Issue 151 – March 2020

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
Home page: https://ritualabuse.us/

Issue 151 – March 2020

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 secretive 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.
Copyright 2020 – All rights reserved. No reproduction of any material without written permission from the editor and individual authors.

Information in this issue includes: The 2020 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference, Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2020 Conference, Misinformation, Trauma, Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction, change.org, THE ORGANISED AND RITUALISED ABUSE OF CHILDREN, Dr. Laurie Matthew, Neil Brick, Dr Sarah Nelson, Dr. Randy Noblitt, Pamela Perskin Noblitt, Dr. Karol Darsa, Cristina Mardirossian, Trauma Treatment, Extreme Abuse Survivors, Social Security Benefits, Misinformation Campaigns Against Survivors, Cristina Mardirossian, Amish, incest, rape, Amish child sexual assault, Jeffrey Epstein, unlawful sexual conduct, sex trafficking, forced labor, Donald Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, New Light of God, Nxivm ‘Sex Cult,’ Pyramid Scheme, Keith Raniere, Allison Mack, Clare Bronfman, Eric Eoin Marques, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Word of Faith Fellowship, Pentecostal spinoff, Sam Whaley, Jane Whaley, La Luz Del Mundo, Child Sex Slavery Ring, Naason Joaquin Garcia, Rep. Jim Jordan, abusive OSU doctor, Richard Strauss, Anglican Church fobbed her off, then offered payout in exchange for silence Exclusive by Josh Robertson, Beth Heinrich, former archbishop Peter Hollingworth, Mr. Shearman, Michael Oluronbi, spiritual bathing ritual, sexual abuse, Father Flanagan, Irish abuse of children, A New Ireland, Niall O’Dowd, Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo, Mimi Haleyi, Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek, sexual assault, sexual harassment, criminal sex act, rape in the third degree

Upcoming ritual abuse conferences in 2020:

The 2020 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference August 8 – 9, 2020 DoubleTree near Bradley International Airport Windsor Locks, CT Internet conference information: http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE CORONA (COVID-19) VIRUS is on this page.

The Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2020 Conference
When: Regular Conference – Saturday and Sunday May 16 – 17, 2020
Clinician’s Conference – Friday May 15, 2020
Where: Reconnect Integrative Trauma Treatment Center Pacific Palisades, CA
https://survivorship.org/ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-2020-conference/
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE CORONA (COVID-19) VIRUS is on this page.

Petition:
Stop Misinformation and Attacks on Survivors of Trauma and Their Helpers by The Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction https://www.change.org/p/trauma-survivors-and-their-helpers-stop-attacks-on-survivors-of-trauma-by-the-satanic-temple-s-grey-faction/ http://chng.it/6H6sfxqR

THE ORGANISED AND RITUALISED ABUSE OF CHILDREN:
THE CURRENT INTERNATIONAL SITUATION CONFERENCE
26th February 2020 9am-5pm
West Park Conference Centre Perth Road Dundee Scotland
THE ORGANISED AND RITUALISED ABUSE OF CHILDREN: THE CURRENT INTERNATIONAL SITUATION – February 26, 2020 Dundee, Scotland https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/the-organised-and-ritualised-abuse-of-children-the-current-international-situation/
Research review statistics – Dr. Laurie Matthew https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/research-review-statistics-dr-laurie-matthew/
Misinformation Campaigns Against Survivors – Neil Brick https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/misinformation-campaigns-against-survivors-neil-brick/ Dr Sarah Nelson – Reflections on belief and disbelief in ritual abuse https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/the-organised-ritual-abuse-of-children-dr-sarah-nelson/

Survivorship announces the speakers at their Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2020 Conference – Dr. Randy Noblitt and Pamela Perskin Noblitt, Dr. Karol Darsa, Neil Brick and Cristina Mardirossian, LMFT
News provided by Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Conference
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif., Jan. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The regular conference will be on Saturday and Sunday May 16 – 17, 2020 and the Clinician’s Conference is Friday May 15, 2020.
https://survivorship.org/ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-2020-conference/

The conference will be at the Reconnect Integrative Trauma Treatment Center in Pacific Palisades, California. This conference provides attendees the opportunities to learn about severe abuse research and resources.

Conference Speakers will include:
Dr. Karol Darsa will speak about the 5 Common Mistakes in Trauma Treatment – She will discuss how trauma treatment is becoming one of the top areas to specialize in and how it is important to have proper training to work with unprocessed trauma to achieve good outcomes for clients. Dr. Karol Darsa, licensed psychologist and founder and executive director of Reconnect Integrative Trauma Treatment Center. She has about 20 years of clinical and administrative experience in trauma and mental health disorders.

Dr. Randy Noblitt and Pamela Perskin Noblitt will speak about Extreme Abuse Survivors, Social Security Benefits, and Ethical Practice – They will discuss how many trauma survivors have debilitating psychological and physical symptoms that prevent them from maintaining gainful employment. This workshop is intended to provide an introduction to SSA requirements for healthcare providers and survivors. Randy Noblitt is a clinical psychologist and professor of clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) at Alliant International University, Los Angeles. Pamela Perskin Noblitt is a non-attorney claimants representative for individuals applying for SSDI and SSI benefits.

Neil Brick will speak about Misinformation Campaigns Against Survivors. He will discuss how child and ritual abuse survivors and their advocates have been attacked by misinformation campaigns the last several years. Neil Brick is a survivor of ritual abuse and mind control. His child abuse and ritual abuse newsletter S.M.A.R.T. https://ritualabuse.us has been published for over 24 years. http://neilbrick.com

Cristina Mardirossian, LMFT will discuss Identifying the Personality Systems of Mind Control Survivors and Trauma Treatment – She will talk about how therapists are increasingly starting to see that many of their clients have histories of complex and chronic abuse. Cristina Mardirossian is the owner and director of Pasadena Trauma Therapy, Inc. Cristina is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Pasadena, CA.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survivorship-announces-the-speakers-at-their-survivorship-ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-2020-conference—dr-randy-noblitt-and-pamela-perskin-noblitt-dr-karol-darsa-neil-brick-and-cristina-mardirossian-lmft-300988096.html

The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They’re Hiding a Horrifying Secret
A year of reporting by Cosmo and Type Investigations reveals a culture of incest, rape, and abuse. By Sarah McClure Jan 14, 2020
….By age 9, she says, she’d been raped by one of her older brothers. By 12, she’d been abused by her father, Abner*, a chiropractor who penetrated her with his fingers on the same table where he saw patients, telling her he was “flipping her uterus” to ensure her fertility. By 14, she says, three more brothers had raped her and she was being attacked in the hayloft or in her own bed multiple times a week. She would roll over afterward, ashamed and confused. The sisters who shared Sadie’s room (and even her bed) never woke up—or if they did, never said anything, although some later confided that they were being raped too.
Sadie’s small world was built around adherence to rules—and keeping quiet was one of them. “There was no love or support,” she says. “We didn’t feel that we had anywhere to go to say anything.”
….It wasn’t until now that Sadie decided to speak up, to reveal the darkness beneath the bucolic surface of her childhood. She’s tired of keeping quiet. Over the past year, I’ve interviewed nearly three dozen Amish people, in addition to law enforcement, judges, attorneys, outreach workers, and scholars. I’ve learned that sexual abuse in their communities is an open secret spanning generations. Victims told me stories of inappropriate touching, groping, fondling, exposure to genitals, digital penetration, coerced oral sex, anal sex, and rape, all at the hands of their own family members, neighbors, and church leaders.
….In my reporting, I identified 52 official cases of Amish child sexual assault in seven states over the past two decades. Chillingly, this number doesn’t begin to capture the full picture. Virtually every Amish victim I spoke to—mostly women but also several men—told me they were dissuaded by their family or church leaders from reporting their abuse to police or had been conditioned not to seek outside help (as Sadie put it, she knew she’d just be “mocked or blamed”). Some victims said they were intimidated and threatened with excommunication. Their stories describe a widespread, decentralized cover-up of child sexual abuse by Amish clergy.
“We’re told that it’s not Christlike to report,” explains Esther*, an Amish woman who says she was abused by her brother and a neighbor boy at age 9. “It’s so ingrained. There are so many people who go to church and just endure.”
….There’s no one reason for the sexual abuse crisis in Amish Country. Instead, there’s a perfect storm of factors: a patriarchal and isolated lifestyle in which victims have little exposure to police, coaches, or anyone else who might help them; an education system that ends at eighth grade and fails to teach children about sex or their bodies; a culture of victim shaming and blaming; little access to the technology that enables communication or broader social awareness; and a religion that prioritizes repentance and forgiveness over actual punishment or rehabilitation. Amish leaders also tend to be wary of law enforcement, preferring to handle disputes on their own.
….When the police and social workers later showed up on her doorstep, most likely after being tipped off by a local non-Amish person, Abner told authorities that “things which we were speaking about had been brought up and dealt with in the church,” according to a police detective’s notes. He also silenced his daughters. “You say nothing,” Sadie and another relative remember him demanding.
….It’s common for Amish victims to be viewed by the community as just as guilty as the abuser—as consenting partners committing adultery, even if they’re children. Victims are expected to share responsibility and, after the church has punished their abuser, to quickly forgive. If they fail to do so, they’re the problem.
When the rare case does end up in court, the Amish overwhelmingly support the abusers, who tend to appear with nearly their entire congregations behind them, survivors and law enforcement sources say. This can compound the trauma of speaking out. “We’ve had cases where there’ll be 50 Amish people standing up for the offender and no one speaks for the victim,” says Stedman.
….Lizzie’s is not the only account of an Amish victim being taken to an alleged “mental health” facility staffed by Amish or Mennonites (a similar, although typically less strict, group) that provides Bible-based counseling—and, in many cases, is not state licensed. Several years ago, Esther was sent to a facility for “counseling” after she tried to seek help for another Amish woman who was being sexually assaulted. When she protested, church leaders threatened to excommunicate her permanently.
No one would tell her why she was there. Instead, she was pressured to sign papers that would allow staff to communicate directly with her ministers, she says (she eventually gave in and signed). “From the first evening, they wanted to put me on medication,” she recalls. She said no, since “a lot of these people who get stuck in these facilities come home drugged and no longer have a life. They’re zombies.” (She’s aware of about 30 other Amish sexual assault victims, including two of her sisters, who have been sent away to such facilities.)
….Still, as more and more women start to come forward, an ecosystem has also risen up to help them. Two years ago, Lizzie, who has long since left the Amish, and another former Amish woman named Dena Schrock launched Voices of Hope, a group for abused women. Lizzie met Sadie at one such gathering, and they’re now friends.
Others find solidarity in The Plain People’s Podcast, a show launched in 2018 that features stories of Amish and Mennonite sexual abuse. Jasper Hoffman, a former Mennonite and the podcast’s cohost, says she receives “hundreds of messages” from people wanting to share stories or get help reporting an abuser.
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a30284631/amish-sexual-abuse-incest-me-too/

Jeffrey Epstein used database to keep track of his ‘numerous’ victims
By Priscilla DeGregory and Gabrielle Fonrouge January 15, 2020
Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein kept a harem of abused and trafficked girls as young as 11 that was so large he needed a computer system to keep track of them, according to a new lawsuit filed Wednesday against his estate.
The civil lawsuit, filed by Virgin Islands’ Attorney General Denise George, also alleges Epstein abused victims on his private Caribbean islands, Little Saint James and Great St. James, as recently as 2019 — expanding the scope of his abuse by 14 years.
“Epstein used his wealth and power to create the Epstein Enterprise which engaged in a pattern of criminal activity in the Virgin Islands by repeatedly procuring and subjecting underage girls and young women to unlawful sexual conduct, sex trafficking and forced labor,” the lawsuit reads. “This complaint describes intentional conduct so egregious, persistent, and injurious that it shocks the conscience and offends a civilized society.”
The lawsuit reiterates much of what’s already known about Epstein’s alleged decades of abuse but brings to light a new detail on how he used computer databases to keep track of his victims, and how his private islands were the “perfect hideaway and haven” for trafficking and abusing young women and underage girls….
“As recent as 2018, air traffic controllers and other airport personnel reported seeing Epstein leave his plane with young girls, some of whom appeared to be between the age of 11 and 18 years,” the papers say.
The suit argues Epstein ran a decades-long sex trafficking scheme from his private Caribbean estates where minors were “lured and recruited” to travel by helicopter, plane and boat to the islands under fradulent promises and were then raped and abused by Epstein and his associates, the papers say.
Epstein promised the girls modeling contracts or told them they’d be paid “substantially” to provide massages — a ruse that brought the victims close to Epstein, who’d then pressure and coerce them into engaging in sex acts, the suit states.
https://nypost.com/2020/01/15/jeffrey-epstein-used-database-to-keep-track-of-his-numerous-victims/

Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘first victim’ was introduced to Donald Trump when she was 14: suit
By Stephen Rex Brown New York Daily News Jan 17, 2020
https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/aExJIo_NqJGL6o7-9-_RLNlIsag=/800×600/top/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/W7YU7SAAG5DPXI7AY6RUHSNXSA.jpg
Jeffrey Epstein (left) and real estate developer Donald Trump at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. in 1997. (Davidoff Studios / New York Daily News)
A woman who says she was Jeffrey Epstein’s first known victim claims in a new lawsuit that the multimillionaire sex offender introduced her to Donald Trump when she was 14, saying “This is a good one, right?”
Trump, according to the suit against Epstein’s estate, “smiled and nodded in agreement.” The woman filed the lawsuit Friday in Manhattan Federal Court under the pseudonym Jane Doe.
Trump and Epstein “both chuckled and Doe felt uncomfortable, but, at the time, was too young to understand why,” the lawsuit reads. The encounter happened in the mid-90s at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, court docs said. The suit doesn’t accuse Trump of any abuse.
The victim met Epstein and his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, when she was 13 years old and attending Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan, where she was in the voice program. The perverted financier and British socialite groomed her for abuse by frequently making references to sex and insisting she indulge their every whim, according to the suit. Epstein first sexually abused the girl toward the end of 1994, according to the suit. She claims she traveled with Epstein and Maxwell on his private jet….
In 1997, Epstein raped her the first of many times, the suit says.
The woman seeks a cut of Epstein’s $577 million estate. More than 15 other victims have filed similar federal suits against the notorious sex offender’s estate…..
Manhattan prosecutors have said they continue to investigate Epstein’s enablers. Trump and Epstein partied in the same social circles in the 1980s and 1990s but had a falling out in the early 2000s over a real estate dispute, according to reports.
“I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you,” Trump said after Epstein was arrested last year…..Maxwell has adamantly denied wrongdoing.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-epstein-trump-victim-suit-20200118-m6sqsa2h7venpf5uewjrkvigo4-story.html

Jeffrey Epstein ran a ‘trafficking pyramid scheme’ from his private island until 2018, a new lawsuit alleges. Here are all the famous people he was connected to. Taylor Nicole Rogers Jan 16, 2020
American financier Jeffrey Epstein (left) and real estate developer Donald Trump pose together at the Mar-a-Lago estate, Palm Beach, Florida, 1997. Davidoff Studios/Getty Images
Prosecutors in a new lawsuit against the estate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein allege that the former wealth manager ran a “trafficking pyramid scheme” from his private island in the US Virgin Islands until 2018.
Epstein was well connected in the US territory, as the wife of former Gov. John de Jongh sat on his company’s board for a decade….
Epstein was known for jet-setting with the likes of L Brands CEO Les Wexner, Bill Gates, President Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew, the third child of the UK’s Queen Elizabeth.
Jeffrey Epstein ran a “trafficking pyramid scheme” from the US Virgin Islands, prosecutors allege in a new lawsuit against the former wealth manager’s estate.
Meanwhile, the convicted sex offender maintained a vast social and professional network both on and off the Islands, that even included the wife of the US Virgin Islands’ former governor. The former hedge-fund manager kept his client list under wraps, but he often bragged of his elite social circle that included presidents and Hollywood stars.
“I invest in people — be it politics or science,” Epstein was known to say, according to New York Magazine. “It’s what I do.”….
In 2007, Epstein pleaded guilty to charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution in Florida.
Here’s what we know about the famous people who crossed paths with Epstein.
President Donald Trump once considered Epstein a friend.,,,,
The future president claimed in 2002 that he had a long friendship with Epstein. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump said, according to New York Magazine. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”….
Former President Bill Clinton traveled with Epstein in 2002 and 2003.
A statement released in July by Clinton spokesperson Angel Ureña said the former president traveled to Europe, Asia, and twice to Africa on Epstein’s private jet. Clinton’s staff and Secret Service agents also went on these trips, which were to further the work of the Clinton Foundation, according to the statement.
At the time, Clinton told New York Magazine through a spokesperson that Epstein was “both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science.”…..
Actor Kevin Spacey and comedian Chris Tucker also took trips with Epstein.
Epstein, Clinton, Spacey, and Tucker spent a week in 2002 touring AIDS project sites in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, and Mozambique for the Clinton Foundation, according to a New York Magazine report.
Spacey was also charged with sexual assault, but in December, The New York Times reported that the case had been dropped by the plaintiff’s estate. The plaintiff, a 62-year-old massage therapist, died in September.
Socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is Epstein’s ex-girlfriend — and alleged madam.
Maxwell, 57, is a British socialite and the daughter of media tycoon Robert Maxwell.
She started dating Epstein shortly after moving to New York in 1991, Business Insider previously reported. After they broke up, court documents allege that Maxwell started recruiting underage girls for him to have sex with.
The FBI is investigating Maxwell’s relationship with Epstein, Reuters reported in December, as the British heiress is reportedly hiding out with armed guards in the United States or the United Kingdom.
Prince Andrew and Epstein were close friends, the Guardian reported in 2015.
Maxwell introduced Epstein and the Duke of York in the 1990s, the Guardian reported, and the two became close friends.
The Duke is the son of the UK’s Queen Elizabeth. He has also been criticized for frequently taking flights on the taxpayer’s dime while serving as the country’s special representative for international trade. This earned him the nickname “Airmiles Andy,” according to the Washington Post.
Court documents reviewed by the Guardian allege that Epstein instructed Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a 15-year-old employee at Trump’s Mar-a-Largo resort, to have sex with Prince Andrew on three separate occasions. Buckingham Palace said in 2015 that the allegations against Prince Andrew were “false and without any foundation,” according to the Guardian.
According to a July 22 article from NY Magazine’s Intelligencer, a number of royals and royal connections were among Epstein’s contacts. That includes Prince Andrew’s then-wife, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York; and Charles Althorp, Princess Diana’s brother. According to Intelligencer, all three were named in Epstein’s black book; Ferguson and Prince Andrew were also named in his private jet log.
In a interview with the BBC in November, Prince Andrew said his relationship with Epstein brought him “opportunities,” and that his slowness in ditching Epstein as a friend was because of his tendency to be “too honorable.” The interview was widely criticized over Prince Andrew’s lack of sympathy with Epstein’s victims and his defense of his friendship with the convicted sex offender, Business Insider reported.
Prince Andrew resigned from public royal duties in November, Business Insider reported.
L Brands CEO Les Wexner is Epstein’s only confirmed client.
Epstein became a trusted confidant of Wexner’s while Epstein managed the CEO’s fortune, according to Vanity Fair. Wexner has a net worth of $6.7 billion, Bloomberg reported. The magazine reported that Wexner allowed Epstein to take an active role in L Brands, which owns Bath & Body Works, Express, and Victoria’s Secret.
In 1989, Wexner used a trust to buy an Upper East Side townhouse that is believed to be the largest private residence in Manhattan for $13.2 million, Vanity Fair reported. Epstein moved in after Wexner and his wife, Abigail Koppel, moved to Ohio in 1996. Wexner’s trust transferred ownership of the house to Epstein in 2011 for $0, Bloomberg reported.
Former Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta worked with Epstein’s legal team to arrange a plea deal after Epstein was charged with solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution in Florida in 2007.
An investigation by the Miami Herald revealed that Acosta, then a US attorney, had enough evidence against Epstein to request a life sentence. Instead, he reportedly met with one of Epstein’s lawyers, who happened to be a former colleague of Acosta’s.
In the resulting plea deal, Epstein served 13 months in a private wing of a county prison, which he was allowed to leave six days a week to work in his office.
Acosta resigned on July 12.
Film publicist Peggy Siegal planned a star-studded dinner party for Epstein and Prince Andrew at Epstein’s New York mansion in 2010.
Siegal, known for hosting events to promote films including “The Big Short,” “Argo,” and “The Revenant” to Oscar voters, invited Epstein to screenings after he was released from prison in 2010, according to The New York Times.
“I was a kind of plugged-in girl around town who knew a lot of people,” Siegal told The New York Times. “And I think that’s what he wanted from me, a kind of social goings-on about New York.”
Siegal also planned a dinner party for Epstein and Prince Andrew at his Upper East Side home. The event was attended by Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos, and Chelsea Handler. “The invitation was positioned as, ‘Do you want to have dinner with Prince Andrew?'” Ms. Siegal said. Many of the guests didn’t know who the host was or about his criminal history, The New York Times reported.
Netflix, FX and Annapurna Pictures severed their ties with Siegal in July after her connection to Epstein became public, Variety reported.
Epstein also told the Times that he spoke often with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Epstein said that MBS had visited Epstein’s Manhattan mansion many times and had a framed photo of the crown prince hanging on the wall, according to New York Times reporter James B. Stewart.
According to the New York Times, Epstein claimed to have advised Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
In an interview published in the New York Times on August 12, Epstein claimed that Elon Musk had sought him out to help manage the trouble he had gotten into with the SEC a year earlier, in August of 2018.
Epstein told reporter James B. Stewart that he had promised to keep his work for Tesla private because of his prior conviction. Epstein also warned that both Musk and Tesla would deny their connection to Epstein if it ever became public, the Times reported. In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for Musk denied Epstein’s claims of having served as an adviser to the CEO.
Musk has confirmed crossing paths with Epstein at least once, Business Insider reported. Musk, Epstein, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were all guests at a dinner hosted by LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman sometime after he was released from jail in 2008.
MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito quietly worked with Epstein to secure anonymous donations, Vanity Fair reported.
Ito worked with other directors and staff at the MIT Media Lab to quietly receive large anonymous donations from Epstein after he was convicted of soliciting underage girls for prostitution, a The New Yorker exposé published on September 6 reports. The article contains emails sent between Ito and Epstein.
The emails show Epstein also worked as an in-between for other wealthy donors, including Bill Gates and Leon Black, and that Epstein had a role in determining what his donations would be used for at MIT, contradicting previous statements from Ito and the university.
Ito resigned from his posts at MIT, The New York Times Company, and the MacArthur Foundation on September 7, Business Insider reported.
Emails obtained and published by The New Yorker show former MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito wrote that Gates was “directed by” Epstein to donate $2 million to the research lab in October 2014.
Gates also met with Epstein at least once in New York in 2013, and flew on one of his private planes to Palm Beach, Business Insider previously reported. “Bill attended a meeting in New York with others focused on philanthropy. While Epstein was present, he never provided services of any type to Bill,” a Gates spokesperson told Business Insider.
A spokesperson for Gates told Business Insider that “Epstein was introduced to Bill Gates as someone who was interested in helping grow philanthropy. Although Epstein pursued Bill Gates aggressively, any account of a business partnership or personal relationship between the two is simply not true. And any claim that Epstein directed any programmatic or personal grantmaking for Bill Gates is completely false.”
A New York Times investigation published in October found that Gates met with Epstein multiple times after Epstein’s conviction in 2011, including at least three meetings at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse. Following the publication of that story, a spokesperson for Gates said Gates regretted the association, but Gates himself hadn’t publicly addressed it until November, Business Insider’s Aaron Holmes reported.
Gates said at The New York Times’ Dealbook Conference that he believed “billions of dollars” would come from his meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. “I made a mistake in judgment in thinking those discussions would go to global health,” Gates said. “That money never appeared.”
Reid Hoffman defended Ito after news of Epstein’s connections to the MIT Media Lab broke.
A “few years ago,” Epstein attended a dinner Hoffman hosted to honor an MIT neuroscientist, Vanity Fair reported in July. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk were also in attendance. Both denied having had ongoing relationships with Epstein to Vanity Fair through spokespeople.
Hoffman also implicated himself in the coverup of Epstein’s donations to the MIT Media Lab. As pressure mounted on Media Lab director Joi Ito to resign, Hoffman defended Ito to author and fellow MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award jury member Anand Giridharadas in a private email, Giridharadas tweeted in September. “Hoffman basically hid behind bureaucracy and the old ‘ongoing investigation’ excuse,” Giridharadas said. “He said it would be complicated to release the correspondence publicly because other names might get dragged in. Someone should tell him about redaction.”….
A new lawsuit has also shined light on Epstein’s connection to former U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. John P. de Jongh while he was in office.
U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. John P. de Jongh participates in a meeting dealing with healthcare at the Southern Governors’ Association convention in Little Rock, Ark., Saturday, Aug. 16, 2014. AP Photo/Danny Johnston
Gov. John P. de Jongh’s wife Cecile de Jongh served on the board of Epstein’s Financial Trust Co. for most of her husband’s time in office, Business Insider’s Becky Peterson and John Cook reported. Cecile de Jongh held the titles of secretary and vice president in her decade-long tenure with the company, even staying on board after Epstein was first charged with sexual assault in 2007.
Prosecutors in the US Virgin Islands now allege that Epstein was trafficking women and children through the US territory during that same time, as stated in a new lawsuit. The lawsuit describes one 15-year-old victim who was “forced into sexual acts with Epstein and others and then attempted to escape by swimming off the Little St. James island.”….
https://www.businessinsider.com/famous-people-jeffery-epstein-money-manager-sexual-trafficking-connected-2019-7

U.S. Virgin Islands Officials: Epstein Trafficked Girls On Private Island Until 2018
January 16, 2020 Bobby Allyn
Prosecutors in the U.S. Virgin Islands have unveiled a new lawsuit against the estate of Jeffrey Epstein alleging that over two decades he ran a conspiracy in which he transported young women and girls to his private Caribbean islands by helicopter and boat and then subjected them to sexual abuse.
Authorities claim Epstein’s sexual predation on the hideaway islands occurred as recently as 2018 and involved children as young as 11 years old. The suit alleges the activity was covered up by Epstein’s associates through a complex web of corporations.
In one instance, investigators say a 15-year-old who was forced into sexual acts with Epstein attempted to escape by swimming off one of Epstein’s private islands, Little St. James. Eventually, Epstein’s crew found her after assembling a search team and took her passport, prosecutors say.
Along with Epstein’s other privately owned island, Great St. James, authorities estimate that the islands are worth $86 million, just a slice of Epstein’s total assets, valued by the government to be more than $577 million.
The lawsuit filed by Attorney General Denise George seeks to confiscate all property used in the alleged criminal conspiracy, including his two private islands, and is asking for the recovery of millions of dollars from the Epstein estate. Epstein’s victims would be the beneficiaries of what authorities are hoping to seize, George said.
Addressing reporters on Wednesday, George said the civil suit detailed an “expansive scheme” that shows a “pattern and practice of human trafficking, sexual abuse and forced labor of young women.”….
The lawsuit filed this week by Virgin Islands prosecutors significantly widens the scope of his alleged sexual abuse to include conduct in 2018, the same year public scrutiny began to mount on the wealthy money manager in the wake of a Miami Herald investigation into his long history of alleged sexual abuse.
The lawsuit filed on Tuesday lays out how Epstein allegedly enticed and entrapped dozens of victims.
As the prosecutors tell it, his associates would locate young women and lure them with the promise of advancing a modeling career, pursuing educational opportunities or landing other work. Epstein would then arrange for the victims to visit his islands, flying them by helicopter or plane, or transporting them by boat.
“As recent as 2018, air traffic controllers and other airport personnel reported seeing Epstein leave his plane with young girls some of whom appeared to be between the age of 11 and 18 years old,” the complaint alleges.
Epstein, prosecutors say, paid for women to show up to his estates on the islands, often providing extra money if the victims brought along additional young women and girls….
“Once the girls and women were recruited, participants in the Epstein Enterprise enforced their sexual servitude of victims by coercion, including but not limited to, confiscating passports, controlling and extinguishing external communications, and threatening violence. They also made fraudulent statements to family members of victims, claiming victims were being well cared for and supported financially in college and other educational opportunities,” prosecutors allege….
https://www.wbur.org/npr/797011139/u-s-virgin-islands-officials-epstein-trafficked-girls-on-private-island-until-20

Survivor recounts confused, chaotic cult rite that killed 7
by JUAN ZAMORANO Associated Press Monday, January 20th 2020
SANTIAGO, Panama (AP) — A survivor of the cult ceremony that killed 7 people in a remote village in Panama says she was ordered to close her eyes, was beaten and knocked unconscious during the ritual.
The account Monday by Dina Blanco suggests the 14 surviving participants were helpless, bound, unconscious or sightless much of the time.
So the truth about what happened in the bizarre ceremony may only come out at the trials of the nine villagers charged with killing their neighbors in the hamlet of El Terrón last week.
Blanco said from her hospital bed in the nearest city, Santiago, that she had gone to previous prayer meetings at the improvised church in a long wooden shed before. But this time, the tone had changed, and she didn’t go willingly.
The cult, which had operated in the village for about three months, changed after a member had a vision, telling the lay preachers they had been “annointed” to exterminate unbelievers.
Blanco, 24, said a neighbor, Olivia, came to call her to the meeting of “the New Light of God” sect on Jan. 13, saying she would have to come “whether you like it or not.”….
Authorities say cult members used Bibles, cudgels and machetes to hit the congregants. Blanco still bears a broad bruise across her forehead from whatever hit her….
But the worst was yet to come. Late that night or in the early morning hours of the 14th, a sect member approached and told her that her daughter Inés had died….
In fact, Inés, like Blanco’s pregnant neighbor and five of her children, had been murdered during the ritual — by some accounts, decapitated — and their naked bodies slung into hammocks and dumped in a freshly-dug common grave in the village cemetery.
Nine of the 10 lay preachers detained last week have been charged with murder and kidnapping.
Bibles still lay open and musical instruments lay scattered over the weekend in the shed where the killings took place….
https://wcti12.com/news/nation-world/survivor-recounts-confused-chaotic-cult-rite-that-killed-7

Nxivm ‘Sex Cult’ Was Also a Huge Pyramid Scheme, Lawsuit Says
Eighty people contended that they were bilked out of millions of dollars through a “coercive” scheme by the self-help group. By Nicole Hong Jan. 29, 2020
The self-help group Nxivm gained a reputation as a “sex cult” last year after its leader, Keith Raniere, was convicted of coercing some of his female followers into sexual servitude, even creating a ritual in which they were branded with his initials.
But a lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday illuminated another unsavory side of Nxivm. Most participants in the group were not Mr. Raniere’s sex slaves, the lawsuit said, but rather victims of an insidious pyramid scheme who were lured by false scientific claims into paying thousands of dollars for classes.
“They get you to not trust your own decision-making process,” said one former member, Sally Brink, who said she paid $145,000 to take Nxivm classes over the years. “They tell you that you need them to make decisions. You start to doubt everything.”
Ms. Brink was among the 80 plaintiffs who sued Mr. Raniere and 14 other associates of Nxivm (pronounced NEX-ee-um).
The 200-page lawsuit details sprawling allegations of fraud and abuse, including that Nxivm’s leaders drew “from methods used in pyramid schemes” to take people’s money and make it “physically and psychologically difficult, and in some cases impossible, to leave the coercive community.”
Ms. Brink, 47, said in an interview that she was introduced to the group in her late 20s. She was struggling as the new co-owner of a restaurant in a Vermont college town, weighed down by 18-hour days.
Her college roommate recommended turning her life around through Nxivm, pitching it as a class that helped entrepreneurs reach their goals. The roommate told her the program had been developed by a brilliant thinker named Keith Raniere.
Ms. Brink flew to Los Angeles in 2004 for a five-day course, hosted at a home in the Hollywood Hills. At first, she found the teachings to be profound. Her relationships with her employees and her family improved.
More than a decade later, however, Ms. Brink was fighting to escape. The worst moment came in 2017, she said, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Nxivm associates told her that she had given herself the disease to get her husband’s attention. Instead of spending the money she had raised online for treatment, they urged her to make the ethical decision to die, she added.
Ms. Brink’s allegations of emotional abuse are echoed throughout the lawsuit, which comes seven months after Mr. Raniere, 59, was found guilty of racketeering, sex trafficking and other charges.
Hollywood actors, business executives and professional athletes were among the people who took Nxivm courses, according to former participants. Mr. Raniere’s most fervent followers included Allison Mack, the former “Smallville” actress, and Clare Bronfman, an heiress to the Seagram liquor fortune.
Ms. Mack and Ms. Bronfman were also charged in the racketeering case and pleaded guilty before the trial, along with Nancy Salzman, a former psychiatric nurse who had co-founded the group with Mr. Raniere in Albany, N.Y.
Almost all of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit have hidden their real names, saying their reputations will suffer or they will lose job opportunities if they were to be linked to the group. An estimated 16,000 people have taken Nxivm courses.
Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mr. Raniere, said the lawsuit would allow Mr. Raniere to argue that some former Nxivm members did not provide truthful testimony at his trial.
“As several of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit testified at trial that they were not planning on bringing a lawsuit, Keith’s chances on appeal just increased,” Mr. Agnifilo said in a statement. Lawyers for Ms. Mack, Ms. Bronfman and Ms. Salzman did not respond to requests for comment.
In painstaking detail, the lawsuit explained how people with college degrees and white-collar jobs got trapped in Mr. Raniere’s system.
Membership in Nxivm was by invitation only, and before the first class, recruits were required to fill out long questionnaires about their views on wealth, religion, children and other topics.
The goal, according to the lawsuit, was to pinpoint their insecurities and weed out skeptics. One former participant said that Nxivm’s recruiters looked for “trust fund babies” and Hollywood actors, and that many Nxivm members had been survivors of sexual assault. Their fears would later be used against them if they tried to leave Nxivm.
Mr. Raniere and Ms. Salzman built a curriculum that they falsely claimed was based in science, the lawsuit alleged. The early courses conditioned students to become emotionally dependent on a system of rewards and punishment. Coaches would break down the students’ self-esteem and scold them for failing to achieve their goals, then lift them up with a positive affirmation.
“That process leaves you wanting more and feeling like they have the answers,” said a former Nxivm member who is participating in the lawsuit. The group exploited students’ desires for validation, telling them that only Nxivm classes could fix the internal problems hindering their success. If they reached the top of Nxivm, they were told, they could earn income and build a career within the organization.
Yet the leaders continually manipulated the program requirements so that only a fraction of participants ever received income, the lawsuit said. Students were constantly pressured to take more courses and recruit other students.
Many members effectively became indentured servants for Nxivm, working for years without pay and losing their life’s savings, the plaintiffs said….
Nxivm performed illegal human experiments and falsely claimed to cure medical conditions including Tourette’s syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder, the lawsuit alleged….
The curriculum became increasingly misogynistic over time, according to the plaintiffs. One of the programs taught women that they were sheltered from the consequences of their actions by men, and that they did not deserve equal pay because they had quit their jobs to have children. Women were to be monogamous, while men were to be polygamous, Nxivm taught. The slow indoctrination laid the foundation for certain women to be groomed as Mr. Raniere’s sexual partners, the lawsuit alleged…..
The sentencings of Mr. Raniere and his associates by a federal judge are still months away. Mr. Raniere could face life in prison.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/
nyregion/nxivm-lawsuit-keith-raniere.html

Man dubbed ‘largest facilitator’ of child abuse images pleads guilty Eric Eoin Marques, citizen of US and Ireland, faces up to 30 years in prison over web hosting service Associated Press Thu 6 Feb 2020
A man once described by an FBI agent as the world’s largest “facilitator” of child abuse websites pleaded guilty on Thursday to operating a web hosting service that allowed users to anonymously access hundreds of thousands of images and videos depicting child abuse. Eric Eoin Marques, 34, faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 30 years after his guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to advertise child abuse images. A plea agreement will ask the US district judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland to sentence Marques to 15 to 21 years in prison, but the judge is not bound by the recommendation….Marques, who spent years fighting his extradition from Ireland to the US, operated a web hosting service on the darknet that allowed thousands of users to view and share child abuse images, according to a court filing on Thursday….Marques created and operated a free, anonymous web hosting service, called Freedom Hosting, on a network allowing users to access websites without revealing their IP addresses. In 2013, FBI agents in Maryland connected to the network and accessed a child abuse bulletin board with more than 7,700 members and more than 22,000 posts. Agents downloaded more than 1 million files from another website on the network, nearly all of which depicted sexually explicit images of children. Images on the service depicted the rape and torture of infants and older children….Authorities seized nearly $155,000 in US currency from Marques, who said during an August 2013 extradition hearing that his business had been “very successful” and profitable, according to Thursday’s court filing.Marques was indicted in April 2019 in Greenbelt, Maryland, on four counts: conspiring to advertise child abuse images, conspiring to distribute child abuse images, advertising child abuse images and distribution of child abuse images….
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/06/child-abuse-images-case-us-ireland-eric-eoin-marques

Police uncovering ‘epidemic of child abuse’ in 1970s and 80s Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent Wed 5 Feb 2020
Police believe figures showing 35% of allegations leading to guilty verdicts justify their inquiries. Police say they are uncovering a hidden “epidemic” of paedophile abuse in the 1970s and 1980s, with thousands of allegations leading to convictions against people who abused their power to attack children.New figures seen by the Guardian show that 4,024 allegations led to guilty verdicts at court after police investigations since 2014 into decades-old child sex offences.Officers say hundreds of offenders, including teachers, religious workers, youth and care workers, thought they had got away with their crimes. Many victims have been traumatised, and some have killed themselves or been left with severe mental health problems.Police believe the figures, which show that 35% of all allegations led to guilty verdicts, demonstrate that inquiries into non-recent sexual abuse are not “spaffing money up the wall”, as Boris Johnson last year claimed. Labour said Johnson should apologise to victims.
Officers believe there are many more allegations to come, and Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the national lead for child protection and abuse investigations, told the Guardian: “We are now having to come to terms, as a society, and we are going to have to recognise and accept, that during the 1970s and 1980s in particular, there was widespread sexual abuse of children taking place….Since Hydrant’s launch, 7,000 suspects have been identified, with 11,346 allegations of attacks received from 9,343 victims, all concerning sexual abuse of children. Some claims date back to the 1940s.Of the alleged offences, 47% were not investigated by police, in over a third of these cases because the suspect was dead. In a fifth of discontinued claims, suspects could not be identified. More than one-third of the allegations resulted in convictions at court, with 6% resulting in acquittal.The conviction rate comes despite cases from long ago being harder to investigate because of fewer, if any, forensic clues.Since 2015, there has been a final outcome in 11,346 allegations of child abuse reported to Operation Hydrant – 4,024 of which resulted in a conviction….https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/05/police-uncovering-epidemic-of-child-abuse-in-1970s-and-80s

Mutilating Southeast Asia’s girls Athira Nortajuddin 12 February 2020
On 6 February, the world celebrated International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which aims to raise awareness and to eradicate the practice. Anti-FGM activists and organisations are calling FGM a crime against women and girls. Several countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) have made FGM illegal and it is considered a form of child abuse. Anyone who performs FGM in the UK can face imprisonment for up to 14 years. Despite objections by the United Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations (UN) among others, FGM is still a common practice and prevalent in some parts of the world, including Africa and Southeast Asia. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in 2020 alone, 4.1 million girls around the world are at risk of undergoing FGM.
What is FGM?
According to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), female genital mutilation (FGM) is a procedure where the genitals are deliberately cut, injured or changed. FGM is usually performed on young girls before they reach puberty, between infancy and the age of 15….
FGM vs FGC in ASEAN
FGM is a common practice in Southeast Asia and is usually referred to as female genital cutting or circumcision (FGC) as the word ‘mutilation’ in FGM is considered demeaning. In some parts of Southeast Asia FGC has been normalised, and the ritual is seen as a tradition that has been around for generations. Female circumcision in ASEAN is commonly practised by the Muslim community in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Southern Thailand as it is considered a religious obligation.
In 2009, a fatwa – which is a legal pronouncement in Islam, allowed the practice and made female circumcision mandatory except in cases where it is considered harmful to the girl in Malaysia. The Ministry of Health there also released a standardised guideline on the proper procedure of female circumcision, making sure that the operation is safe….
No health benefits
The WHO has stated that FGM carries no health benefits and is harmful to females. Immediate complications can include severe pain, excessive bleeding, genital tissue swelling, urinary problems, infections and even death. FGM also comes with long term effects such as menstrual problems, sexual problems, increased risk of childbirth complications and psychological problems.
According to media reports, the practice of FGM has decreased in recent years as the UN strives for a total elimination of FGM by 2030, following the spirit of Sustainable Development Goal 5. https://theaseanpost.com/article/mutilating-southeast-asias-girls

Church cult controlled sex lives … even on wedding nights
By Ben Steelman Feb 15, 2020
New book documents story of Word of Faith Fellowship, a bizarre Pentecostal spinoff in N.C. foothills
…. Word of Faith believers saw this as a demon-haunted world, with even the most faithful prone to demonic possession. To exorcise these demons, believers practiced a ritual known as “blasting,” in which the supposedly possessed were surrounded, shouted at, shaken and sometimes pummeled to drive out the evil spirits. Some exorcees were thrown brutally against walls.
Now, Associated Press reporters Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr tie up their years of research into a straightforward, coherent account of the controversies surrounding Word of Faith. The two interviewed 100 former members of the fellowship, building a harrowing picture of faith gone horribly astray.
….Word of Faith was and is a world unto itself. Members attend three or more services per week on the fellowship’s large campus. Their children almost always attend the fellowship’s private school. Members did not watch television (particularly after a series of “Inside Edition” exposes on the congregation in the 1990s), did not read newspapers or books other than the Bible or Fellowship literature, and did not eat in restaurants that served alcohol.
Believers were encouraged to move to Spindale, where they frequently wound up living communally. Homeowners would be “encouraged” to take in other Word of Faith families or children in trouble. If you wanted to buy a house or car, you needed church permission.
Youngsters were pressured to “help out” at businesses owned by Word of Faith members, often with little or no pay. Adults were expected to report each other for breaking any of the many church rules. To prevent masturbation, for instance, men were forbidden to put their hands in their pockets.
….Word of Faith had been founded by Sam Whaley, a former used car salesman, but the real boss and preacher was his wife, Jane Whaley, a former math teacher. Although women in the fellowship were forbidden to wear makeup, Jane Whaley dressed in expensive outfits (generally obtained on long shopping trips to second-hand stores) and wore a lot of jewelry. She was known to have a temper, especially when people crossed her, and she had to face assault charges in state courts.
These cases went nowhere, though, and neither did multiple accusations of abuse by former members. Both the Rutherford County sheriff and the local district attorney were elected with the help of Word of Faith votes, and neither pursued charges against the fellowship with much energy. Word of Faith members took key jobs in the county courthouse and sheriff’s office to keep tabs with what was going on….
https://www.gastongazette.com/entertainment/20200215/church-cult-controlled-sex-lives–even-on-wedding-nights

Former La Luz Del Mundo Member Alleges The Church Ran Child Sex Slavery Ring
by Aaron Schrank in News on February 13, 2020
A new civil lawsuit filed Thursday against religious leader and self-proclaimed “Apostle” of La Luz Del Mundo, Naason Joaquin Garcia, contains shocking allegations of abuse.
The filing, made in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, came as the religious group is holding its “Holy Supper” event at the Pomona Fairplex, attended by thousands.
It also comes more than eight months since Garcia, the Mexico-based megachurch’s religious leader, was arrested in Los Angeles on dozens of felony child rape and human trafficking charges. He has been held without bail in downtown L.A.’s Men’s Central Jail since then, after the court refused to grant bail citing him as a high-flight risk.
The lawsuit filed by Sochil Martin, a former Luz Del Mundo member, marks the first time a former La Luz Del Mundo church member has spoken openly about abuse allegations. Martin’s lawyers held a news conference Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles to detail her claims against the religious organization, Garcia and other top leaders of the organization.
The 34-year-old woman says she grew up deep in La Luz Del Mundo, primarily attending the flagship temple in East L.A.
Martin says she was groomed as a child, beaten, forced to work for no pay for the church’s communications department, and raped hundreds of times over two decades by Apostle Naason Joaquin Garcia and his father, Samuel Joaquin Flores.
Martin’s complaint alleges a ring of child sexual slavery and financial manipulation within the church and points fingers at Naason Joaquin Garcia’s family members and La Luz Del Mundo bishops, many of whom are based in Southern California.
“For nearly 22 years, I was made to work for, travel for, lie for and give my body to an organization who saw me as nothing more than a source of profit and sexual pleasure,” Martin told reporters gathered at the offices of Greenberg Gross in downtown Los Angeles Thursday. “Hundreds, if not thousands of other children before me and after me suffered the same fate.”
Church officials rejected Martin’s account Thursday morning.
….The Light of The World reports 1,500 temples in 58 countries and between 1 and 5 million members worldwide.
It has a big presence in California, with more than 50 temples, including churches in East L.A. and Pasadena.
Joaquin Garcia’s father, Samuel Joaquin Flores, led the church from 1964 until 2014.He was the subject of sexual abuse allegations in 1997, but never faced criminal charges.
….Sochil Martin is stepping forward and alleging years of abuse and manipulation growing up deep inside the religious group’s flagship church in East L.A,, where the jailed church leader and self-proclaimed “Apostle” of the religious movement was once a pastor.
In her civil complaint, Martin says she was trafficked throughout the U.S. and Mexico, beaten and raped dozens of times and even forced to have sex with children — all to satisfy the desires of “the two Apostles,” Naason Joaquin Garcia, and his father Samuel Joaquin Flores.
Martin also claims that since age 16, La Luz Del Mundo’s senior leaders forced her to do more than 30,000 hours of unpaid work for the church’s communications arm, International Berea USA. which is run out of East L.A. and was established by Naason Joaquin Garcia in 2009.
Martin alleges church leaders used their positions of power to benefit from her trafficking and unpaid labor. She named 12 additional people in the lawsuit, including several bishops in La Luz Del Mundo, some of Martin’s former bosses at the Church’s communications department and Naason Joaquin Garcia’s family members.
She alleges a widespread culture of coercion and control inside the organization. Martin says countless members have been forced to work for LDM. The complaint claims most of the employees at Berea International were unpaid.
“For far too many La Luz Del Mundo members, everything they have is taken by LLDM. Every dollar they make goes to La Luz Del Mundo because they truly believe their money will be used to do the work of God on Earth,” Martin said. “But all the hard-earned money goes to making Naason and his enablers rich.”
….Naason Joaquin Garcia and several co-conspirators were arrested last June and charged with dozens of felonies in a case filed by California Department of Justice. Garcia was first held on record high bail in L.A. county, and now without bail oncharges involve three girls and one young woman in L.A. county in recent years. Garcia had denied the charges.
The case has been dragging in the pre-trial phase since Naason Joaquin Garcia’s dramatic arrest at LAX, at least in part because the child victims in the case were guaranteed anonymity when they reported alleged abuse to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office.
But the criminal case filed today is the first where a former member of the church is publicly accusing La Luz Del Mundo and its leadership of manipulation and sex abuse. Sochil’s attorneys, from Greenberg Gross and Jeff Anderson & Associates, said they hoped more victims will come forward.
Church officials and active members maintain the innocence and righteousness of their leader and Apostle….
https://laist.com/2020/02/13/la-luz-del-mundo-child-abuse-allegations-holy-supper.php

Six former wrestlers say Rep. Jim Jordan knew about abusive OSU doctor
By Curt Devine, Drew Griffin and Majlie de Puy Kamp, CNN Investigates Fri March 6, 2020 (CNN)Tito Vazquez says he still remembers the day three decades ago when, as a wrestler at Ohio State University, the doctor he’d gone to see about a bloody nose insisted on examining his genitals. He also recalls how one of his coaches dismissed his immediate complaint.
“‘I have nothing to do with this,'” Vazquez quoted the assistant coach saying, as he effectively ended the conversation and went on with wrestling practice.
That coach, Vazquez says, was Jim Jordan, now an Ohio congressman and an influential voice in Republican politics, perhaps best known for his pugnacious defense of President Donald Trump during the recent impeachment proceedings.
Vazquez is one of six former OSU wrestlers who told CNN in recent interviews that they were present when Jordan heard or responded to sexual misconduct complaints about team doctor Richard Strauss. Eight others say Strauss’ inappropriate behavior was an open secret in the athletic department and that Jordan, among others, must have known about it.
What Jordan and other coaches knew, and when they knew it, has been under scrutiny since 2018, when OSU announced an investigation into the allegations against Strauss. An independent report commissioned by the university concluded last year that Strauss “sexually abused at least 177 male student-patients” between 1979 and 1998. The doctor died by suicide in 2005.
A number of lawsuits have been filed against OSU over allegations related to Strauss. On Friday, OSU announced that it reached a monetary settlement with Strauss’ victims in 11 out of 18 pending cases.
Since the scandal emerged, Jordan has emphatically denied that he knew anything about Strauss’ abuse during his own years working at OSU, between 1987 and 1995. “Congressman Jordan never saw any abuse, never heard about any abuse, and never had any abuse reported to him during his time as a coach at Ohio State,” his congressional office said in 2018….
The OSU-commissioned report did not reach conclusions regarding each coach’s knowledge of Strauss’ abuse, but it did note that “numerous” student-athletes said they “talked about Strauss’ inappropriate genital exams and complained about Strauss’ locker room and shower room voyeurism, directly to—or in front of—OSU coaching staff.” The report stated that 22 coaches — unnamed in the report — said they were aware of rumors or complaints about Strauss….
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/06/politics/jordan-osu-wrestlers-strauss-invs/index.html

Child sex abuse victim says Anglican Church fobbed her off, then offered payout in exchange for silence Exclusive by Josh Robertson 3/10/2020
Anglican Church officials wrongly told a woman who was sexually abused more than 60 years ago they had to hold off resolving her complaint, then offered a payout and an apology if she agreed to a gag clause.
Key points:
Beth Heinrich pressed the Anglican Church in Brisbane for redress after former archbishop Peter Hollingworth stood by the priest who sexually abused her
The diocese said it could not resolve her complaint because it would “prejudice” another church investigation of Dr Hollingworth
Church investigators denied this and the diocese then offered Ms Heinrich a payout and an apology if she kept it confidential
The church’s Brisbane diocese has admitted to again failing Beth Heinrich over her 1995 complaint, which culminated in then-governor-general Peter Hollingworth publicly blaming her for a priest sexually exploiting her as a 15-year-old.
Its apology for causing her “additional trauma and distress” through “unacceptable delays” came a day after the ABC questioned its latest missteps in the case, which led to Dr Hollingworth’s public downfall but still fuels calls for him to be stripped of millions of dollars of public benefits.
The diocese in January belatedly offered Ms Heinrich up to $30,000 for its mishandling of her complaint, which Dr Hollingworth dismissed repeatedly when he was archbishop of Brisbane.
The offer was a fraction of the $200,000 she sought — a figure she said was increased after independent legal advice and church officials in Melbourne advising that her original request for $50,000 was too little.
The Brisbane diocese also told her in January it was “happy to provide an apology” but this should be kept “confidential” until its Melbourne counterpart ended a separate investigation into whether Dr Hollingworth should be stripped of his Holy Orders.
Its request for secrecy contrasted with Dr Hollingworth’s widely publicised 2002 comments on ABC TV’s Australian Story program that it was “not sex abuse” by priest, and later bishop, Donald Shearman, but “rather the other way round”….
In 2001, Ms Heinrich saw Mr Shearman conducting Easter Mass on TV and asked Dr Hollingworth to strip Mr Shearman of his permission to officiate.
Dr Hollingworth refused, telling her Mr Shearman was “now well into his 70s [and] has sought to resolve the matter with you and exercised contrition in a Christian spirit”.
“I am sorry that you cannot accept the efforts that he and we have made which does allow for a new start with a penitent heart,” Dr Hollingworth said.
Ms Heinrich said after the failed mediation, Dr Hollingworth breached diocese protocol by refusing to give her a hearing before its sex abuse complaints committee.
She said a staffer for Dr Hollingworth gave repeated excuses for not providing a copy of the protocol, including that Brisbane weather made people “lethargic”.
A 2003 Anglican board of inquiry was split on Dr Hollingworth’s support of Mr Shearman.
The chairman found it “reasonable” and another member said he failed to show “proper moral leadership”.
But the inquiry found it was “inappropriate and unfair” of Dr Hollingworth to repeatedly suggest Ms Heinrich was “acting unreasonably in not treating the matter at an end”.
The inquiry condemned Dr Hollingworth for allowing another confessed child sex predator to remain a priest and he quit as governor-general.
In 2004, Mr Shearman was defrocked.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-10/abuse-survivor-beth-heinrich-anglican-church-qld/12039190

Pastor and wife jailed after he raped children in bogus religious ceremony over 20 years Will Taylor ·News Reporter March 6, 2020
A “feared” pastor who raped children in a bogus religious ceremony over a 20-year period has been jailed. Self-styled prophet Michael Oluronbi was found guilty in January of offences against six women and a man. Five of those attended his church.
He carried out his attacks by convincing his victims to take part in a “spiritual bathing” ritual, which he told them would “cleanse” them of evil spirits.
Judge Sarah Buckingham, sentencing him to 34 years behind bars, said his case was “one of the worst cases of sexual abuse of multiple children to come before the courts” and described him as an “arrogant, selfish and vain man”.
She said the “spiritual baths” were actually designed to “fulfil (his) insatiable sexual appetite”….
Oluronbi, who had blamed the devil for his actions, was convicted of 15 counts of rape, seven counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault, at Birmingham Crown Court. Oluronbi’s wife Juliana was also convicted of three counts of aiding and abetting rape and helping arrange some of the abortions of his victims, with some becoming pregnant multiple times. She was jailed for 11 years. As a pharmacist, he would take them to clinics to end the pregnancies. During the trial, the jury was told how Oluronbi was linked to a Christian church in Birmingham, where he formed a splinter group for about 40 adults and children, separate to the church and in another location. In that group, he had the victims take part in “spiritual bathing”…. https://news.yahoo.com/pastor-birmingham-rape-jailed-160535296.html

How Father Flanagan spoke out about Irish abuse of children in 1946 Niall O’Dowd Feb 28, 2020 In his new book, A New Ireland, Niall O’Dowd traces the first-ever revelation about the savage treatment of children by church and state in Ireland during the 1940s.
How Boystown’s Father Flanagan Was First to Expose Ireland’s Dirty Secrets
“He talked about the Irish institutions as being like concentration camps for children.”
-Tom Lynch, Boys Town Archivist, on Father Flanagan’s view of Irish industrial schools and orphanages.
Those looking for the seeds of what later became the near destruction of the Irish church over child mistreatment and abuse would have found it in the clarion voice of Monsignor Edward Joseph Flanagan—the founder of Boys Town, made famous by the Spencer Tracy movie of the same name, visited Ireland on a specific mission in 1946.
The Irish-born Flanagan, though an international figure and beloved by all for his amazing work, found himself a forlorn voice when he traveled to Ireland to inspect their facilities for treating orphans and needy children.
Flanagan’s connection to Ireland was deep, and he knew what he spoke about. He was born on July 13, 1886, in the townland of Leabeg, County Roscommon, to John, a herdsman, and Honoria Flanagan. In 1904, he immigrated to the United States, entered the priesthood and, in 1917, created Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska….
But Flanagan was plunged into despair about what he found in Ireland, especially the Victorian orphanages and reform schools where young offenders were sent. He found them “a scandal, un-Christ-like, and wrong.”
He spoke to a large audience at a public lecture in Cork’s Savoy Cinema and said, “You are the people who permit your children and the children of your communities to go into these institutions of punishment. You can do something about it.”
He called Ireland’s penal institutions “a disgrace to the nation,” and later said, “I do not believe that a child can be reformed by lock and key and bars, or that fear can ever develop a child’s character.” He even attacked the Christian Brothers—the teaching order founded in Ireland to educate the masses and revered as an institution.
Tom Lynch, Boys Town archivist, told the late Mary Raftery, a journalist, who herself did incredible, groundbreaking work on church scandals:
“It was very well known that he was shocked by what he discovered in Ireland.
He talked about the Irish institutions as being like concentration camps for children.”
As Raftery subsequently wrote in the Irish Times in 2004, “[Flanagan] had a profound sense of outrage at how children were treated within these institutions.”
His own words, written in 1947, sum Flanagan’s thoughts on Ireland:
… [U]njust incarceration, unequal distribution of physical punishment both inside and outside the prisons and jails, and the institutionalization of little children, housed in great big factory-like places, where individuality has been and is being, snuffed out with no development of the personality of the individual, and where little children become a great army of child slavery in the workshops, making money for the institutions which give to them a little food, a little clothing, very little recreation, and a doubtful education.”….
https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/new-ireland-niall-odowd-father-flanagan

Weinstein gets 23 years in sentence hailed by accusers
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, TOM HAYS and JENNIFER PELTZ March 11, 2020
NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein was sentenced Wednesday to 23 years in prison after breaking his courtroom silence with a rambling plea for mercy in which he professed to be “totally confused” by the #MeToo movement that spelled the Hollywood producer’s downfall.
His accusers — those who testified against him and many others who have spoken out elsewhere against the former Hollywood mogul — hailed the near-maximum punishment for his rape and criminal sex act convictions as long overdue.
The 67-year-old Weinstein, who arrived at the courthouse Wednesday in a wheelchair and was taken to a hospital after complaining of chest pains hours after the court hearing, could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
He was convicted last month of raping a once-aspiring actress in a New York City hotel room in 2013 and forcibly performing oral sex on former TV and film production assistant Mimi Haleyi at his apartment in 2006. He faced a minimum of five years and a maximum of 29 years in prison.
The conviction marked the first criminal fallout from a raft of allegations that the Oscar-winning movie producer used his clout to lure women, sexually assault or harass them and then silence them.
“Although this is a first conviction, this is not a first offense,” Judge James Burke said in imposing the sentence….
Both of the women Weinstein was convicted of assaulting told the court about the damage he did to them, and the empowerment they felt when testifying against him.
“Rape is not just one moment of penetration. It is forever,” said the 2013 rape accuser, who recalled a moment during the trial when she left the witness stand in tears and then could be heard screaming from an adjacent room.
It was, she said, “the day my voice came back to its full power,” she said.
Asked later about her reaction after the sentence, she wiped her eyes, raised her arm and nodded her head.
Haleyi broke down in tears as she told the court the 2006 attack scarred her deeply and “stripped me of my dignity as a woman.” The encounter made her rethink her career in the entertainment business and left her feeling afraid of retaliation, she said….
Years of whispers about Weinstein’s alleged behavior burst into public view in The New York Times and The New Yorker in 2017. In the aftermath, more than 90 women, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek and other actresses, publicly accused Weinstein of sexual assault and sexual harassment. The takedown energized the #MeToo movement for speaking up about sexual assault….
Weinstein was convicted on two counts: criminal sex act and rape in the third degree. He was acquitted of the more serious charges against him of first-degree rape and two counts of predatory sexual assault.
Now that Weinstein has been sentenced, his lawyers can move forward with a promised appeal. He also faces rape and sexual assault charges in California, where Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey tweeted Wednesday that her office was working on extraditing him. No arraignment date has yet been set.
https://apnews.com/310554f06f644d41e1c0513600099ce1

March 17, 2020 · Filed Under Newsletter 2020 - Issues 150 - 155