page 2 Ukiah Daily Journal, Ukiah, Calif, Friday March 9, 1979

page 2 Ukiah Daily Journal, Ukiah, Calif, Friday March 9, 1979

Temple
Cont from page 1

Said Dewey, "We do not believe that any children were placed from this county in Temple foster homes ___ but we're waiting to substantiate that. Our best evidence over the last two years is ___."

A "few" children placed here by other counties, he added, may have died in Jonestown.

Dewey said his department didn't place children in temple foster homes because it believed they would not have "freedom of choice" in "religious training."

"We can't even count on one hand - over ten years - where we placed a kid in one of those S____ homes of theirs," said the welfare director. "Maybe we might have put one in for a day or two until we could find a place - because we had to put a kid where there was a bed - but we here didn't place them."

Asked what the department's policy was, Dewey _____, "I'm saying our referral procedure was never to sue any of their homes."

Because the department kept a close watch on foster children placed in homes it ____?screened? temple members increasingly opted for legal guardianship, a tactic which removed them from social services jurisdiction.

Dewey said temple members became legal guardians to __ children in Mendocino, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa and Los Angeles Counties.

Four of the seven children in Mendocino County guardianships died at Jonestown, according to Dewey, who said three children from Bay Area guardianships also died there.

Dewy said the four dead youngsters from local guardianships did not come from here originally, but just where they came from remains a mystery.

He would not release the names of children involved in temple guardianships, saying they were confidential on orders from Mendocino County District Attorney Joe A____ and the U.S. General accounting office, which is investigating foster child placement and the temple.

Former Mendocino County Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen said temple attorney Eugene Chaikin did the legal work for temple guardianships in Mendocino County, according to Dewey, who ?mentioned? but didn't reveal "documentation" supporting his assertion.

Dewey also said? James? Sc___? pf ___ had placed here approximately 120? foster children who were "in and out" of licensed and unlicensed homes between 19__ and 1977?

More than 200? of the imported youngsters were from the bay Area and Los Angeles, living illegally with temple families not licensed to have them, alleged Dewey who recalled "We then were asking those jurisdictions in the Bay Area what was going on and why they were placing those kids here without our authority."

When social services discovered children in unlicensed temple homes, it forced Jones to send them back to where they had come from, he said.

Dewy declined to name Bay Area probation officers and social workers who were sending foster youngsters to licensed or unlicensed temple homes here.

Although People's Temple didn't include child abuse in the report___ ___ twisted behavior that led to Jones ____, some of its members allegedly practiced it at home in ways ranging from beatings to sexual molestation, according to the social services director.

Dewey, who could not "hazard a guess" as to the total number of Chile protective Service cases involving temple adults, said that in five of the cases, Jones or his aides intervened on behalf of the accused and hired the "best" attorneys for them.

The cases are not public record, said Dewey, declining to name the "best" attorneys.

Nevertheless, parents who were temple members committed no more child abuse than members of any other...

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...religious group, said Dewey whose department monitored the temple very closely for violations against children.

Neither informants nor anyone else, said Dewey, reported child abuse or batterings at temple meetings. "We ?never?," he said. "went to the temple and saw a kid that had been beaten in the temple - never happened, never happened."

Relying? on reports from ex-members and informants, Dewey said that what took place at the temple was "at least: paddling and usually the paddling of adults.

Even though social services didn't make ____life easy? ____ for Jones in Mendocino County, Dewey said Jones left the area mostly because of the income, power and ___ rewards big cities offered.

"I think he had to broaden his base, he had to get to San Francisco, and set up a base there where he could control the political environment..."

"I don't think he did that up here, I didn't see it then, and I'm not seeing it in retrospect now."

According to Dewey, controlling the political environment largely ___ manipulating politicians by showing an ability to produce =votes for or against them, and "as the arena down south that's an acceptable practice."

Outside Tim Stoen, Dewey didn't think Jones controlled powerful people in Mendocino County, nor did Dewey have any evidence to show Jones controlled public agencies like the Ukiah Police Department or the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.

Were Dewey's efforts to stop Jones from breaking welfare law in Mendocino a success?

"He survived," said Dewey, "I'm questioning the success. You can always do better. We did as good a job as we could at the time - I'm convinced of that, yes."

Life seems quaint now at the Mendocino County Social Services Department.

Welfare applicants sit in a tiny waiting area with a ____

Venetian blinds cleave the sunlight of a winter afternoon.

Behind a tall partition shutting out the waiting area, department staffers go about their well-oiled business in the ____ and p____ ____.

Dennis Dewey is working another ?endless? day.

He has a lot to do this month, sending the Mendocino County Grand Jury information about the man who again permeates his life, about the war? that was ___ and cold, the success of internal security, the way he could admire Jones' charisma and detest his duplicity.

Dewey may one day testify before the grand jurors, who no doubt will listen to his story of his war against apocalypse with a measure of awe, humility and gratitude - and perhaps with some perplexity over what measures government should take to curb a religion's abuse of freedom.