Multiple Michigan families accused man "living single for the Lord" of child sexual assault. He's still free.
By LINDSEY SMITH Michigan Radio
A drawing done by one of the young girls during a counseling session.
COURTESY ROB AND CRYSTAL BARRETT
Four years ago, Rob Barrett got a phone call from a new friend. “Hey, I want to do some snow sculpture. Could the girls do some snow sculpture with me?”
Rob’s new friend was Jamie Treadwell: A tall, slim, balding white guy. A world traveler. An artist-in-residency at The Potter’s House school in Grand Rapids. A man of faith.
In 2016, he made friends with Rob, his wife Crystal Barrett, and their two daughters. Treadwell did come over. “And next thing you know, there's this, this Moses in our front yard.”
“It's not just a snowman. It's a sculpture of Moses holding his hand up in the air, pointing into the heavens and all this. And it is astounding,” said Rob. “The whole neighborhood was totally impressed,” Crystal said.
Jamie Treadwell builds a snow sculpture of Moses.
CREDIT ROB BARRETT
Jamie Treadwell is like a big kid. That’s how the Barretts’ daughters would later describe him to police. When it warmed up that spring, Treadwell washed his car at their house, and started a water fight with the girls.
“They were — really, really, really liked him,” said Crystal. “I mean, like, really liked him.”
In 2015, Jamie Treadwell had just moved back to Michigan from Europe. He co-founded and ran a program for at-risk youth in Northern Ireland. He was new in town. So he asked to join Rob Barrett and his family at their Grand Rapids church.
A photo from a 2016 Servants of the Word newsletter shows Treadwell with some of the children from the program he co-founded and ran in Northern Ireland.
CREDIT SERVANTS OF THE WORD
Treadwell was part of a Christian brotherhood called The Servants of The Word.
About 60 celibate men make up The Servants of the Word — “living single for the Lord,” as they put it. They live communally, sharing money and possessions. The home base is near Chelsea, Michigan but the group has houses all over the world, including Grand Rapids. Treadwell transferred to that house in 2015.
A few months into their friendship, Treadwell was at the Barretts’ house at least a couple times a week. Sometimes he just popped by.
"I really felt honored that he would want to spend time with us. This amazing guy with all this stuff going on has taken an interest in us."
When it was planned, Treadwell showed up super early. Rob wouldn’t be home from work yet. Crystal noticed Treadwell always disappeared with her girls into areas of the house or backyard she couldn’t see.
“They were almost always playing some kind of a game that involved a lot of physical contact. Which is not really what we do in our house,” Crystal said.
“That's part of the attraction,” Rob added, “He was so different. They were having so much fun playing tickle games with him in ways that we didn't do.”
One night, in May 2016, the Barrett family and Treadwell were sitting around the kitchen table.
In front of the girls, Treadwell turned to Crystal and said, “'Hey Crystal, do you remember when we talked about how fun it would be for me to stay the night sometime?' In my head I thought, ‘Uh, no, we've never talked about how fun it would be for you to stay the night. I don't arrange sleepovers with adult men.’”
It wasn’t unusual for the Barretts to have overnight guests. They lived overseas, so they have friends all over the world and family across the country who come stay in their guest room. But at that time, Treadwell only lived a mile and a half away from the Barretts' house.
“My girls started saying, ‘Oh, that would be really fun! We can play these board games, we can do this, we can do that,’” Crystal said. “And then he said, ‘And you know, it's my birthday on Saturday and it would just be so much nicer to spend the time with you all than by myself. The brothers are out of town.’”
Crystal went from feeling frustrated and confused to planning to make Treadwell homemade cinnamon rolls for his birthday. She couldn’t put her finger on what she was anxious about.
The night Treadwell stayed over, Crystal sat up in bed, and told Rob: “Please go sleep in the girls’ room.”
“I was literally laying awake at night for hours on end thinking, this really seems like this guy is setting us up, like, to molest my kids. Like, this is what this feels like. And then the next thing in my head would be, ‘But what if you're wrong? What if this isn't that? And your kids love him and he loves them and he loves being part of your family and what if you're wrong?’
"There's part of me now that's just like, ‘Oh good grief, what if there was even a 20% chance this is what this was about. These are your girls.’ But I, I felt like if I wasn't 100% sure I couldn't say anything to anybody.”
Rob slept in the girls’ room that night. Nothing bad happened. Still, Crystal was on high alert.
Then, one Sunday in September 2016, something did happen that confirmed Crystal’s worst fears about Jamie Treadwell. He popped by after church — unannounced. Crystal was in the kitchen making lunch. Rob, the girls, and Treadwell were in the living room.
“Rob (came) into the kitchen to start setting the table 'cause it's getting close to lunch being ready. And I looked up at him and I said, ‘Rob, I'll take care of all this. I'll make the lunch and I'll set the table, please don't leave him in the room alone with the girls,’” Crystal said.
Not even for a minute, Crystal told her husband. Watch him.
It turned out her discernment was right on. For the rest of this disturbing story please link to Michigan Radio.
Parents Livid and Distraught No Arrest Is Coming in D.C. Synagogue Sexual-Abuse Case
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In private emails obtained by The Daily Beast, family members of the alleged victims couldn’t contain their displeasure with the U.S. attorney who handled the matter
Emily Shugerman, Gender Reporter
Sam Stein, Politics Editor
Daily Beast
Washington Hebrew Congregation
A high-profile case of alleged child sex abuse at a prominent Washington, D.C., synagogue is closing with no apparent charges, leaving the children’s families furious and pushing for further investigation.
Emails obtained by The Daily Beast show prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia reached out to families this week to say they are closing the case of Jordan Silverman, a former teacher at the venerated Washington Hebrew Congregation's preschool who was accused of sexually abusing more than a dozen children in his care.
The U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment, but the Metropolitan Police Department confirmed that the 16-month investigation was ending.
“After exhausting all investigative avenues, the universal determination of the investigative team was that there was insufficient probable cause to establish that an offense occurred or to make an arrest,” the department said in a statement on Thursday morning.
Silverman’s attorneys have maintained his innocence throughout the investigation. In a statement on Thursday, they claimed vindication in response to the MPD’s announcement.
“For 19 months Jordan Silverman has been forced to endure the nightmare of being accused of and investigated for crimes he did not commit,” attorneys Sarah Fink and Jon Jeffress said in a statement. “To prove his innocence Mr. Silverman took two independent polygraph tests conducted by former FBI agents. He passed both of those tests with flying colors. We look forward to restoring Mr. Silverman’s reputation and good name.”
But the decision not to bring charges against Silverman has infuriated parents, who feel the U.S. Attorney’s office showed deference to the accused and failed to take into consideration the special circumstances surrounding crimes against minors.
Emails to U.S. Attorney Mark O’Brien obtained by The Daily Beast show parents criticizing him for not reaching out to them directly before coming to a conclusion. Other parents said they were told their child would have to take the stand at a criminal trial, or were criticized for enrolling their child in therapy. A number of families are now advocating for a special prosecutor to be appointed in the case, which has garnered national attention.
“Fifteen children are not going to see justice for this,” a mother of one child, whom The Daily Beast is not naming to protect their identity, told The Daily Beast. “This guy is going to go without any charges ever being brought against him. It’s unfathomable to me that we live in a time and a place where he could do this to our children.”
Of O’Brien, she added, “I have no words for this person. He is supposed to be the person in charge of protecting us.”
O’Brien, in his email responses to several parents, defended his decision to inform the families’ civil counsel about the outcome instead of contacting them directly. He subsequently attempted to schedule meetings with them this week and, by Wednesday, had told one parent that his timeline for telling Silverman the results of the investigation was “still fluid.”
The investigation into Silverman began in August 2018, when the Washington Hebrew Congregation's preschool told D.C. police that a preschooler claimed to have been abused by a teacher. As word of the allegations spread, the parents of more children—boys and girls, ages two to four— also came forward to say their children had been abused.
“It’s unfathomable to me that we live in a time and a place
where he could do this to our children.”
Mother of a child at the Washington Hebrew Congregation preschool
A lawsuit was launched last year against Silverman and the pre-school. (3rd story on link)
Please go to The Daily Beast for the rest of this story
Many Muslims are still in denial about sexual abuse
Amina Lone
The Times
Britain's Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in religious organisations and settings has sensibly widened its scope to include most forms of religious practice in the UK. Islam is the country’s second-largest religion, with more than three million adherents, nearly 40 per cent of them under 25 years old.
The problem is that discussion of sexual acts is taboo within a majority of Islamic culture and practice. Sex education is frowned upon in schools; open discussions about male and female body parts, sex outside marriage and birth control are discouraged.
Islam places great importance on the need to have children, and to raise them in a moral and protective environment. Family life is seen as the foundation of faith. The 18th chapter of the Koran states: “Wealth and children are an ornament of the life of the world. But the good deeds which endure are better in thy Lord’s sight for reward and better in respect of hope.”
To understand Islam one needs to understand the reverence for family structure and duty. It is widely considered a Muslim parent’s duty to teach their children about Islam and, to fulfil this, many send their children to mosque to learn to read and recite the Koran. A famous hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad — “Paradise lies at the feet of your mother” — shows the respect that children are expected to show their parents; children should obey and honour their parents, for they know best. The toxic mix of religious power, coercion and taboos make ripe ground for sexual predators. Questioning is discouraged and, for some, can be seen akin to blasphemy.
The recent reporting of sexual assaults in madrassas in Pakistan is typical. None of the sexual-abuse cases on which I have advised had been reported to the authorities. One perpetrator fled abroad, one was taken back in and another shunned by their community.
Mohammed Haji Saddique, the Cardiff-based cleric convicted of 14 sexual offences in 2017, based on the testimonies of four courageous victims, was given a full Islamic funeral service in the mosque where the crimes took place. The survivors were vilified and shunned by their communities. This case exemplifies the denial surrounding sexual abuse within Muslim communities. With no central religious authority, power is localised. Is it any wonder that survivors rarely come forward?
We need a reformist human rights and child-centred approach to reinterpreting Islamic texts. Change is possible. Muslims are encouraged to follow the Prophet’s example. Islamic institutions could come together and explicitly contextualise the Prophet’s marriage to Aisha — widely believed to be a child under 16 — as culturally acceptable in the 7th century, but it is not to be encouraged in the 21st century.
Aisha was 6 when Mohammed married her, and 9 when the marriage was consummated.
Instead, a 2016 Unicef report, co-authored with Al-Azhar University in Cairo, states: “In the absence of familial care, youth and adolescents, whether on purpose or not, could slide into the wasteland of sexual images and films, magazines and websites that circulate shameful pictures. This could lead to the sexual abuse of children. Islam encourages youth and adolescents to fill their free time with beneficial activities that protect them from deviant behaviour.”
There is another hadith attributed to the Prophet: “Whosoever of you sees evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then with his tongue; and if he is unable to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.” That is the Islamic example I grew up with, social justice being the essence of my Islam.
The damage done to victims from abusers in religious settings is life-changing in its impact.
The blurring of boundaries, the abuse of trust under the guise of God, is the ultimate sin. For if Allah cannot protect you, who will?
Interesting piece, but it leaves out the attitude many Muslims have about non-Muslims. Search this blog for Pakistan and you will find dozens of stories, each one more horrifying than the other. Many involve children who are Muslim, many are Hindu or Christian. The brutality is often astonishing. Pakistan is arguably, the most Muslim country in the world.
In Britain, thousands of British girls have been, and, are being, sexually abused, gang-raped, threatened and even murdered by almost entirely Pakistani men. It's not because they left their faith behind in Pakistan, but because they take the Quran literally when it quotes Mohammed as giving permission to any Muslim to do as he likes with any non-Muslim girl under his power, regardless of age. It appears they interpret 'in your right hand' or 'under your power' as meaning anyone who gets into your car, enters a room with you, drinks your alcohol, or uses your drugs, as being under their power. Consequently, thousands, and possibly tens of thousands of young, white, British girls have been horribly abused, and Muslims don't see this as any obstacle to getting to Heaven, in fact, they see it as their duty in the furtherance of Islam, and for their eternal benefit.
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