But Jim Molloy, a Bozeman attorney who joined Smith in representing the plaintiffs, said those loopholes couldn't apply here. Reyes admitted the abuse to the elders when they approached him about it, not in confession. What's more, they spread that information to others, including up the Witness chain to Watchtower.

"This is not a case where the Thompson Falls congregation went rogue," Smith said. "This isn't about them. It's the puppet masters in New York who issued orders by the threat of punishment from God."

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The same policies and procedures have been aired out in proceedings against the Jehovah's Witnesses around the world. Yet the church remains set in its ways, Anderson said, because of how the religious leaders hold their beliefs above the law. Romans 13 in the Bible that says "Let every person be in subjection to the superior authorities, for there is no authority except by God."

"I left the organization over this issue," she said. "No one appointed them as magistrates, they're spiritual judges. If they want to judge someone on this matter, they'll take action against them in a religious sense."