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| Fred King, the designated "Prophet" of the Church of Jesus Christ Restored. (Willy Waterton/QMI Agency) |
A Mississauga printing company linked to a cult-like church being investigated by the OPP on allegations of polygamy and underage sex has been doing work for years for the Dufferin-Peel District Catholic School Board, the Toronto Sun has learned.
TriPrint Media is one of 15 current pre-qualified vendors on the board’s list for printing services and has been used in the past as well, confirms spokesman Bruce Campbell. But he stopped short of saying that the Catholic school board will no longer be using the company.
“We recently became aware of the controversy related to the company. We are, of course, not obligated to use any one vendor on the pre-qualified list,” he said.
A member of the printing industry who has done business with TriPrint Media for years said colleagues were horrified when they read the Toronto Sun story Friday and watched a W5 documentary about the Church of Jesus Christ Restored and their printing company run by Joe King, brother of the church’s self-proclaimed Prophet, Fred.
“As a collective group we’re shocked and horrified,” said the print broker, who requested anonymity. “The school board is their biggest account. We anonymously mailed them a copy of the W5 video last week. I don’t think the Catholic District School Board wants to be associated with these people. As a taxpayer, I certainly don’t.”
The woman now blowing the whistle on the church couldn’t agree more. “I don’t think anybody should be doing business with them,” said former “church-wife” Carol Christie, 59.
The OPP are in the initial stages of investigating claims she and other former members have made about physical and sexual abuse committed by the church and its leader. Several attempts to reach TriPrint Media and the Kings for comment were not returned.
In 1969, the church broke away from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints in Owen Sound after Stan King became dissatisfied with how it was straying from fundamentalist Mormon teachings. The married charismatic leader installed himself as the Prophet and at 18, Christie was told by her mother that she would be one of his “church wives” — even though he was 24 years older.
At about the same time, the secretive Mormon sect, based at a former bankrupt ski lodge outside Owen Sound, established a printing business in Mississauga known then as Resto Graphics where many members were expected to work.
Christie would have two sons with King, who took more wives, some as young as 10, and ordered them to participate in group sex. When he died in 1986, Christie thought she was free. Instead, she was simply passed to his successor, his legitimate son, Fred, who she claims had the same taste for child brides but ran the church with a far more brutal hand.
She finally fled in 2008 and two years later launched a lawsuit against the church, Resto Graphics, as well as owners Fred and Joe King. “Resto and the church were inextricably entwined in the minds and lives of the members of the church,” Christie claimed in her lawsuit. “The plural wives of Stanley and Fred were taught by such persons and by Joe that the work performed to benefit Resto was in turn intended to benefit, build up and edify the Church and its assets and material interests.”
As one of Fred’s seven wives, she alleged she was subject to “coercive and abusive sexual relations” and “forcible confinement”, assaults, threats and emotional abuse.
While the Kings denied all her allegations in their statement of defence, the lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. So, too, were five others launched by former members of the church.
A short time later, Resto Graphics changed its name to TriPrint Media. Among their employees is Christie’s youngest son who refused to come with her when she finally broke free of the church after almost 40 years under its control.
“You’re blackmailed that if you leave, you go to hell,” she explained. “Fear is a very powerful thing that keeps you there. You’re taught the world is an evil place.”
When the true evil may be what’s going on inside.
source: Toronto Sun
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