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Leah McGrath Goodman Profile picture
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20 Aug, 9 tweets, 5 min read
“Jersey is one of the most significant tax shelters in the world…If you speak up about corruption, you will have a very hard life. It’s made easy for you to do the wrong thing and your life is made very hard if you do the right things.” – Jersey Senator Stuart Syvret #UK Image
This note looks like a joke, but it is real. It was left in the letterbox of two brave Jersey politicians, Trevor Pitman (find him @bald_from) and his wife, Shona Pitman. Shona is not on Twitter, but you can follow or ask questions of Trevor on here.
Both Trevor and Shona, as politicians with the States of Jersey parliament, were fighting to address decades of child abuse issues on the island and other miscarriages of justice. For their efforts, they received horrific and anonymous threats like this one.
The island's only newspaper, @JEPnews, ran what amounted to a smear campaign on them, which they challenged in court. The island's very tiny Jersey Royal Court found against them and ordered them to pay all costs. They lost their home and were bankrupted.
The Pitmans also lost their jobs as politicians on the island of Jersey. Not because they were voted out, but because if you get bankrupted, you cannot hold office anymore. They ultimately were driven off-island, due to the threats, losses and travails they were put through.
This is what happens to popular (read: dangerous) politicians who stand up for child abuse victims, justice and human rights on the island of Jersey. And they are not the only politicians who have this happen to them. Just ask @StuartSyvret, whose quote leads this thread.
Today, @ONRECORD_App releases its joint interview with Trevor and Shona Pitman, who talk about their bizarre experiences on the island -- including how one Jersey Crown Officer (appointed by the Queen) allowed a pedophile in Jersey's Honorary Police: Image
Why does this matter? Because Jersey is a $2 trillion tax shelter. Because UK Judge Frances Oldham found children on the island are still at risk, following a years-long inquiry that ended in 2017. Because it is a beautiful island, run by an absent Queen, that deserves better. Image
Further reading on these issues throughout Jersey and UK:

newsweek.com/2015/03/13/bri…

newsweek.com/lawmakers-blas…

newsweek.com/survivors-ques…

newsweek.com/2015/11/13/los…

newsweek.com/jersey-island-…

newsweek.com/2014/01/17/ins…

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Leah McGrath Goodman Profile picture
19 Aug
The Queen's PR firm, Farrer & Co, do not like journalists asking about possible money-laundering on one of the Queen's tax shelters. They also object to journalists checking the facts with additional sources and, generally, doing journalism. One such example -- and my response.
Just another day of writing emails to @RoyalFamily's PR firm. Here is the resulting magazine story: institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1qwpn…
Read 8 tweets
Leah McGrath Goodman Profile picture
17 Aug
I see lots of coverage of the Chris Cuomo statement, but few members of the media weighing in directly, which is unfortunate. We in the media need to do a better job of explaining ourselves when we write or broadcast stories — & if there is a conflict, we must not sugarcoat it.
Received lots of calls this week from non-journalist friends asking about this situation. In journalism school, we are taught to be nonpartisan, to be objective, to not even participate in a political march or social demonstration in our free time. To be publicly neutral.
Of course, journalists have opinions. Spouses. Family members. And many of us vote, so we also have political leanings. But we’re not to bring that into our jobs. And we are vetted before we are even hired to ensure that does not happen.
Read 7 tweets
Leah McGrath Goodman Profile picture
14 Jul
Just a reminder: Ghislaine Maxwell, accused of recruiting teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein from 1994 to 2004, was slated to go to trial this week. The trial was moved to Nov to allow her more time to assemble a defense against sex-trafficking charges: apnews.com/article/nh-sta…
Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now 59 -- and is likely to turn 60 while on trial for sex-trafficking -- has been denied bail three times now. Maxwell is also under investigation by the U.S. Virgin Islands’ Justice Department in connection with Epstein's private island.
Throughout this spring and into summer, billionaires tied to Jeffrey Epstein, such as Leslie Wexner, Bill Gates and Leon Black have taken professional and reputational hits due to their associations with him (Bill Clinton is not a billionaire).
Read 8 tweets
Leah McGrath Goodman Profile picture
22 Jun
U.S. OFFICE OF THE WHISTLEBLOWER: How do you confront a billionaire who's stealing your money? What's it really like to be a Wall Street whistleblower? Inside the SEC's top-secret arm exposing the biggest financial violations in the world. My story @iimag: bit.ly/3qi5ec3
I went into this piece with so many questions, and the research process was quite challenging, because the SEC's Office of the Whistleblower is cloaked in secrecy. It does not give out whistleblower names or describe the cases it's working on -- so how to write about it?
To reach whistleblowers, I had to dig deep and reverse-engineer details from documents (many of them court cases, or corporate & government releases that let info slip out). I also had some excellent help from @kkcwhistleblower @LabatonSucharow and whistleblower @EdwardSiedle.
Read 13 tweets
Leah McGrath Goodman Profile picture
30 May
To everyone who's reaching out as a result of my appearance on @gregolear's Prevail podcast, please know your kindness and support mean the world to me. I came to Jersey island having really no idea what I would find there -- I first just went there to see friends.
But over time, I came to love the island and could not bear to see what was happening to hundreds of children there. I could not understand it. How can anyone close their eyes to the pain of children? And often, when I cannot understand something, I write about it.
In the spring of 2010, after passing in my first book, I took what little money I had left from my book advance, put all my belongings into storage, and spent the summer in Jersey and the UK researching what was going on, and why. I thought I'd be done by August -- I was wrong!
Read 15 tweets
Leah McGrath Goodman Profile picture
21 May
Anyone globally who listens to the BBC needs to hear this statement from @KensingtonRoyal and know this is the tip of the iceberg. While many people inside the BBC, like the late Liz MacKean, have worked hard to report with honesty and integrity, the organization is rotten.
Key BBC execs never took any responsibility for being complicit in pedophilia scandals spanning decades (a very good piece on it by Maureen Orth @VanityFair here): vanityfair.com/news/2013/02/b…
A years-long inquiry into BBC by Dame Janet Smith found that if an organization could be legally charged with complicity of child abuse (which the judge said it could not) then the BBC would be guilty of it. theguardian.com/media/2016/feb…
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3…
Read 7 tweets

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