Related
Translate
Get RNB via RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Guyana’s Jonestown suicide site gets plaque
- Gaddafi preaches Islam to Rome beauties
- Scientology practices ‘putting people at risk’
- Recession: Muslim schools in UK under threat of closure
- Australian senator tells Parliament of widespread criminal conduct within the Church of Scientology
- When a child dies, faith is no defense
- Muslim terrorists smuggle fatwas promoting Jihad out of secure UK prisons
- Techie Holy water and geeky bishops
- Israel Charges Extremist With Attempted Murder Of Messianic Family
- 1-year prison term for man who participated in cyber attack on Church of Scientology Web sites
Child-Abuse Claims To Be Heard
More articles on this topic: Aggressive Christianity Mission Training CorpsGRANTS — A judge on Wednesday granted a state request to take testimony next week from a witness who has charged that members of an isolationist religious sect in Cibola County have abused children.
The New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department has been trying to take into protective custody two children in the Aggressive Christianity Mission Training Corps, which has a compound in remote western New Mexico near Fence Lake.
The agency also wants to talk to any other children in the group, which some law enforcement officials have described as a cult. But the group has sent its children into hiding, police have said.
District Judge Joseph F. Arite agreed to the state’s request for an expedited deposition. However, he denied a request by CYFD to hold members of the sect in contempt of court for failing to turn the children over to authorities.
Arite earlier had issued a state-sought order for the sect to turn over the children Feb. 7. However, the state agency failed to obtain sworn statements that sect members had been served with the order and that they had failed to turn over the children to the state, Arite said.
The judge left the door open for the state agency to obtain the statements and to ask again that the sect members be held in contempt.
The state’s rationale for attempting to seize the children hinges on statements from a single witness, a lawyer for CYFD said in court Wednesday. That witness is a former sect member whom law enforcement authorities say has a history of making unfounded allegations.
The woman, identified by law enforcement officials as a transient whose last name is El Phalen, initially made her allegations to Albuquerque television reporter Darren White, a former secretary of the Department of Public Safety. She said the children were sexually abused and one was intentionally burned on the hand.
El Phalen refused to cooperate with child welfare agents shortly after the television interview in December, but she has since talked to authorities, CYFD lawyer Hillel Katzir told the court Wednesday.
Katzir said El Phalen is planning to leave for Florida in the next few weeks. He said it is important that she give her testimony before leaving the state.
When authorities went to the Aggressive Christianity Mission Training Corps compound Jan. 28, they were told by sect members that the children were on a field trip at an undisclosed location in Arizona.
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
 Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
 Religion News Blog RSS feed [What is this?] RSS by topic: Aggressive Christianity Mission Training CorpsRead Another Article
 Previous entry: Attempt To Seize Kids Criticized Next entry: Under Fire, Japan Sect Starts Over
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
