Dera Chief Ram Rahim sentenced in rape case, Aggressive Christianity Mission Training Corp Paramilitary sect members indicted in child abuse case, Fran's Day Care Keller Case - News Article Excerpts from 1991 - 1993 - Both sides of the story

- Paramilitary sect members indicted in child abuse case
- Self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was on Monday sentenced to 20 years in jail in a rape case.
- Journo who ‘exposed rapes in Dera’ was killed
- Fran's Day Care case - Dan and Fran Keller - News Article Excerpts from 1991 - 1993 - Both sides of the story

Court on Ram Rahim’s 20-year jail sentence: ‘Behaved like wild beast, does not deserve mercy’
Ram Rahim news: A CBI court sentenced the dera chief Gurmeet Ram rahim to 20 years in jail and fined him Rs 30 lakh for raping two of his women followers.
  Aug 28, 2017  HTCorrespondent Chandigarh, Hindustan Times
Self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was on Monday sentenced to 20 years in jail in a rape case.

Authorities are on high alert in Punjab and Haryana, as Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s followers went on the rampage that left 38 dead after his conviction of Friday. Ahead of Monday’s court proceedings, the two states ordered schools and colleges shut, suspended mobile services, stepped up security and threw a five-tier cordon around a Rohtak jail, where a judge handed out punishment to the Dera chief for raping two disciples 15 years ago....
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/gurmeet-ram-rahim-sentencing-in-rape-case-live-updates-haryana-punjab-step-up-security/story-5azDNC5kawDWvbPHL22C4K.html

Journo who ‘exposed rapes in Dera’ was killed: Case at final stage in same court
The journalist was shot from point-blank range at his residence on October 24, 2002, months after the paper published an anonymous letter narrating how women finding solace in the Dera as sadhvis were sexually harassed and raped by the Dera chief.
Aug 25, 2017  Prabhjit Singh   Hindustan Times, Sirsa
As a CBI court on Friday convicted Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the controversial head of the religious sect Dera Sacha Sauda, of raping two women at the cult’s headquarters in Haryana’s Sirsa town, a bereaved son too awaits justice for the murder of his father, journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, who had exposed the alleged rape of ‘sadhvis’ (female followers) at the Dera 15 years ago.

Chhatrapati was shot from point-blank range at his residence on October 24, 2002, months after the paper published an anonymous letter narrating how women finding solace in the Dera as sadhvis were sexually harassed and raped by the Dera chief. His son Anshul has been fighting the legal battle that has now reached final arguments in the same CBI court at Panchkula that found the dera chief guilty on August 25....

Another murder case against the Dera chief in the same court is for the killing of Ranjit Singh, a former Dera member, in July 2002 as he had highlighted alleged wrongdoings inside the Dera headquarters at Sirsa, including sexual exploitation of female devotees by some people in the sect’s management....
http://www.hindustantimes.com/punjab/journalist-who-exposed-rapes-in-dera-was-murdered-case-at-final-stage-in-same-court/story-YItQYfr7dyrmIGlBPzKdQK.html


Paramilitary sect members indicted in child abuse case
By Crimesider Staff CBS/AP August 28, 2017
GRANTS, N.M. -- A grand jury has indicted four members of a New Mexico paramilitary religious sect in connection with a child abuse and child sexual abuse investigation.

The Cibola County grand jury voted late Friday to indict the four members of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps after a magistrate judge refused to lower bonds.

Sect co-leader Deborah Green is facing charges of failure to report a birth, child abuse and sexual penetration of a minor. Green is nicknamed "the general," because she is one of the founders of the group, reports CBS affiliate KRQE. Investigators say she and her son-in-law, Peter Green, molested a girl.

Peter Green faces 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child. He is accused of raping a girl at least four times a week from the time she was 7, according to court documents.

Police have not released the identities of victim in the case.

The duo and two others also face charges for failure to register the births of their 11 children....

The group, which was founded in California, says the allegations are totally false. The group claims they are merely a small, poor group living in a secluded ranching area in New Mexico, where they are often persecuted by people who don't understand their reading of the Bible. 

But authorities say the trustees of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps own thousands of acres of land and benefited from a wealthy high-ranking member who aided them in avoiding law enforcement agencies by hiding children throughout their vast holdings.

Those holdings and regular deceptions by leaders, authorities said, made it difficult for the small Cibola County Sheriff's Office to investigate allegations of child abuse that former members say went back years.

Speaking before a magistrate judge on Friday, Cibola County Undersheriff Michael Munk gave a glimpse into his department's two-year investigation of the militant sect former members say treated followers like slaves and often physically beat children who had no records of being born. That investigation led to the Sunday raid of the group's Fence Lake compound and the arrest of four members....

Its website is laced with anti-Semitic language and anti-gay tirades about same-sex marriage.

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the sect as a hate group....
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paramilitary-sect-members-indicted-in-child-abuse-case/ 


Fran's Day Care case - Dan and Fran Keller - News Article Excerpts from 1991 - 1993 - Both sides of the story
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/frans-day-care-case-dan-and-fran-keller-news-article-excerpts-from-1991-1993/
What the information below shows is that there was no panic or witch hunt and that there was evidence backing the original charges, including one defendant's confession and the children's testimony.  Media coverage in this Austin newspaper was balanced and did cover both sides of the story, unlike the coverage in the news today.

Information from the news articles:

Fran Keller's brother Johnson in a separate case was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a 4-year-old and received an eight-year sentence in a plea bargain.

One child in the case was treated in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks after the allegations of abuse surfaced. "His prognosis is he will probably need therapy off and on the rest of his life." Parents described how their preschoolers' behavior changed in odd ways.

Perry (a defendant who later recanted his confession): His confession contained graphic details of a variety of sexual acts performed on two children, and it substantiated claims made by the children that they had been threatened and terrorized into not speaking out.

August 22, 2017 case update:
Dan and Fran Keller…will receive $3.4 million from a state fund for those wrongly convicted of crimes.
The couple's circumstances changed in June, when Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore filed court documents that dropped all charges and declared the Kellers "actually innocent" under the law. After an extensive review, it was clear that the Kellers' innocence claim should be supported in the interest of justice, Moore said at the time.
Now adults, several of the children who accused the Kellers opposed the move, according to Moore and family members.   (Quotes from Austin-American Statesman article)
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/frans-day-care/

Here are a few facts about the Fran's Day Care case:

1. Children's parents were alerted when children returned home from daycare wearing their under clothing inside out or wearing other children's underwear and sometimes having wet hair.

2. The children who were old enough to speak reported sexual assaults by Dan Keller and other visitors to the school. The older children also reported assaults on younger, pre-verbal children at the school.

3. The Kellers attempted to evade arrest by fleeing to Las Vegas. They were captured there wearing disguises. Fran has bleached her hair blond.

4. A co-defendant, Doug Perry, a sheriff's deputy, pled guilty, turned state's evidence, testified against the Kellers, and received a 10-year probated sentence. Perry is a registered sex offender in Texas.

5. The defense did not retain an expert witness in defense of the Kellers. They only produced a copy of Richard Gardner's book, Sex Abuse Hysteria, in response to the allegations against the Kellers.

6. The prosecution did not discuss ritual abuse until the subject was raised by the defense at which point the prosecution's expert witness, Randy Noblitt, explained what ritual abuse is and how it works. He also provided testimony in response to the production of the Richard Gardner book intended by the defense to demonstrate in unreliability of sex abuse claims by children. (The book's theme is that all people are latent pedophiles and that parents receive vicarious sexual gratification from their children's sexual experiences).

Fran's Day Care - Randy Noblitt, PhD (prosecution's expert witness)
Article at https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/frans-day-care/

More Misinformation in the Media about the Keller Case
June 3, 2015...

(1) The Kellers were never charged with, let alone convicted of, satanic ritual abuse....The only reason those issues came into the Keller case is because the defense brought them up.

(2) Dr. Mouw's "recantation" did not negate all of the medical evidence of abuse in the case. As anyone who bothered to read his affidavit can see, Dr. Mouw still admits that the original girl in this case had a tear in her vagina. Cathy Young has dismissed this evidence with the wild assertion that vaginal tears are normal in non-abused children, but virtually all research of "normal" genitals contradicts this claim. The Keller case began with a genital injury that Dr. Mouw does not deny. His "recantation" of the other finding strains credulity. It relies on the claim that Dr. Mouw had a clear recollection of this genital exam many years after he testified that he had absolutely no recollection of the exam.

(3) A civil complaint filed by the parents of one of the children who attended the Keller's home daycare contains the allegation that a "longtime friend and confident" of Francis Keller was told about "Daniel Keller's abusive habit toward children" (p. 2).... https://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/files/2014/05/Keller-civil-complaint.pdf

In sum, there was far more evidence in this case than has ever been acknowledged by those promoting the witch-hunt narrative. The "recantation" by Dr. Mouw made it impossible to retry the case, but a close examination of his affidavit makes it clear that Dr. Mouw is not credible. That probably explains why the appellate court did not exonerate the Kellers. Dr. Mouw's statement simply does not add up. He claims to have had a clear recollection of the medical exam in this case many years after testifying; but when he testified under oath in 1993 he said that he had "no independent recollection" of the exam beyond his written records.
https://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/2015/06/03/more-misinformation-about-the-keller-case/

Petition detailing allegations of abuse by Dan Kellers and others
A civil complaint filed by the parents of one of the children who attended the Keller's home daycare contains the allegation that a "longtime friend and confident" of Francis Keller was told about "Daniel Keller's abusive habit toward children" (p. 2)
https://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/files/2014/05/Keller-civil-complaint.pdf