- The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They’re Hiding a Horrifying Secret 52 official cases of Amish child sexual assault in seven states over the past two decades.
- Jeffrey Epstein used database to keep track of his ‘numerous’ victims
“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”
- 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
"regular conference will be on Saturday and Sunday May 16 - 17, 2020, Clinician's Conference is Friday May 15, 2020, conference is at the Reconnect Integrative Trauma Treatment Center in Pacific Palisades, California.
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 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.
Jeffrey Epstein used database to keep track of his ‘numerous’ victims
By Priscilla DeGregory and Gabrielle Fonrouge January 15, 2020
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.
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
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.
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.
