Source for this, please. What is Lebanon, Mo??

roger

"Human Rights Defense (ShyDavid)" <HR-Defense@aol.com> a écrit dans le message de news: 3cd4bdaf@news2.lightlink.com...

> Minister to Pay $26,000,000 for Abduction
> By CONNIE FARROW
>
> LEBANON, Mo. (AP) - A jury Saturday ordered a minister to pay $26
> million for abducting his six grandchildren and indoctrinating
> them in his anti-Semitic beliefs.
>
> The verdict came in a civil suit accusing the Rev. Gordon Winrod
> and his son and daughter of using ``mind-altering techniques,''
> such as keeping the children in isolation and whipping them,
> while they were abducted.
>
> The suit was filed by two abducted children, now ages 19 and 21,
> and their father and uncle. The plaintiffs' attorney, David
> Pointer, had asked for $20 million in damages.
>
> ``I think it was important for all the children and their fathers
> to see that jurors and the courts viewed the case the same way we
> viewed it,'' Pointer said after the verdict.
>
> The three Winrods, who had acted as their own attorneys, huddled
> together and read from the Bible after the decision was
> announced. They declined comment.
>
> Earlier Saturday, Gordon Winrod, 74, turned his closing argument
> into an impassioned sermon about a ``Jewish conspiracy'' aimed at
> the moral destruction of the world.
>
> Winrod, already serving a 30-year prison sentence in the
> abductions, insisted he was only protecting the children from
> conspirators - including their fathers - for their ``moral and
> spiritual good'' and that they were free to go at any time.
>
> The children were taken between 1994 and 1996 from Dickey, N.D.,
> where their fathers operated a farm. They didn't see the children
> again until after authorities raided Winrod's 400-acre farm near
> Gainesville, in southern Missouri, in May 2000.
>
> ----
> Spike: "They're just trying to keep you safe, I expect."
> Dawn: "I feel safe with you."
> Spike: (chokes) "Take that back!"

From: HR-Defense@aol.com (Human Rights Defense (ShyDavid))
Subject: Re: Minister to Pay $26,000,000 for Abduction
Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 06:48:10 GMT
Organization: -NONE-
Message-ID: <3cd4d5b2@news2.lightlink.com>

On Sun, 5 May 2002 08:28:52 +0200, "roger gonnet" <roger.gonnet@worldnet.fr> wrote:

> Source for this, please.
> What is Lebanon, Mo??

It was posted to the newsgroup alt.crime without proper attribution. I found a related article at: http://www.lebanondailyrecord.com/display/inn_local_news/news01.txt

That URL will not be good for long.

Lebanon, Missouri, is a town in the State of Missouri.

> roger

Local News

Winrod ordered to pay $26 million

By Edward J. Sisson

After about four and a half hours of deliberations Saturday afternoon, a Laclede County jury ordered anti-Semitic pastor Gordon Winrod, his son and daughter and Our Savior's Church to pay more than $26 million in actual and punitive damages to the elder Winrod's two former sons-in-law and their children.

Neither the 74-year-old Winrod, son Stephen Winrod or daughter Carol Winrod, the defendants, showed any emotion as Judge John R. Hutcherson read each award.

Gainesville attorney David Pointer filed the suit in August 2000 on behalf of brothers Timothy Leppert and Joel Leppert and Timothy Leppert's two oldest children, Erika Leppert, now 19, and Nathan Leppert, now 21.

The suit asked for unspecified damages in the abduction of six of Gordon Winrod's grandchildren from their Dickey, N.D. homes between 1994 and 1996.

Erika Leppert and Nathan Leppert were two of the children abducted.

The Winrods, who acted as their own attorneys and never took the stand in their own defense, huddled together at the defendant's table and read from the Bible after the decision was announced.

The Winrods declined comment as they left the courtroom.

Pointer, who had asked for more than $20 million, said following the trial that he was very pleased that the jury viewed the case as seriously as he and the Lepperts did.

The biggest individual damage awards were $5 million and $3 million to Timothy Leppert and Joel Leppert respectively due to the injuries to their children.

"I think it was important for all the children and their fathers to see that jurors and the courts viewed the case the same way we viewed it," Pointer said. He said it was unclear how they would collect the award.

"I think that we go back to Gainesville pleased that the jury did what they were supposed to do and what we believed the evidence would support," Pointer said. "I can't say that we go back to Gainesville pleased. This family and what they've been through, I don't think there's a person sitting in the courtroom that would have walked out of the courtroom feeling pleased.

"I think the best that we can do is walk out of the courtroom feeling that justice was done in this particular case given where it is at the time it was presented to the jury."

The award came after nearly five days of testimony in a trial that had originally been scheduled to last two days.

The testimony indicated the Winrods and the church used "mind-altering" techniques including isolation and whippings to indoctrinate the abducted children in Gordon Winrod's anti-Semitic teachings, which turned them against their fathers and families, according to testimony.

The abducted children belonged to Timothy Leppert and Joel Leppert, who had married two of Winrod's daughters.

Following their divorces from the women, both men were awarded sole custody of their children. Following that, they were abducted.

In May 2000, law-enforcement officials, acting on information the children were there, raided Winrod's 400-acre farm near Gainesville, arresting Gordon Winrod, Stephen and Carol Winrod.

It took four days to talk the children -- then ages 9 to 16 -- into surrendering after they had locked themselves into a bunker in the basement of the farmhouse known as the "priest hole."

A judge had earlier granted a default judgment in the case because the Winrods had refused to participate in the legal process.

This left the Laclede County jury with the task of determining how much, if any, money should be paid.

The suit sought damages for false imprisonment of Timothy and Joel Leppert's children including Erika and Nathan Leppert; intentional infliction of emotional distress; defamation filed by Timothy and Joel Leppert in connection with statements in "The Winrod Letter" claiming they molested their children, were killers and committed crimes; assault and battery filed by Erika and Nathan Leppert; civil conspiracy in connection with the abduction of the children; and loss of consortium because the children and their fathers were unable to be together.

Two of the children abducted, Donna Leppert (Timothy Leppert's daughter) and Stephanie Leppert (Joel Leppert's daughter) had to be treated for psychiatric problems at the North Dakota State Hospital incurring $250,000 in medical expenses.

Testimony from Erika Leppert and her sister Donna Leppert provided different views of life on the Winrod farm.

Erika testified to not being able to leave the farm under threat of going to Hell, being forced to stand guard for six-hour shifts, enduring whippings and sermons from Gordon Winrod at meals. The sermon lengths, she testified, depended on her grandfather's frame of mind or how much he wanted to talk.

However, Donna Leppert painted a different picture of life at the Winrod farm.

She said there were animals to take care of and enjoy, there was swimming in the creek and always plenty of homemade ice cream.

If they were punished, she said, it was because they had done something wrong and her grandfather wanted to make them all better people.

She testified that her grandfather had saved her from her abusive father.

"I think it (the trial result) is very cruel, very unusual and filled with hate," Donna Leppert said moments after the trial.

Of her sister Erika, Donna said, "My father has filled her with hate through abuse and threats."

Pointer told the jury in his closing arguments he had proven what he said he would during his opening statement Monday; that the defendants preached a "message of hate" and believed the world was being taken over by a "vast Jewish conspiracy" aimed at moral destruction.

Pointer said the defendants had targeted Timothy Leppert and Joel Leppert with statements made in "The Winrod Letter" labeling them as Jews, child molesters and murderers, "backing up those words of hate with acts of terror."

He said that Timothy Leppert and Joel Leppert sought sole custody of their children "to keep those kids from being indoctrinated" with this teaching.

Pointer said during their years on the Winrod farm, "quite simply those kids became brainwashed."

He said the defendants "through their acts infected these kids' minds with the message of hate -- causing them severe psychological damage."

The damage would be something the children and their fathers would "live with for the rest of their lives."

Pointer said it would be hard to describe the terror Timothy Leppert and Joel Leppert must have endured "to have their children picked off one, two or four at a time" and not know where they were or what was happening to them.

"The abduction of one child is a tragedy," Pointer said.

Although all the children except Donna Leppert, who remains with the Winrods, are back with their parents, Pointer said the families still live in fear for the future.

"They continue to have fear -- they're afraid more people will come."

Gordon Winrod used his closing arguments to quote Bible verses and explained through verse and history his hatred of the Jews who he described as "sex deviants," "satanists" and the "devil's people."

"No man can refute what I'm saying," he said.

Winrod told the jury that Jews are involved in nearly everything from banking to the media.

"It's all part of a great program of Sodom -- Jew Sodom," he said. "The Jews hate us, so they bring us to court."

Winrod questioned the child-abduction charge.

"I never abducted any children," he said.

He said they could have left the farm anytime they wanted and gone back to North Dakota. Winrod said the children were being protected for their "moral good" and "spiritual welfare."

He said he only taught the children what is "right about God."

He described the raid on his farm in May of 2000 as a "Halloween display" and said he had a machine gun pointed six inches from his face and was dragged away by police.

"They can't refute what I say -- but they can do that," he said.

Stephen Winrod, in a voice sometimes barely audible in his closing remarks, told the jury that it was not the defendants who had performed any "acts of terror" but "rather to the contrary they (the plaintiffs) had."

He said the children were not confined to the Winrod farm, citing a trip to Springfield to play volleyball as an example. Being on the farm, he said, was not the reason the children suffered psychiatric problems.

"The government tormented those children ... by incarcerating them," he said.

He told the jury the $250,000 medical bill for psychiatric care for the stay of Donna Leppert and Stephanie Leppert at the North Dakota State Hospital would never be paid by the plaintiffs, but by that state's taxpayers.

He said it's the taxpayers who are paying for the trial and the incarceration of his father.

"That's the way it always is ... we work and pay and suffer for it."

Carol Winrod asked the jurors what Timothy Leppert and Joel Leppert wanted from them.

Would "our very lives satisfy these men?"

She said the Leppert brothers once had been supporters of the church.

"They supported the church, they married the pastor's children," she said. "Now they want to force us to sell Our Savior's Church, the cemetery and the parsonage where I live."

Regarding the testimony of psychologists at the trial about the mental condition of the children, she told the jury "psychologists get paid to find something wrong with everybody."

She described the legal action taken against her, her father and her brother as "a malicious lawsuit."

She said that due to the abusive treatment of the children in their infancy by their fathers, she asked the jury to "give them nothing."

In his rebuttal, Pointer said the defendants "just don't get it."

Regarding Gordon Winrod's closing remarks, Pointer told the jury, "you heard what these children heard" regularly for more than five years."

Pointer said of their closing statements, "I don't think I detected any remorse."

Showing the jury photos of several of the abducted children, Pointer said of the abductions, confinement, brainwashing and whippings, "no child should have to go through that, no father should have to go through that, no family should have to go through that."

The Winrods don't believe in banks and have refused to disclose their assets, Pointer said. Gordon Winrod indicated in court, however, that the church building alone was worth about $50,000.

The property the Winrods own includes the church on the 400-acre farm, a three-story home, a cemetery, a sawmill, an airport hangar with small planes, as well as several farm animals.

There also is a printing press and other equipment used to create and distribute Winrod's various publications, including "The Winrod Letter."

Gordon Winrod was convicted in January 2001 of six felony counts of child abduction and is serving 30 years in prison.

Stephen Winrod was found not guilty in March 2001 of the same six felony charges.

Also in March 2001, Carol Winrod entered an Alford plea -- meaning she did not admit guilt but agreed there was sufficient evidence for a possible conviction -- to two felony counts of child abduction and received five years probation.

The case was moved to Laclede County from Ozark County on a change of venue just more than a year ago.

---- Spike: "They're just trying to keep you safe, I expect." Dawn: "I feel safe with you." Spike: (chokes) "Take that back!"

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