An article linked below describes the cases.

One of the most noticeable common elements across the five men accused in these cases in Pennsylvania is "The defendants and victims were all part of Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations at the time of the alleged abuse."


As a JW in my teens I would have found it difficult to believe that any JW person would commit sexual abuse, especially against very young children. That is beyond sick and so difficult to comprehend. The level of depravity is almost beyond imagining. And the hypocrisy of it is mind-blowing - publicly professing your faith (literally in the case of JWs) but privately going against common decency, never mind religious teachings.


Excerpts:

NB: **Sensitive material**


5 members of Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations charged with child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/09/us/jehovahs-witness-child-sex-abuse-pennsylvania/index.html

Excerpts:

“The children were all also members of Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations, and the alleged abusers gained access to – and the trust of the victims – through the organization, authorities said.


“The details of these crimes are sad and disturbing, facts which are made even more abhorrent because the defendants used their faith communities or their own families to gain access to victims,” Henry said in the news release.


“The charges are part of an investigation into child abuse in the Jehovah’s Witnesses community launched by the attorney general’s office in 2019, according to a report from the AG’s office listing findings of fact and recommendations of charges against the defendants.


“While the five cases are distinct from one another, they share a common thread, according to the attorney general. The defendants and victims were all part of Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations at the time of the alleged abuse.


“The Jehovah’s Witnesses faith is a non-mainstream Christian denomination. The church was founded in Pennsylvania in the late 19th century and claimed over 110,000 congregations worldwide as of 2022, according to its website.”

----------

I can never get used to the fact that people can be raging hypocrites who seem perfectly fine to others yet underneath they are ... - actually, words fail me.

Although they keep what they are doing secret like the bishop interviews in the mormon church. I wasn't sexually abused by them as a child, but I'd consider what they put me through as an adult at age 25 to 27 sexual abuse. I finally married him to get them out of my life. You aren't supposed to learn about sex from your religious leaders. Makes me question every religion out there. You can't trust any of them.

I told the story yesterday and before about my adult sister going inactive for over a year because of how her children were treated. Her children were teenagers. They were treated extremely poorly. So the bishop asks her husband to have her come in and she goes. After discussing if she had some big sin to repent of and that is why she wasn't coming anymore, he asked if she had a problem with porn. WTH? Knowing my 67-year-old sister like I do (she was probably in her 40s when this happened), I'm still in shock and sickened.

I've been told over and over again by church members and leaders that it is my fault my husband cheated because I wasn't satisfying him sexually. Well go figure. You can't believe how many church leaders I've talked to and I refused to after we got married.

I can't believe with all I've heard and went through that I can still be shocked by how horrible religious leaders are. I was actually told it was my fault by a guy who had been a very, very good friend since I was 20 and I'm 66. Every time I'd ask, he'd tell me it was my fault. I finally told him I'm done with him. You can't trust a mormon leader.

It just seems that somehow, some way they have to bring up sex. That is how these things to children happen. We trust religious leaders too much. They don't deserve anyone's trust.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2023 03:33PM by cl2.

cl2 Wrote:
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> I've been told over and over again by church
> members and leaders that it is my fault my husband
> cheated because I wasn't satisfying him sexually.

It's completely unbelievable how absolutely clueless these people are who are supposed to be shepherding the flock. They do NOT have some kind of divinely-inspired insight like they think they do. And also unbelievable how they get up into people's private lives the way they do. Sometimes it's only after you leave that you wonder what the hell business it is of theirs or what qualifications they have to be asking you the questions they do or offering their "advice".


> I was actually
> told it was my fault by a guy who had been a very,
> very good friend since I was 20 and I'm 66. Every
> time I'd ask, he'd tell me it was my fault.

That's what I was told too, by the "friend" who got me into Mormonism and who baptized me. I was crushed by my experience with the church and the first thing this guy says to me about what happened is "It's your fault". I was so shocked when he said that my mouth dropped open but I couldn't speak. It felt like a stab right in the heart. If *he* didn't understand then I knew it was hopeless.

I think they really believe that but they have no clue how unkind and demeaning and demoralizing it can be. Or maybe they do and that's why they say it?


> It just seems that somehow, some way they have to
> bring up sex.

Yes, *it's* the root of all evil, not money, the way they act.

> We trust religious leaders too much.

Yes. Definitely.

There was also recently the story of Rebekah Vardy, a soccer player's wife in the UK, who was brought up as a JW and suffered sexual abuse:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/14/rebekah-vardy-sexual-abuse-jehovahs-witnesses

It seems that patriarchal control-freak cults are very fertile ground for this sort of behaviour.

> It seems that patriarchal control-freak cults are
> very fertile ground for this sort of behaviour.

I think this is the key. You can identify an organization that is likely to endanger children and others by its internal structure. We shouldn't be surprised to learn of sexual abuse in these different patriarchal and authoritarian entities for the simple reason that that's the nature of the beast.

The nameplate on the door doesn't matter.

Yup -- patriarchal, tightly controlled, oppressive, restrictive, sex-shaming -- all of that and more.

Soft Machine Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It seems that patriarchal control-freak cults are
> very fertile ground for this sort of behaviour.

Yes, and the more they consistently, repetitiously, preach *against* "sexual sin".

They make sex itself some big ugly thing that is waiting to entrap you if you have even a passing thought in that direction. I used to think I was so "sinful" if I even had a fleeting thought that this or that man was attractive when instead it is actually a basic human reaction and not indicative of mortal sin.

I was pretty much a quiet "obedient" type of person but even I wondered why they yakked about it so much, making the subject more prevalent in your mind than it would otherwise be.

To think that some of these men could be so atrociously hypocritical as to preach this stuff and then perpetrate such despicable behaviour themselves actually takes my breath away. It's stunning to me - the hypocrisy of it all - from them and other churches. (JWs I knew referred to their church as The Organization. I think their thinking was that they were disassociating themselves from other religions so much that they didn't even want to be called a church).

Church bad. Organization good.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2023 04:41PM by Nightingale.

I am so sorry that she went through that. I don't know if she can pursue legal recourse in the UK. But I'm glad that she has found a place of peace away from the JWs.

https://www.standard.net/police-fire/courts/2023/mar/21/suit-resolved-against-jehovahs-witnesses-church-roy-elders/

"The lawsuit filed by a woman against four elders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses church in Roy over their handling of allegations a church member raped and abused her as a teen has been settled."


"According to the suit, the plaintiff met the alleged perpetrator of the abuse — active in the Jehovah’s Witnesses church, like her — in the summer of 2007, when he was 18 and she was 14. “So began a course of (the 18-year-old) abusing (the younger teen), bullying her, making sexual demands and, eventually, raping her,” reads the amended suit in the case, filed on April 14, 2022, according to court records.

The abuse extended into early 2018 when the girl’s mother learned of it. As a “devout” Jehovah’s Witnesses church member, the suit reads, the mom sought the advice of elders of the congregation. Their subsequent handling of the matter is at the center of the lawsuit and the charges of emotional distress.

Among other things, the elders made the 14-year-old repeatedly listen to an audio recording the 18-year-old had surreptitiously made while he abused her, the suit reads. They also questioned her at length about the events and the recording.

“The Elders inflicted this psychological abuse in an effort to cause (the teen) emotional pain so that they could extract a confession from (her), at that time 14 years old, that the sexual abuse and rape (the) 18-year-old (perpetrator) inflicted on her was actually consensual. It was not,” reads the suit."

I didn't realize that this took place in Utah.

I hope that the woman got a life-changing amount of money from the JWs. She deserves it.

[|] Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Among other things, the elders made the
> 14-year-old repeatedly listen to an audio
> recording the 18-year-old had surreptitiously made
> while he abused her, the suit reads. They also
> questioned her at length about the events and the
> recording.

Completely sick, the elders and the 18 yr old (who likely had been completely screwed up by The Organization himself but that is not a defence for the abuse and deviancy described).


> “The Elders inflicted this psychological abuse
> in an effort to cause (the teen) emotional pain so
> that they could extract a confession from (her),
> at that time 14 years old, that the sexual abuse
> and rape (the) 18-year-old (perpetrator) inflicted
> on her was actually consensual. It was not,”
> reads the suit."

First, they have ZERO training or expertise in this area (likely the opposite - misinformation). Second, what was their point about needing it to be "consensual"? So both the victim and the abuser could be disciplined with equal blame attached?

Their reactions to this are almost beyond belief. In what world would this be seen as ministering or healing. It doesn't sound like they involved the mother directly either. So, again, you have a young female in a room being questioned and accused by males. The ignorant patriarchal thing again.

It's appalling.

They should be charged with something. Voyeurism or inflicting emotional harm on a minor or ??? Something!

>> Second, what was their point about needing it to be "consensual"?

So the girl could be blamed for beguiling the young man. You know how that goes -- a tale as old as Adam and Eve.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >> Second, what was their point about needing it
> to be "consensual"?
>
> So the girl could be blamed for beguiling the
> young man. You know how that goes -- a tale as old
> as Adam and Eve.

Yes, indeed.

It's always your fault.

Really doesn’t matter at 14 she legally can’t consent. Statutory rape

At 14 it can never be consensual.

kentish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> At 14 it can never be consensual.

Excellent point.

In many states 14 is the age of consent, which would mean the girl was old enough.

There is, however, a separate rule in many such legal schemes that makes it a crime if the age difference between the two parties is greater than, say, two years. If Utah has such a rule, what happened here would by definition be statutory rape.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In many states 14 is the age of consent, which
> would mean the girl was old enough.

It's 16 years of age in all of Canada. (Even that seems pretty young).


> There is, however, a separate rule in many such
> legal schemes that makes it a crime if the age
> difference between the two parties is greater
> than, say, two years. If Utah has such a rule,
> what happened here would by definition be
> statutory rape.

The two-year rule is good. Can mitigate the above perhaps.

What the two-year rule does is decriminalize sex between two horny kids where there is not a significant difference in the balance of power.

If two teenagers in the same class at school both surrender voluntarily to the dictates of Nature, one should not be charged and convicted of "rape" because s/he happens to be six months older than the other. And yes, that has occurred in the US.

Unless, Utah has changed the law, it appears to be statutory rape.

https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter5/C76-5-P4_1800010118000101.pdf