Outside the Camp

“There­fore do not fear them; for there is noth­ing cov­ered over that will not become uncov­ered, and secret that will not become known. ” — Matthew 10:26

50-year-old Jesus Manuel Cano was arrested in Mid­dle­town, NY on Mon­day. As one of Jehovah’s Wit­nesses, Cano would have reg­u­larly engaged in dis­trib­ut­ing Watch­tower lit­er­a­ture how­ever on the day of his arrest Cano was pass­ing out pam­phlets that included graphic pic­tures of him­self, such as the one pic­tured to the right.

Accord­ing to Police, Cano had given the pic­tures along with his cell phone num­ber to young boys in Mid­dle­town in order to lure them into sex­ual encoun­ters. After receiv­ing one such pham­plet a boy gave it to his par­ents who imme­di­ately called the police. A police offi­cer then con­tacted Cano pos­ing as a 15-year-old boy and arranged a meet­ing where he was arrested.

Found in Cano’s car at the time of the arrest was two cold cans of beer, con­doms, and petro­leum jelly. Also dis­cov­ered were pho­tographs of boys and a shock­ing video­tape that Cano appar­ently took of men and boys using uri­nals in the Chicago O’Hare Inter­na­tional Air­port. On Cano’s per­son was an ID card ver­i­fy­ing that he was a mem­ber of Bethel, the World Head­quar­ters of Jehovah’s Wit­nesses in New York.

After­wards police con­ducted an overnight raid of Cano’s home at Bethel’s, “Watch­tower Farm” print­ery and farm facil­ity in Walkhill, NY. They were directed by Cano’s room­mate to his liv­ing area where they retrieved four com­put­ers, hun­dreds of pho­tographs, mem­ory sticks, and DVD’s includ­ing one labeled Chicago O’Hare Air­port. Police reported that it will take days to look through the thou­sands of images that have been recovered.

J.R. Brown, Orga­ni­za­tional Spokesman for Jehovah’s Wit­nesses, com­firmed that Cano was a min­is­ter of Jehovah’s Wit­nesses serv­ing as an elder at Bethel and also in the New­burg, NY con­gre­ga­tion. Cano had been a mem­ber of the Bethel fam­ily for 16-years until Mon­day when he was removed from the Bethel fam­ily and as an elder.

Police have com­mented that they now sus­pect that Cano allegedly took porno­graphic pho­tos of chil­dren while trav­el­ing through­out the US and South Amer­ica in his activ­i­ties as one of Jehovah’s Wit­nesses. Bethel elders, such as Cano, are often used as guest speak­ers at Watch­tower con­ven­tions and Wit­ness assem­bly days through­out the world. The inves­ti­ga­tion has extended to the Caribbean. Police the­o­rize the pic­tures may be part of an inter­na­tional child pornog­ra­phy ring.

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The orig­i­nal news story and news video clip can be found at CBS Chicago’s web-site: Man Allegedly Video­taped Boys In Air­port Bath­rooms — Jehovah’s Wit­ness Min­is­ter In Cus­tody In New York