LegalReported
Meleah Thompson says she was abused as a child by men connected to her Oregon congregation in the early 1990s and that elders, told of it, invoked the two-witness rule and expelled her instead. Her suit, filed 20 July 2026, argues the coerced sexual acts were 'services' under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and that Watchtower knowingly benefited from concealing them. The allegations are unproven and no defendant had responded on the docket as of 24 July.
· July 20, 2026 · 8 min read
Pennsylvania statewide grand-jury investigationConfirmed
A statewide investigating grand jury opened in 2019 produced criminal charges against roughly nine men affiliated with Jehovah's Witnesses congregations, across waves announced by Attorneys General Josh Shapiro (2022) and Michelle Henry (2023), alongside scrutiny of how congregations handle abuse reports internally.
· October 27, 2022 · 6 min read
RulingConfirmed
A 2018 Montana jury ordered the Watchtower to pay about $35 million for failing to report a child's abuse. In 2020 the state's Supreme Court erased the verdict — unanimously — not on the facts, but on a clergy-confidentiality exception in the reporting law. The collision it turned on is still unresolved across the country.
· September 26, 2018 · 11 min read