Fessler versus Watchtower – Opening Statements and Motions in Jehovah’s Witness Child Abuse Trial – Day 1

On a cold Philadelphia morning the 7th of February, 2017, Stephanie Fessler walked into the Court of Common Pleas of Pennsylvania, First Judicial District, Civil Trial Division. The time was 9.45 AM according to the clock which sits atop the historic City Hall courthouse in the center of Philadelphia. But there was another clock running – it was the clock of justice, the timepiece which measures just how long it takes for a person or organization which has damaged another person’s life to be called to account for what they have done, or possibly what they have not done.

It has been 13 years since congregation elders in Spring Grove Pennsylvania first learned of the inappropriate relationship and abuse perpetrated by Terry Monheim, aged 49, and her victim, Stephanie Fessler, who was just 14 years of age when the abuse began. Stephanie was dragged before elders in 2004 and 2005 to answer for her relationship with her abuser, but with grotesque disregard for the law, elders knowingly failed to report the suspected abuse to the police, to Pennsylvania’s Childline, or to any other authority. Instead, they forwarded what they knew to Watchtower’s legal department, who wantonly disregarded Pennsylvania State law, and also failed to report.

[link to jwsurvey.org]