Stephen Wootten - Press Statement
November 7, 2001
- After all charges were dropped
When I left the State of Vermont with my sons in September of
1989, 12 and a half years ago, I did so as their sole legal custodian.
Nathan was 10. Seth was 6.
On the 5th September that year, a Family Court Judge
in Essex Co. refused to consider my sincere pleas that visitation
between the boys and their mother desperately needed supervision.
I had made it crystal clear to the Court that I had to have the
assurance that their mother, Laurie Johnson, wasn’t a carrier
of the HIV Virus.
After Laurie’s previous desertion of our family when the
boys were only 4 and 8 years old, she engaged in an extremely
dangerous sexual lifestyle for 8 months. By her own admission,
Laurie’s sexually immoral exploits included 19 different
men. With her full awareness, one of these men she was sexually
involved with was dying of full-blown AIDS. And it was unprotected
sexual activity. She then continued bringing risk to the other
men that followed.
After returning to our family and to the Community in Island
Pond, Laurie didn’t divulge her dangerously risky sexual
involvements for 6 prior months. When things finally came to light,
she refused to be tested for AIDS which was offered as a first
step toward the possibilility of reconciliation. Rejecting this
provision, she left the boys and me.
Within months, she initiated divorce and visitation proceedings.
In my answer to the Court, I didn’t contest the divorce but
made it clear that the only visits I could allow Laurie with my
sons were supervised visits.
As mentioned earlier, my pleas to the Court were not given any
consideration and went unheeded regardless of the degree of her
unfaithfulness and untrustworthiness. Not knowing where I could
then turn, I followed my conscience as the sole legal custodian
of Nathan and Seth, and for their safety and welfare, I left.
Shortly following my departure with the boys, Laurie and her
lawyer Jan Paul, went to the Essex Co. Courthouse notifying the
Court that I failed to provide her visitation and was no longer
able to be reached. Her lawyer attempted to convince the Judge,
John Meaker, that if he would transfer custody to Laurie, then
Law Enforcement was ready to charge me with the felony of custodial
interference. Judge Meaker temporarily transferred custody to
Laurie because I didn’t attend the hearing, but understanding
the law, the Judge made it clear that my denial of her visitation
rights didn’t meet the crime they were looking to have me
charged with.
Portraying herself a victim, my ex-wife and her attorney persuaded
the later Judge Fisher into signing an arrest warrant for the
felony charge of custodial interference. Judge Meaker knew there
wasn’t probable cause for a felony because I was the custodial
parent when I left.
In the years to follow, while I attempted to raise my sons amidst
extremely difficult circumstances to keep them protected, Laurie
and her lawyer, Jan Paul, and her allies resorted to a wide assortment
of measures aimed at gaining sympathy and discrediting the legitimacy
of my faith while making me appear as a fugitive and cult member.
One of these measures was to stage raids on various Twelve Tribes
Communities - similar to the one in Island Pond in 1984, which
the late Honorable Judge Mahady noted was the grossest act of
injustice against children since Herod the Great.
Media sources, both famous and obscure, were used to generate
sympathy for my ex-wife’s supposed plight as a victimized
mother of children held captive by their father – a "cult
member." For instance, talk show host Jerry Springer was
engaged by my ex-wife to use his mainstream popularity to sensationalize
and stir up the fears and prejudices of the ignorant and misinformed
public. In an effort to cover up her own accountability as a grossly
negligent mother, Laurie gladly used Mr. Springer’s tactics
to gain sympathy for herself and portray me as the villain on
national TV. Mr. Springer was only one of many who were used to
arouse suspicion and anatagonism. Another prime time media personality
went so far as to say "that the twelve tribes were worse
than Satanists…"
All these maneuvers were very successful at shifting the focus
away from the real issue.
In March of 1997, I was apprehended and arrested at my residence
in Havana, Florida by the FBI. Nathan and Seth, who were then
ages 17 & 14, were given to the Department of Social Services
who placed them in a detention center for three days, as if they
needed to be jailed as criminals. The actual purpose for their
detention was simply to keep them off limits in order to assure
their upcoming sessions with the so-called "cult experts"
– who would be later portrayed to the courts as mere "counselors."
My sons spoke privately in chambers with a local Family Court
Judge in Gadsen County, FL. They explained their realistic fears
of living with the mother who had abandoned them. My sons expressed
their desire to continue to live with me. The Judge noticed that
it was obvious that the boys were healthy, intelligent and sociable.
Laurie flew in from New York to get the boys. The judge was in
no hurry to turn the boys over to her. He mentioned that after
speaking with them that she needed to get an AIDS test. Her reply
was that she had already taken 7 tests. Therefore, the judge handed
the boys over to her. She spoke of how she would have them "counseled"
— a word that connotes "advice," "counsel,"
"guidance."
The man she chose, Rick Ross, is the one most responsible for
fostering the suspicion and antagonism that fueled federal officials
– culminating in the disaster at the Branch Davidian compound
in Waco, TX. An FBI interview report from the time period of the
infamous Waco tragedy includes the note that Rick Ross has a "personal
hatred for all religious cults" and would willingly aid law
enforcement in an attempt to "destroy a cult." When
my sons were taken to New York, they were subjected to this man’s
coercive tactics of slander and lies day and night for over a
week.
This was anything but "counseling." It was actually
coercion and manipulation on children in the formative and impressionable
years of their youth. This was all done in an attempt to turn
them against me and their own faith. Was this "deprogramming"
or was it "brainwashing," the very thing that their
mother was accusing the Twelve Tribes of doing?
When these deprogrammers saw the bond between my sons and I,
they rather cleverly decided it would not be wise to say anything
directly against me. Instead, they portrayed me as the victim
of an evil, mind-control cult. They were accosted into believing
that my decisions regarding their life were not based on conviction
in my conscience, but on the control of the abusive authority
of a "cult," as if I too was under the persuasive sway
of men like David Koresh or Jim Jones.
She’s had the audacity to request the court to require me
to pay the fees of these so-called "expert counselors,"
which in fact is at the very root of what has separated my sons
from me for the past four and a half years. My sons were pressured
and confused into thinking that I had been brainwashed and that
everything that had happened to them was to be blamed on the Twelve
Tribes Communities. This kept the focus off Laurie’s responsibility
in the destruction of our family, and the agony of separating
my sons from the life they used to love in the community.
Meanwhile, my bail was raised to $750,000, which was more than
a defendant who had been arrested for the murder of a NH Policeman.
Jan Paul convinced the judge, while I was locked up in Florida,
that the high bail was necessary because she feared that my church
would otherwise raise the money and get me out. She was working
for her former client to make sure that there would be no disruption
in the efforts to deprogram Nathan and Seth.
This same lawyer later had me arraigned a second time, alleging
I had violated the conditions of my release by writing a letter
to my boys, asking them if they had caught any fish. Judge Wright
threw out the charge, realizing its absurdity.
In December of 1998, after a year and a half in court, the case
against me was dismissed by Judge John Meaker for lack of jurisdiction
on the part of the State. He was the same judge who refused to
sign the arrest warrant back in 1989. Within days, his decision
was appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court. The appeal of the Attorney
General’s Office was supposed to have revealed if there had
been an error of law made by Judge Meaker in my dismissal.
Instead, The High Court heard an emotional appeal from the State,
all of which was based on lies from Laurie. In writing her opinion,
Supreme Court Justice Johnson in effect rewrote the law concerning
jurisdiction in cases like this and then applied it to me retroactively
– overturning Judge Meaker’s dismissal of the case.
The High Court ignored the lawfully sound decision of Judge Meaker,
failing to find one legal mistake in his dismissal. The case was
sent back to Essex County to be tried by a jury.
After 4 and a half years of defending myself against erroneous
charges, the Attorney General’s Office came with an offer
to plead "No Lo Contendre" (meaning No Contest). Persuaded
of my innocence, I declined the offer. Shortly thereafter I received
another offer. Rather than pleading no contest to the felony charge
of custodial interference, I was given the offer to accept a misdemeanor
charge for failure to provide visitation to my ex-wife.
After being separated and alienated from my sons, put in jail
for three months with a $750,000 bail placed over me, all because
of the supposed dangerous nature of my charges and my alleged
deviant and untrustworthy behaviour towards law enforcement –
and after 3 and a half years of the Attorney General’s Office’s
dogged pursuit of a conviction, which included an appeal to the
Vermont Supreme Court and the efforts of Essex County State’s
Attorney Office pursuit of 9 years, and just prior to my long-awaited
opportunity to tell my story to a jury of my peers — all
of the sudden the State without explanation has quietly maneuvered
to dismiss the charges.
I’m reminded of Mark Twain, who said the following:
"A lie travels half way around the world before the truth
gets its boots on."
This is my story. It’s always been my story.
I am very glad that eventually the truth will catch up, and as
another wise man said:
"There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed."
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