The Jehovah’s Witnesses must pay $35 million to a woman who says the church covered up her sexual abuse as a child at the hands of a congregation member.
Issued by a jury in Montana on Wednesday, both the Thompson Falls congregation and the national organization, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, was ordered to pay $4 million in compensation and $31 million in punitive damages.
The 21-year-old accuser said higher-ups told local clergy members not to report her abuse by church elder and relative Max Reyes.
Another woman also filed a lawsuit against Reyes, but compensation was not awarded to her.
The monetary award must be reviewed by the trial judge, but the church says it plans to appeal.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses must pay $35 million to a woman who says the church covered up her sexual abuse as a child at the hands of a congregation member. Pictured: The Watchtower headquarters in Brooklyn, New York
Despite the review, the 21-year-old woman’s attorneys say Wednesday’s verdict sends a message to the church to report child abuse to outside authorities.
‘Hopefully that message is loud enough that this will cause the organization to change its priorities in a way that they will begin prioritizing the safety of children so that other children aren’t abused in the future,’ attorney Neil Smith said on Thursday.
Both women say that over the course of 13 years, from the early 1990s to the late 2000s, Reyes sexually molested and raped them.
The women say they reported the abuse to church elders, who handled the matter internally after consulting with the national organization.
The elders expelled the abuser from the congregation in 2004 then reinstated him the next year, the lawsuit states, and the abuse of the girl who is now 21 continued.
The lawsuit claimed the local and national Jehovah’s Witnesses organizations were negligent and violated a Montana law that requires them to report abuse to outside authorities.
‘Their national headquarters, called Watchtower, they control when and if anyone within their organization reports child abuse,’ Smith said.
‘Watchtower instructed everyone involved that they were not to report the matter to authorities.’
Attorneys for the Jehovah’s Witnesses said in court filings that Montana law exempts elders from reporting ‘internal ecclesiastical proceedings on a congregation member’s serious sin.’
The church also contended that the national organization isn’t liable for the actions by Thompson Falls elders, and that too much time has passed for the women to sue.
The jury awarded the 21-year-old woman $4 million for her injuries, plus $30 million in punitive damages against Watchtower and $1 million in punitive damages against the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, another Jehovah’s Witness corporation that communicates with congregations across the US.
The monetary award must be reviewed by the trial judge and could be reduced. A Montana law caps punitive damage awards at three percent of a company’s net worth or $10 million, whichever is less.
A legal challenge to that law is pending before the Montana Supreme Court.
The jury dismissed claims that the church should have reported the second woman’s abuse by the same congregation member.
Jurors concluded church elders did not receive notice of the 32-year-old woman’s abuse in 1998 as she said they did, and therefore did not have a duty to tell authorities.
A third family member who also claimed abuse was not a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they are a victim of a sex crime.