CALIFORNIA
USA Today
By Yamiche Alcindor, USA TODAY
Calif., has ordered Jehovah’s Witnesses to pay more than $20 million to a woman who was allegedly sexually abused by one of its members, MSNBC reports.
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ legal entity, is responsible for paying Candace Conti, who sued Watchtower, the Fremont, Calif., congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jonathan Kendrick, the man accused of abusing her.
The jury found that the elders who managed the Fremont congregation in the 1990s knew that Kendrick, a member, had recently been convicted of sexually abusing another child, but kept his past record secret from the congregation, MSNBC reports.
Kendrick went on to molest Conti, who was a Jehovah’s Witness member in Fremont, over a two-year period beginning when she was 9 years old, according to Conti’s lawsuit.
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