Jury awards more than $28 million against Jehovah’s Wittnesses and sexual abuser
June 15, 2012
Today, MSNBC reports that a jury in Oakland, California on June 13th awarded $7 million in compensatory damages and $21,000,001 in punitive damages against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and a member for childhood sexual abuse of a 9-10 year old girl in the mid 1990s. l she is now now 26.
The link to the story follows.
As reported the plaintiff stated that “I once wanted to be the best Jehovah’s Witness I could be. Now I feel I’m doing more to help other children in Jehovah’s Witnesses than I ever did walking door to door to spread the ‘good news.’”
Allegedly, the jury found that the elders who managed the Fremont congregation knew that a congregation leader and member had recently been convicted of the sexual abuse of another child, but they kept his past record secret from the congregation.
As reported, the lawsuit alleged that Watchtower had a policy that instructed elders in its Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations to keep reports of child sex abusers within the religious group secret to avoid lawsuits.
Echoing the words of respected and influential former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” [L. Brandeis, “Other People’s Money” 62 (National Home Library Foundation ed. 1933)]. This survivor is to be commended for her courage in exposing these alleged policies to public view in her hope that the truth as she reveals it will result in reform in this religious denomination.
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