Wade Medlock and Mabel Medlock v. Jim Jones, Peoples Temple, Enola Nelson, Enola Nelson Realty, Hugh Fortsyn [Hue Fortson], James McElvane et al.<\/i> was at its core a property dispute case. Filed on June 6, 1978 \u2013 and listing Tim Stoen as the only attorney for the plaintiffs \u2013 it sought compensatory damages for the sale of extorted property, general damages for pain and suffering for more than $2 million, and punitive damages of $16 million. It also charged that the Temple had threatened Wade and Mabel Medlock when they refused to go to Guyana.<\/p>\n
The Medlocks had joined Peoples Temple in 1971. Residents of Los Angeles, the Medlocks owned a maintenance company and had used some of their company\u2019s profits to buy two parcels of real estate, a house in Baldwin Hills and rental property in Los Angeles. Four years later, according to the allegations in their lawsuit, Jones exhorted the Medlocks to sell their properties and turn over the proceeds to the Temple, which \u2013 among other purposes \u2013 it intended to use to develop Jonestown. When they resisted, Jones \u201cgradually increased \u2026 the pressure,\u201d and eventually called the two seniors into the Los Angeles Temple and \u2013 in the presence of several members, including one who was a realtor \u2013 forced them to sign documents authorizing the sale of the two properties. \u201cYou will either sign these papers or you will die,\u201d the lawsuit quotes Jones as telling them during that February 1977 meeting. Recalling that Jones had once bragged that he had killed someone who reneged on a real estate deal, they took the threat seriously and signed a number of papers, most of them without having read their contents.<\/p>\n
The suit charged that \u201cby fraud and deceit and by threats of death and bodily harm,\u201d Jones and the other defendants extorted the Medlocks\u2019 property. The \u201capparent consent\u201d in turning over these properties \u201cwas obtained \u2026 through duress and menace of unlawful and violent injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
Similar threats were made when the Medlocks refused to go to Guyana, according to the lawsuit, especially after Wade Medlock said, \u201cI don\u2019t believe in Jim anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wade Medlock and Mabel Medlock v. Jim Jones, Peoples Temple, Enola Nelson, Enola Nelson Realty, Hugh Fortsyn [Hue Fortson], James McElvane et al.<\/strong>, RYMUR 89-4286-BB-31-b-15 \u2013 BB-31-b-35 Peoples Temple Appeal in Decision on Change of Venue<\/strong>, RYMUR 89-4286-BB-31-b-171 \u2013 BB-31-b-200; also at RYMUR 89-4286-BB-17-a \u2013 BB-17-a-29 Wade Medlock and Mabel Medlock v. Jim Jones, Peoples Temple, Enola Nelson, Enola Nelson Realty, Hugh Fortsyn [Hue Fortson], James McElvane et al. was at its core a property dispute case. Filed on June 6, 1978 \u2013 and listing Tim Stoen as the only attorney for the plaintiffs \u2013 it sought compensatory damages for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":13835,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-130452","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130453,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130452\/revisions\/130453"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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