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The Prophet Who Raises The Dead
One of the first exposés of the People's Temple - The first of Les Kinsolving's series from 1972... Tim Stoen plays a prominent role. I had read about these but not yet read them...
Excerpt:
"...He (Jim Jones) has stated to his flock:
“We have won over the sheriff’s office and the police department.”
He has certainly won over the assistant prosecuting attorney of Mendocino County, Timothy O. Stoen-—who is one of the Rev. Mr. Jones’s five assistants, a member of the Temple’s board of directors—-the man who claims “over 40” resurrections for The Prophet.
... There is little question of The Prophet’s influence on the Ukiah Daily Journal—for when The Examiner inquired about the People’s Temple and its charismatic pastor some months ago, Journal editor George Hunter immediately reported the inquiry to the office of prosecuting attorney.
‘Jim, The Prophet’
Thus relaying the news to the precincts of Timothy O. Stoen, assistant prosecuting attorney and assistant to The Prophet. Stoen promptly wrote to The Examiner to say, among other things, the Rev. Mr. Jones “goes by the self-effacing title of ‘Jim Jones.’”
Subsequently, Stoen explained that “our church bulletin writers are somewhat zealous”—but that’s the way they see it.”Stoen seems enthusiastic himself, though he prefers to call The Prophet just plain “Jim.” Here is an excerpt from a Stoen letter to The Examiner received five days ago:
“Jim has been the means by which more than 40 persons have literally been brought back from the dead this year. When I first came into the church, I was the conventional skeptic about such things. But I must be honest:
“I have seen Jim revive people stiff as a board, tongues hanging out, eyes set, skin graying, and all vital signs absent. Don’t ask me how it happens. It just does.
“Jim will go up to such a person and say something like, ‘I love you’ or ‘I need you’ and immediately the vital signs reappear. He feels such a person can feel love in his subconscious even after dying.
“Jim is very humble about his gift and does not preach it.” As a matter of fact, Stoen writes, “The Prophet eschews publicity.”
Additional Powers:
[Stoen continued] “Whenever there is publicity, the extremists seem to show themselves. Jim has simply been hurt enough….Jim Jones is NOT concerned for his own safety. His real concern is to prevent harm to his children and others in his church family who might be hurt for what he himself has stood for…” The Temple’s newsletter, however, is not the least bit shy about publicizing either his power to bring back the dead or his “additional powers.”...
It is still hard to beleive that a certified nutcase like Stoen was ever selected as the assistant DA for Humboldt County.
ReplyDeleteAnd that so many were willing to overlook his sins because he was now serving their purpose.
ReplyDeleteTim Stoen has not changed. He is still the same devious personality that he was as he coached Jim Jones. He proved it here in Humboldt County.
So with Tim Stoen the person he is and has been why did Paul Gallegos select and hire him as the Assistant DA ?
ReplyDeletePaul's "mentors" were Terence 'fire them all, let god sort them out'Hallinan from SF and Norm "felon, gun nut" Vroman from Mendo. Stoen was in Mendo, and Vroman loaned him to PVG to be Paul's right hand amongst the "untrustworthy" DDA's, whom Paul had just praised as deserving of job protection in his first campaign. Not a theme he returned to recently. Firing is fun!!!. Stoen arrives, trailing clouds of Koolaid, and immediately filed the Palco suit. What a coincidence. Once a cultist zealot loonie, always a cultist zealot loonie. Likes young girls, though, so he can't be all bad. Can he?
ReplyDeleteRobin - check your facts.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes - the kool aid jokes are funny - sick but funny...
Felons can vote in this country. Just not if you are incarcerated in a State Prison or on active parole. Convicted felons in general, including those on formal felony probation can in fact vote.
ReplyDeleteRobin you may be right, probably are, about the misdemeanor/felony issue. But he did go to jail for some kind of tax fraud. What kind of community would elect that kind of person to the position of district attorney ? A community that wants a criminal deciding who will be charged with a crime ? Even Paul Gallegos has never been convicted of a misd. or done time in jail ! Gallegos never bought machine guns and silencers for the DA's office either.
ReplyDeleteSick, twisted, or whatever Stoen earned the Koolaid jokes. And anyone that would hire Stoen as a Deputy DA is an irresponsible public official lacking integrity and/or ethics. That includes Vroman and Gallegos. But that's just my opinion.
I'm pretty sure that it wasn't koolaid, but I haven't seen that big red dude around lately.
ReplyDeleteHeraldo took a dose of abuse like some asshole gave to Rose awhile back so he changed his blog mid stream to no annonymous posters.
ReplyDeleteWhat a coward. He is spinless. I love it !! Heraldo is a weenie.
Heraldo shuts down his blog today. So sad. You had a good run going fuckhead.
ReplyDeleteHe's removed all comments as well.
ReplyDeleteCan't stand the heat, you best not turn up the heater.
Actually, it is pretty ironic, that the nutjobs attack Rose with hundreds of insulting spam blogs and someone turned it against them. Pretty ironic and pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that all those people died, even the ones that were brainwashed and did it voluntarily. That is true, but Stoen has that dirt/guilt/responsibility at his feet and we should not forget it. Nor forget that Paul Gallegos "handpicked" him to run amuk in Humboldt County.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct robin, it was flavorade not Kool-Aid. Yet Kool Aid is one with Jonestown. I wonder why they haven't sued over that.
ReplyDeleteThank God for Tom Kinsolving. I understand your points Robin, and I agree. Please understand that there are some of us who have been brutalized by Stoen. That still today, he holds such a powerful office is unthinkable. Worse still, is that there are those who don't know who he. Who may still be brutalized by him and the power he holds. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and yet he continues. Why?
ReplyDeleteRest assured, Robin is no fan of Stoen's. She is one who has been speaking out for years, and her words still hold true today:
ReplyDeleteStoen’s Past is Too Checkered For Me
To the Editor:
When reading the letters supporting Tim Stoen’s candidacy for 1st District Assemblyman, don’t forget that Stoen was People’s Temple cult leader Jim Jones’ right-hand-man. He worked for the Mendocino County District Attorney’s office then, too, and he proved to the people whom he was paid and sworn to represent and protect that we were not among his priorities.
Before Stoen took the job, he wrote a letter to Jones asking which position he should take in the DA’s office in order to best serve Jones and the church, and he was known to walk out of meetings when summoned by Jones. He arranged the transfer of money, land, houses, businesses and children of church members to Jones and his hierarchy and he hid money for Jones and the church in foreign bank accounts. He denied knowledge of wrongdoing or suspicious activity by Jones or the church when questioned by his colleagues in local law enforcement even when he was aware of threats, physical abuse, suicide drills and God only knows what else.
Stoen told the press he had witnessed Jones raise the dead, and when the press became more interested in Jones, Stoen and the People’s Temple, he helped plan the move to Guyana. Stoen was arrogant and self-serving enough to believe that he was so revered by and necessary to Jones that he and his family would be spared. He didn’t blow the whistle until he realized he might be in physical danger himself, but that was not until after moving to Guyana which was too near the end to be of any real help.
Until then Stoen was perfectly happy to help Jones fleece the flock, as it were, and even went so far as to "give" his wife and son to Jones. His values might be cheap but I understand that people with these kinds of ethics are sometimes paid extremely well. To place full blame for the Jonestown tragedy on Stoen might not be completely fair, but the fact remains that many lives in addition to his own, including that of his son, might have been saved had Stoen decided to let his conscience bother him before he headed south.
When Stoen’s supporters try to defend his past actions as those of an idealistic youth in search of utopia, remember that at the time Stoen was over 30 years old with a degree from Stanford and license to practice law in California. He had already worked for the Mendocino County District Attorney’s office once before and had a private practice in the Bay Area. (His teenage bride, Grace, fresh out of high school then, could be accused of youthful idealism but she was at least intelligent enough to leave Stoen and the Temple while very young.) It’s hard to believe that someone with Stoen’s extensive education and experience could have been duped by Jones, but if he was taken then that is reason enough not to put him in any position of responsibility.
Stoen has said in recent years that he has repented, found a new religion, is sorry and seeks forgiveness from the people he wronged. Apparently he intends to do this at taxpayer expense as he seems determined to have a publicly funded job. Stoen ran for Congress as a Republican, for Senate as a Democrat (and was soundly rejected by the people of California both times), works for the so-called liberal Norm Vroman [Mendo DA – RB] and is now running for State Assembly as a Republican again. His political flip-flops paint a picture of man no more grounded or any less desperate than the one who worshipped and aided Jim Jones.
If Stoen truly wanted to do right by the people whose lives and history he helped to so seriously and permanently mar, he would remove himself from the public payroll and stop haunting our ballots. Religious zealots and con men (and the District Attorneys who hire them) do not make good public representatives no matter how sorry they are for past scams and sins.
Robin Shelley, Laytonville
(From the Mendocino Coast Observer, Feb. 2, 2002.)
yes Robin ! wise words.
ReplyDeleteYou have to question WHY did Gallegos select such man to be his #2 ? What can that say about Gallegos' judgement and tought process ? I'm still shocked and amazed. Then after he messes up the works in Humboldt Vroman takes him back ? The man has been an attorney for 30 years ? And has never won a jury trial.
Stoen never cared about winning jury trials. He did his evil deeds by using the press to destroy his victims. The press has always been his allies. He is able to use then, bend them to do his dirty work. He used them in Mendocino to destroy those who tried to speak out against his leader Jim Jones and he used them while he was here in Humboldt to destroy those who spoke out against his leader Gallegos. He should not be licensed to practice anything in this country. He should be resting next to his murdered son. The son he left with Jim Jones knowing full well what the outcome would be. He is grievious. A monster.
ReplyDeletehere here
ReplyDeleteCheck Fred;s blog
ReplyDeleteSounds like Hank knows who Heraldo is.
Some pretty big clues there.
One might conclude you were talking Healthy and Help? Hank?
Boy, that won't do much for Mark Lovelace's nice-guy image.
IMHO
Once again, we see that the Humboldt voters and non voters got the government they deserve.
ReplyDeleteAnd, instead of ending every post with
ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendum
I end with
What's more, it's my opinion we really ought to find out what's going on with CAST these days.
Mark Lovelace never had a nice guy image with me. A fake, an AH.
ReplyDeleteThe clasic little man syndrom. Bitter as hell behind the payed for smiles and double/double talk.
ReplyDelete