Tag Archives: crime

Colorado Jails Mom, Rewards Rapist Father

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Ok, this story is so messed up that it is likely going to cause you to rage, and have a terrible day. It’s probably one of the most egregious abuse of legal power I’ve seen in a while, and it’s all courtesy of the corruption that is religion.

It begins with a mother trying to save her family from their abusive father. Rachel Hawkins is a mother of four, and she is desperate to protect her two youngest, aged 10 and 13. So much so that when the family courts ordered her to participate (and pay) in “reunification therapy”, she refused, and was sent to jail for it. For those of you unfamiliar with this highly controversial form of therapy, it is an attempt to help reunite families after there have been instances of abuse. This is usually done not for the benefit of the children, but for the parents, who can often suffer from depression due to “parental alienation”. On paper, it’s meant to try and mend broken relationships. In practice, it simply exposes children to their abusers, often with deadly consequences.

Many of the organizations that offer this form of therapy are merely religious organizations in disguise. Since these groups are uninterested in the scientific method, or evidence, they have made all kinds of claims of the benefits of such programs. So much so that family courts are now using these programs to force families broken by abuse to mend themselves forcefully together.

In the case of the Hawkins, the father, a retired police officer by the name of Michael, was credibly accused of sexual abuse by his adopted 17 year old daughter starting at 6 years of age. When one of his sons confronted Michael about the abuse, he attempted to drown him. Michael is under house arrest, with an ankle monitor while he awaits trial. Meanwhile, a Colorado court has determined that poor Mikey is suffering from parental alienation as the result of his actions, and his two remaining children have been ordered to attend the Reunification therapy in order to fix this relationship, and are forcing the mother to pay for it.

The mother said she lost legal representation in the custody dispute after accruing $85,000 in legal bills, which she couldn’t afford. She was sentenced to jail without any representation from a lawyer.

Now, it needs to be stated plainly that the person offering this junk counseling, Christine Bassett, operates out of Lighthouse Christian Counseling”, which advertises itself as “integrating faith into the counseling process”. This means that the court has essentially forced the mother to comply with ineffective and dangerous therapy courtesy of religious nutbags.

Rachel has started a GoFundMe in order to hire a lawyer. Given the facts of the case, she has a good chance of winning, if she is able to raise the 100k she needs. She is already halfway there. If anyone wants to help her fight the good fight, I invite you to help her.

Brazilian Priest Rapes Teens, Forces One to Have Abortion

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If there’s an organization that attracts abusive psychos, it’s the Catholic Church. Tyrants who crave power are always welcome in the church, so long as they mask their intent under the guise of piety. You may think I am being overly hyperbolic, but how else can you explain how their ranks are bursting with serial abusers? Even in a culture of secrecy with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of capital to maintain it, there are still countless stories of victims who have been brave enough to come forward to expose these monsters.

The latest vile excuse for a human being is Father Paulo Araujo da Silva, a priest in the city of Coari. Seems he had a dream of having a harem of underage girls, and so after grooming 4 of them, he began to sexually abuse them. His lust and need for control were insatiable. He would force the girls to bring their friends along, and would film himself engaging in this sick ritual. Da Silva told them that no other men could date them, for they were his and his alone. When one of them became pregnant, she was forced to ingest a mysterious pill which resulted in an abortion.

This abuse continued for years, until finally one of the victims approached police to inform them of what was going on. When the agents busted in his place, he was in bed with another girl that had only recently turned 18, though it was clear that the affair had been going on for quite some time. The police searched his phone, and found 260 videos of his sick escapades.

The Diocese of Coari obviously tried to distance themselves from the whole affair, offering the typical platitudes offered to victims.

The diocese said “all the necessary canonical measures” have been taken. The priest was suspended and can no longer have any activity in the parish. The Church is also available to work with the authorities in the inquiry, concluded the note, signed by the diocese’s chancellor, Father Josinaldo Plácido da Silva.

We’re all so impressed that the Church is working with authorities. It’s literally required by law for them to do so. As for their “canonically punishments”, it’s just a funny way of saying that they stopped paying his bills. They need to save some money anyways; no doubt they are busy getting their lawyers to draft some form of non disclosure agreements,  and lawyers ain’t cheap.

If the church really wanted to stop these men, they would firstly rescind their own rules which stipulate that priests are not allowed to report abuse to the police, and must instead rely upon the church to handle the situation themselves. This “handling” usually takes the form of shuffling priests around when too many kids get raped, giving these predators a new field of victims from which to harvest. That would be a start. They could also stop sheltering countless priests in the Vatican under “house arrest” and let the law get their hands on them. They roam Italy with impunity, since they are technically residents of a city state that claims to be a nation. I doubt if either of these two things will ever come to pass.

Lets not also forget the incredible power and authority that is granted to human beings by simply holding their positions as priests. Instead of holding these men more accountable, the desperation of the Catholic Church to find employees means that they are willing to overlook serious issues with their candidates. Power corrupts, and it seems that the church is in the habit of attracting those that are easily corrupted. It speaks volume to their character, and to that of their employers.

Here’s hoping that this irredeemable bastard faces the harshest punishment. There is no cell filthy enough, and no prison mattress uncomfortable enough for this monster.

Church Tricks Dying Woman into Changing Will

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It’s the kind of story that makes you sick: an aging woman, with a serious medical condition that effected her thinking was manipulated by the pastor of a California church named North Avenue Baptist Church into changing her will. Her son, Michael, is now trying to fight this fraud. For those of you interested in helping him out, Charles has a GoFundMe set up to fight it.

Iranian Morality Police Paralyze Woman over Hijab

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In North America, Muslim women will often be seen wearing a head covering in public. Supporters of the hijab say that it’s an important tradition, and the more liberal factions will claim that it is women who chose to wear them out of respect for their faith, and that there is no inherent pressure to force them to do so.

The rest of the world with their heads screwed on right know that this is just straight-up bullshit. While it’s true that if a Muslim woman wants to wear the restrictive headdress, she is exercising her freedom of choice, but rarely do we witness the real consequences for disobeying their little rules in their private lives. Already there is immense social pressure to wear it in secular countries. In sectarian ones, it is often with the end of a bayonet that these rules are enforced. To say it’s a choice is like saying that a hostage has a choice: to listen or to die.

In Iran, a woman was shot while driving her car, specifically because she was not wearing the hijab in her car. Arezoo Badri was returning home in her vehicle when police attempted to pull her over. She had apparently multiple “violations” for not wearing the restrictive headscarf, and this was enough justification to arrest her. When she failed to comply, they opened fire on her, striking her in the lung and spinal cord.

With the women of Iran already up at arms with the recent beatings and death of a number of women for the “crime” of not wanting to wear the hijab, police have attempted to keep the incident under wraps:

According to the source, her family is allowed only brief visits, during which their mobile phones are confiscated. Authorities have prohibited visitors from taking photos or video of Ms Badri – though some have emerged.

They know they fucked up, and they want to stop the “metaphorical” bleeding. They are fools. If anything, this will only add fuel to the fire. It is time that the inhumane theocratic government be toppled. It will be women who make the major difference in Iran, this I promise you. With the country threatening to attack Israel, it’s only a matter of time before this unstable government goes too far, and finds itself on the execution block. So long as the women there continue to live in terror, the country will never know peace.

Mother Arrested in Forced Marriage Tragedy

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Domestic abuse is no joke. Every year, roughly 47,000 women and young girls are killed by their partners. That translates to a sobering average of one woman being killed every 11 minutes. One of the worst offenders of DV is Islam. With it’s perpetual fear of women, it’s not enough that they force them to be constantly covered up, lest they tempt their morally repugnant men to lust. Forced marriages are still a common practice, even when these people live in democratic countries.

Ruqia Haidari was a young woman who was forced into a marriage she did not want by her mother, Sakina Muhammad Jan. The family had already been paid a bride-price, and so the mother wasn’t interested in the strong objections of her daughter. The two live in Australia, which has strict laws forbidding the practice. This did little to dissuade Jan, who told her daughter that if she did not marry a man named Mohammad Ali Halimi, she would be kicked out of the house. At only 21, Ruqia had dreams of attending school to pursue a career. Alas, it was not meant to be. Her violent and controlling husband waited only a few weeks before he slit her throat with a knife.

Now, an Australian court has found the mother guilty of breaking forced marriage laws, and was sentenced to 12 months in jail. The conviction was only made possible when members of her own religious community came forward to inform police of the situation. The irony here is that the family had moved to Australia in order to escape persecution from the Taliban. It appears that while you can take people out of religious oppressive places, you sometimes cannot get take oppression out of people. The Taliban only exists because of the willingness of people to follow edicts and rules that are disasterous, specifically to young women.

When the decision was made by the courts, unsurprisingly, Jan said she refused to accept the verdict, presumably because she still thinks she did nothing wrong. She was eventually led away by court officers. So at the end of the day, we have a young woman dead, an older one jailed, and a murderer in prison for life. I wonder if there will ever be a time when the so-called “religion of peace” will no longer cause countless tragedies. My guess is that none of us will ever live to see that day.

Mormon Church Sued Over Improper Use of Tithing

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If you’re a hard core listener of TGA, you might remember that we reported on a whistleblower in the LDS church that exposed its massive financial coffers: over 100 billion dollars and growing. The whistleblower reported that the Mormon church was spending practically nothing on charitable services, this despite the fact that it has told its members that their money was being used almost exclusively for such purposes. Instead, they are hoarding money, and using it on private investments that have nothing to do whatsoever with the supposed “mission” of the organization.

A group of 9 church members are now suing the church in court for failing to properly use the money they had donated for charitable purposes.

“Despite [the church’s] representations to the contrary, a substantial and significant amount of the donations it receives are not directed towards humanitarian aid, nor any other philanthropic or charitable purpose,” the suit states.

Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the fraud, the suit has a copy of the 2007 tax form that their investment organization had. As you can see, it’s pretty egregious:

…[A] portion of a 2007 tax form on which Clarke, Ensign Peak’s CEO, declared the book value of all the fund’s assets at $1 million — when, the suit says, it was closer to $38 billion.

Only off by 3800% you say? Why, not even hucksters like Donald Trump would dare cook the books that bad. Of course, the government did so little to actually stop the fraud that it’s practically a joke. The SEC fined Ensign Peak, the group that committed the fraud, a paltry 4 million dollars for using countless shell companies to hide it’s income. That’s roughly  0.00004% of their actual fortune. To call that pathetic would be a disservice to the word. It would be more accurate to call this whole thing immense corruption, or intense cowardice. Both are likely.

The good news is that this small class action lawsuit could balloon if the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals allows the suit to go through. Meanwhile, lawyers on both sides are still trying to make their case, or in the defense’s end, to try and dismiss it. We’ll need to wait and see what the results of this are. Given the fact that the IRS hasn’t done anything to religious orgs that break their rules, I have very little faith that anything will happen. Society tends to give an infinite get-out-of-jail-free card to religion. I can’t imagine a time where that will ever change.

Partial Apology by US Bishops Promises Little

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Should every apology lead to forgiveness? This is a complex moral question. It would be tempting to answer yes, and to believe that all human beings are worthy of redemption. There are always outliers in any group, and overall, it is reasonable to assume that the vast majority of people are worthy of a second chance, especially when they make an honest and sincere apology.

The world is more complex than this trite observation would have you believe. It’s not only people who issue apologies. Sometimes, it’s entire organizations and institutions. One in particular, the Catholic Church, has committed so many atrocities over the centuries of its existence that it would take many lifetimes of work to simply identify them all, let alone do anything about them.

One of the many recent scandals it is involved with is the uncovering of mass graves in their 80 government sponsored boarding gulags. The rampant sexual, physical, and mental abuse suffered at their hands has never been full accounted for. The Church, which keeps meticulous records, have provided no helpful documentation that would harm their financial bottom line. Instead, they offered a partial apology that took only part of the blame for what had happened:

“The Church recognizes that it has played a part in traumas experienced by Native children,” the document said, saying “these tragedies” led to addiction, domestic abuse, abandonment and neglect that harmed families.

Played a part? They were the main event! It almost sounds like they want to throw their hands in the air and say: “Well, it was also the government’s fault for sending those guys to our rape dens in the first place”. Sure, the government place them in your care, which was wrong to begin with, but the Church could have showed them the love, compassion and charity they keep claiming to have a monopoly on. Instead, they beat them, starved them, sexually abused them, and countless other horrors that went on for decades. When you need to take responsibility for literal crimes against humanity, maybe don’t start with “played a part”.

To offer a proper apology, it’s important to be honest when it comes to exactly what part you played. Take for instance the part they played in the extermination of the Jews in Nazi Germany: in exchange for becoming the official religion of the country, they helped the exterminators find the families, often pretending to provide asylum for them but turning them in anyways, and whisking away the perpetrators to safe territory in Latin America when the whole thing went tits up. Those are things they have yet to specifically apologize for as well, or make up for in any way. Instead, they still collect part of every German citizen’s paycheck, unless that persons specifically asks not to. That deal with the Nazi stuck around, unsurprisingly.

This pathetic apology is a way to try and reconcile their Native believers, who feel a great deal of uncertainty about their faith following the harrowing details of the history of abuse. For most old Catholics, who’s ancestors also had their faith imbued at the edge of a sword, enough time has passed that the church’s atrocities are long forgotten. In Native communities, that wounds of the past are still fresh. It’s causing problems for the church’s bottom line, so something had to be done. Their plan? An impotent apology that serves only to highlight just how out of touch they are, and a promise to “listen”. Platitudes and empty gestures. Pathetic.

Doomsday Cult Prophet’s Wild Murder Plot

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If you’ve ever read Jon Krakauer’s excellent book, “Under the Banner of Heaven”, you may already be aware of the apocalyptic sects that exists within Mormonism. When you think of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, usually what comes to mind is the rather silly elements of the faith: their weird obsession with magic underwear, the idea that Jesus came from another planet, and their prohibitionism on everything from alcohol to caffeine. What Krakauer discussed in his book is the fundamentalist aspect of Mormonism, which tends to bring out the worst in people.

Chad Daybell was such a fundamentalist. He began his career by writing religious fiction, which at first allowed him to quit his job working as a grave digger. His earnings were modest, and so, to avoid having to continue to work in a job he obviously hated, his writings began to take on a far darker and more apocalyptic tone. This found him a larger audience, and he started getting more popular among Mormon extremists.

Chad’s stories echoed the worrisome changes that were happening in his mind. He spoke of God talking directly to him, specifically telling him about the end times. He claimed later to have experienced several near death experiences, and that the result was that he could now receive supernatural visions. His fiction was beginning to merge with his real life.

Things really started to turn when he met a woman named Lori Cox, a former contestant in the Miss Texas beauty pageant. Cox was on her fourth marriage by then, one of which had produced a son named Joshua (although everyone called him J.J.). She quickly became obsessed with Daybell and his strange sermons. By 2019, the two had convinced one another that they had been married previous lives, but both refused to get a divorce from their current spouses. They wished to find “other means” to be together.

Cox’s husband, Charles Vallow, began to suspect that his life was in danger. He started off by getting a protective order, and changing his life insurance policy so that the beneficiary would be his sister. Eventually, he decided that he wanted to make the marriage work, and so the order was rescinded. Then, a few months later, Charles was shot by Lori’s brother Alex, who claimed that it was self defense. Later that day, neighbors reported that Lori had a party not long after. No charges were filled for the killing.

In September of that year, Lori told J.J.’s school that he was being pulled out of classes, and that she would be homeschooling him. No one had seen either him, or his adoptive sister Tylee for quite some time. They were both dead, though no one knew this yet.

In October, Chad’s wife Tammy had been shot at in her driveway by a masked man. The gun, which had either jammed or had not been loaded properly, did not work. When she reported it to the police, they thought the whole thing was a prank, until 10 days later, when they found her dead body. Chad claimed it was from natural causes, and refused an autopsy. The incompetent police obliged him, until some time later when it was finally exhumed when all of the suspicious deaths began to be properly investigated.

Finally, in July of 2020, the bodies of Joshua and Tylee were discovered on Chad’s property. Forensic reports indicated that he had been asphyxiated. Tylee’s cause of death could not be determined, but evidence did suggest that they had attempted to dismember her.

The trials are still ongoing. Both have turned on each other, and claimed that they were emotionally manipulated by the other. It’s rather typical for these kinds of trials: both murderers are unwilling to take responsibility for their crimes. Two children are dead, as well as both of their spouses, and yet they cannot even fathom that all of this was the results of their actions. Instead, these delusional killers would rather blame outside forces than their own decisions. This is the true danger of faith: it transforms people into mindless robots, who think that their actions are mandated by an all powerful being. It’s truly terrifying.

Courts OK Catholic School Firing Gay Teacher

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It’s moments like this that remind me why I always feel a bitter taste in my mouth every time Christians complain about being persecuted. Imagine making an announcement of your upcoming nuptials, only to then be fired when they found out that the couple was the same sex. How would conservative outlets react if a private school had fired someone for being Christian?

By all accounts, Lonnie Billard was a good employee. He has worked for Charlotte Catholic High School as a teacher for over a decade. He obviously loved his job, but when he announced that he was getting married to a man, the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina decided that he would no longer be welcome there. Naturally, Billard sued the school with the help of the ACLU, but unfortunately, he lost due to the American legal system now being a branch of the Catholic Church. Never mind that it’s a gross violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prevents people from being fired for discriminatory reasons. Apparently, though, the courts have a neat little loophole for something that inconvenient:

But Circuit Judge Pamela Harris, writing Wednesday’s prevailing opinion, said that Billard fell under a “ministerial exception” to Title VII that courts have derived from the First Amendment that protects religious institutions in how they treat employees “who perform tasks so central to their religious missions — even if the tasks themselves do not advertise their religious nature.”

So, you’re a “minister” even when your not even discussing your own beliefs. What a load of bullshit. This is nothing but thinly vailed discrimination, under the guise that this is some form of religious exemption. Frankly, it’s disgusting. Is America still a country that understands the separation of Church and state? I think we can firmly say: No.

 

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 355

Welcome back to another episode. This week, we discuss a pastor ruining Autism Awareness, police investigating the New Orleans Archdiocese for human trafficking, and so much more. Don’t miss out!

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 355
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Priest Embezzled Church Funds for Mobile Game Addiction

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As a gamer, I can relate to people who get wrapped up in a game. This hobby can often be detrimental to our mental health, and out wallets. Mobile games are especially manipulative, and there are countless stories of people spending thousands on “free” software with microtransactions.

What I’m less forgiving of is people who commit crimes to pay for their addiction. So when Rev. Lawrence Kozak was caught having spent over 40k in microtransactions in games such as Candy Crush and Mario Cart, he was quick to blame his addiction:

When interviewed by detectives in 2022, Kozak said he was seeking counseling for his addiction to playing and spending money on online games, according to the affidavit. He said the money was not spent on gambling, but rather to “power up” — gain an advantage in the games he was playing.

It sounds pretty far fetch that this isn’t gambling, but I can speak with authority that people have spent more than that on bullshit cosmetics and other useless crap in these manipulative mobile games. Still, it doesn’t excuse the fact that this man embezzled church funds for his own personal gain. Now, he faces the legal consequences of this. I have some doubts about whether or not he will be properly punished: religious wrongdoers have a habit of getting off easy.

Is it really too much to ask that justice be served? Come on Pennsylvania: make sure you do the right thing and send his ass to jail!

Father’s Pleas to Rescue Daughter in Forced Marriage Ignored

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There is a sad and barbaric tradition that still continues to this day. It’s called Forcible Marriage. It’s essentially a form of human trafficking, masquerading as a tradition. Women have few rights in traditional Islam, and are viewed more as property than a human being. It’s why when 15 year old Muskan Salman was kidnapped and forcibly married, the police have done nothing to get her back, despite the desperate pleas of her father.

I can only imagine the heartbreak at the thought of the things she is having to endure under this man’s captivity. He had already taken her out of school because the eventual kidnapper, a 27 year old man named Arsalan Ali, was already harassing her. He then resorted to abducting her, and forging a marriage certificate, claiming the girl was 19 years old. Now there’s a legal battle to prove her age. In none of the reports has anyone bothered to even ask Muskan what the hell happened. She is essentially in the custody of the husband, and that’s considered fine in the eyes of many.

Part of the reason people have turned a blind eye to all of this is because it’s part of a pattern of behavior in the country. You see, Muskan is part of a Christian minority, and these kinds of incidents are so frequent that the U.N. has called on Pakistan to make more changes to their laws to prevent this form of human trafficking.

“The exposure of young women and girls belonging to religious minority communities to such heinous human rights violations, and the impunity of such crimes, can no longer be tolerated or justified,” they said in a statement issued in Geneva.

Now, because this is the U.N. and their calls are left to voicemail, and it’s doubtful anything will come of this. Muskan will be forgotten about, like so many other young girls forced to live with their rapists and bare their children. So long as this tradition and the underlying faith that sustains it continues to rule, these types of tragedies will continue to occur with terrifying frequency.

Salem Satanic Temple Attacked with Pipe Bomb

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Christians feel persecuted. There is no reason for them to feel this way, but that doesn’t stop them from claiming that other faiths are out to get them. They fear the loss of their power so much that anyone they deem an enemy is fair game.

Take the case of Sean Patrick Palmer, a 49 year old man from Perkins, Oklahoma. He was recently arrested after being captured of film throwing a pipe bomb at a Satanic Temple located in Salem, Mass on April 8th of this year. His intent, it seems, was to destroy “crybaby Satan” with an improvised explosive device.

According to the charging documents, the pipe bomb appeared to have been constructed from a section of plastic pipe covered with metal nails, which were attached to the pipe with tape. The inside of the pipe was filled with a powder-like substance, preliminarily identified as smokeless gunpowder.

He also left a letter, written in all caps, telling Satanists that he was sent by God to first give them a peaceful message to abandon their faith. When that failed, he was then told to “smite” them. The whole thing seems as though it was written by a 5 year old. He certainly has a great deal of mental problems, which were no doubt masked for years under the guise of piety.

DEAR SATANIST
ELOHIM SEND ME 7 MONTHS AGO TO GIVE YOU
PEACEFUL MESSAGE TO HOPE YOU REPENT. YOU SAY
NO, ELOHIM NOW SEND ME TO SMITE SATAN AND I
HAPPY TO OBEY. AND ELOHIM WANT ME TO CONTACT
YOU TO TELL YOU REPENT. TURN FROM SIN. ELOHIM
NO LIKE THIS PLACE AND PLAN TO DESTROY IT. MAYBE SALEM TOO? ELOHIM SEND ME TO FIGHT CRYBABY SATAN, BUT WANT ME TO MAKE HARD EFFORT SO NO ONE DIES. I OBEY.

Palmer was caught because he had posts on social media that matches the clothing of the assailant caught on film. He was also posting weird messages that echoed the hand written note he left at the scene. This jackass now faces up to 20 years in prison. I’m sure he will claim to be yet another religious martyr. It’s easier than facing the truth: that he’s a low IQ arsonist who belongs behind bars.

Prison Justice for Pastor accused of Killing Girl During Exorcism

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Prisons have their own form of justice. For those of us not familiar with prison life, we generally think that a building full of criminals must be chaotic, and filled with random violence. It’s far more complicated than that. Inmates have their own code of justice, which can largely be dependent on the state that you are in. This code has a kind of hierarchy of bad, meaning that there are some crimes that are considered “good” (like robbing a bank), and others considered evil (like raping or killing a child). Prisoners will often dispense their own form of punishment, which tends to be deadly.

Now, for the sake of clarity, I must also specify that there is a difference between prison and jail. Prison is where people convicted of a crime go. Jail is the holdover for people suspected of a crime. This is why those in jail still have the presumption of innocence. With that in mind, when former pastor Rene Tigueros Hernandez was booked recently in San Jose over allegations that he killed his 3 year old granddaughter following a botched exorcism, it didn’t take long for one of his neighbors to find out what he had done, and a bunch of them decided to do something about it. Hernandez is 60 years old, so odds are, he didn’t put up much of a fight.

The thing is, the details of the incident are what’s putting his life in danger.

On Monday, a coroner testified that 3-year-old Arely had so many injuries — including blunt force trauma on her face and internal abdominal injuries — that it was impossible to know which injury was “the final blow.” The coroner said she determined Arely’s cause of death was a combination of mechanical asphyxia and smothering

The defense attorney requested that the judge bar the media from publishing or airing “up-to-date-in-court images and video” that make it “easier for hostile inmates in jail to identify and attack him,” Fite wrote.

The thing is, all of this is merely to keep him alive before he can actually go to trial. Once he’s actually in prison, then he’s in big trouble. Prisoners have a way of finding things out about you. Usually this is done on the first day with what is called a “heart check”. A scary looking man approaches you, demands to know for what crimes you are there for, and will often instigate a fight to see if you have any “heart”, and will defend yourself even against a tougher opponent. The worst thing you can be is a child rapist or murderer. These people typically have short stays, followed by a quick trip to the morgue.

Given the extend of the little girl’s injuries, I can’t imagine that his fellow prisoners will give him much leeway. Keep in mind that many of these men are fathers first, and criminals second. No doubt the time away from their loved ones only amplifies their hatred for these types of crimes. Their distorted sense of justice will inevitably lead to more death, perhaps as a way for them to try and atone for their crimes. Such is the primitive nature of prisons. They have their own laws, and codes of justice, and this spells bad news for the Hernandez family.

You see, Hernandez isn’t the only one of the family that was in jail, and the other  members have all said that they’ve been threatened multiple times. Considering the brutality and severity of their victims injuries, I have a feeling that prison life is going to be extremely difficult for them.

All of this tragedy was the result of the fact that Catholics still believe in dangerously stupid shit like demon possession. They think that behavioral problems are the result of satanic forces, and so strong is this belief that the welfare of their own child was less important that their superstitions.

Lutheran Scamming Priest gets 8 months instead of 10 years in Jail

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Imagine you steal more than $80,000 from your employer by selling a property and then pocketing the cash. How much time should you be in jail for? A few years maybe? Well, if you’re a religious figure, that number can be brought down to the low low price of only 8 months.

That’s how much time Erin Gullickson, who was the former pastor for the Our Savior Lutheran Church, got: an 8 months in prison handed down by an Illinois court. She’s also been ordered to pay back the 82 grand she stole, with the judge demanding that it be paid back in a year’s time. Unless she joins another church and starts stealing from them, I doubt she’ll be able to make good on it. So far, she’s only agreed to pay back 1000 bucks a month. At this rate, it will take her roughly 7 years to square things off.

Prosecutors were obviously upset that she got the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. A few months in jail and some probation sends a pretty clear message to other would-be scammers: Do the crime, do only a small portion of the time. You see, this is a class B felony, which usually carries a maximum prison sentence of around 10 years. She got less than 10 months.

Feland also disagreed with the notion that Gullickson, who has been in custody since her conviction, should not be subject to further imprisonment. The judge sentenced Gullickson to 10 years in prison but suspended all but time already served and an additional seven months, in addition to three years of supervised probation.

Why is it that the law works differently for religious people? Do they just have to promise that they will do better and are instantly believed? She abused the trust of the people that she ministered to, and literally stole from them. What was the reason for such leniency? If this person had embezzled this money while working at a bank, would she have been given such mercy on her sentence? I highly doubt it.

This shit stinks to high heaven of religious privilege. When will we be free of this special treatment that the faithful get? My guess is never.