{"id":128,"date":"2007-08-23T16:15:28","date_gmt":"2007-08-23T16:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int.php"},"modified":"2007-08-23T16:15:28","modified_gmt":"2007-08-23T16:15:28","slug":"witch-priestess-charged-in-int","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int","title":{"rendered":"Witch Priestess Charged in Intra-Wiccan Feud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press<\/strong><br \/>\nSalem, Mass., Aug. 23&#8211;A self-proclaimed high priestess of witches and a second person were accused of tossing raccoon parts on the doorsteps of businesses, allegedly as part of a Wiccan community feud.<br \/>\nSalem, famous for holding witch trials in the 17th century, has an active Wiccan community and thriving witch-related tourism.<br \/>\nSharon Graham, 46, and a fellow Wiccan, 22-year-old Frederick Purtz, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of littering and malicious destruction of property. Graham also was charged with intimidating a witness.<br \/>\nThey were accused of putting a raccoon head and entrails on the doorsteps of Angelica of the Angels and the Goddess&#8217; Treasure Chest in May.<br \/>\nLawyers for Graham and Purtz said the charges were &#8220;sensationalized&#8221; and argued that the malicious destruction charge was not valid because the storefronts were not permanently damaged.<br \/>\nA witness, Richard Watson, told police he accompanied Graham, Purtz and other people when they put the raccoon remains on the doorsteps. He said Graham hoped to frame a Wiccan businessman who had fired Graham from a psychic telephone business last spring.<br \/>\nWatson also said Graham had a disagreement with the owners of the two targeted businesses over proposed regulations that would limit the number of psychics who come to the city during the Halloween season.<br \/>\nHe said he was told the group had found the raccoon dead.<br \/>\nSean Wynne, a lawyer for Purtz, told The Boston Herald said there were likely &#8220;internal issues within the Wiccan community,&#8221; but the tossing of raccoon entrails may be a &#8220;bastardization&#8221; of Wiccan practice because the religion does not condone harming others.<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nCopyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press Salem, Mass., Aug. 23&#8211;A self-proclaimed high priestess of witches and a second person were accused of tossing raccoon parts on the doorsteps of businesses, allegedly as part of a Wiccan community feud. Salem, famous for holding witch trials in the 17th century, has an active Wiccan community and thriving witch-related tourism. Sharon Graham,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Witch Priestess Charged in Intra-Wiccan Feud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Witch Priestess Charged in Intra-Wiccan Feud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Salem, Mass., Aug. 23&#8211;A self-proclaimed high priestess of witches and a second person were accused of tossing raccoon parts on the doorsteps of businesses, allegedly as part of a Wiccan community feud. Salem, famous for holding witch trials in the 17th century, has an active Wiccan community and thriving witch-related tourism. Sharon Graham,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-08-23T16:15:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mkress\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Witch Priestess Charged in Intra-Wiccan Feud","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Witch Priestess Charged in Intra-Wiccan Feud","og_description":"Associated Press Salem, Mass., Aug. 23&#8211;A self-proclaimed high priestess of witches and a second person were accused of tossing raccoon parts on the doorsteps of businesses, allegedly as part of a Wiccan community feud. Salem, famous for holding witch trials in the 17th century, has an active Wiccan community and thriving witch-related tourism. Sharon Graham,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2007-08-23T16:15:28+00:00","author":"mkress","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int","name":"Witch Priestess Charged in Intra-Wiccan Feud","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-08-23T16:15:28+00:00","dateModified":"2007-08-23T16:15:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/e057b0cd671703a20d0b2469410a0027"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/witch-priestess-charged-in-int#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Witch Priestess Charged in Intra-Wiccan Feud"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/e057b0cd671703a20d0b2469410a0027","name":"mkress","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ad8\/ad8bcb0b4cbf7760cc1c8a13e277348dx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ad8\/ad8bcb0b4cbf7760cc1c8a13e277348dx96.jpg","caption":"mkress"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/mkress"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}