36 ICSA TODAY 34
the report of its independent investigation or the names of the
experts involved. But an actress, Catherine Oxenberg, said a well-
known forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, recently contacted her
and said that NXIVM had hired him to evaluate her 26-year-old
daughter, India Oxenberg. In May, another doctor who examined
Ms. Oxenberg’s daughter told her that the severe diet she was
following had jeopardized her ability to have children. Ms.
Oxenberg has tried without success to convince her daughter, who
has followed Mr. Raniere for years, to leave NXIVM. … In recent
months, NXIVM has also attempted to hire lobbyists in Albany to
represent it before politicians and regulators there. It has also sued
or sought to bring criminal charges against former members. For
example, the Mexican branch of NXIVM recently sued a former
member there who quit the organization after 13 years upon
hearing about the secret sorority and the branding.” (The New York
Times, 12/21/17)
Psychic paid $3.5 million for exorcisms gets prison for evading
U.S. taxes
“A self-proclaimed psychic was sentenced on Wednesday to 26
months in prison after admitting that she tried to avoid paying
taxes on over $3.5 million that she received from an elderly
Massachusetts woman seeking to cleanse herself of demons. Sally
Ann Johnson, 41, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Denise
Casper in Boston, who said the evidence suggested the psychic
took advantage of the Martha’s Vineyard resident as the woman
began to suffer from dementia. … [The judge] ordered Johnson to
repay the woman nearly $3.57 million she received from 2007 to
2014 and to pay $725,912 in restitution to the U.S. government for
the taxes she avoided paying. … Court papers refer to the woman
only as ‘V.P.’ and say she attended Radcliffe College and Harvard
University, was independently wealthy and was more than 70
years old in 2007. She is a resident of Martha’s Vineyard, a favorite
vacation spot for the rich and famous. … Prosecutors contended
Johnson employed techniques commonly used by fraudulent
fortune-tellers who prey on vulnerable and incapacitated people
and cultivated a sense of dependence in the elderly woman. The
unnamed woman was already prone to believe in the presence
of evil spirits, prosecutors said. They said that as her dementia
advanced, the woman attributed her symptoms to demonic
possession, which she hoped Johnson could alleviate. … She also
accrued charges on a credit card held in the elderly woman’s name,
spending $20,000 on entertainment and jewelry alone, prosecutors
said.” (Business Insider, 01/17/18)
Coverdale avoids debt with bankruptcy in JZ lawsuit
“Following five years of legal battles, JZ Knight is awarded nothing
after Virginia Coverdale violated a non-disclosure agreement for
leaking footage of a video that some characterize as a racist rant.
Knight is the head of the Yelm-area based Ramtha’s School of
Enlightenment. She has what she calls ‘students’ world wide. She
claims to channel the 35,000-year-old Lemurian warlord Ramtha.
Coverdale is a past student at RSE. … Coverdale released video
footage obtained from a third-party where Knight made what
some claim were racist remarks towards Mexicans, Jews and
Catholics. ‘F--- God’s chosen people. I think they have earned
enough cash to have paid their way out of the goddamned gas
chambers by now,’ she said to RSE students in the videotape. In
the video, Knight also said Mexicans breed like rabbits and are
poisonous, all gay men were once Catholic priests and organic
farmers smell bad. … When Coverdale filed for bankruptcy, Knight
filed another lawsuit of ‘abuse of process’ and tried to form an
argument of ‘willful and malicious’ injury. The court did not find
Coverdale to have improper motive in her defense and Knight
failed to prove Coverdale caused willful and malicious injury. …
‘Ms. Coverdale filing for bankruptcy is hardly a victory,’ Wright
stated in an email to the Nisqually Valley News. ‘It is an admission
that she got in way over her head and accumulated debts that
she felt she was unable to repay at present or in the years ahead
without intervention by the court. It is the financial equivalent of
calling 911.’” (Nisqually Valley News, 12/21/17)
23 years after first conviction, charges dropped in murder
falsely linked to Satanic worship
“Citing a prosecutor’s duty to do justice, the Kentucky Attorney
General’s office Thursday moved to dismiss charges against two
men who spent more than 20 years behind bars for a murder
falsely linked to Satanism. The motion finally ends the ordeal
of Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Dewayne Clark, who were
convicted in 1995 of killing Rhonda Sue Warford and dumping
her body in a field in Meade County. Clark’s lawyer, Linda Smith,
supervising attorney for the Kentucky Innocence Project, said
he cried when she told him the news. ...‘The Attorney General’s
constitutional obligation is to adhere to its mandate to do justice,’
says the 12-page motion filed by Assistant Attorneys General Jon
Heck and Jeffrey Prather. ‘Therefore the Commonwealth does
hereby motion this Court to dismiss.’ In a statement, the office said
it would continue to investigate Warford’s murder. Meade Circuit
Court Brian T. Butler in 2016 threw out the convictions, saying there
was no credible evidence that Warford’s murder was inspired by
Satanic worship, as the prosecution contended in the 1995 trial.
Citing DNA evidence, Butler ruled the pair was convicted ‘based on
assumptions we now know to be totally false.’ and released Hardin
and Clark on bond. ...‘Preventing wrongful convictions in the
future is something everyone should be on board with,’ she said. ‘It
shouldn’t be controversial to want to end this kind of suffering. We
are only half done.’” (Louisville Courier Journal, 02/08/18)
Ex-Scientologist wins ruling over documents in her lawsuit
against Church of Scientology
“A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that lawyers
for the Church of Scientology are not entitled to obtain additional
documents they say they need to defend the church against a
former member’s claims that she was forced to work long hours
before she was a teen and was coerced to have an abortion at age
17. ...Lawyers for the church had sought documents reviewed
by plaintiff’s witness Stephen Kent, who is an expert in the
sociology of religions. They wrote in their court papers that Kent
used the records to form his opinion that DeCrescenzo, now 44,
was subject to brainwashing and mind control that delayed her
filing of her lawsuit. The trial could have two phases, beginning
with a non-jury trial before Judge Mark Mooney to determine
whether DeCrescenzo acted reasonably in waiting so long to file
her lawsuit. If he rules in her favor, a jury would decide on liability
the report of its independent investigation or the names of the
experts involved. But an actress, Catherine Oxenberg, said a well-
known forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, recently contacted her
and said that NXIVM had hired him to evaluate her 26-year-old
daughter, India Oxenberg. In May, another doctor who examined
Ms. Oxenberg’s daughter told her that the severe diet she was
following had jeopardized her ability to have children. Ms.
Oxenberg has tried without success to convince her daughter, who
has followed Mr. Raniere for years, to leave NXIVM. … In recent
months, NXIVM has also attempted to hire lobbyists in Albany to
represent it before politicians and regulators there. It has also sued
or sought to bring criminal charges against former members. For
example, the Mexican branch of NXIVM recently sued a former
member there who quit the organization after 13 years upon
hearing about the secret sorority and the branding.” (The New York
Times, 12/21/17)
Psychic paid $3.5 million for exorcisms gets prison for evading
U.S. taxes
“A self-proclaimed psychic was sentenced on Wednesday to 26
months in prison after admitting that she tried to avoid paying
taxes on over $3.5 million that she received from an elderly
Massachusetts woman seeking to cleanse herself of demons. Sally
Ann Johnson, 41, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Denise
Casper in Boston, who said the evidence suggested the psychic
took advantage of the Martha’s Vineyard resident as the woman
began to suffer from dementia. … [The judge] ordered Johnson to
repay the woman nearly $3.57 million she received from 2007 to
2014 and to pay $725,912 in restitution to the U.S. government for
the taxes she avoided paying. … Court papers refer to the woman
only as ‘V.P.’ and say she attended Radcliffe College and Harvard
University, was independently wealthy and was more than 70
years old in 2007. She is a resident of Martha’s Vineyard, a favorite
vacation spot for the rich and famous. … Prosecutors contended
Johnson employed techniques commonly used by fraudulent
fortune-tellers who prey on vulnerable and incapacitated people
and cultivated a sense of dependence in the elderly woman. The
unnamed woman was already prone to believe in the presence
of evil spirits, prosecutors said. They said that as her dementia
advanced, the woman attributed her symptoms to demonic
possession, which she hoped Johnson could alleviate. … She also
accrued charges on a credit card held in the elderly woman’s name,
spending $20,000 on entertainment and jewelry alone, prosecutors
said.” (Business Insider, 01/17/18)
Coverdale avoids debt with bankruptcy in JZ lawsuit
“Following five years of legal battles, JZ Knight is awarded nothing
after Virginia Coverdale violated a non-disclosure agreement for
leaking footage of a video that some characterize as a racist rant.
Knight is the head of the Yelm-area based Ramtha’s School of
Enlightenment. She has what she calls ‘students’ world wide. She
claims to channel the 35,000-year-old Lemurian warlord Ramtha.
Coverdale is a past student at RSE. … Coverdale released video
footage obtained from a third-party where Knight made what
some claim were racist remarks towards Mexicans, Jews and
Catholics. ‘F--- God’s chosen people. I think they have earned
enough cash to have paid their way out of the goddamned gas
chambers by now,’ she said to RSE students in the videotape. In
the video, Knight also said Mexicans breed like rabbits and are
poisonous, all gay men were once Catholic priests and organic
farmers smell bad. … When Coverdale filed for bankruptcy, Knight
filed another lawsuit of ‘abuse of process’ and tried to form an
argument of ‘willful and malicious’ injury. The court did not find
Coverdale to have improper motive in her defense and Knight
failed to prove Coverdale caused willful and malicious injury. …
‘Ms. Coverdale filing for bankruptcy is hardly a victory,’ Wright
stated in an email to the Nisqually Valley News. ‘It is an admission
that she got in way over her head and accumulated debts that
she felt she was unable to repay at present or in the years ahead
without intervention by the court. It is the financial equivalent of
calling 911.’” (Nisqually Valley News, 12/21/17)
23 years after first conviction, charges dropped in murder
falsely linked to Satanic worship
“Citing a prosecutor’s duty to do justice, the Kentucky Attorney
General’s office Thursday moved to dismiss charges against two
men who spent more than 20 years behind bars for a murder
falsely linked to Satanism. The motion finally ends the ordeal
of Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Dewayne Clark, who were
convicted in 1995 of killing Rhonda Sue Warford and dumping
her body in a field in Meade County. Clark’s lawyer, Linda Smith,
supervising attorney for the Kentucky Innocence Project, said
he cried when she told him the news. ...‘The Attorney General’s
constitutional obligation is to adhere to its mandate to do justice,’
says the 12-page motion filed by Assistant Attorneys General Jon
Heck and Jeffrey Prather. ‘Therefore the Commonwealth does
hereby motion this Court to dismiss.’ In a statement, the office said
it would continue to investigate Warford’s murder. Meade Circuit
Court Brian T. Butler in 2016 threw out the convictions, saying there
was no credible evidence that Warford’s murder was inspired by
Satanic worship, as the prosecution contended in the 1995 trial.
Citing DNA evidence, Butler ruled the pair was convicted ‘based on
assumptions we now know to be totally false.’ and released Hardin
and Clark on bond. ...‘Preventing wrongful convictions in the
future is something everyone should be on board with,’ she said. ‘It
shouldn’t be controversial to want to end this kind of suffering. We
are only half done.’” (Louisville Courier Journal, 02/08/18)
Ex-Scientologist wins ruling over documents in her lawsuit
against Church of Scientology
“A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that lawyers
for the Church of Scientology are not entitled to obtain additional
documents they say they need to defend the church against a
former member’s claims that she was forced to work long hours
before she was a teen and was coerced to have an abortion at age
17. ...Lawyers for the church had sought documents reviewed
by plaintiff’s witness Stephen Kent, who is an expert in the
sociology of religions. They wrote in their court papers that Kent
used the records to form his opinion that DeCrescenzo, now 44,
was subject to brainwashing and mind control that delayed her
filing of her lawsuit. The trial could have two phases, beginning
with a non-jury trial before Judge Mark Mooney to determine
whether DeCrescenzo acted reasonably in waiting so long to file
her lawsuit. If he rules in her favor, a jury would decide on liability
