CHARGES HELD AGAINST LOWER BURRELL MAN

Charges were held against a Lower Burrell man who is accused of being involved with child sexual abuse among the Jehovah’s Witness community.  The Trib reports that the state attorney general’s office charged 69-year-old Ronald Mangone with aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault and other crimes.  The victim, who is now 38 years old, said that Mangone sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions when she was between five and eight years of age.  Mangone’s arrest is part of an ongoing grand jury probe of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Some say Jehovah’s Witnesses elders have treated child sexual abuse as a sin rather than a crime, and documented incidents in internal files instead of reporting them to authorities.  The church has officially rejected those claims.