Defender of the faith

The Boston Globe Magazine Sally Johnson March 12, 1993 Ten years ago, Jeanie Swantko left her job as a Vermont public defender to join Island Pond’s radical community “The Twelve Tribes.”  Today, she uses her legal skills to champion for the church against its critics. Jeanie Swantko was asleep in an upstairs room in a…

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Mom seeks to save kids from cold hands of cult

The Palladium Times Andrea Schrader December 16, 1991 Scriba – A pained expression came over her face and her eyes widened and welled with tears. “I’m afraid of repercussions the church might take against my children because of what I’m doing,” she said. Laurie Marrano Jonson’s children have been missing for two years.  The Northeast…

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Vermont village accepts church once under fire

The Philadelphia Inquirer William Cockerham July 20, 1989 Island Pond, Vt. – Five years after state troopers raided a controversial church settlement in this remote village near the Canadian border and took more than 100 children into protective custody, church members have gained acceptance by longtime residents. No longer are there rumors of child abuse,…

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SECT ABUSE CHARGE DISMISSED

Source: Associated Press/ New York Times AP Published: June 13, 1985 MONTPELIER, Vt., June 12— Vermont’s last child abuse charge against a member of the Northeast Kingdom Community Church was thrown out of court today, five days before it was scheduled to go to trial. Acting Judge F. Ray Keyser of St. Johnsbury District Court…

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Children and the Cult

Source: New England Monthly/December 1984 By Barbara Grizzuti Harrison NOTES: Barbara Harrison went to Island Pond and saw this bizarre cult in its daily life, interviewing various members, and learning what it is like to face fiercely judgmental hatred. She was especially concerned for the welfare of viciously treated children. In 1971 a carnival barker…

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Nova Scotia town closes door on Vt. sect

Island Pond religious group blocked from buying property The Providence Sunday Journal July 29, 1984 Residents of a small town in Nova Scotia reportedly have banded together to keep members of a controversial communal religious sect from settling there. Members of the Northeast Kingdom Church – the group from which the police rounded up children…

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The Raid in Island Pond

In the pre-dawn hours of June 22, 1984, a swarm of police officers and social workers, with the approval of state officials all the way to the governor’s office (Governor Snelling was the governor at the time), raided the Island Pond group. They seized 112 of the group’s children and bused them to Newport with…

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