Posts from — June 2006

Do you know a child who is being abused or molested?

If the crisis is now, please call 9-1-1!

Call the National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453)

Do not listen to any counsel that tells you to be silent. Everyone matters.

All calls are anonymous and toll-free. The hotline is staffed 24 hours daily with professional crisis counselors who utilize a database of thousands of emergency, social service and support resources.

The Childhelp hotline counselors can…

• discuss signs and symptoms of abuse with you.
• help you decide a course of action.
• prepare you as to what to expect when reporting child abuse.
• provide the number of the local reporting agency you should call.

Hotline counselors can look up the local reporting telephone number and give it to you. They can also stay on the phone line and make a 3-way call if you are nervous about doing it alone.

Law enforcement agencies (the police or sheriff’s departments) and child protective services are the ones who decide what will happen when there is child abuse. If a child is in immediate danger, however, counselors can call the local police to go to the child’s location if the hotline caller gives the address and the name of the child or teen who is being abused.

Other Hotlines

If you are in immediate danger call 9-1-1.

• United States Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
  Spanish Language: 1-800-942-6908
  TDD: 1-800-787-3224

• United States Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
• Youth Crisis Hotline: 1-800-448-4663
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: 1-800-843-5678
  TDD: 1-800-826-7653

• United States Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-2433
• Hotline For Parents Considering Abducting Their Children: 1-800-A WAY OUT
• United States Missing Children Hotline: 1-800-235-3535
• United States Elder Abuse Hotline: 1-866-363-4276
• Find a Therapist: 1-800-865-0686

Man Allegedly Taped Boys Using O’Hare Rest Rooms
From Steve Miller, Chicago, WBBM Newsradio 780/CBS 2

WBBM Newsradio 780’s Steve Miller reports the man accused is Jesus Manuel Cano and is 50 years old. A Jehovah’s Witness minister, say police in Middletown, New York. Cano is in jail in New York. He is charged as a pedophile there.

Middletown Police Detective Sergeant Jerry Mishk says investigators have seized four computers from Cano’s home – at a Jehovah’s Witness farm.

…

Cano had a video recording labeled “O’Hare” that allegedly included images of children in public bathrooms, Mishk said. And Mishk says Cano had a videotape that apparently was shot inside O’Hare rest rooms.

CBS 2 reports Middletown police say Cano allegedly used his own video camera to take images of himself in the nude and then print them with his phone number in hopes of luring young boys for sex.

Police say the first alleged incident took place on June 17 when Cano allegedly called an 11-year-old victim to his car to give him a naked picture of himself. Police say Cano then asked the child to meet him at another location for sex.

One week later, another alleged incident took place, but the victim’s parents called police.

Police say they found beer, condoms and an ointment of some sort inside Cano’s blue Nissan. Inside, they also found an alleged trail of perversion stretching from Chicago all the way to the Caribbean.

Police say photos of an unidentified teen in sexual positions were discovered, along with videotape that police say Cano shot at O’Hare Airport as he followed boys and men into the bathroom with a hidden camera to tape them as they used urinals. Cano allegedly targeted six or seven bathrooms for six or seven hours at a time.

When arrested, police found a church identification card on Cano. The church confirms his position as a minister, but had no further comment.

See the Silent Lambs website for more details on the Cano case.

Video Report from WCBS-TV New York

Another Jehovah’s Witness predator convicted. For 20 years, Daniel molested children and his wife knew it was happening.

BRUSSELS – Convicted for sordid abuse rape, and crimes against children, Daniel P. and Nadine NR were a married couple and active Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Yesterday, Daniel P. was sentenced to six years of hard prison time. His wife Nadine was sentenced to three years probation.

Their atrocities against children were of an extreme gravity. For example: molestation of eleven minor children, seven convictions of abuse using the internet as well as two rapes. According to the charges filed by law enforcement, around 20 children were victimized by the couple. Many of the victims remained silent and were afraid to come forward. Some of the abuses were spread out over a twenty year period of time.

The perversions of Daniel did not have any limit. But what is even more shocking is the passivity of his wife. Nadine NR. Nadine openly confessed to having witnessed many of the abuses and kept silent. She acknowledged hearing children groan and scream when they were forcibly raped and molested. She confessed to seeing her husband sexually aroused in the presence of children when in the same room.

Nadine stated she did not like sex and viewed the children as a replacement for her husband’s perversions in the marital bed. According to her statements, she forgives her husband and wants to continue the marriage at the end of the court proceedings. At present this will be for a while as the only visitation will be in prison.

The case first was reported in May 2005 when two young women filed abuse charges against the couple. The first case of abuses goes back to 1986. The couple had a good image in the community. They often volunteered to babysit children when the parents were at work.

Over the years, Daniel P. operated like a predator and adapted his techniques for seducing children. He used the internet as a way of approaching children passing himself off as a teenager to set up meetings with young girls. When the teenage girls would meet him he would pretend to be the uncle picking them up to arrange the meeting and get them to go with him.

Daniel tried to discount the charges against him by blaming his wife and saying the victims was promiscuous. The defense was not accepted due to the ages of his victims being as young as four years of age. He also tried to blame law enforcement for further crimes due to not catching him sooner. The jury did not accept this defense.

Yesterday, before the jury, a victim presented testimony. In some of the cases charges could not be filed due to the statue of limitations being expired, it was hard for the victims to accept. One victim committed suicide when the matter was revealed, the parents were distraught. They wondered what extent their child was molested by Daniel as the child revealed few details.

(thanks to the article by Phillipe Boudart via Silent Lambs)

A trailer for the documentary Losing My Religion has been released to raise awareness (and funding). I am very pleased to be involved with this project.

View the Trailer.

Contact Stephan T. McGuire to contribute to this unique film. Please support this effort if you can.

Losing My Religion: In and Out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Organization

That knock on your door is meant to save your life! Daily, over 6,000,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses are being instructed that very soon, those who do not obey their exact teachings will be ferociously exterminated by God himself in Armageddon at the end of the ‘world’!

So who are these people? And what is it like to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Losing My Religion is a soul-searching, interview-style film documenting the experiences and exoduses of Jehovah’s Witnesses as they leave behind family, friends, their acquired interpretation of “God”, and a very unique ‘fundamentalist reality’. Losing their religion, many who leave must undergo an often emotionally agonizing and dramatic transition into the once ‘forbidden’ world.

Jehovah’s Witnesses who ‘awaken’, who figure things out and leave; who permanently lose their religion, and speak up against the Watchtower Society, are in fact accused of being the absolute worst of all creation. Basically, the Watchtower Society’s stand is: You are either with us or against us.

Why Losing My Religion?

A deep conversation and intelligent study is needed on the effects of extreme fundamentalism in the world today. There are currently millions of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world who struggle with adjustment to their new lives. Billions of other people find their life purposes and identities almost solely through their religions, political persuasions, marriages and/or other relationships, their corporate careers, nationalism, the military, etc. Upon close examination, most of us are willing to throw out our own personal reasoning capabilities and deny our own personal experiences to be relieved of the oppressive burden of figuring out life ourselves. Why? What is happening?

The interviews in Losing My Religion will serve as a metaphor highlighting the disservice of extreme fundamentalist ideology and the triumph of the human spirit.

Losing My Religion will be a powerful journey into the life of the filmmaker, Stephan McGuire as documents the dilemmas of current Jehovah’s Witnesses, other ex- Jehovah’s Witnesses, solicit the opinions of cult specialists and psychologists who focus on identity and life purpose. So far we have been interviewing ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses, and already the dynamics of self-realization being revealed before the camera will make for a psychologically fascinating study. Once film production begins, we will want to document several Jehovah’s Witnesses as they are leaving the ‘truth’.

With a kaleidoscope of cutting edge style, highly informed specialists and provocative footage, Losing My Religion will be an experience of synergized story telling, deep healing and an exploration of our insatiable quest for real truth.

Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses and other experts on Identity and Life Purpose:

• Dr Jerry Bergman, Human Biologist who has written over forty books including Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Problem of Mental Illness
• Richard “Shining Thunder” Francis, Author of Jehovah Lives in Brooklyn
• David Icke, Researcher & Author of Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion
• Brenda Lee, Author of Out of the Cocoon and the Cocoon Newsletter
• Dr Heidi Nordberg
• Diane Wilson, Author of Awakening of a Jehovah’s Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society

Links

Ex JW Meetup

Rick A Ross Institute

Silent Lambs- Protecting JW children from abuse

Watchers of the Watchtower World

A Common Bond

Dr Jerry Bergman

A tribute and a memorial to Jehovah’s Witnesses who have taken their own lives

Cult Busting information

Recovering ex Jehovah’s Witnesses Webring

Watchtower Whistle Blower

Lightbearer’s Escape from the Watchtower

Watchtower Exposure

Ivor Hope

Survivors of Abusive Religions Outreach & Self-help

12 Steps of Ex JW Theocratic Addiction and Religious Abuse

Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses Chat

In Depth Watchtower Survey

Former Jehovah’s Witnesses Helping One Another Outside the Watchtower

The Truth about Jehovah’s Witnesses

See also my JW-related links, helpful books, and the Forward You Ex-JWs webring.

If you need a little distancing humor, see the JW jokes.