.

As far as I understand it, Baker thinks the mormon leadership has a responsibility to publicly address its issues: deception, public shaming and harassment of critics, financial exploitation of members, racism, child sexual abuse-- spiritual abuse past and present, to sum it up. He wants a face in leadership to have the decency to come forward and speak, rather than to hide behind anonymous-author essays hidden on their website that hold "God" responsible for their own organizational offenses. He wants someone “in authority” to address the facts rather than to spin mormonism’s real beliefs and history before the media like Gordon Hinckley did when he said Mormons “tolerated polygamy for a time.” When I toured Cove Fort, the tour guide sure seemed proud of the fact that prophet Hinckley’s polygamous grandfather who had been in charge of the fort, had raised Hinckley’s father right there.

The court will decide whether Baker crossed a criminal line with the emails. However, to get a fair trial, one must have a fair judicial system. Lawyer Sinclair is a partner in a powerful law firm, Ice Miller. Sinclair serves as legal counsel to employers wanting to avoid harassment charges, knows Indiana law backwards and forwards, and has thus far represented himself in court. (Again, it appears Sinclair may have used his IN legal knowledge to bait Baker into damaging his position by violating a court no contact order in contacting Baker himself after getting the order.)

http://www.indianalegalservices.org/node/17/general-information-about-orders-protection#14

Sinclair has strong church ties as an area authority seventy, putting him in a position to utilize their political and economic influence. (Did someone on exmormon.org really question whether the mormon church has political power outside Utah???????) Money buys political power all over the country and the world. For example, a former mission president in India I know, mentioned in conversation, that the church had to bribe politicians in India to get more visas to increase the number of missionaries allowed in there. Would the church like to see Lee Baker in jail or prison? Would his financial ruin through legal defense costs curb critics' willingness to publicly confront the church? Baker is retired and on a fixed income. Does the church with their ownership of a number of media outlets worldwide have any influence on the media?

Politicians in Carmel where the new temple is located, including its six-term ambitious mayor, may not have been thrilled by the negative attention that came Carmel's way at the open house. Carmel often makes researchers' lists of best towns to live in in the USA. Now they’ve got parties like USAToday reporting news of a different tone. A multipage spread in Carmel's and two neighboring town's newspapers, paid for by evangelicals decrying mormonism, may have soiled the image of the wealthy town and its politicians. So, too, may have Baker and "the 34 wives of JS" parading around in pioneer garb outside the temple in the area the police deemed appropriate near the parking lot. Are politicians asking each other whether these evangelicals are going away now, or do they plan to continue to shake up the gentle serene environment? Perhaps they love the American freedom of speech so much, they’d like seeing this stuff on an ongoing basis?


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/14/mormon-temple-christian-opponents/30167063/

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/hamilton-county/2015/05/05/sharp-concedes-brainard-carmel-mayors-race/26952913/

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-best-places-to-raise-a-family-2015-06-04

And last for now, but not least, as it turns out, one of the volunteer mormon temple security guards who spoke frequently and friendly-like with Baker, did so without identifying himself as an off duty senior Indianapolis area LDS police officer.

What’s going on here? Where’s the media?

The name Lee Baker seemed vaguely familiar. Turns out I have his book, "Mormonism: A Life Under False Pretenses".

http://www.amazon.com/Lee-B.-Baker/e/B00M61VCJ4/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Mormons stalk and harass continually in their daily life because of church callings and directives. They need to be jailed and prosecuted to find out they are doing harm. They can dish it out but they're such wimps that they can't take it.

Okay, so first we have someone close to Baker show up and try several times to send us to his website, where we are asked to give him money.

Now we have "Kak75 aka Kak75," yet another person who has never before posted on exmormon.org, come here and refer us to Baker's book. But the reference is actually to Amazon.com, where, conveniently, we can obtain Baker's volume for just $18.95.

Why is it that every pro-Baker post in this thread ultimately leads us to requests for money?

Mr. Baker may in fact be an honorable person. But so far I have seen no evidence of that. At the very least his friends make him look manipulative and avaricious.

. . . that in today's posts, "freetothink" basically acknowledges that Baker was stalking Sinclair.

Baker was Writing "multiple emails" to Sinclair's legal clients condemning Sinclair and his religion? On what planet is that not harrassment? If someone wrote such letters to my clients, I would certainly take out a restraining order against him. Then there is Baker accosting Sinclair multiple times at the temple event. Sinclair refuses to engage, so Baker tracks him down later and does it again? That sounds to me like stalking, especially given the preceding barrage of emails to Sinclair's clients.

"Freetothink" says that "the court will decide whether Baker crossed a criminal line with the emails." Yes. And given the record we've now seen, I suspect this won't go well for the former bishop. Then there is the other matter--the pre-existing warrant for felonies that were the actual reason for Baker's being jailed.

I think that at the very least, Baker needs a new spokesman. "Freetothink" is not doing him any favors.

He says he engaged with Mr. Baker and then Mr. Baker, who was angry at a Mormon acquaintance of USN77, tried to harm USN77's career.

That is precisely what Mr. Baker is accused of doing to Elder Sinclair. I have no reason to like or respect Sinclair, but we now have multiple accounts--including one by a friend of Baker--claiming that he behaves unethically.

I don't know the law. It's difficult for an average citizen like me to know the law. Some lawyers have made it this way so we can't defend ourselves without paying them. Attorneys, like Sinclair, and others in the judicial system know the law. A good defense lawyer in IN costs $300.00 an hour and wants thousands upon thousands in retainers to take on a case.

"Lawyer," I don't know if you know the law? Or if you know the law in IN? Do you have a license to practice law in any state? Do you have a license to practice law in IN? All we know is that you identify yourself as "Lawyer," and that there are a few on exmormon.org who may still naively be impressed by titles. This seems to suggest another mormon relic in thinking-- self-given titles mean something. Perhaps you're an armchair lawyer posting this comment in the middle of the day during commercials for Judge Judy?

My purpose in posting is not to pronounce Baker innocent. As I said in my previous post, this is a matter for the judicial system which I hope is honest, though there are a number of legitimate concerns I have regarding Baker's access to a fair trial.

The story here is about exmormon's moral right to have their former church, whom many served like a slave does a master, publicly address their ongoing deceptions. If the court finds Baker went too far, so be it. My concern isn't whether one man legally went too far. My concern is: What do we have to do to get our grievances heard and to see justice? Are you, "Lawyer," satisfied playing word games on exmormon.org or are you doing something to bring about awareness of the corruption in mormonism? Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't concerned about hurting a diner owner's reputation or business when the Blacks got their asses thrown off the stools. Ghandi wasn't concerned about the British salt industry when he broke the law and took salt out of the sea. You think this is a fair, take off the gloves, battle? You think Sinclair's rights trump all of the pain people are suffering who've given their hearts and money to a cult, only to wake up one day and realize how they've been used and exploited? Are you such a purist that you think trying to force disclosure of a billion dollar fraud needs to be done with a "sweet spirit?" Don't you get it? In their history, they've killed people for speaking against them. They've driven young gays to suicide? They're destroying families. They've collected billions telling lies. I think brave men who put their real signatures on books and emails outlining mormonism's crimes, and their outrage about them like Baker, shouldn't be vilified. What's the crime in writing something to someone's legal clients thats #1 true, and #2 clearly stated as your own opinion. What's there to be scared of? Couldn't Sinclair respond to his clients with the truth? Why not answer questions in front of the media, instead of, perhaps, pretending your organization is for forthrightness, and then hiding?