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 that the sexual acts she says she was coerced into were 'services' under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and that Watchtower knowingly benefited from concealing them. On 12 August a judge refused to waive her $405 filing fee, ruling on her finances without reaching the claims themselves; the docket records a second order the same day setting a 19 August 2026 deadline to pay it. The allegations are unproven.
· Updated August 18, 2026 · 11 min read
Kings County, Index No. 522573/2026Confirmed
Proof of service on the Governing Body's eleven named members is now on the court file, and the order letting the plaintiff sue anonymously has been entered. All three Jehovah's Witness organizations sued have lawyers and until 31 August 2026 to answer the complaint or ask the court to dismiss it. The allegations remain unproven. Filed 16 June 2026 under a January 2026 amendment reviving decades-old claims and extending liability to institutions.
· Updated August 4, 2026 · 22 min read
LegalReported
A judge paused this unproven $100 million case on 4 May 2026 at the Governing Body's request. The complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court on Nov. 12, 2025, alleges a Circuit Overseer abused Stella Cristina Gomes De Souza beginning at age 12 in Brazil and that Watchtower routed reports internally. The plaintiff asked the judge to reconsider on 18 May. A pause is not a dismissal. This account runs to the docket's last entry, 1 June 2026.
· Updated July 22, 2026 · 16 min read
LegalConfirmed
In sister Child Victims Act cases over Robert Warne, a ministerial servant at a Middleport, N.Y. congregation, a court denied Watchtower's bid to shield its nationwide reports of known abusers and pierced clergy privilege over his confession letter — before both suits settled in 2026. The Governing Body was dismissed from one case and kept in the other.
· May 22, 2026 · 7 min read
LegalReported
Shannon Simendinger's civil complaint, filed January 8, 2025 in Aroostook County Superior Court, names a Maine congregation, Watchtower's New York corporation, and three men; the allegations are unproven and the case is pending.
· January 8, 2025 · 5 min read
LegalReported
A federal complaint filed February 13, 2026, alleges the Governing Body and three Watchtower entities failed to protect a Cordele teenager from more than 100 acts of abuse by his Bible-study instructor, who is separately convicted. The organization's alleged liability is unproven; the case is pending.
· February 13, 2026 · 5 min read