Issue 72 – January 2007

S M A R T
(Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today)
P. O Box 1295, Easthampton, MA 01027-1295 USA E-mail: SMARTNEWS@aol.com

The purpose of this newsletter is to help stop secretive organizations and groups from abusing others and to help those who allege they have been abused by such organizations and groups. This newsletter is not a substitute for other ways of recovering from ritual abuse. Readers should use caution while reading this newsletter. If necessary, make sure other support systems are available during and after reading this newsletter.

Important: The resources mentioned in this newsletter are for educational value only. Reading the books cited may or may not help your recovery process, so use caution when reading any book or contacting any resource mentioned in this newsletter. Some may have a religious or other agenda that may be separate from your own recovery process. Others may have valuable information on the Masons and other organizations, but have triggers or be somewhat sympathetic to those organizations. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the views expressed in this newsletter constitute expressions of opinion, and readers are cautioned to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions by consulting a variety of sources, including this newsletter. Resources listed, quoted and individual articles, etc. and their writers do not necessarily support all or any of the views mentioned in this newsletter. Also, the views, facts and opinions mentioned in this newsletter are solely the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily the opinions of this newsletter or its editor.

SMART wants to thank all those that have contributed resource information to the newsletter.

Resources and Information

Please note: Listing of these resources does not necessarily constitute our endorsement of them. They are for educational value only and some may be heavy for survivors to read. Some of the conferences listed may not necessarily be safe for all survivors. S.M.A.R.T. recommends always bringing a support person to all conferences. If you are a survivor of mind control and/or ritual abuse, S.M.A.R.T. recommends that you try to bring a support person that is familiar with mind control techniques. LMS: article from ACHES-MC (Advocacy Committee for Human Experimentation Survivors – Mind Control) for unconsentually federally funded mind control as children or adults Canada contact Lynne Moss-Sharman, 230 Miles St. E. #3, Thunder Bay, Ont. P7C 1J6, lsharman@shaw.ca

Legal Information

Film on Pedophile Priest Revives Focus on Cardinal By Jennifer Steinhauer 10/7/06 Los Angeles, Oct. 6 “A documentary film featuring an extraordinarily candid interview with a former priest convicted of molesting children has heightened interest among law enforcement officials here in considering a criminal case against Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, says a prosecutor who has been investigating sexual abuse cases involving priests. In the documentary, “Deliver Us From Evil,” the former priest, Oliver O’Grady, describes how he abused young boys and girls across central California over 20 years, including a period in the 1980’s when Cardinal Mahony was his superior as the bishop in Stockton. The former priest, who lives in Ireland, said he was able to continue abusing children in part because of actions by Cardinal Mahony, who now heads the country’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, here in Los Angeles, and is among the church’s most influential American leaders. Mr. O’Grady says in the film that as bishop in Stockton, the cardinal moved him from parish to parish in the face of abuse accusations.” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/us/07priest.html?ei=5088&en=784d2bfa5bf0bd15&ex=1317873600&pagewanted=print

Sex abuse by priests costs L.A. church $60M Los Angeles, California (AP) 12/1/06 “The nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese said Friday it has agreed to pay $60 million to settle 45 lawsuits alleging sex abuse by priests.” http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/12/01/priest.abuse.ap/index.html

29 More Catholic Bishops Served in Unprecedented Child Molestation Lawsuit 10/11/06 “Bishops Served in AK, AZ, CA, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, KS, LA, MD, MT, NH, NJ, NM, PA, TN, TX, VA, and WA – Lawsuit Seeks Names of Accused Abusive Clergy Kept Secret by Church Officials St Paul, Minn., Oct 11 /PRNewswire/ — 178 Catholic Bishops have been named as defendants in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. The following Bishops and Archbishops have recently been served with the lawsuit by a county sheriff…” http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061011/cgw066.html?.v=42

20 More Catholic Bishops Served in Unprecedented Child Molestation Lawsuit 11/1/06 Bishops served in AL, CA, FL, ID, IN, LA, MI, MN, NV, NY, PA, RI, TN, and TX It Seeks Names of Accused Abusive Clergy Kept Secret by Church Officials St. Paul, Minn., Nov. 1 /PRNewswire/ “178 Catholic Bishops have been named as defendants in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. The following Bishops have recently been served with the lawsuit, bringing the total number served to 158.” http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061101/nyw259.html?.v=1

Sex crimes and the Vatican 9/29/06 “A secret document which sets out a procedure for dealing with child sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church is examined by Panorama. Crimen Sollicitationis was enforced for 20 years by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became the Pope. It instructs bishops on how to deal with allegations of child abuse against priests and has been seen by few outsiders. Critics say the document has been used to evade prosecution for sex crimes.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/5389684.stm

Pope tells bishop of ‘horror’ at sex abuse in Ferns – Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent, in Rome, Martin Wall 10/27/06 “Pope Benedict, in the strongest language he has ever used in relation to clerical child sex abuse, has expressed his own “personal anguish and horror” at what happened in the Ferns diocese over a 40-year period from the early 1960s onwards. He said the “incomprehensible behaviour” of some clergy in Ferns had “devastated human lives and profoundly betrayed the trust of children, young people, their families, parish communities and the entire diocesan family”.” “The 271-page report of the Ferns inquiry, chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Frank Murphy, was published a year ago. It identified more than 100 allegations of child sexual abuse made between 1962 and 2002 against 26 priests operating under the aegis of the diocese.” http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2006/1027/1161840035757.html
Covering up for priests took precedence over helping abuse victims 12/3/06 By Brooks Egerton – The Dallas Morning News “For 18 years, Richard Sipe belonged to the brotherhood of Catholic priests. For the last 14, he has been helping their victims across America seek redress from men like Fort Worth Bishop Joseph Delaney – men who, as last week’s unsealing of court records showed, have deceived their flocks and protected predators.” http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-fwdiocese_03met.ART.State.Edition2.3de7c1a.html

Former nun recalls clergy abuse decades later By Gillian Flaccus, AP 12/3/06 Los Angeles “A former nun who says she’s haunted by her memory of being molested by a pedophile priest as a young girl hopes a landmark settlement by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles will help her heal…. She expects to receive $1.33 million as part of the $60 million the archdiocese said Friday it would pay to settle 45 sexual abuse lawsuits, the largest church sex abuse settlement since 2004….For years, Dispenza said, she repressed the memory of her abuse at the hands of the now-defrocked Rev. George Neville Rucker, also accused of molesting 37 other girls over three decades. Rucker, now 86, was criminally charged in 2002 with 29 counts of molestation, and pleaded not guilty. The charges were later dropped after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturned a California law that erased the statute of limitations for filing criminal molestation cases….Dispenza said she was a 7-year-old girl in 1947 when Rucker reached down her panties and fondled her after she had wandered into the darkened auditorium of her Roman Catholic primary school. After he abused her, Dispenza says, the young priest held her hand as he walked her to the back of the auditorium. She washed her hands before returning to her mother, and didn’t tell anyone what had happened for more than 40 years.” http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_4762580

LA cardinal urged priest to stay in Mexico or face inquiry Robert Jablon AP Los Angeles – “Cardinal Roger Mahony more than two decades ago warned a priest suspected of abusing children not to return to California or face a possible investigation, referring to the man as a “psychopath,” according to letters released Tuesday by a victims’ group. The letters were filed in court as part of a recently settled lawsuit, in which Mahony – head of the nation’s largest archdiocese – gave a deposition detailing actions to remove the priest from duties at a California diocese, said Mary Grant, spokeswoman for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP….In a letter dated Sept. 18, 1981, Mahony wrote to Munoz at the Tijuana diocese informing the priest of his dismissal. “For the spiritual and pastoral good of the people of the Dioceses of Stockton, please remain over there in Mexico,” the letter said in Spanish. “If you, sir, would like to visit here for whatever reason, then I would have to inform police and immigration officials.” The letter ends with Mahony urging the priest to obtain “the professional and spiritual help you need.” Mahony also wrote a second letter dated the same day to Msgr. Juan Jesus Pasadas Ocampo of the Tijuana diocese about Munoz. “It seems best to us that he doesn’t return here ever, because there are many parents disposed to inform police about his actions,” the letter said in Spanish. “I hope that Father Munoz is not able to serve in a parish where there is the possibility to find more youngsters. He is truly (a) psychopath, and in reality he needs a lot of professional help.””

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/15840072.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Former priest in Colo. clergy abuse scandal dies in Mexico – Harold R. White, 73, allegedly molested boys in various parishes over a three-decade career. By Eric Gorski Denver Post Staff Writer 11/16/06 “He is accused of molesting more than two dozen boys and one girl from the early 1960s to the early 1980s.” http://www.denverpost.com/colleges/ci_4667565

Church ‘covered up’ sex assaults – Kevin Meade 11/1/06 “The father of a teenage boy who was sexually molested by an Anglican priest complained to church authorities in 1976, but the pedophile was forgiven and later employed at Brisbane’s prestigious “Churchie” school, where he taught until 2002.Details of the church cover-up emerged in the Brisbane District Court yesterday after the priest, Robert Francis Sharwood, pleaded guilty to seven charges of indecently assaulting the boy, who was 13 when the two-year sexual molestation started. ” http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20680406-2702,00.html

Nun Accused Of Sexually Assaulting Children – Victims: Assaults Occurred In Convent, School Office 12/4/06 Milwaukee “A Catholic nun who served as a principal at a Milwaukee school has been charged with sexually assaulting children as many as 200 times. Investigators said Sister Norma Giannini, now 78 years old, assaulted two of her students in the 1960s when the boys attended St. Patrick’s Elementary School at 7th and Washington in Milwaukee, often in the church’s convent and school office. Giannini was principal of that school at that time.” http://www.themilwaukeechannel.com/news/10462521/detail.html?taf=mil

Child-abuse bill OK’d – Victims get 20 more years to file charges AP Harrisburg 11/22/06 “The state Senate joined the House yesterday in enacting legislation to make broad changes to Pennsylvania’s child sex-abuse laws, including some that were recommended by a Philadelphia grand jury that investigated abuse by Roman Catholic priests. If Gov. Rendell signs the bill, victims of child-sex crimes will have until their 50th birthday – 20 years longer than current law allows – to file criminal complaints. Employers and supervisors could be held criminally liable if they know of alleged abuse by employees who care for children but fail to stop it, and caregivers would have to report suspected abuse regardless of whether or not the victim reports it.” http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/nation/16072551.htm

Sins of omission…The conviction and jailing of Anglican priest by Tony Koch 11/11/06 “Robert Sharwood for the abuse of a boy beginning in 1974 when the child was 13 demonstrated yet again that although senior church leaders knew Sharwood had admitted the crime, it was not reported to police in almost three decades. Instead, Sharwood was appointed to a leading Brisbane boys school, the Anglican Grammar School (Churchie), where he remained as chaplain for 18 years until the victim blew the whistle in 2002.” http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20736582-28737,00.html

Are Baptist leaders doing enough about clergy sex-abuse revelations By Hannah Elliott – Dallas “…a 1993 survey by the Journal of Pastoral Care found that 14 percent of Southern Baptist ministers admitted to engaging in inappropriate sexual behavior. Seventy percent said they knew another minister who had. A 2000 Baptist General Convention of Texas report indicated more than 24 percent of ministers said they had counseled at least one person who had sexual contact with a minister. The BGCT report called the level of sexual abuse by clergy “horrific” and noted that “the disturbing aspect of all research is that the rate of incidence for clergy exceeds the client-professional rate for both physicians and psychologists.” http://www.churchexecutive.com/Page.cfm/PageID/8039

My Father the Icon; My Father the Molester Daughter of Communist leader Herbert Aptheker recalls the pain and reconciliation that led to writing about her childhood abuse. By Bettina Aptheker, Bettina Aptheker is a professor of feminist studies and history at UC Santa Cruz. She is the author, most recently, of “Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Femin 10/15/06 “The psychological term for this is dissociation. I was about 3 years old when the sexual abuse began, and it was when my father and I were playing a game called choo-choo train on the rug on the living room floor of our apartment in Brooklyn. My father stopped molesting me when I was 13. By then, of course, it was no longer a game. It was clear in my memory that my father took great care never to hurt me physically; he was, in fact, very gentle with me. But he also made clear I was never, ever to tell anyone about our games. Once the memories erupted — and they did erupt with astonishing, volcanic force — I stopped writing. I needed counseling, and I was fortunate to have an experienced and loving psychotherapist.” http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-aptheker15oct15,0,1589108.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

from LMS Victim says doors slammed in his face Terri Saunders 10/28/06 “Local News – Jason Tyo doesn’t know for certain but he’s pretty sure he might not have sexually abused anyone if he’d just gotten a little bit of help. In testifying at the Cornwall Public Inquiry recently, Tyo said he reached out for help after he was sexually abused, but found nobody was there.” http://www.theinquiry.ca/TyoSeguinLavoie_281006.hide.php

Police Investigations In The Spotlight 11/29/06 “The majority of testimony at the Cornwall Public Inquiry is centering on police investigations today. A victim is testifying about his involvement with police. Claude Marleau says he often had to initiate the calls and had to ask for information. He said the sooner the criminal part was over he could get on with his life. He says the officers did the best they could with the resources they had but wondered why their “higher ups” didn’t tell them to investigate the diocese. Marleau says he suffered abuse at the hands of eight men including five priests while growing up in Cornwall. One priest was convicted in a Quebec court two years ago. Victim Says Eight Men Abused Him 11/28/06 “He says he was abused by eight men while growing up in the city. Claude Marleau testified today at the Cornwall Public Inquiry and claimed he was abused by five priests and three others during his pre-teen and teenage years. Two years ago, a Quebec court found Father Paul Lapierre guilty of abusing Marleau. Lapierre was acquitted on similar charges in a Cornwall court. Marleau says the police told him not talk to Perry Dunlop who is the former city cop credited with shining light on the abuse issue. Meanwhile, Commissioner Normand Glaude gave his reasons for dismissing a motion regarding a confidentiality issue brought forward by the diocese. Lawyers for the diocese are going to a higher court to seek a review of the decision.” http://www.am1220.ca/

from LMS B.C.’s Polygamist Breakaway Community http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/features/polygamy/index.html

from LMS Two women who found the strength to defy polygamy – One testifies against ‘prophet’ Warren Jeffs, the other feels her pain – Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun, 10/25/06 “Utah’s witness had no options. Her father had been kicked out of the FLDS two years earlier. The witness, her mother and her younger siblings were uprooted from their Salt Lake City home and reassigned to 88-year-old Fred Jessop, who already had 15 wives and dozens of children living in his 40-bedroom house.” http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=0af3cd18-ac35-4694-8d46-e2e87230ed01&p=2

from LMS The children of broken dreams – Scott, 22, has been turning tricks in Toronto since he was 13 after fleeing sexual abuse at home – As one of many kids who end up on the streets, his story is not that uncommon Debra Black reports 11/6/06 “…at least 1,000 young people who sell their bodies in the downtown core of Toronto every year, according to Susan Miner, director of Street Outreach Services…” http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1162770306989&call_pageid=968350130169

Operation nabs 11,000 fugitives in eastern states 11/3/06 By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY Washington “Nearly 11,000 fugitives, including 1,659 sex offenders, were swept up in what Attorney General Alberto Gonzales described Thursday as a record-breaking law enforcement operation targeting some of the nation’s “worst” felons. Focused in 24 states east of the Mississippi, the week-long “Operation Falcon III” roundup netted 100 murder suspects…” http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-02-fugitives_x.htm?csp=24&POE=click-refer

UN troops face child abuse claims 11/30/06 “Children have been subjected to rape and prostitution by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia, a BBC investigation has found. Girls have told of regular encounters with soldiers where sex is demanded in return for food or money. A senior official with the organisation has accepted the claims are credible. The UN has faced several scandals involving its troops in recent years, including a DR Congo paedophile ring and prostitute trafficking in Kosovo.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6195830.stm

from LMS Sex Abuse of Girls Is Stubborn Scourge in Africa By Sharon LaFraniere – Sambava, Madagascar 12/1/06 “In much of the continent, child advocates say, perpetrators are shielded by the traditionally low status of girls, a lingering view that sexual abuse should be dealt with privately, and justice systems that constitute obstacle courses for victims. Data is sparse and sexual violence is notoriously underreported. But South African police reports give an inkling of the sweep of child victimization. In the 12 months ending in March 2005, the police reported more than 22,000 cases of child rape. In contrast, England and Wales, with nine million more people than South Africa, reported just 13,300 rapes of women and girls in the most recent 12-month period. “The prevalence of child rape in South Africa goes from really, really high to astronomically high,” said Dr. Rachel Jewkes, a specialist on sexual violence with South Africa’s Medical Research Council. Africa is not unique in its high rates of abuse. While a survey of nine countries last year by the World Health Organization found the highest incidence of child sexual abuse in Namibia — more than one in five women there reported being sexually abused before age 15 — it also found frequent abuse in Peru, Japan and Brazil, among other nations. Relatives are frequent perpetrators in Africa, as in much of the world. But this continent’s children face added risks, especially at school. Half of Malawian schoolgirls surveyed in 2006 said male teachers or classmates had touched them in a sexual manner without their permission. The number of abuse cases is rising in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone and other African countries, statistics show. Whether that means more children are being victimized or more are coming forward — or both — is impossible to determine, experts say.” http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/01/africa/web.1201madagascar.php

Democratic Republic Congo Children “Still Armed” BBC News 10/11/06 “Eleven thousand children in the Democratic Republic of Congo are in the hands of armed groups or unaccounted for, says Amnesty International….The report says young girls are being disproportionately affected, used as sex slaves by military commanders or regarded as dependents of adult fighters. Girls made up 40% of the children taken by armed groups during the war yet the vast majority remain unaccounted for, Amnesty says. “A lot of them were used more as sex slaves and therefore the combatants are considering them as their possession or their wife,” Amnesty researcher Veronique Albert told the BBC.” http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101206G.shtml

Mind Control and Experimentation

from LMS Ohio cult leader executed for murdering 5 followers 10/24/06 AP “””It’s not a figment of my imagination that I can in fact talk to God, that I can hear his voice,” he had told the jurors. “I am a prophet of God. I am even more than a prophet.” Lundgren formed the cult with about 20 members in the northeast Ohio town of Kirtland after he was dismissed in 1987 as a lay minister of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the Mormon church.” http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/10/24/ohio-executed.html

from LMS Priest’s trial for murder drew attention to Toledo 11/17/06 “Blade religion editor David Yonke spoke during a taping of The Editors television program about the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl and how the investigation was re-opened, leading ultimately to the conviction in May of a priest, Gerald Robinson, in her brutal death. Mr. Yonke is author of the recently published Sin, Shame, & Secrets, a book about a case that drew international attention to Toledo for Robinson’s trial. Robinson is believed to be the first Roman Catholic priest in the United States convicted in the murder of a religious sister.” http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061117/NEWS02/611170337/-1/NEWS

from LMS Trial highlights Canadian cult link – More than 70 Solar Temple members died in ritual murders and suicide blazes 10/25/06 – Sean Gordon Quebec Bureau Chief – Montreal “The chilling ritual known within the Order of the Solar Temple as “transit to Sirius” — a distant star where members of the doomsday cult believed they would live eternally once their souls were cleansed by flames — was first practised in the Laurentian hills north of Montreal.” http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1161726632690&call_pageid=968332188492

Journal Articles

Many of the journal abstract excerpts and quotes in this section of the newsletter came from the backlash_ology@yahoogroups.com listed as BO For info. write backlash_ology-owner@yahoogroups.com

Early Family Experience Can Reverse The Effects Of Genes, Psychologists Report – 10/13/06 Early family experience can reverse the effect of a genetic variant linked to depression, UCLA researchers report in the current issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry. Among children from supportive, nurturing families, those with the short form of the serotonin transporter gene (known as 5-HTTLPR) had a significantly reduced risk for depression, found the UCLA team, under the direction of Shelley E. Taylor, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and an expert in the field of stress and health. The research team also found that among children from emotionally cold, unsupportive homes marked by conflict and anger, those with the short form of the 5-HTTLPR gene were at greater risk for depression, as some previous research has also shown.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061012190132.htm

False Memory Syndrome – A False Construct by Jennifer Cutler Page http://www.feminista.com/archives/v1n9/false-memory.html

National Association to PROTECT Children – “In the November issue of O Magazine, reporter Jan Goodwin writes about the outrageous laws and legal practices in many states that fail to protect the majority of all child sexual assault victims: children preyed upon in their own homes. Since 2002, PROTECT has overturned these laws in six states.” http://www.protect.org/

Witness Grilled in CIA Leak Case By Matt Apuzzo AP 10/26/06 Washington “Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald took on the first witness in the CIA leak case Thursday, dissecting an expert witness until she acknowledged errors and misstatements in her research….When it came Fitzgerald’s turn, the veteran prosecutor launched into a nearly three-hour cross-examination of the witness _ psychologist Elizabeth Loftus _ that had some members of the audience shaking their heads. It was the first public courtroom confrontation between Fitzgerald and Libby’s defense team and foreshadowed a contentious trial. Libby wants to use a memory expert to help argue that, when he made false statements to investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame, it was because of faulty memory. Prosecutors say he lied. Loftus testified that many jurors don’t understand how memory works and how unreliable it can be. Fitzgerald challenged the validity of memory research. Citing footnotes in her publications, presenting conflicting statements and questioning her methodology, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that a statement in one of her research papers was taken out of context and that a figure in one of her books was incorrect.” http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061026/D8L0I9BO0.html

High court considers privacy issue – In a case involving repressed memory, several justices suggest that a researcher who lies to get information may be breaking the law. By Maura Dolan, Times Staff Writer 12/6/06 “Several California Supreme Court justices suggested Tuesday that an investigator who lies to obtain information about another person might be liable for invasion of privacy. During arguments in Los Angeles, members of the state high court expressed consternation over allegations that Elizabeth Loftus, a prominent psychologist, misidentified herself to obtain information she used to dispute conclusions of a case study about repressed memory….During Tuesday’s hearing, the court seemed mainly interested in Taus’ allegation that Loftus had misrepresented herself to obtain an interview with Taus’ former foster mother. The foster mother claimed that Loftus told her she was the supervisor of the psychiatrist with whom Taus reportedly remembered the molestation. Justice Joyce L. Kennard called such alleged intentional misrepresentation “highly offensive.” “The court has a problem with the [alleged] means by which the information was obtained by your client,” Kennard told Loftus’ attorney, Thomas R. Burke. “Wasn’t it highly offensive for your client to blatantly misrepresent herself?”….Justice Ming Chin asked Burke how he would describe the charge that Loftus mischaracterized her position during the interview with the foster mother. “I would call it a misrepresentation,” Burke said. “Isn’t it a lie?” Chin shot back.” http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-privacy6dec06,1,5245235.story?coll=la-headlines-california

In the Libby Case, A Grilling to Remember 10/27/06 “With withering and methodical dispatch, White House nemesis and prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald yesterday sliced up the first person called to the stand on behalf of the vice president’s former chief of staff….But when Fitzgerald got his chance to cross-examine Loftus about her findings, he had her stuttering to explain her own writings and backpedaling from her earlier assertions. Citing several of her publications, footnotes and the work of her peers, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that the methodology she had used at times in her long academic career was not that scientific, that her conclusions about memory were conflicting, and that she had exaggerated a figure and a statement from her survey of D.C. jurors that favored the defense. Her defense-paid visit to the federal court was crucial because Libby is relying on the “memory defense” against Fitzgerald’s charges that he obstructed justice and lied to investigators about his role in the leaking of a CIA operative’s identity to the media. Libby’s attorneys argue that he did not lie — that he was just really busy with national security matters and forgot some of his conversations. When Fitzgerald found a line in one of her books that raised doubts about research she had cited on the stand as proof that Libby needs an expert to educate jurors, Loftus said, “I don’t know how I let that line slip by.” “I’d need to see that again,” Loftus said when Fitzgerald cited a line in her book that overstated her research by saying that “most jurors” consider memory to be equivalent to playing a videotape. Her research, however, found that to be true for traumatic events, and even then, only 46 percent of potential jurors thought memory could be similar to a videotape. There were several moments when Loftus was completely caught off guard by Fitzgerald, creating some very awkward silences in the courtroom. One of those moments came when Loftus insisted that she had never met Fitzgerald. He then reminded her that he had cross-examined her before, when she was an expert defense witness and he was a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in New York.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601612.html

The new issue of the Association for Psychological Science’s journal “Psychological Science” (vol. 17, #10): “Decoupling Neural Networks From Reality: Dissociative Experiences in Torture Victims Are Reflected in Abnormal Brain Waves in Left Frontal Cortex.” by William J. Ray, Michael Odenwald, Frank Neuner, Maggie Schauer, Martina Ruf, Christian Wienbruch, Brigitte Rockstroh, and Thomas Elbert. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/ps/17_10.cfm

Childhood trauma linked to chronic fatigue syndrome 11/6/06 By Reuters Health Information New York (Reuters Health) “Children who are sexually, physically, and emotionally abused appear to have an increased risk of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) as adults, according to a report in the Archives of General Psychiatry for November….Arch Gen Psychiatry 2006;63:1258-1266.” http://www.merckmedicus.com/pp/us/hcp/hcp_newsarticle.jsp?newsid=716756&newsgroup=3

Myths That Place Children At Risk During Custody Litigation – Dallam. S. J., & Silberg, J. L. (Jan/Feb 2006). Myths that place children at risk during custody disputes. Sexual Assault Report, 9(3), 33-47. http://leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/cust_myths.html

Violence Against Women Officially Declared a Human Rights Violation 10/9/06 “The United Nations released a report late last week officially classifying violence against women as a human rights violation, increasing pressure on states in the UN to intensify and improve systems in place for handling violence against women….The release of the UN report coincides with the publication of the most comprehensive and systematic study of international domestic violence by the World Health Organization (WHO). At 13 out of the 15 sites studied, more than 25 percent of women said they had experienced moderate to severe domestic violence in the last year. At six of the 15 sites, over 50 percent of women had experienced a moderate to severe level of domestic violence. The study found that rural Ethiopia had the highest rate of domestic violence, with 71 percent of women experiencing violence in the home. Yokohama, Japan had the lowest rate at 15 percent. Close to 25,000 women were interviewed in ten countries for the WHO study.” http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=9921

October 13, 2008 · Filed Under Newsletter 2007 - Issues 72 - 77

Issue 72 – January 2007

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