NXIVM head Keith Raniere sentenced to 120 years in prison - sex trafficking, cult

 

NXIVM head Keith Raniere sentenced to 120 years in prison     The Associated Press
Larry Neumeister and Tom Hays
Oct 27th 2020

NEW YORK (AP) — Disgraced self-improvement guru, whose NXIVM followers included millionaires and Hollywood actors, was sentenced to 120 years on Tuesday for turning some adherents into sex slaves branded with his initials.

 

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis handed down the sentence in federal court in Brooklyn after a lengthy hearing featuring statements by victims of a sex-trafficking conspiracy that resulted in Raniere’s conviction last year.

 

Prosecutors had sought life in prison while defense lawyers said he should face 15 years behind bars.

 

Raniere, 60, had shown no remorse, with his lawyers telling the judge before the sentencing that their client wasn’t sorry “for his conduct or his choices.”

 

The sentencing culminated several years of revelations about Raniere’s program, NXIVM, which charged thousands of dollars for invitation-only self improvement courses at its headquarters near Albany, New York, along with branches in Mexico and Canada.

 

Adherents included millionaires and Hollywood actresses willing to endure humiliation and pledge obedience to the defendant as part of his teachings.

 

NXIVM has been the subject of two TV documentary series this year, HBO’s “The Vow,” and the Starz series “Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult.”

 

Prosecutors said Raniere led what amounted to a criminal enterprise, inducing shame and guilt to influence and control co-conspirators who helped recruit and groom sexual partners for Raniere. He was convicted on charges including racketeering, alien smuggling, sex trafficking, extortion and obstruction of justice.

 

They said that among other crimes, Raniere began a sexual relationship in 2005 with a 15-year-old girl and confined another teenager to a room for nearly two years.

 

Raniere had come under harsh attack on Tuesday from former followers during sentencing in his sex-trafficking case.

 

India Oxenberg, the daughter of “Dynasty” actress Catherine Oxenberg, called him an “entitled little princess” and a sexual predator and lamented that she “may have to spend the rest of my life with Keith Raneire’s initials seared into me.”

https://www.aol.com/article/entertainment/2020/10/27/nxivm-head-keith-raniere-sentenced-to-120-years-in-prison/24665559/

 

Amy Coney Barrett faith group tell of trauma and sexual abuse, Ghislaine Maxwell’s Deposition (Jeffrey Epstein), Murdered 1.7 million Jews, QAnon Misinformation To Spread Hate, North Korea detainees ritual torture and sexual assault

 

Amy Coney Barrett faith group tell of trauma and sexual abuse, Ghislaine Maxwell’s Deposition (Jeffrey Epstein), Murdered 1.7 million Jews, QAnon Misinformation To Spread Hate, North Korea detainees ritual torture and sexual assault

 

 

 

- Ex-members of Amy Coney Barrett faith group tell of trauma and sexual abuse
People of Praise hire lawyers to investigate historical sexual abuse allegations as former members speak of ‘emotional torment’, “deep concern regarding the culture of secrecy, abuse of power and male-dominant hierarchy” at People of Praise, Members who admit to having gay sex are expelled from the group, which staunchly opposes same-sex marriage.

- Read Ghislaine Maxwell’s Just-Unsealed Deposition
Accused sex trafficking accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was put under oath for a lawsuit by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims four years ago.

- QAnon Is Using Misinformation To Spread Hate - The Way Cults Do "if you are speaking out against QAnon I’m glad, but PLEASE don’t discredit satanic cult survivors while doing so. We are still fighting to be believed and heard, even after everything we’ve survived."

- In the fall of 1941, Nazi Germany implemented a plan to systematically murder the Jews in the General Governent. This plan was codenamed “Operation Reinhard.” Camp personnel murdered approximately 1.7 million Jews as part of Operation Reinhard. The victims of the Operation Reinhard camps also included an unknown number of Poles, Roma (Gypsies), and Soviet prisoners of war

- Catholic Church Richmond Diocese to Pay $6.3 Million to Sexual Abuse Victims

- North Korea detainees subjected to ritual torture and sexual assault – rights group

 

 

 

Revealed: ex-members of Amy Coney Barrett faith group tell of trauma and sexual abuse
People of Praise hire lawyers to investigate historical sexual abuse allegations as former members speak of ‘emotional torment’

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Wed 21 Oct 2020

Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the supreme court has prompted former members of her secretive faith group, the People of Praise, to come forward and share stories about emotional trauma and – in at least one case – sexual abuse they claim to have suffered at the hands of members of the Christian group.
'It instilled such problems': ex-member of Amy Coney Barrett's faith group speaks out
In the wake of the allegations, the Guardian has learned that the charismatic Christian organization, which is based in Indiana, has hired the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to conduct an “independent investigation” into sexual abuse claims on behalf of People of Praise....

Barrett’s father has served as a leader in the community. Barrett was also listed as a “handmaid” in a 2010 directory, or female leader, served as a trustee at a school associated with the group, and has been featured in People of Praise magazines that were removed from the group’s website following her appointment as an appeals court judge in 2017.

The Guardian has confirmed that Barrett lived in a household led by one of the founders of the People of Praise, Kevin Ranaghan, while she was a law student at Notre Dame, and lived with another People of Praise family – Barbette and William Brophy – in Virginia after she graduated.

Proponents of the faith community have said in other press reports that they are misunderstood, and that it is a close-knit community that seeks to support other members “financially and materially and spiritually”.

 

For Sarah (Mitchell) Kuehl, a 48-year-old former member who grew up in the community, discussions about Barrett’s possible nomination prompted her – after years of trying to figure out how to address it – to send an email on 23 September to Craig Lent, the current head of People of Praise who also works as a professor at Notre Dame. In it, Kuehl claimed she had been sexually abused decades earlier by a “household member”, a male member of “the community” who had lived with the Mitchell family as part of the group’s communal living practices. Single people were expected to be celibate and live in family households which were expected to provide an example of married life, former members say.

 

 

After her alleged abuser – who along with her family was technically a member of a precursor group called Servants of the Light/Lord that merged in 1984 with People of Praise – admitted to her father that he had been molesting Kuehl, he was moved to another household and eventually had a marriage “arranged” for him, she said. She was four years old when the abuse began and it lasted for two years. At the time, her family also lived with other single men and women....

Kuehl told the Guardian she was eager not to be seen as seeking revenge on People of Praise, or questioning Barrett’s character, intelligence, or her legal mind. As a devout Catholic who regularly attends mass and is a mother of five, she is also not anti-religious, but rather feels a “deep concern regarding the culture of secrecy, abuse of power and male-dominant hierarchy” at People of Praise.

 

But former members paint a different picture. Allegations and concerns center on claims of the intense subjugation of women by the community leaders; control of members’ lives and decisions, including marriage, living arrangements, and child rearing; and in one case, the mishandling of allegations of sexual abuse. Members who admit to having gay sex are expelled from the group, which staunchly opposes same-sex marriage.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/21/amy-coney-barrett-people-of-praise-trauma-abuse

 

 

Read Ghislaine Maxwell’s Just-Unsealed Deposition
IN HER OWN WORDS
Tracy Connor Executive Editor Oct. 22, 2020

Accused sex trafficking accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was put under oath for a lawsuit by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims four years ago. Her testimony was placed under seal, but on Thursday, it was made public by court order....

https://www.thedailybeast.com/read-jeffrey-epstein-confidant-ghislaine-maxwells-just-unsealed-deposition

 

 

QAnon Is Using Misinformation To Spread Hate - The Way Cults Do
By Cheryl Rainfield, October 2020
A personal plea: if you are speaking out against QAnon I’m glad, but PLEASE don’t discredit satanic cult survivors while doing so. We are still fighting to be believed and heard, even after everything we’ve survived.

Misinformation is a powerful tool used to discredit people speaking out about oppression and misuse of power, and because it usually draws on people’s insecurities and feelings of powerlessness, it often spreads quickly.

QAnon creates and spreads conspiracy theories, including that Trump is supposedly fighting a secret band of pedophiles, satanic child-sex trafficking rings, and murderers who are high-ranking US Democrat politicians, Hollywood actors, and philanthropists. This is particularly absurd when the people QAnon are targeting are fighting against oppression, and Trump is the one who is openly spreading hatred, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and violence, while encouraging white supremacy. And the people QAnon are attacking are the ones that they think will bring down Trump. QAnon is anti-Semitic, drawing heavily on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion—an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory used by Hitler—and saying that the Rothschild family control all the banks. They are also racist, saying that the Black Lives Movement is responsible for all sorts of ills including wildfires, that Black Lives Matter members are pedophiles, and that Jewish people or Chinese people intentionally created the coronavirus....

 

I am a cult torture survivor; my parents and extended family were part of intergenerational, interconnected cults. A satanic cult was only one of the cults that my abusers were members of. They were also involved in KKK, Nazi, Masonic, and other cults. It took me years of remembering the abuse, which I dissociated to survive, running away from my abusers, being found and re-abused, running away again and remembering more, to finally get safe. I spent years fighting against lies they told me, such as that they would kill me if I remembered and talked about the abuse. And there are many more survivors still struggling to get safe, or who are suffering in silence, afraid of people’s reactions when they do speak out. We know well how people don’t want to believe that such extreme, horrible acts of abuse and torture can still occur or be perpetrated by abusers who look like regular people. We know how hard it is to find the courage and strength to talk about the abuse, only to be not believed.

 

I have been dismayed by the number of normally oppression-aware people who—in their attempts to prevent disinformation and conspiracy theories spread by QAnon—completely dismiss cult torture survivors by saying it is all “satanic panic,” and that cult abuse doesn’t really happen. This discredits cult torture survivors like me, and it’s exactly what cults want to have happen.

http://www.cherylrainfield.com/qanon-is-using-misinformation-the-way-cults-do/

 

Operation Reinhard (Einsatz Reinhard)

In the fall of 1941, Nazi Germany implemented a plan to systematically murder the Jews in the General Governent. This plan was codenamed “Operation Reinhard.” Three killing centers were established as part of this action: Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Operation Reinhard marked the deadliest phase of Nazi Germany’s intention to commit genocide against the Jewish people.

Key Facts

1 Operation Reinhard was the code name for the German plan to murder the approximately two million Jews living in German-occupied Poland.

2 Under Operation Reinhard, three killing centers, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, operated between 1942 and 1943. Nazi officials employed carbon monoxide gas generated by motor engines to kill their victims.

3 In all, camp personnel murdered approximately 1.7 million Jews as part of Operation Reinhard. The victims of the Operation Reinhard camps also included an unknown number of Poles, Roma (Gypsies), and Soviet prisoners of war.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/operation-reinhard-einsatz-reinhard

 

Catholic Church
Richmond Diocese to Pay $6.3 Million to Sexual Abuse Victims
By The Associated Press • Published October 16, 2020

The Catholic Diocese of Richmond announced Thursday that it is paying $6.3 million to 51 people who experienced sexual abuse as minors by clergy.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/richmond-diocese-to-pay-6-3-million-to-sexual-abuse-victims/2445623/

 

North Korea detainees subjected to ritual torture and sexual assault – rights group

Prisoners considered ‘less than an animal’ by regime, according to interviews with 15 former detainees by Human Rights Watch

Justin McCurry in Tokyo Sun 18 Oct 2020
uspects in North Korea are subjected to ritual torture, humiliation and sexual assault by a criminal justice system that considers them “less than an animal”, according to the first-ever report detailing the brutality of the country’s pretrial detention conditions.

The US-based Human Rights Watch [HRW] said people who are arrested and sent to pretrial detention are placed in cramped, unhygienic cells, forced to confess and denied proper food and clothing.

“Prisoners literally waste away from lack of food unless they can bribe guards to have their families send food,” Phil Robertson, HRW’s Asia deputy director, told reporters on Monday.

The report is based on interviews with 15 women and men who were detained in the country, as well as former officials with knowledge of the criminal justice system.....

Former detainees said they were forced to sit still on the floor of their cell, kneeling or with their legs crossed, for up to 16 hours a day, with the slightest movement leading to punishments ranging from hitting – using hands, sticks, or leather belts – to forcing them to run in circles around a yard up to 1,000 times.

“If I or others moved, the guards would order me or all the cellmates to extend our hands through the cell bars and would step on them repeatedly with their boots,” said Park Ji-cheol, a former detainee....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/19/north-korea-detainees-subjected-to-ritual-torture-and-sexual-assault-rights-group

 

'I have been quiet for 50 years': standing up against sexual abuse at Celtic Boys Club

 'I have been quiet for 50 years': standing up against sexual abuse at Celtic Boys Club

 

Many of the perpetrators have been jailed for their crimes. Now a number of survivors and their families claim that officials at Celtic knew about the sexual abuse and did nothing

 

by Henry McDonald

Tue 20 Oct 2020 01.00 EDT

....“We started going to Torbett’s flat, which was then a high rise on Pinkston Drive in Glasgow,” Woods recalled. “One night after training, two of us were helping out, encasing football medals in small plastic covers.

 

“He had asked us to put on our football shorts while we worked, and then invited us to lie down for a rest in his bed. I was 13 at the time. I remember lying in the middle of the bed and then Torbett getting into bed with us. He suddenly put his left hand down my shorts. I recall that I was terrified, but for some reason I could not get away. I was frozen there at that spot. There was a sick feeling in my stomach over what had just happened.”

Woods says Torbett exercised tremendous power over the boys. He could decide their future as players or rejects – a position he cynically exploited. “I was frightened to say anything to Torbett because the dream of playing for Celtic was still there, even though here I was all of a sudden in this nightmare. He could put the fear of God into you. I went home that evening and never said a word to anyone about it. When I went along to the next training session, Torbett acted as if nothing had happened at all.”

 

Celtic Boys Club was at the time regarded as the elite youth football side in Scotland, and a potential entry into life as a full-time professional for thousands of young players. But for more than two decades it was also a magnet for paedophiles. At least six men connected with the Celtic Boys Club have come under investigation for sexually assaulting boys between the late 1960s and the early 90s. Three of them have been convicted and have served prison sentences.

 

Now 21 of survivors are bringing a civil case against the club, which will be heard next year. The litigants include at least one prominent ex-Celtic player, and former professional players for other Scottish Premiership sides and Scotland’s national team. They are seeking damages from the parent club, which they claim had “corporate responsibility” for child grooming, assaults and rape by men with longstanding connections to Celtic Park. The survivors and their families believe the leadership of the club knew about the abuse and did nothing about it. They also allege that Torbett was dismissed from the Boys Club in 1974 following accusations of abuse, but was allowed back into the club after four years, where he continued to work with young boys.

 

Celtic’s official response is that none of this abuse was linked in any way with the parent club, and that the Boys Club was a separate legal entity. Survivors say this denial has added to their trauma and claim this is typical of the club’s attitude: had the parent club listened to the voices of survivors from early on, the abusers’ reign would not have lasted so long.

 

...In October 1996, Jim Torbett was arrested after a series of stories in the Daily Record, the Herald and BBC Scotland exposed his history of sexually abusing young players. He was jailed for two years in 1998 for abusing three young players, including Alan Brazil, at the Celtic Boys Club between 1967 and 1974. Following his release, Torbett was still a wealthy man. He moved to California, where a BBC investigations team tracked him down to ask him about other allegations of abuse. Within hours of that programme being broadcast, on 2 May 2017, US homeland security escorted Torbett to LAX airport. He was flown back to the UK and then arrested in Scotland.

Andy Gray’s testimony was among those used to help convict Torbett of a second round of crimes against three boys. Jailing Torbett for six years in November 2018, the trial judge Lo rd Beckett told him: “You used the club as a front for child sexual abuse.”

 

Michelle Gray believes the parent club at Celtic Park bears responsibility for failing to prevent Torbett’s crimes. “I just want to confront the people who failed my brother. Because if Celtic had kept Torbett away from that club between 1986 to 1994, then Andy’s life and the lives of other boys would not have been ruined,” she said.

 

....Torbett’s 2018 conviction triggered a string of further allegations against senior figures in the Celtic Boys Club. Among other abusers at the Boys Club was teacher Gerald King. In early 2019, King was given a three-year probation order for sexually abusing four boys and a girl at a Scottish school in the 80s. King was convicted of “lewd and libidinous practices”, which included taking a photo of naked boys in the shower, between August 1984 and April 1989.

Last year, Celtic Boys Club’s former kit man, Jim McCafferty, 73, pleaded guilty to 12 charges relating to sexual abuse involving 10 boys between 1972 and 1996. Four of his victims played for the Boys Club, and others played for youth teams he ran in North Lanarkshire. He was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison. At the time of his conviction, McCafferty was already serving a prison sentence for the sexual abuse of a boy in Belfast.

 

The web of abuse goes further. Police Scotland are now seeking the extradition of another man associated with the Boys Club who is living in east Asia. The football scout Bill Kelly started targeting hopeful young players at clubs across Scotland in the late 60s, and was eventually convicted of abusing 12 young boys in 1987. One of Bill Kelly’s victims, Bill Storrie, was abused while playing for the West Lothian boys club Uphall All Saints in the late 60s. Storrie believes there needs to be an independent inquiry to investigate links between paedophiles working in Scotland during the 60s and 70s, and one of British sport’s most notorious child sexual abusers, the English football coach Barry Bennell.

 

In February 2018, Bennell, a former coach at Crewe Alexandra, was found guilty of 36 child sexual offences. He was jailed for 31 years for a total of 50 offences against 12 boys, and further convictions have followed, including some just this month, taking the total of known victims to 22. Given that he had worked at four different English clubs – Crewe, Manchester City, Stoke City and Leeds United – as well as having contacts with Scottish teams including Celtic Boys Club, the real number of his victims may still be far higher. Storrie is aware of a claim by one former youth player in Scotland that he was “trafficked” down to Bennell by the Celtic kit man Jim McCafferty....

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/oct/20/child-sexual-abuse-at-celtic-boys-club-jim-torbett

 

James Randi's Alleged Sex Tape

 
Please note: This article contains graphic language. All accusations are alleged.

 

-   "The scientist's lawyers sought to discredit Mr. Randi by playing taped conversations of teen-age boys who called the magician's home allegedly for sex."


- James Randi, a magician known as "The Amazing Randi," had been involved in a lawsuit in which his opponent introduced a tape of sexually explicit telephone conversations Randi had with teenage boys. (Randi has claimed at various times, she said, that the tape was a hoax and that the police asked him to make it.)

 

-Prometheus Books, publishers of Children's Sexual Encounters with Adults, is run by Paul Kurtz, Professor emeritus of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo. He is chairman of CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal....Vern  Bullough is also listed as a board member of Paidika, the Dutch paedophile magazine in which Dr Ralph Underwager, co-founder of the FMSF in the US said he thought having sex with children could be seen as part of God's will....Prometheus also publishes the books of James Randi, an ex-CSICOP Member and present FMSF Advisory Board member . Other FMSF Board Members, Martin Gardner, Ray Hyman, Elizabeth Loftus, Loren Pancratz, Thomas Sebeok are also CSICOP board members.

- Why does the tape contain SEVEN calls from SEVEN
  different teenage boys?

- why do you, James Randi, then proceed to give the boy an open invitation to your home, saying, and I quote: "First of all, come here any time you want. I am always available. Will you let me   take pictures of you?"

 

Columbia Journalism Review
    
July/August 1997

U-Turn on Memory Lane

by Mike Stanton


Stanton heads the investigative team at The Providence Journal-Bulletin, where he shared a 1994 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He wrote a 1995 series on Professor Ross E. Cheit of Brown University, whose recovered memory of childhood abuse drew national attention. Stanton studied recovered memory last year on a John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University.

http://web.archive.org/web/20071216011151/http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/97/4/memory.asp

....Landsberg also challenged the credentials of other foundation advisers. She noted that one founding adviser, Ralph Underwager, was forced to resign from the foundation's board after he and his wife, Hollida Wakefield, who remains an adviser, gave an interview to a Dutch pedophilia magazine in which he was quoted as describing pedophilia as "an acceptable expression of God's will for love." Landsberg also wrote that another adviser, James Randi, a magician known as "The Amazing Randi," had been involved in a lawsuit in which his opponent introduced a tape of sexually explicit telephone conversations Randi had with teenage boys. (Randi has claimed at various times, she said, that the tape was a hoax and that the police asked him to make it.)

"Why haven't reporters investigated the False Memory Syndrome Foundation?" she asks. "It's legitimate to examine their backgrounds -- here are people who really do have powerful motivation to deny the truth."


Byrd v Randi (Civil Action No. MJG-89-636 in the United States District for the Court for the District of Maryland.




False Memory Syndrome: A False Construct

Juliette Cutler Page


https://web.archive.org/web/20090519040352/http://www.heart7.net/fms-false-construct.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20070211152419/http://www.feminista.com/archives/v1n9/false-memory.html

 
Another FMSF Advisory Board member, James Randi, was involved in a scandal in which (according to court records):

    "The scientist's lawyers sought to discredit Mr. Randi by playing taped conversations of teen-age boys who called the magician's home allegedly for sex."

    [ Byrd v Randi (Civil Action No. MJG-89-636 in the United States District for the Court for the District of Maryland.] Transcripts of the tape are also part of the court record in Geller v Randi, (Civil Action No 91-1014-SSH in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The transcripts are contained in Exhibit 40 to Exhibit U].

....Appendix E PROMETHEUS BOOKS

Prometheus Books, publishers of Children's Sexual Encounters with Adults, is run by Paul Kurtz, Professor emeritus of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo. He is chairman of CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) which runs the Skeptical Inquirer. Prometheus publishes an extensive Human Sexuality Books section under the editorship of Vern Bullough (AAA10/March 1996), Dean of Natural and Social Science at State University, New York, who is a CSICOP Board member.

Vern Bullough is also listed as a board member of Paidika, the Dutch paedophile magazine in which Dr Ralph Underwager, co-founder of the FMSF in the US said he thought having sex with children could be seen as part of God's will; that paedophiles should make their loving image clearer to the outside world; and that the USA was virulently anti-sexuality at present. His wife, Hollida Wakefield, who also took part in the interview said she thought it would be "nice" if someone could do a longitudinal study of 100 twelve year old boys in loving relationships with paedophiles. More recently on the Internet, Dr Underwager posted further thoughts in which he emphasised his belief that the "criminalization of sex" was destroying the social compact.

Prometheus also publishes the books of James Randi, an ex-CSICOP Member and present FMSF Advisory Board member . Other FMSF Board Members, Martin Gardner, Ray Hyman, Elizabeth Loftus, Loren Pancratz, Thomas Sebeok are also CSICOP board members.[ Accuracy About Abuse Newsletter April 1996]




COPY OF LETTER SENT TO JAMES RANDI - 9/26/1999

https://web.archive.org/web/19991128035654/http://www.psyzone.freeserve.co.uk/jrl1.htm

On May 3 1999, you, James Randi, issued a statement regarding
a CD that is being circulated. This CD is a copy of the Police tape
that hundreds of people now possess.

In this statement, you, James Randi, said:

The tape cassette which formed part of the blackmail package,
rather than being the product of a "tap" on my phone, as the
blackmail package claimed, was a copy of a tape that I was
specifically asked to make back in 1968, by the police chief
-- Zerr -- of Rumson, New Jersey, where I lived at that time.
 
That request was because of obscene phone calls I'd been
receiving at home, at all hours of the day and night. The object
of my conversations on that tape had been to keep the callers
on the line and thereby trace and identify the persons respons-
-ible. Zerr informed me that though a recording could probably
not be admitted into evidence, it would be a powerful tool to
possess. (At that time, to establish a trace, it was necessary
to keep a caller on the line a minimum of four minutes.)

That investigation resulted in a minor in a neighboring town
being identified and charged with the crime. At that time,
the minor's lawyer was informed by the local police that I
possessed a recording of the phone calls.

                          >>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<

If the above is true, the following questions should be easily
answered by you, James Randi.

1) Why does the tape contain SEVEN calls from SEVEN
  different teenage boys?

2) If any of these boys are 'blackmailing' you, why does
  EVERY boy call you "Donald?" Correct me if I'm wrong,
  but is it not usually the blackmailer who uses a pseudonym?

3) If any of these boys are 'blackmailing' you, James Randi,
   then why is there not one threatening sentence uttered at
   any time?

4) If the Police were running a tap on your phone, Randi,
  and with your consent,  to trace incoming calls, as you
  state, why do you call a boy back when he runs out of
  change? You say, and I quote: "What number are you
  at, I'll call you back?"

5) Having called the boy back, why do you, James Randi,
  then proceed to give the boy an open invitation to your
  home, saying, and I quote: "First of all, come here any
  time you want. I am always available. Will you let me
  take pictures of you?"

6) Finally, I leave you with a few complete quotes by you,
  James Randi - verbatim - from the tape, and I ask you if
  this is what one would expect a blackmail victim to put to
  his blackmailer (all seven of them!):

"Do you blow? How many inches have you got?" (2)

"What if I drive you around in the car, can you do a blow
 job on me?" (3)

"If I drive around in the car will you do a blow job on me? (3)

"Oh, I've got nine and a half inches. You might like to take
 care of it." (6)

"So, do you usually jerk off, or what do you do?" (8)

"Alright? Because when you see these pictures you are
 getting really hot....you ever seen pictures like that?" (8)

"It shows Japanese guys, you know, working on one another,
 and everything. Some of them crowds of people, four or five
 people all together. So, how many inches have you got?" (8)

"What I like to do? I like to get blown." (12)

"Fuck and suck, play together." (23)

"Well, we go in the bedroom. We all get in the bed and we
l lay on top of one another." (23)


https://web.archive.org/web/19991128051533/http://www.psyzone.freeserve.co.uk/jrl2.htm


REPLY FROM JAMES RANDI VIA J. LIPPARD


Jim:  in answer...

>1) Why does the tape contain SEVEN calls from SEVEN
  different teenage boys?

ANSWER:  Because that was the number of calls I was able to record.  And, I've no way of knowing whether these were teen-age boys.  They were  responding to the "ads" scribbled on toilet walls by John Hitchcock, the  local boy who was subsequently arrested, tried, and convicted for this harassment, in Rumson, N.J.

2) If any of these boys are 'blackmailing' you, why does
  EVERY boy call you "Donald?" Correct me if I'm wrong,
  but is it not usually the blackmailer who uses a pseudonym?

That, I was told, was the name written in the "ads."  These persons were  not "blackmailers" in any sense, nor did I ever claim that they were.

3) If any of these boys are 'blackmailing' you, James Randi,
   then why is there not one threatening sentence uttered at
   any time?

None of them were blackmailing me, nor have I ever implied or stated this. It was the persons who eventually obtained the tape-recording I made of the phone calls, who attempted to blackmail me, threatening to reveal this material if I did not cease my pursuit of the "psychics."

4) If the Police were running a tap on your phone, Randi,
  and with your consent,  to trace incoming calls, as you
  state, why do you call a boy back when he runs out of
  change? You say, and I quote: "What number are you
  at, I'll call you back?"

The police never ran a tap on my phone, with or without my consent, nor did I ever claim that they were.  I myself, at the suggestion of Chief Zerr of the Rumson police, placed a recorder on my phone.  It paid off, handsomely, and resulted in identifying the culprit.

5) Having called the boy back, why do you, James Randi,
  then proceed to give the boy an open invitation to your
  home, saying, and I quote: "First of all, come here any
  time you want. I am always available. Will you let me
  take pictures of you?"

I never called anyone, never being able to get a number to call, as the
police hoped I would -- though we did get a trace in one case, immediately after which an arrest was made.  I had been instructed by Mrs. Dunne, at the phone company, to keep the callers on the line as long as I could, but at minimum 4 minutes -- the time required to effect a trace.

6) Finally, I leave you with a few complete quotes by you,
  James Randi - verbatim - from the tape, and I ask you if
  this is what one would expect a blackmail victim to put to
  his blackmailer (all seven of them!):

(snip)  Yes, these were comments I made to keep them on the line.  I was told to "talk dirty," because that's what they wanted to hear.  And it worked.  We got an identification, and an arrest and conviction.  And, I'm told that Chief Zerr, upon his death, was succeeded by his son, whose name I do not know, and he just may be the present chief in Rumson.  I'm sure he can be located.

The sender in this case has no understanding of the situation, has the
facts screwed up, and just doesn't know how to read the statement I issued.
 

       
                         James Randi


https://web.archive.org/web/19991128070254/http://www.psyzone.freeserve.co.uk/jrl3.htm

Sent: 2October 1999

Postings of James Randi's reply to the Splice Letter have
appeared on some newsgroups (alt.bible.prophesies being
one!). A full copy of that response has been added to the
end of this message for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Before proceeding, a question that has remained unanswered:

Why has Randi to date failed to produced any documentation
from the police department he was "collaborating" with
to support his story? Note, he has also stated that it was
the telephone company who asked him to tape the calls.

Meanwhile, here is a brief analysis of Randi's response.

RE: RANDI'S REPLY TO SPLICE LETTER OF 9/26/1999

The sender of the previous Randi Letter indeed misunder-
stood the 'alleged' nature of the phone calls from the teenage
boys to James Randi. Randi claimed obscene phone calls
and not blackmail. In which case it should have been a
simple matter for Randi to supply the correct information.

Instead, he has posted more absurdities! These are analyzed
as follows (please note that the transcript referred to is a
verbatim record of the audio tape recording. Any further
denial of this from Randi's supporters will be farcical for
reasons that will become obvious when you read this):


RANDI WAS ASKED: If the Police were running a tap on
your phone, Randi, and with your consent, to trace incoming
calls, as you state, why do you call a boy back when he runs
out of change? You say, and I quote: "What number are you
at, I'll call you back?"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
RANDI STATES: The police never ran a tap on my phone,
with or without my consent, nor did I ever claim that they were.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK. But he later states:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I never called anyone, never being able to get a number
to call, as the police hoped I would -- though we did get
a trace in one case, immediately after which an arrest
was made.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a lie. The fact is HE DID. Page 24 of transcript:

OPERATOR: "5 cents more please."
BOY:               "Can I get change later?"
OPERATOR: "Can't you get change now?"
BOY:               "No, I don't have it."
OPERATOR: "Well, so how are you going to get change later on?"
RANDI:           "What number are you at, I'll call you back."
BOY:               "775-9709"
RANDI:           "9709 - OK, I'll call you right back."

And that's precisely what Randi does:

BOY:     "Hello."
RANDI: "So we are back."


RANDI WAS ASKED: Why does the tape contain SEVEN
calls from SEVEN different teenage boys?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
RANDI STATES: Because that was the number of
calls I was able to record. And, I've no way of knowing
whether these were teen-age boys.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

He couldn't have been listening because he asks all but
one of the boys what age they are, and every boy clearly
answers, as follows - page numbers refer to the transcript:

(page 8)
RANDI: "Yah, I guess so. How old are you?"
LARRY: "Seventeen."

(page 10)
RANDI:  "How old are you?"
VIN:        "Ah, nineteen...."

(page 12)
RANDI:  "How old are you?"
BOY :     "Seventeen."

(page 14)
RANDI:  "How old are you?"
BOY :     "I am eighteen."

(page 17)
RANDI : "How old are you and everything?"
BOY :     "Eighteen."

(page 20)
RANDI:  "How tall are you? How much you weigh? How
                many inches? "How old are you?"
BOY :     "Well, I am about eighteen."


Finally, the sender of the Randi Letter published direct
quotes from the transcript. Reactions by Randi's supp-
-orters to these revelations were of disbelief. Among the
several posts to newsgroups, was this one:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The tape doesn't contain anything of the kind, of course.
This is nothing but a bald-faced lie - like the rest of Anon-
-ymous' questions" and statements."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, sorry to disappoint Avital Pilpel and his fellow Randi
devotees, but your hero says otherwise:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
RANDI STATES: Yes, these were comments I made to
keep them on the line. I was told to "talk dirty," because
that's what they wanted to hear.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

James Randi has been 'talking dirty' for too long and it's time the world was made aware of  what he has been trying to suppress all these years. The tape is only a part of the evidence that investigators have been accumulating. Now seems as good a time as any for this evidence to be made available. And, now that Randi has publicly confirmed that the tape is indeed a genuine reproduction of his conversations with these boys, people can no longer deny its authenticity. What they must now do is LISTEN to the tape in its entirety and decide for themselves if Randi is telling the
truth. It's that simple.

If he is telling the truth, he should have no reservations about giving you a copy at your request.

randi@randi.org  or  JamesRandi@COMPUSERVE.COM

Regards

N.J. Rumson

PS: At the end of his response Randi, for some reason,
        says, "And, I'm told that Chief Zerr, upon his death,
        was succeeded by his son, whose name I do not know,..."

        How about Zerr?
 

https://web.archive.org/web/19991128095050/http://www.psyzone.freeserve.co.uk/jrl5.htm

Sent: 3 October 1999

MORE ABOUT THE RANDI SEX TAPE.

Randi has stated that the boys who were telephoning
him were NOT trying to blackmail him. The calls were
being treated as ‘obscene phone calls.’ Randi claims he
NEVER claimed that the boys were trying to blackmail
him. When James Moseley published details about this
in his magazine, Saucer Smear, Randi phoned him in
anger and a correction was duly published in the following
issue. Note that this correction does not eliminate the
blackmail claim. It therefore ‘appears’ that at this time,
Randi DID consider the callers to be blackmailers.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In his first article in Saucer Smear, editor James Moseley stated:

“The main item in the package was a tape, running 20
to 30 minutes, consisting largely of Randi speaking on his
phone, at his home in Rumson, N.J., to various males, whom
he was apparently soliciting in regard to sexual acts.

“This of course would tie in with the (unproven) rumors
over the years that Randi is a pederast.

“Here the story gets confusing. Randi claims he was merely
trying to entrap teenagers who were trying to blackmail him.”

---------------------------------

In the following issue of Saucer Smear, a correction appears
after James Randi telephoned Moseley:

“Whereas we stated [last time] ‘apparently it was the Rumson
Police who made the tape,” Randi states (by phone) that HE
made it, taping his own phone calls with the knowledge and
consent of the police, BECAUSE YOUNG MALES WERE
TRYING TO BLACKMAIL HIM.” [my emphasis]

WHY WAS THERE NO FURTHER CORRECTION TO THIS VITAL ‘ERROR’?

Sincerely

Tim Rance

MS-13 Satanic killing, Trump rape accuser, Organised Sexual Abuse, Flaws in satanic panic theory, Witch-Hunt Narrative, Ritual Abuse Network Scotland, Defining Ritual Abuse

 

-Third MS-13 member linked to 2017 death of Houston girl sentenced to four decades in federal prison "
- Young woman in satanic killing identified
- Trump Rape Accuser Says Slander Isn’t a Presidential Duty
- Organised Sexual Abuse - Michael Salter
- Dr. Sarah Nelson – The Discourse of Disbelief
- Flaws in satanic panic theory
- Rebuttals of “Satanic Panic” Theory and “False Memory Syndrome”
- The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children by Ross E. Cheit "many of the cases at the core of the witch-hunt narrative involved compelling evidence of abuse"
- Ritual Abuse Network Scotland - Highly confidential support and information for survivors of RA
- Defining Ritual Abuse https://www.rans.org.uk/ritual-abuse.html  

Third MS-13 member linked to 2017 death of Houston girl sentenced to four decades in federal prison
Rebecca Hennes Sep. 29, 2020

A third member of the transnational MS-13 gang — convicted recently by an Ohio federal court — has been linked to the 2017 murder of a 15-year-old Houston girl whose death was widely speculated to be part of a Satanic ritual.

Police found the slain body of Genesis Cornejo-Alvarado on the side of a road in the 8900 block of Sharpcrest in Chinatown. She was shot in the head and chest....

It was widely reported in 2017 that authorities believed a satanic ritual was a factor in Cornejo-Alvarado's death. While searching the apartment of Alvarez-Flores and Hernandez-Rivera, police found an altar to Santa Muerte, the Mexican folk saint of death that has been prominently tied to the criminal syndicate, according to federal court records.

A police investigator, while grilling Alvarez-Flores — whose nickname was “Diabolico” — on the death, fixated on what the altar meant, according to a Houston Police Department report shared in federal documents.

But investigators also stated in court records following the 2017 arrests that Cornejo-Alvarado had been dating a man with the rival 18th Street gang— also a transnational syndicate. Both gangs were founded in Los Angeles....

In translated interviews with Alvarez-Flores and Hernandez-Rivera nearly two weeks after the teen girl's death, investigators asked them in detail about the Santa Muerte altar.

An investigator said “he heard the real reason why Genesis ... was killed” and that it was to offer her soul to the folk deity.

Alvarez-Flores denied that Cornejo-Alvarado was sacrificed or that he prayed to the devil. He said he looked to Santa Muerte for a never-ending source of marijuana and for protection “against the law.” Alvarez-Flores also denied killing the teen girl....

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/houston/article/Third-MS-13-member-linked-to-2017-death-of-15607129.php 

Young woman in satanic killing identified
Victim identified as missing Jersey Village teen

John D. Harden , Houston Chronicle March 6, 2017

Authorities confirmed Monday the identity of a young girl who was allegedly killed as part of a satanic ritual and dumped on a side road in mid-February as that of a missing Jersey Village teen.

For weeks the girl's identity remained a mystery until a witness to the murder recently came forward, leading to the arrest of two men, according to police. At the time police released only the victim's first name — Genesis....

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Medical-examiner-IDs-young-women-shot-dumped-in-10981191.php 

Trump Rape Accuser Says Slander Isn’t a Presidential Duty
By Erik Larson
October 5, 2020

Justice Department wants to swap U.S. for Trump as defendant
Carroll says he wasn’t acting officially in calling her a liar

 

The New York advice columnist who claims President Donald Trump raped her in a department store dressing room two decades ago asked a judge to deny a Justice Department request to substitute the U.S. government as the defendant in her defamation lawsuit.

E. Jean Carroll, who went public with her claims last year and sued Trump after he called her a liar, said in a court filing Monday that the U.S. effort misapplies a federal law intended to protect government workers from lawsuits related to their jobs. The law doesn’t apply because the allegedly defamatory statements weren’t part of Trump’s official duties, she said....

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-06/trump-rape-accuser-says-defamation-isn-t-part-of-president-s-job

 

Organised Sexual Abuse
Michael Salter Nov 2012
Routledge
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=oPnh6nPKnvoC&rdid=book-oPnh6nPKnvoC&rdot=1&source=gbs_atb 

Organised Sexual Abuse offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary investigation of this phenomenon. Since the early 1980s, social workers and mental health professionals around the globe have encountered clients reporting sexual abuse by organized groups or networks. These allegations have been amongst the most controversial in debates over child sexual abuse, raising many unanswered questions. Are reports of organized abuse factual or the product of moral panic and false memories? If these reports are true, what is the appropriate response? The fields of child protection and psychotherapy have been polarised over the issue. And, although cases of organized abuse continue to be uncovered, a reasoned and evidence-based analysis of the subject is long overdue.

Examining the existing evidence, and supplementing it with further qualitative research, in this book Michael Salter addresses: the relationship between sexual abuse and organized abuse; questions over the veracity of testimony; the gap between the policing response to sexual abuse and the realities of child sexual exploitation; the contexts in which sexually abusive groups develop and operate; the role of religion and ritual in subcultures of multi-perpetrator sexual abuse; as well as the experience of adults and children with histories of organized abuse in the criminal justice system and health system. Organized Sexual Abuse thus provides a definitive analysis that will be of immense value to those with professional and academic interests in this area.

Dr. Sarah Nelson – The Discourse of Disbelief
The 2020 Online Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference, August 8 – 9, 2020.
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2020-conference/dr-sarah-nelson-the-discourse-of-disbelief/ 

“The Discourse of Disbelief”
Sarah Nelson MA PhD, Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee
Judith Herman: “In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens”.

Flaws in satanic panic theory

In my book (Nelson, 2016), I describe numerous flaws in satanic panic theory which had to be either unnoticed or ignored.

In summary:
• There WAS no widespread panic – most professionals and lay people remained unaware of these disclosures and behaviours. Only a small, often isolated minority of police, psychiatrists and counsellors, journalists, child protection professionals and foster parents had encountered them, and most of their own colleagues were sceptical of their belief.

• Nothing could be further from the truth than the claim that professionals and random feminists pursued satanic abuse theory with passion or zeal.

That anyone would actually want to find it, or would be pleased and zealous in pursuit, was bitterly laughable. Even for people experienced in working with CSA, it was the worst, most disorienting and traumatising knowledge in the world, challenging all your beliefs and your assumptions about human beings. Ritual abuse cases also brought many professionals considerable fears for their personal safety.

• The scapegoats and folk devils in classic moral panic theory (Cohen, 2002) should have been the accused adults. Instead they have been the professionals who took children into care, and/or publicly professed a belief that ritual abuse existed.

• Another essential feature of ‘moral panics’ in classic sociological theory is that these are promoted, carried and encouraged by the media. But most media, after a brief flurry of salacious interest, became not supportive but hostile in their coverage of ritual abuse. Most media have supported accused parents and adults with standing in their communities.

• The verbal disclosures, actions and behaviours of children and adults abused in ritual settings were so baffling, so esoteric and so unlike content previously heard that it would be incredibly difficult or impossible generate these words, actions and behaviour through pressured interviewing techniques by, for instance social workers. It was in fact the foster parents of children taken into care in both Nottingham (England) and Orkney (Scotland), not professionals, who produced by far the most evidence of children’s bizarre statements, drawings and actions. These were ordinary people who were baffled and disturbed by what they witnessed and heard from the children placed in their care.

• People, including journalists, lost their critical faculties. For instance, on Orkney claims were spread that one ‘born-again’ Christian basic grade social worker, CF, influenced Orkney and Strathclyde social work departments and police into jointly carrying out the dawn raids on four families with children. This was implied too in BBC Scotland TV’s ludicrous ‘faction’ drama Flowers of the Forest (BBC2, 1996). Both ignored the simple fact that a basic grade social worker had no power, influence or status to achieve this far-reaching joint action by police and social workers, which was authorised from top level!

Rebuttals of “Satanic Panic” Theory and “False Memory Syndrome” https://ritualabuse.us/research/rebuttals-of-satanic-panic-theory-and-false-memory-syndrome/ 

The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children by Ross E. Cheit
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-13384-000 

Abstract
The sexual abuse of children in the United States became national news in February 1984 with allegations about the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California. The case, once considered the largest “mass molestation” case in history, ended without a single conviction. Since then, it has become the conventional wisdom that the McMartin case, and hundreds of other cases in that era, were nothing more than witch-hunts. These cases are now seen as compelling evidence that children are “highly suggestible” and that society was in the grips of “hysteria.”

Based on a comprehensive examination of primary sources, The Witch-Hunt Narrative challenges the conventional wisdom about these cases. Ross E. Cheit uses trial transcripts and related court documents to demonstrate that many of the cases at the core of the witch-hunt narrative involved compelling evidence of abuse. He focuses on three major cases while also surveying dozens more, including some that involved injustice to the defendants. He finds that in many cases the conventional wisdom is significantly overdrawn.

Cheit’s years of research also revealed a history of minimizing and denying abuse, and a surprisingly lenient response to many child molesters. Those trends continue into the present, where there are pockets of; overreaction to sexual abuse in a sea of under-reaction. Cheit concludes with a consideration of recent events, including the Catholic Church cases, the Sandusky case at Penn State, and issues concerning sex offender, registration and civil commitment. He argues that progress in social responses to sexual abuse notwithstanding, there are still unjustified attacks on the credibility of children and on child-abuse ‘ professions, from forensic interviewers to pediatric child-abuse specialists.

This powerful book shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with the grim reality of sexual abuse. The Witch-Hunt Narrative is a magisterial account of the social dynamics that led to the denial of widespread human tragedy.

 

New name for abuse charity
Izzy’s Promise will now be known as Ritual Abuse Network Scotland (R.A.N.S.)

A charity which supports victims of abuse has a new name.
Izzy’s Promise will now be known as Ritual Abuse Network Scotland (R.A.N.S.)
The organisation has said the name change will make it easier to explain the support it offers....

“R.A.N.S. has also become the lead national charity in Scotland and indeed the UK providing information and support to survivors of ritual and organised abuse while also carrying out international research. Additionally, we work to increase awareness of ritual abuse and provide consultancy to policy makers, statutory bodies and other third sector agencies.”

According to R.A.N.S, ritual abuse is abuse that follows any kind of pattern. It can occur with or without a belief pattern. It often involves multiple perpetrators and multiple survivors. The impact of ritual abuse is often devastating to a person. Survivors of ritual abuse often have complex mental health problems along with additional and unique barriers to accessing support.

https://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/new-name-for-abuse-charity 

 

Ritual Abuse Network Scotland -
Highly confidential support and information for survivors of RA

What is Ritual Abuse?

Ritual or ritualised abuse is abuse which follows any kind of pattern. It sometimes follows a belief pattern but not always. It often involves multiple perpetrators but not always. And it ​often involves multiple victims/survivors.

The impact of Ritual Abuse is most often devastating to a person. Survivors of RA often have complex mental health problems along with additional and unique barriers to accessing support.

https://www.rans.org.uk/

Defining Ritual Abuse

Ritual abuse can be defined as organised sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, which can be systematic and sustained over a long period of time. It involves the use of rituals, with or without a belief system. It usually involves more than one person as abusers. Ritual abuse usually starts in early childhood and involves using patterns of learning and development to sustain the abuse and silence the abused.

Most sexual abuse of children is ritualised. Abusers use repetition, routine and ritual to force children into the patterns of behaviour they require, to instil fear and ensure silence, thus protecting themselves. Sexual abuse of a child is seldom a random act: it usually involves the abusers in thorough planning and preparation beforehand.

Some abusers organise themselves in groups to abuse children and adults in a more formally ritualised way. Men and women in these groups can be abusers with both sexes involved in all aspects of the abuse. Some groups use complex rituals to terrify, silence and convince victims of the tremendous power of the abusers.

Some abusers organise themselves round a religion or faith and the teaching and training of the children within this faith, often takes the form of severe and sustained torture and abuse.

https://www.rans.org.uk/ritual-abuse.html