VERMONT
Brattleboro Reformer
By DOMENIC POLI / Reformer Staff
POSTED: 10/02/2014
BELLOWS FALLS — New details emerged in a case of alleged sexual abuse when two sisters filed lawsuits against the local and international Jehovah’s Witness governing bodies for turning a blind eye to their molestation by a congregation member 20 years ago.
Annessa Lewis, 27, and Miranda Lewis, 23, are suing the Bellows Falls congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which they attended as children, and claim it buried the issue when they were sexually abused by “ministerial servant” Norton True at ages 5 and 4 in the early 1990s. The lawsuits were filed Wednesday against True, the Bellows Falls congregation and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., the international headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witness faith.
According to the lawsuits filed by Irwin M. Zalkin of The Zalkin Law Firm in San Diego, Calif., True abused Annessa Lewis before her fifth birthday and later did the same to Miranda. Zalkin has previously partnered with Jerome O’Neill of Gravel & Shea in Burlington to fight the Roman Catholic Church on cases of child sex abuse and they have recently been working for victims of abuse at the hands of Jehovah’s Witness organizations. Zalkin said Miranda Lewis came across his law firm while researching online and contacted him.
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