Former Jehovah's Witnesses elder who alleges his daughter was molested at his congregation says he was so 'indoctrinated' he didn't report it

• A former Jehovah's Witnesses elder told the AP he was "indoctrinated" by the religion.
• Martin Haugh said his daughter was molested at his congregation, but he was told not to report it.

A former Jehovah's Witnesses elder told the AP he was "indoctrinated" by the religion, and it stopped him from speaking out when he said his daughter was molested by a fellow church member.

Martin Haugh's comments come as a Pennsylvania Grand Jury approved a comprehensive probe into child sex abuse within the Jehovah's Witnesses movement.

Haugh told the AP that his daughter was molested at his congregation in 2005 by a known child abuser, but he was "encouraged" not to report it to authorities.

He said that when he discussed it with elders, they said: "Do you really want to bring reproach on Jehovah's name?"

When he later became an elder, Haugh discovered that there were four other cases of child sex abuse within his congregation that were swept under the rug, he told the AP.

Haugh, who comes from several generations of Jehovah's Witnesses, eventually left the church in 2016

"I just wish I would have done more back then," he said in a video interview.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry announced presentments in February against five Jehovah's Witnesses suspected of sexual abuse against children.

Henry said that "some of these defendants even used their faith communities to prey upon the victims, and others had to look no further than their own families."

Robert Ostrander, 57, one of those accused in the investigation, denied all the charges against him, defense lawyer Dan Kiss said.

Kiss said it seemed to be an attack on the accused parties' religion.

"You have all these Jehovah's Witnesses getting charged with some sort of inappropriate behavior. I'm hoping that this is not the attorney general's office piling on due to their religious beliefs," he said.

Brett Hambright, a spokesperson for the state attorney general's office, responded to Kiss' comments by saying the charging documents "articulate incidents where defendants used their positions of authority within Jehovah's Witnesses congregations to build trust with children who they later abused," the AP reported.