[Vision2020] A Friendly Alert Re: Tony Brown

[John Wilmerding]

Dear VISION2020 subscribers,

My apologies for this intrusion -- I would not normally seek to bring my own ideas, opinions, and concerns into a list expressly dedicated to the interests of a community not my own.

However, for many years I have been extremely active in the field of Restorative Justice, including for the State of Vermont, the United Nations, the Network of Communities on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution (NCPCR), the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, and many other organizations.  This activity on my part continues under the rubric of the internet (largely plain-text email-based) Coalition for Equity-Restorative Justice (CERJ), which I founded in 1997.

As CERJ Founder and Coordinator, I was recruited about two years ago by Tony Brown (who has since moved into your community) into a liaison with what I then understood and assumed was a Quaker organization, his "FCRJ".  I subsequently found out that his organization was not what it was supposed to be, and in order to save my own reputation and that of my organization, I had to expose some of his practices within Quaker and Restorative Justice circles internationally.  This I did by widely disseminating a detailed, factual letter to Friends (Quakers) and others in early June 2002, after a lengthy and detailed investigation.

Recently another Friend (Quaker) who is active on the internet, who happens to be a skilled paralegal, and who is Clerk of a Friends Meeting in a large metropolitan area of another state, apprised me of the fact that Tony Brown has again become very Internet-active in your community, including via this list.

Muscovites, it would behoove you to engage Tony Brown with great circumspection.  I ask you to be supportive of him personally, but to be careful of your own interests at all times.

Please understand that I only write this publicly within your forum out of an abiding and long-standing concern for the Restorative Justice movement and for the Religious Society of Friends.

If you would like a copy of last year's expositive letter, please be so kind as to send me email requesting same at CERJ@igc.org.

I will also forward an invitation to join the very busy CERJ email list which I have operated for nearly eight years now.

Again, sorry for the intrusion, but this is meant as a 'heads-up' which could quite possibly spare you some considerable grief and confusion later on.

Yours most sincerely,

John V. Wilmerding <wilmerding@earthlink.net>
Founder and Convener
Coalition for Equity-Restorative Justice (CERJ)
Brattleboro, VT 05301-6073
Member, Putney (VT) Friends Meeting

P.S.:  As of Summer 2002,.Margaret Coahran, Clerk of Moscow-Pullman Friends Meeting, had also been apprised of some of the details of Tony Brown's activities, and the surrounding controversies.  My last understanding was that their Friends Meeting had convened a committee of support for Tony.  I pray that this support still exists for him there.








Last year the "FCRJ" (read: Tony Brown) was exposed for having perpetrated fraud upon many people, for orchestrating a fake email 'flame war' against Friends General Conference and innocent staff members of theirs, for failing to return an unfulfilled $3,000 American Friends Service Committee grant upon request, and for inventing non-existent 'Friends' (Quakers) to serve on his 'Board' to satisfy By-Laws requirements.

Subsequent to that time, the FCRJ changed its name to CORRTJ, but Brown continues to make frequent allusions to Quakerism in his work, and publicly claimed once again in October, 2002, that he is a Friend (Quaker).

I highly doubt that Moscow-Pullman Friends Meeting has unreservedly accepted any application for membership from Tony Brown or his mother Florence Bye-Brown, especially since Tony resigned under duress from Fort Collins Friends Meeting only the year before, shortly afterwards leaving the State of Colorado (where his "non-profit organization" is registered under his name only) with $3,000 in his pocket from an American Friends Service Committee grant which was never fulfilled.  The AFSC has formally asked for that money back, by the way, and the staff member who paved the way for the grant has since resigned.

Now, on Saturday, February 22, 2003, Friend Warren Hoskins <warrenhoskins@hotmail.com>, a paralegal who is also Clerk of Miami FL Friends Meeting, and who has been following the fraudulent history of FCRJ/CORRTJ with CERJ and myself for many months now, wrote: 

Take a look at what is now posted on the Tony Brown "CORRTJ"* web site at:
http://www.fcrjquaker.org/RJWeek2003featuredpresentation.html

He is still using FCRJ -- see this in the body of his posted message at this site: "The cost for these three day trainings is three-hundred dollars (cost covers training fees exclusively).  Payment must be received in full by Saturday March 1 to secure seat in training.  The Council on Reconcilaition and Restorative and Transformative Justice is a non-profit working in partnership with FCRJ.  Please make checks payable to the Council on Reconciliation and Restorative and Transformative Justice.  Mail payments to 4600 Robinson Park Road # 113, Moscow, Idaho, 83843.  Late registration will be accepted on a space available basis.  CORRTJ is working to secure Continuing Eduction Credits, please contact us directly if you are interested in receiving credits for this training."

One could wonder what assurance there is for money sent being properly applied.  One could wonder how the "Continuing Education Credits" are going to be awarded (since most educational organizations insist on credentials for the sponsoring organizations).  One wonders about these wonderful lawyers who are trainers from New Zealand (see elsewhere on the site).  One wonders who to contact in the Moscow area about fraud.

Peace,
Warren

Warren Hoskins, Clerk, Miami Friends Meeting
Home: 12040 S.W. 187 St., Miami, FL 33177-3233
Home Telephone: (305) 253-2635
[forwards to cell phone so is usually answered]
http://miamifriends.org
http://www.seym.org

*John, do you think Tony's CORRTJ is an homage to your CERJ?  Or a thought about ripping you off a bit more?  He has three of the four letters in his acronym, not that anyone would get confused from this site. -W

On Saturday, February 22, 2003, Friend Warren Hoskins <warrenhoskins@hotmail.com> further wrote:

To: wilmerding@earthlink.net
Subject: A little bit more on "FCRJ" 

Dear John--All I have time for tonight--wish I had Google-searched "CORRTJ" sooner.  Tony Brown is getting into a lot of local stuff:
http://www.moscowfoodcoop.com/archive/justice.html

http://vision2020.moscow.com/Archives/2002/0211/msg00110.html
http://vision2020.moscow.com/Archives/2002/0210/msg00253.html

He's sucking in young people again:
http://www.argonaut.uidaho.edu/archives/100102/news6.html

He is sending info of the Ruth Morris award far afield, as a device for publicity and to get people to his web site:
http://www.charityvillage.com/archive/anew/anew02/anew0212.html

And he is using "Friends Committee for Restorative Justice" as a way to raise funds, just tacking his new organizational name onto it:
http://www.fcrjquaker.org/support.html

What a weird way to "earn a living," apparently living off of Friends and newcomers to the movement for restorative justice programs.

Peace,
Warren

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CERJ@igc.org            wilmerding@earthlink.net
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John Wilmerding, Convener and List Manager
Coalition for Equity-Restorative Justice (CERJ)
1 Chestnut Hill, Brattleboro, VT, ZIP: 05301-6073
Phone: 1-802-254-2826 | 1-802-380-0664 (cellular)
CERJ was founded in New York in May, 1997.
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"Work together to reinvent justice using methods
that are fair; that conserve, restore, and even
create harmony, equity and good will in society."
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To join (or leave) the CERJ email list, kindly send
me an email message at wilmerding@earthlink.net
or at cerj@igc.org.  I'll need your first & last name,
your email address, and your state, province or 
country of residence.  Thank you!  -- John W.
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