|
In Reply to: Ricky posted by remembrance on February 26, 2005 at 10:16:49:
Dear Remembrance,
You have covered so much ground in your post that it’s hard to know where to begin. But first of all, I never received any hush money from the Family. I did go on record as saying that I understood and do not condemn Ricky Rodriguez for demanding money from his mother. I still stand by that. I don’t think Ricky accepting money was the same as someone accepting “hush money.” Ricky demanded money, it was his own mother, and it was the very least she could do. And he did speak out later and expose what he knew anyway.
I would like to echo your thought, though. If anyone HAS received money in the past from the Family with the tacit understanding that “we’re giving you this to you to keep you friendly,” that that ex-member should now speak out. Mother Eve is an example that comes to mind and you are probably right that there are others.
You mentioned Yvonne on is still waiting to hear from me. On MovingOn she said that I once looked lasciviously at her at the HCS (Heavenly City School) in Japan. I honestly have no idea who Yvonne is and told her that and said that if I owed her an apology I certainly wanted to give it. I invited her to e-mail me at but to date I haven’t heard from her. Are you in contact with her? If so, please tell her to write me. I welcome her e-mail and if I have offended her personally, though I don’t recall doing so, I want to apologize. As you will recall, it was Yvonne’s post that spurred me to do something that I had been considering doing for a long time, writing a general apology to SGs on Moving on for my complicity in WS. See ‘My Apology & Accounting’ http://movingon.org/article.asp?sID=1&Cat=21&ID=2200
Yes, the suffering of 10,000 SGs in the Family, who were hurt as a result of Family polices that I personally helped work on, DOES matter to me! I will never live that down. Not a single day goes by without me feeling the justly-deserved condemnation for my participation. I am thankful for the gracious comments by many SGs on MovingOn who said they appreciated me posting what I did, but that still doesn’t take away the sting or the personal reproach for what I was part of.
You talked about my “Open Letter” and by that I believe you mean my “Open Letter to Family Members in Argentina,” where I apologized to Family members hurt in the raids. I still believe that sweeping raids like that are not the answer, and I still regret that innocent Family members were hurt along with the guilty. However, I should have stuck to a simple apology and not gone on to denounce the police and make myself look good by contrast. Yes, you are right that I am guilty of self-righteously denouncing people like Hugo Gabutti for his part only to later learn that he had less of a role than I had thought. I later had to eat some of my words and apologize. I made stupid mistakes in that apology. I was so ignorant for example that posters like Peter Frouman had to clue me in to the fact that the original case had begun over the kidnapping of a Frouman child. There WAS an original real reason for the case there, though I don’t think that sweeping raids were the answer. And even Eduardo Lause, may he rest in peace, later told Family members who had been hurt that they had a legitimate right to seek legal recourse, and I should have stuck to a simple apology instead of going on and on about matters that didn’t need to be mentioned. For that I am truly sorry.
You said that point of your writing was to ask, “Ricky kept silence about many aspects of his life within the Family and died; Richard Dupuy was outspoken and also died and I wonder, what’’s going on? What kind of help and backing did Ricky receive from James Penn? ¡¡None! Did Ed Priebe help Richard Dupuy in any way? ¡¡No! What did they do for both victims? I would very much appreciate an answer to these questions. Would somebody come into the open and spell it out, clearly and loudly?”
James Penn can answer for himself as to how he helped Ricky, but I can tell you that if you check Ricky Rodriguez’s official website on MovingOn, you will see copies of e-mails between Ricky and James and know that James was indeed in contact with Ricky and helped him all he could. Many others, SGs especially, but also FGs like Anneke in San Diego, helped Ricky, but in the end Ricky made his own choice.
You asked what I did to help Rick Dupuy. Looking back, yes, I could have done more to help him. I did write him and phone him and phoned his parents and was in contact with Rick and to the very end he counted me as a friend, but I simply did not know that he was seriously thinking about suicide. There are others you can ask who know more about Rick than me. Please give an e-mail address and maybe someone can contact you.
Ed
