01/18/2013

Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania (Jehovah's Witnesses)

This 700mb stash of documents gives some rare insights into the workings of the main legal entitity of used by the Jehova's Witnesses to direct and administer doctrines for the religion.

The material deals with pending court cases, insider accounts and historical materials. The data has been structured for easier navigation, some highlights:

  • An interesting, mainly credible, account of an insider's view of church workings over the past several decades. J W's Brooklyn and Manhattan real estate holdings, possible fraud, church history, and their policies toward child sex abuse cases, beginning in the 1980s, are detailed. A good place to start for someone with limited knowledge of Witnesses. (PDF, 460kb)
  • Folder of documents on the "Chimera" lawsuit, a current pro se action brought in San Mateo, California involving alleged church fraud, money laundering, and a wide ranging RICO scheme involvling bank, city, and public employees, to divest older members of the church from their spiritual leadership positions, and control over church cash. The case itself may not offer much insight, but does gives clues as to how the church is structured, and details some of their inner workings on maintaining bank accounts, fundraising, et cetera.
  • Some of this information about building fund schemes, touched upon here and in other Chimera case docs, may be of interest to those who are studying Scientology's real estate transactions and fundraising schemes, as described in Lawrence Wright's new book "Going Clear. (PDF, 105kb)
  • Collection of material about child sex abuse allegations within the JW. Witness testimony, a large volume of info on William Bowen, who founded a Jehovah's Witnesses survivors support group, SilentLambs, Inc, corporate docs, and lawsuit material between the church and Bowen, included.

There is lots of more data in the archive, including video testimony and various other court documents. Use the links below to access the full data. We like to thank all Anons who helped to collect, evaluate and sort this material.

Browse all files · Full Archive (bzip2, 700mb) · Via Par:AnoIA

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