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The True Story of Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley

This mini-documentary was produced in the late 1980's, early 1990's as part of an investigation into now-deceased, former Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley. It has not been seen by the public in nearly 30 years.


Resurfaced Documentary Uncovers Accusations of Child Abuse Against Former Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley

August 22, 2022

By Derrick Broze

The documentary The True Story of Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley and its accusations against Mormon Church leadership has not been seen by the public in almost 30 years — until now.

In late May, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office announced an investigation into "ritualized child sexual abuse" in 3 different Utah counties. Following that announcement, The Last American Vagabond (TLAV) produced a series of 5 articles focused on the sheriff’s investigation, as well as claims of child sexual abuse in Utah at large, and within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).

In our 5th report we investigated the history of claims of child abuse within the Mormon Church. From the Pace Memo to Paperdolls, accusations of various church members and officials participating in and/or covering up organized sexual abuse of children are not hard to find in LDS history.

On the heels of our reporting on these historical accusations, The Associated Press dropped a bombshell of an investigation which is causing headaches for the LDS. Their reporting shows that church leadership used their "help line" to cover up reports of pedophilia.

The AP obtained almost 12,000 pages of previously sealed records from a child sex abuse lawsuit against the Mormon Church in West Virginia. These documents and testimony from victims make it clear that the so-called help line can "easily be misused by church leaders to divert abuse accusations away from law enforcement and instead to church attorneys who may bury the problem, leaving victims in harm’s way."

The AP reported:

"The father, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an admitted pornography addict, was in counseling with his bishop when he revealed the abuse. The bishop, who was also a family physician, followed church policy and called what church officials have dubbed the "help line" for guidance.

But the call offered little help for MJ. Lawyers for the church, widely known as the Mormon church, who staff the help line around the clock told Bishop John Herrod not to call police or child welfare officials. Instead he kept the abuse secret.

Herrod continued to counsel MJ’s father, Paul Douglas Adams, for another year, and brought in Adams’ wife, Leizza Adams, in hopes she would do something to protect the children. She didn’t. Herrod later told a second bishop, who also kept the matter secret after consulting with church officials who maintain that the bishops were excused from reporting the abuse to police under the state’s so-called clergy-penitent privilege.

Adams continued raping MJ for as many as seven more years, into her adolescence, and also abused her infant sister, who was born during that time. He frequently recorded the abuse on video and posted the video on the internet."

Adams was never reported by the church or excommunicated. He was only arrested in 2017 after Homeland Security agents were tipped off by police in New Zealand when one of the videos of sexual abuse was discovered in another pedophile’s phone. Adams would kill himself in police custody before trial.

Some critics argue that the Pace Memo, Paperdolls, and other such accusations are lacking in credibility. Defenders of the church also believe these latest reports of child sexual abuse are only isolated examples.

However, we believe the history of LDS leadership should be examined for signs of similar behavior. If the church is failing to intervene in child sexual abuse in recent years, then we must ask whether there are examples of failure to act — or outright coverups — in the history of the Mormon Church.

The True Story of Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley

In March 1995, after decades of committing his life to Mormon doctrine, Gordon Bitner Hinckley became the President of the LDS Church. Hinckley would serve until his death on January 27, 2008, at the age of 97. Hinckley’s rise is a story of persistence and being in the right place at the right time.

Hinckley was born on June 23, 1910 to Mormon educator Bryant S. Hinckley and his wife Ada Bitner Hinckley. Due to the influence of his father, it was all but inevitable that the younger Hinckley would follow in his fathers footsteps.

Hinckley’s star began to rise in September 1961 when he became an apostle in the church’s "Quorom of the Twelve Apostles". In this role he served on the First Presidency to the 9th President of the LDS, David McKay.

It was during the 1960s that Hinckley played a major role in expanding the LDS message by facilitating the purchase of shortwave radio stations and TV networks. When the church formed Bonneville International Corporation in 1964, Hinckley was named a vice president, a member of the board of directors, and a member of the executive committee.

It was also during this time that Hinckley is accused of participating in extramarital affairs with prostitutes, men, and young boys.

The accusations against Gordon Hinckley first began to surface in the early 1980s. This was largely due to the investigations of a Mormon man named Bill Claudin who had been pursuing claims of sex affairs relating to Hinckley.

As part of his investigation, Claudin claimed to have interviewed several witnesses and collected signed affidavits testifying to the truth of their statements. These interviews resulted in hours of videotapes which were then edited into short clips and included in a controversial documentary released in 1992 under the name The God Makers II.

While The God Makers II does include small pieces of these interviews, the main focus of the film deals with claims relating to the origin of Mormon rituals and prayers. When The God Makers II was released the LDS community rejected most of its claims, including accusations against Gordon B. Hinckley. The films were made available on VHS and circulated among Utah churches, but are hardly known outside of the LDS Church.

Although the full unedited interviews conducted by Bill Claudin and team have never seen the light of day, an edited version of the investigation and interviews was released as a documentary under the name The True Story of Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley.

This documentary was distributed among Claudin and associates as they hosted screenings at any church willing to listen. At one point there may have been as many as 3,000 copies of this tape. As of the publishing of this investigation we have been unable to locate more than one physical copy of the tape, and no digital version has been uploaded to the internet. Until now.

In the interest of the historical record, providing a voice to alleged victims, and in the hopes of encouraging more witnesses and/or victims to speak out, TLAV is releasing the documentary in full as originally produced:

 

The Accusations Against Gordon B. Hinckley

Bill Claudin reportedly began investigating Gordon B. Hinckley sometime in the late 1980s. In the video, Claudin, who was a Mormon, says he was encouraged by other Mormon friends to pursue "the story of truth".

The story Claudin found involved Gordon B. Hinckley and the Hunter brothers, Alvin and Walton, owners of the Hunter Motor Co. car lot, hosting parties which were frequented by prostitutes. These parties allegedly took place at the apartment above the car lot, and another house which was purchased by Hinckley or associates as a safe place to party.

"I know the story is true through 8 months of an investigation. My wife and I have spent untold hours, man hours and dollars, investigating this to find out the truthfulness of what we believe is the highest proportion of hypocrisy that I have ever heard of," Claudin stated at a press conference shown in the video "I think that it should be known by all LSD people and church members."

Claudin, like most of the people involved in the investigation and witness to the alleged activity, is deceased.

Louis Sims, a Hunter Motor Co. employee, speaks in the film describing what he witnessed. Sims states that he knew many of the women who were present at these sex parties and recruited them. He claimed he would typically bring four or five girls to the parties.

"I took a lot of girls to Chuck Van Damme’s house… and a lot of people — that were supposed to be important people, supposed to be good church going people, some of them were bishops, counselors — that I actually seen go in there or leaving there," Sims states on the tape.

Charles Van Damme was the manager of the Hunter Motor Co. for the Hunters. During the recording of the tape, Van Damme was dying from AIDS. He claimed to have had a love affair with Gordon B. Hinckley from "about 1964 to 1966". Van Damme also claims to have seen Hinckley with prostitutes.

Van Damme claimed that Hinckley and the Hunter’s provided the money for him to purchase the house off Lakeline Drive in Utah. "We bought that house for a party pad. And Gordon Hinckley, Alvin and Walton Hunter came up there all the time and I had to arrange women for them, I had to arrange booze for them. I had to arrange everything," Van Damme stated.

Van Damme said he was excommunicated from the LDS by Hinckley in 1970 for being a homosexual.

Another alleged witness to Hinckley and the Hunter’s "party house" was a Mormon man named Ben Pelham. He claims to have been introduced to Gordon B. Hinckley via the Hunters and their manager for the car lot, Charles Van Damme.

"The hunters built an apartment above the car lot, which they held parties at. With both men and women, drinking and carrying on up there, most all the time," Pelham states in the documentary.

Allegations of Abuse of Young Boys

Up to this point the allegations against Hinckley and the Hunters range from violating Mormon norms and customs to infidelity in their marriages. However, the most disturbing of the allegations involve claims of young boys being present at these sex parties.

Ben Pelham was also one of four people who claimed they saw young boys in the apartment and/or house.

"I did see Alvin, Walter, and Hinckley go up to the apartment with prostitutes — I would guess they were prostitutes — and young boys," Pelham stated. "These parties were frequented all the time by the Hunters and Mr. Hinckley and some of the other church officials. And they weren’t there to play poker."

Charles Van Damme also accused Hinckley of having "anal intercourse" with "feminine looking boys".

"Youngsters, Im talking about 15, 16 years old. Just little youngsters, babies," Van Damme said.

Viola Gallo was also claimed to have been at the parties, met Hinckley, and witnessed young boys at a party.

"I remember hearing them saying, calling him Gordon Hinckley and I was introduced to him one time," Gallo said in the film.

"There was a couple of young boys one night at a party. I would say around 15 or 16, and they went off to a bedroom together – Hinckley and the boys, two boys, in fact. And they were in there for quite a while."

Corroborating Witness: Darrel Clegg

The allegations against Gordon B. Hinckley refer to the time period of the mid-1960s, when he was serving as an apostle. However, in the 1980s, when the interviews were being conducted and these films released, Hinckley had been appointed to the First Presidency, serving as counselor to LDS President Spencer W. Kimball.

When Kimball died in 1985, Eza Taft Benson became President of the Church with Hinckley as his first counselor. By time The God Makers II was being released in 1992, Hinckley was taking part in an official visit to Rome to present a copy of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism to the Vatican.

Clearly, Hinckley was an influential and powerful figure in the Mormon Church well before he became President in 1995. Hinckley’s stature in the church makes it all the more likely that the LDS would seek to silence accusations against him.

According to Utah native Darrel Clegg, an associate of Bill Claudin’s who met several of the witnesses, a lawyer representing Hinckley attempted to stop the released of the film.

Clegg provided his version of events in a video testimony recorded in March 2014. He also preserved a VHS copy of The True Story of Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley. He asked that these not be released until after his death. Clegg passed away in 2017. These tapes were sent to TLAV and used for this investigation.

Claudin also recounts a meeting he attended with Bill Claudin and Patrick A. Shea, attorney for the LDS Church and Gordon B. Hinckley. Clegg says Shea stated, ‘I am here to represent Mr. Hinckley and I want you to come clean and say it didn’t happen.’

"He even offered him money, to pay him off, but Bill said you don’t have enough money to make me lie like that," Clegg states in his testimony.

Clegg says the attorney threatened to sue if the tapes were not destroyed, but once Claudin told him they had printed thousands of copies he threw his hands in the air in frustration. Clegg says that at one point his bathtub was filled with thousands of VHS tapes of this documentary. Clegg claims Claudin was eager to take the case to court because of his collection of sworn affidavits.

Clegg also testified that he was a witness to Claudin’s excommunication from the LDS as a result of his investigation into Gordon B. Hinckley.

Darrel Clegg was one of the few remaining people alive who was involved in different elements of the investigation into Gordon B. Hinckley. Unfortunately, the disturbing history of abuse within the Mormon Church does not stop with him.

As of the time of this publishing, the LDS has not responded for comment.


Daughters of Former Mormon Bishop Walton Hunter Accuse Father of Rape

Posted on August 22, 2022 Author Derrick Broze

The story of allegations of child sexual abuse in the Mormon Church expands from Gordon B. Hinckley to Bishop Walton Hunter.

In the late 1980’s a documentary titled The True Story of Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley was produced and screened among churches that would dare host the heresy. This film alleges that now-deceased former Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley engaged in affairs with prostitutes, men, and young boys.

Our previous report placed this documentary in its historical context and outlined the various witnesses involved in the making of the film. One of those witnesses was Louis Sims, an employee of the Hunter Motor Company where some of the affairs are alleged to have happened.

The Hunter Motor Company was owned by brothers Alvin and Walton Hunter. The Hunter’s were also members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). In fact, Walton Hunter was a bishop for 10 years in Salt Lake City, Utah.

During his interview in the documentary, Louis Sims alludes to his belief that Walton Hunter was given his bishopship in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) by Hinckley because of their close relationship.

The witnesses in the documentary place both Alvin and Walton Hunter at the alleged sex parties with Hinckley. This implies that Alvin and Walton were either witnesses or participants in what took place at the apartment and house.

Deliver Us From Evil

Walton Hunter died in January 1995 at the age of 75. His obituary reads, "Born October 25, 1920, Enoch, Texas, to Walter W. Hunter and Verna Ann Hall. He was an officer in the Army Air Force during World War II."

It also notes his service with the LDS Church, "He served twice as LDS bishop (Grant 9th Ward, Salt Lake City, 10 years and So. San Jose, Calif. 10th Ward six years). As bishop he was dedicated to missionary work and called many young people to serve missions, giving them complete love and support."

What the obituary does not mention is that Walton Hunter was accused of sexually abusing two of his own daughters and was excommunicated from his 2nd bishopship in San Jose, California as a result of these accusations.

The story of sexual and mental abuse at the hands of Walton Hunter is documented in the book Deliver us from Evil written by his adult daughter, Deborah Hunter-Marsh. Self-published in 2014 by Ms. Hunter-Marsh, the book seems to have gone largely unnoticed, a tragic example of forgotten abuse.

The book doubles as a personal diary with Deborah Hunter-Marsh sharing her father’s family history, his involvement with the church, and, of course, his constant sexual abuse of her and her sister Rebecca. At times Hunter-Marsh seems to be searching for an explanation for her fathers behavior. She writes:

"He did not have a warm, loving home environment as a newborn, filled with the cooing and cuddling that usually comes from a mother and a father. His dad, Walter, detested him and he was called ugly until his teen years and he was beaten severely by his father."

Besides her personal experiences and those of her sister, she also uses her father’s personal journals to tell the story of her family.

"Dad never says anything good in his entire personal journal about his grandfather that took him in, but made special mention of his "loving, kind" Grandma Hall. There were such deficits in his being that he used sex and drugs, lots of prescription drugs for anxiety and what my father called "nervousness." He needed success, both within the church and as a forthright businessman, and he needed lots of sexual attention as well as public notoriety. His goal was to do whatever he wished to do with whomever he wanted to do it with, but to "never get caught." This was evident throughout his journals."

As an adult, Deborah Hunter-Marsh says she began to recall repressed memories from her childhood. Initially, she didn’t believe the nightmares she was having could have been real, or that her father was involved. Eventually, she would come to accept that her father had been raping her since she was a young girl.

"As I recall, my father appeared in the middle of the night and climbed onto my body, hurting my body and soul. I remembered wondering how he could do this to me. My father was a bishop in the Grant 9th Ward and he only did what God told him to do, so if he was raping me, I must be very bad. I was a bad, bad person."

Hunter-Marsh recalls a time when her father’s extramarital affairs with another woman were discovered by his wife who went to their Bishop for help. Walton was almost excommunicated but the bishop allowed him to stay. However, Hunter-Marsh writes that "the truth of how naughty he had been, or was being, came out in little ways in 1964."

Hunter-Marsh discusses the history of the controversial film The Godmakers discussed in our report on Gordon B. Hinckley. She believes the claims regarding her father owning a "party pad" where "prostitutes of every race and gender" would drink, smoke, and have sex with her father and others.

However, while describing the focus of the film, Hunter-Marsh chose not to name Gordon B. Hinckley, instead refer to him as a "high-ranking church official". She says her and her sister, "do not believe that any high Mormon Church official was involved." Still, they do acknowledge their father’s friendship with both Charles Van Damme — an employee of the Hunter Motor Co and alleged lover of Hinckley — and the unnamed Mormon Church official.

Hunter-Marsh also mentions the possibility her father may have laundered money via Van Damme as he claimed. She also hints at potential legal troubles. She writes:

"Checks for $75,000 or more were cashed. I also remember Mother and Father bemoaning the fact that all of Dad’s cars on both car lots were stolen overnight. By whom, I’m not sure, but they mentioned Chuck Van Dam’s name as a possible thief. My parents were extremely upset. Shortly after this, we had to move from our large house up on Idlewild Circle by Mt. Olympus to a small condominium in Granger that we rented for about six months. This move was just out of Salt Lake City, completely across town with no hope of seeing our friends from the Mt. Olympus area forty miles away with both parents working at the time. I think we were in hiding because a few months after we moved into the condominium, we loaded up our car with our clothes and a few personal items and left in the middle of the night to move to California, leaving behind important large or bulky personal items such as our scrapbooks, knickknacks, furniture, etc. We took only what would fit inside two automobiles. Our parents didn’t tell us why, just that we had to move."

Justice Delayed

Deborah Hunter-Marsh says her adult sister Rebecca also began remembering incidents of sexual abuse by her father. In the book, Rebecca states that she confronted her mother and father about the abuse, but they refused to listen. Rebecca continued to allow her children to see their grandparents, but told them they could never be alone at Grandma and Granda’s house.

However, when Rebecca was away one afternoon, her son, called Alex in the book, was left alone in the house with his grandfather. Once he returned to his mother he immediately began displaying various behavioral and learning disabilities. It was later learned that Alex had been sexually abused by his grandfather Walton Hunter. One of Rebecca’s daughters also claims to have witnessed her grandmother, Rebecca and Deborah’s mother, creating the circumstances for the child to be alone with his grandfather.

"Unfortunately, everyone’s sexual abuse was outside the statute of limitations for prosecution criminally, except for Alex’s, but he was only six years old and too traumatized and threatened by his grandfather to testify. He had to be older before he would tell, so we never put him through the trauma of a trial or anything," she writes.

Since there was not a possibility for legal recourse against Walton Hunter, Rebecca went to her father’s "Stake President" in the LDS to see if they could get him removed from his position. Eventually, Rebecca and Deborah participated in a Disciplinary Counsel where they would each testify to twelve men about what they claimed their father had done to them and their children.

"To face a monster and twelve men’s serious faces, judging and examining our facial expressions, our body

language, and our words was dreadful. I very much felt like I was being judged, not Dad," Hunter-Marsh writes.

Following their testimony to the Disciplinary Counsel, they returned home to celebrate their bravery. They received a visit from the Stake President who notified them that Walton Hunter had been excommunicated from the 10th Ward in San Diego, California.

Later, they would learn that Deborah’s daughter Bethany was also molested by Walton Hunter.

After getting Hunter excommunicated from the Mormon Church, his daughters also pursued a civil lawsuit. Before the trial could ever begin in July 1995, Walton Hunter died of a congestive heart failure. The case was settled out of court and Walton’s wife was forced to use his remaining money to pay the settlement.

Deborah Hunter-Marsh says that her mother told her that in his final days, Walton Hunter was scared and restless. He reportedly told his wife he could see "dark figures assembling around him and he was very frightened".

Regarding the potential that her father could have molested other children, Hunter-Marsh writes, "we do know that our father had a candy dish in his church office and the children would go in there to get some each Sunday. There may be other victims we don’t know about or he might have kept it just to the family. If this book finds more victims, we would like to know, and we will try to help him or her as much as we can."


Derrick Broze Interview – The Investigation Into Gordon B. Hinckley & Walton Hunter

Posted on

Please wait until about the 2 min mark for audio to begin

Joining me today is Derrick Broze, here to discuss his recent investigation into high-ranking members of the Mormon Church and numerous past allegations that were suppressed and largely hidden from public scrutiny. This investigation has brought many disturbing allegations to light, and, if nothing else, allowed potential victims of the past (some of which were systematically shut down, ignored, and disregarded) the right to finally be heard.


Sexual Abuse by Former Mormon Bishop Walton Hunter Confirmed by Daughters

August 26, 2022

Rebecca Kapp and Deborah Hunter-Marsh confirm sexual abuse at the hands of their deceased father Walton Hunter, former Bishop in the Mormon Church.

The daughters of Walton Hunter, a now-deceased former Bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), have confirmed their father sexually abused them as children.

The confirmation from Walton Hunter’s adult children provides further corroboration of what was reported in Justice Delayed, our initial 2-part investigation into claims of sexual abuse relating to former leadership in the LDS.

In part 2 of our investigation we focus on Walton Hunter — a friend of now-deceased former Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley and a Bishop in the LDS — and claims that he sexually abused his own daughters. Hunter would eventually be excommunicated from his 2nd bishopship in San Jose, California as a result of these accusations.

The story of sexual and mental abuse at the hands of Walton Hunter is documented in the book Deliver us from Evil written by his adult daughter, Deborah Hunter-Marsh. Published in 2014 by Ms. Hunter-Marsh, the book seems to have gone largely unnoticed, a tragic example of forgotten abuse.

The book doubles as a personal diary with Deborah Hunter-Marsh sharing her father’s family history, his involvement with the church, and, of course, his constant sexual abuse of her and her sister Rebecca Kapp.

Prior to the release of Justice Delayed The Last American Vagabond (TLAV) sought a comment from Deborah Hunter-Marsh and Rebecca Kapp but did not hear back until after publication. Now, the grown daughters of Walton Hunter remain steadfast in their claim that their father raped and molested them throughout their childhood.

In a phone call with Deborah Hunter-Marsh she confirms that her story as described in Deliver Us From Evil is accurate. Hunter-Marsh also confirmed that she was aware of the accusations against her father and Gordon B. Hinckley. She said she believes the accusations were true and Gordon B. Hinckley was guilty of “way more”.

When questioned about the choice not to mention Gordon B. Hinckley in her book, Hunter-Marsh said that close friends asked her not to mention Hinckley. She says the main focus was her father so she agreed to leave Hinckley out of the book.

When speaking with Rebecca Kapp on the phone she also confirmed the story of sexual abuse by her father. Regarding Gordon B. Hinckley, Kapp confirmed that she remembers seeing him at her father’s car lot often. She recalls Hinckley asking her father to go on a mission for the LDS when she was 15. Her father declined.

Kapp remains angry with her now-deceased father and mother for their role in sexually abusing her and Deborah, but also for the abuse of her own son.

Deliver Us From Evil describes how after Rebecca became aware of her abuse she continued to allow her children to see their grandparents under the condition that they were never alone at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

However, when Rebecca was away one afternoon, her 6-year old son “Alex” was left alone in the house with his grandfather. Once he returned to his mother he immediately began displaying various behavioral and learning disabilities. It was later learned that Alex had been sexually abused by his grandfather Walton Hunter. One of Rebecca’s daughters also claims to have witnessed her grandmother, Rebecca and Deborah’s mother, creating the circumstances for the child to be alone with his grandfather.
 

Rebecca Kapp said the reason she is choosing to speak out now is because “Alex” has passed away in the last 2 years, dying of an overdose. After struggling with mental health issues resulting from his abuse by his grandfather Walton Hunter — as well as another member of the LDS — Alex’s life came to an end.

Kapp said her father attempted to use his religion to absolve himself of responsibility, claiming that he had been forgiven by angels before his death.

“I know in my heart my dad was not just a child molester, he was evil. It extended to other areas of his life. It was anything he could get his hands,” Kapp told TLAV.

In Deliver Us From Evil Deborah Hunter-Marsh also provides documentation of her claims of abuse at the hands of her father, a man who was twice made a bishop in the Mormon Church.

When Hunter-Marsh attempted to arrange a meeting between her parents and her therapist several letters were exchanged. The book includes copies of the letters between her therapist and her mother, June Hunter. Her parents refused to meet with Hunter-Marsh or her therapist and instead blamed him for the accusations.

Additionally, when Hunter-Marsh and Rebecca Kapp went to their father’s Stake President in San Diego to share about the sexual abuse by their father they also received a letter in response. The letter, signed by Stake President Gunnerson, invited the women to participate in a Disciplinary Counsel for their father. Walton Hunter would later be excommunicated from the church following the testimony from his daughters.

Finally, court records of the civil lawsuit against Walton Hunter further confirm the facts of this case.

The Justice Delayed investigation focused on a late 1980’s a documentary titled The True Story of Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley. This film alleges that now-deceased former Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley engaged in affairs with prostitutes, men, and young boys. The film also accuses Alvin and Walton Hunter of being involved with the alleged events.

Our first report placed this documentary in its historical context and outlined the various witnesses involved in the making of the film. The sexual abuse was said to have taken place in two locations, including an apartment above the Hunter Motor Company owned by Alvin and Walton Hunter.

Our second report introduced the story of Walton Hunter’s daughter Deborah Hunter-Marsh and her claims against her father.


Seven years of sex abuse: How Mormon officials let it happen
AP News

By MICHAEL REZENDES
August 4, 2022

BISBEE, Ariz. (AP) — MJ was a tiny, black-haired girl, just 5 years old, when her father admitted to his bishop that he was sexually abusing her.

The father, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an admitted pornography addict, was in counseling with his bishop when he revealed the abuse. The bishop, who was also a family physician, followed church policy and called what church officials have dubbed the “help line” for guidance.

But the call offered little help for MJ. Lawyers for the church, widely known as the Mormon church, who staff the help line around the clock told Bishop John Herrod not to call police or child welfare officials. Instead he kept the abuse secret.

“They said, ‘You absolutely can do nothing,’” Herrod said in a recorded interview with law enforcement.

Herrod continued to counsel MJ’s father, Paul Douglas Adams, for another year, and brought in Adams’ wife, Leizza Adams, in hopes she would do something to protect the children. She didn’t. Herrod later told a second bishop, who also kept the matter secret after consulting with church officials who maintain that the bishops were excused from reporting the abuse to police under the state’s so-called clergy-penitent privilege.

Adams continued raping MJ for as many as seven more years, into her adolescence, and also abused her infant sister, who was born during that time. He frequently recorded the abuse on video and posted the video on the internet.

Adams was finally arrested by Homeland Security agents in 2017 with no help from the church, after law enforcement officials in New Zealand discovered one of the videos. He died by suicide in custody before he could stand trial.

The Associated Press has obtained nearly 12,000 pages of sealed records from an unrelated child sex abuse lawsuit against the Mormon church in West Virginia. The documents offer the most detailed and comprehensive look yet at the so-called help line Herrod called. Families of survivors who filed the lawsuit said they show it’s part of a system that can easily be misused by church leaders to divert abuse accusations away from law enforcement and instead to church attorneys who may bury the problem, leaving victims in harm’s way.

The help line has been criticized by abuse victims and their attorneys for being inadequate to quickly stop abuse and protect victims. Yet the Utah-based faith has stuck by the system despite the criticism and increasing scrutiny from attorneys and prosecutors, including those in the Adams case.

“’I just think that the Mormon church really sucks. Seriously sucks,” said MJ, who is now 16, during an interview with the AP. “They are just the worst type of people, from what I’ve experienced and what other people have also experienced.”

MJ and her adoptive mother asked the AP to use only her initials in part because videos of her abuse posted by her father are still circulating on the internet. The AP does not publish the names of sexual abuse survivors without their consent.

William Maledon, an Arizona attorney representing the bishops and the church in a lawsuit filed by three of the Adams’ six children, told the AP last month that the bishops were not required to report the abuse.

“These bishops did nothing wrong. They didn’t violate the law, and therefore they can’t be held liable,” he said. Maledon referred to the suit as “a money grab.”

In his AP interview, Maledon also insisted Herrod did not know that Adams was continuing to sexually assault his daughter after learning of the abuse in a single counseling session.

But in the recorded interview with the agent obtained by the AP, Herrod said he asked Leizza Adams in multiple sessions if the abuse was ongoing and asked her, “What are we going to do to stop it?”

“At least for a period of time I assumed they had stopped things, but — and then I never asked if they picked up again.”

‘THE PERFECT LIFESTYLE’

The Adams family lived on a lonely dirt road about 8 miles from the center of Bisbee, an old copper-mining town in southeastern Arizona known today for its antique shops and laid-back attitude. Far from prying eyes, the Adams home — a three-bedroom, open concept affair surrounded by desert — was often littered with piles of clothing and containers of lubricant Adams used to sexually abuse his children, according to legal documents reviewed by the AP.

Paul’s wife, Leizza, assumed most of the child-rearing responsibilities, including getting their six children off to school and chauffeuring them to church and religious instruction on Sundays. Paul, who worked for the U.S. Border Patrol, spent much of his time online looking at porn, often with his children watching, or wandering the house naked or in nothing but his underwear.

He had a short fuse and would frequently throw things, yell at his wife and beat his kids. “He just had this explosive personality,” said Shaunice Warr, a Border Patrol agent and a Mormon who worked with Paul and described herself as Leizza’s best friend. “He had a horrible temper.”

Paul was more relaxed while coaxing his older daughter to hold a smartphone camera and record him while he sexually abused her. He also seemed to revel in the abuse in online chat rooms, where he once bragged that he had “the perfect lifestyle” because he could have sex with his daughters whenever he pleased, while his wife knew and “doesn’t care.”

He would later tell investigators the abuse was a compulsion he couldn’t stop. “I got into something too deep that I just couldn’t pull myself out of,” he said. “I’m not trying to say the devil made me do it.”

The Adams family was deeply involved in the Mormon community, and on Sundays they attended services in Bisbee. So Adams turned to his church, and to Bishop Herrod, when he sought help and revealed his abuse of MJ.

Herrod later told Homeland Security agent Robert Edwards he knew from the start that Leizza Adams was unlikely to stop her husband, after he called her into the counseling sessions. The bishop, who was also Leizza’s personal physician, said she seemed “pretty emotionally dead” when her husband recounted his abuse of their daughter. The bishop also recognized the harm being done to MJ. “I doubt (she) will ever do well,” he said in his recorded interview with Homeland Security agents.

Herrod also told Edwards that when he called the help line, church officials told him the state’s clergy-penitent privilege required him to keep Adams’s abuse confidential.

But the law required no such thing.

Arizona’s child sex abuse reporting law, and similar laws in more than 20 states that require clergy to report child sex abuse and neglect, says that clergy, physicians, nurses, or anyone caring for a child who “reasonably believes” a child has been abused or neglected has a legal obligation to report the information to police or the state Department of Child Safety. But it also says that clergy who receive information about child neglect or sexual abuse during spiritual confessions “may withhold” that information from authorities if the clergy determine it is “reasonable and necessary” under church doctrine.

In 2012, when Herrod rotated out of his position as bishop of the Bisbee ward — a Mormon jurisdiction similar to a Catholic parish — he told incoming Bishop Robert “Kim” Mauzy about the abuse in the Adams household. Instead of rescuing MJ by reporting the abuse to authorities, Mauzy also kept the information within the church.

In a separate recorded interview with federal agents obtained by the AP, Mauzy said church officials told him he should convene a confidential disciplinary hearing for Adams, after which Adams was ex-communicated in 2013. Mauzy and other church leaders still didn’t report Adams to the police.

Two years later, in 2015, Leizza Adams gave birth to a second daughter. It took her husband just six weeks to start sexually assaulting her, recording the abuse, and uploading the videos to the internet.

The revelation that Mormon officials may have directed an effort to conceal years of abuse in the Adams household sparked a criminal investigation of the church by Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre, and the civil lawsuit by three of the Adams children.

“Who’s really responsible for Herrod not disclosing?” McIntyre asked in an AP interview. “Is it Herrod,” who says he followed the church lawyers’ instruction not to report the abuse to authorities? “Or is it the people who gave him that advice?”

‘THE CALL COMES TO MY CELL PHONE’

When it comes to child sexual abuse, the Mormon church says “the first responsibility of the church in abuse cases is to help those who have been abused and protect those who may be vulnerable to future abuse,” according to its 2010 handbook for church leaders. The handbook also says, “Abuse cannot be tolerated in any form.”

But church officials, from the bishops in the Bisbee ward to officials in Salt Lake City, tolerated abuse in the Adams family for years.

“They just let it keep happening,” said MJ, in her AP interview. “They just said, ‘Hey, let’s excommunicate her father.’ It didn’t stop. ‘Let’s have them do therapy.’ It didn’t stop. ‘Hey, let’s forgive and forget and all this will go away.’ It didn’t go away.”

A similar dynamic played out in West Virginia, where church leaders were accused of covering up the crimes committed by a young abuser from a prominent Mormon family even after he’d been convicted on child sex abuse charges in Utah. The abuser, Michael Jensen, today is serving a 35- to 75-year prison sentence for abusing two children in West Virginia. Their family, along with others, sued the church and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

“Child abuse festers and grows in secrecy,” said Lynne Cadigan, a lawyer for the Adams children who filed suit. “That is why the mandatory reporting came into effect. It’s the most important thing in the world to immediately report to the police.”

The lawsuit filed by the three Adams children accuses The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and several members, including Bishops Herrod and Mauzy, of negligence and conspiring to cover up child sex abuse to avoid “costly lawsuits” and protect the reputation of the church, which relies on proselytizing and tithing to attract new members and raise money. In 2020, the church claimed approximately 16 million members worldwide, most of them living outside the United States.

“The failure to prevent or report abuse was part of the policy of the defendants, which was to block public disclosure to avoid scandals, to avoid the disclosure of their tolerance of child sexual molestation and assault, to preserve a false appearance of propriety, and to avoid investigation and action by public authority, including law enforcement,” the suit alleges. “Plaintiffs are informed and believe that such actions were motivated by a desire to protect the reputation of the defendants.”

Very few of the scores of lawsuits against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mention the help line, in part because details of its operations have been a closely guarded secret. The documents in the sealed court records show how it works.

“The help line is certainly there to help — to help the church keep its secrets and to cover up abuse,” said Craig Vernon, an Idaho attorney who has filed several sex abuse lawsuits against the church.

Vernon, a former member, routinely demands that the church require bishops to report sex abuse to police or state authorities rather than the help line.

The sealed records say calls to the help line are answered by social workers or professional counselors who determine whether the information they receive is serious enough to be referred to an attorney with Kirton McConkie, a Salt Lake City firm that represents the church.

A document with the heading “Protocol for abuse help line calls,” which was among the sealed records obtained by the AP, laid out the questions social workers were to ask before determining whether the calls should be referred to the lawyers.

Mormon officials in the West Virginia case said they did not recognize the Protocol and could not authenticate it. But a ranking church official in a separate sex abuse lawsuit in Oregon confirmed that those answering the help line used a “written protocol” to guide them.

“There would be a page containing various topics to discuss and handle,” said Harold C. Brown, then director of the church’s Welfare Services Department.

The Protocol instructs those staffing the help line to tell callers they are to use first names only. “No identifying information should be given.” Under the heading “High Risk Cases,” it also instructs staffers to ask a series of questions, including whether calls concerned possible abuse by a church leader, an employee, or abuse at “a church-sponsored activity.”

The protocol advises those taking the calls to instruct a “priesthood leader,” which includes bishops and stake presidents, to encourage the perpetrator, the victim, or others who know of the abuse to report it. But it also says, in capital letters, that those taking the calls “should never advise a priesthood leader to report abuse. Counsel of this nature should come only from legal counsel.”

That counsel comes from attorneys from Kirton McConkie, which represents the church.

Joseph Osmond, one of the Kirton McConkie lawyers assigned to take help line calls, said in a sealed deposition that he’s always ready to deal with sex abuse complaints.

“Wherever I am. The call comes to my cell phone,” he said. He then acknowledged that he did not refer calls to a social worker and wouldn’t know how to do so.

Osmond declined to comment through church officials. Peter Schofield, a Kirton McConkie lawyer long associated with the help line, also declined to answer questions from the AP.

Maledon, the attorney for the church in the Adams lawsuit, said church clergy or church attorneys have made “hundreds of reports” of child abuse to civil authorities in Arizona over an unspecified number of years. But he could not say how many calls to the help line were not referred to police or child welfare officials and could not provide a referral rate.

Two church practices, identified in the sealed records, work together to ensure that the contents of all help lines calls remain confidential. First, all records of calls to the help line are routinely destroyed. “Those notes are destroyed by the end of every day,” said Roger Van Komen, the church’s director of Family Services, in an affidavit included in the sealed records.

Second, church officials say that all calls referred to Kirton McConkie lawyers are covered by attorney-client privilege and remain out of the reach of prosecutors and victims’ attorneys. “The church has always regarded those communications between its lawyers and local leaders as attorney-client privileged,” said Paul Rytting, the director of Risk Management, in a sealed affidavit.

AN OMINOUS TIME

Mormon leaders established the help line in 1995 and it operated not within its Department of Family Services, but instead in its Office of Risk Management, whose role is to protect the church and members from injury and liability in an array of circumstances, including fires, explosions, hazardous chemical spills and severe weather. The department ultimately reports to the First Presidency, the three officials at the very top of the church hierarchy, according to records in the sealed documents.

Risk management also tracks all sex abuse lawsuits against the church, according to a sealed affidavit by Dwayne Liddell, a past director of the department who helped establish the help line. He said members of the church’s First Presidency knew the details of the help line.

“I have been in those type of meetings where ... the training of ecclesiastical leaders (and) the establishment of a help line have been discussed,” Liddell said. When asked who attended the meetings, he answered, “Members of the First Presidency and the presiding bishopric,” or the top leaders of the church.

Before establishing the help line in 1995, the Mormon church simply instructed bishops to comply with local child sex abuse reporting laws.

At the time, child sex abuse lawsuits were on the rise and juries were awarding victims millions of dollars. The Mormon church is largely self-insured, leaving it especially vulnerable to costly lawsuits.

“There is nothing inconsistent between identifying cases that may pose litigation risks to the church and complying with reporting obligations,” church lawyers said in a sealed legal filing.

But one affidavit in the sealed records which repeatedly says the church condemns child sexual abuse, also suggests the church is more concerned about the spiritual well-being of perpetrators than the physical and emotional well-being of young victims, who also may be members of the faith.

“Disciplinary proceedings are subject to the highest confidentiality possible,” said Rytting. “If members had any concerns that their disciplinary files could be read by a secular judge or attorneys or be presented to a jury as evidence in a public trial, their willingness to confess and repent and for their souls to be saved would be seriously compromised.”

A GLOBAL INVESTIGATION

In 2016 police in New Zealand arrested a 47-year-old farm worker on child pornography charges and found a nine-minute video on his cell phone, downloaded from the internet, showing a man in his 30s raping a 10-year-old girl.

A global search for the rapist and his victim was on. It started with Interpol and led to the U.S. State Department, where investigators using facial recognition technology matched the rapist with a passport card photo of a U.S. Border Patrol employee living in Bisbee, Arizona, according to a Homeland Security synopsis obtained by the AP.

Agents rushed to the Naco, Arizona, Border Station and arrested Adams, then a lanky, bearded mission support specialist with the Border Patrol. After some coaxing, Adams admitted to raping MJ and to sexually assaulting her younger sister, and to posting video of the assaults on the internet. When agents raided his home, they seized phones and computers holding more than 4,000 photos and nearly 1,000 videos depicting child sex abuse, many featuring the Adams daughters.

But the nine-minute video stood out. “This video is one of the worst I’ve ever seen,” Homeland Security agent Edwards later testified, adding that haunting dialogue between Adams and his older daughter helped make the video “stand out in my mind and continue to stand out in my mind.”

That video represented nine minutes and 14 seconds in seven years of continual and unnecessary trauma for MJ — and a lifetime of abuse for her tiny sister — while Bishops Herrod and Mauzy and church representatives in Salt Lake City stood by.

After Paul Adams died by suicide, Leizza Adams pleaded no contest to child sex abuse charges and served two-and-a-half years in state prison. Three of the Adams children went to live with members of Leizza’s extended family in California. The other three were taken in by local families.

THE SURVIVORS

MJ’s little sister was only 2 when she met her adoptive mother for the first time. The toddler wrapped her arms and legs around Miranda Whitworth’s head, buried her face in her neck, and refused to look up to say good-bye to members of Leizza’s family. “It was the craziest thing,” said Whitworth who, with her husband, Matthew, welcomed the toddler into their family. “It was like when you see a baby monkey or baby gorilla cling to their mother, and they just won’t let go.”

Over the next few days and weeks, the Whitworths would see additional markers of the unfathomable abuse the toddler endured at the hands of her father — much of it recorded on video. She would howl in terror when any man attempted to touch her, whether it was Matthew or the family physician. “The nurse was fine but the minute the doctor walked in she climbed onto me and started screaming bloody murder,” Miranda said.

The 2-year-old was also terrified of the water, which made bathing an ear-splitting ordeal. She wouldn’t tolerate anything wrapped around her wrists. And at church, she would run and hide behind Miranda whenever anyone greeted her by an old family nickname.

When they took in the toddler, neither Miranda nor Matthew knew very much about what had happened to her. But while sitting in on Leizza Adams’s sentencing hearing, they learned about the repeated rapes, the videos, and the fact that church bishops knew about the abuse of the older daughter and did nothing to stop it.

The Whitworths were converts to the Mormon faith and, like many new followers of a religion, they were especially enthusiastic about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In particular, they appreciated the efforts Mormons make to help fellow church members in times of need through church organizations established to give special attention to women, teens and children.

“It’s all about family,” Miranda said. “That’s one of the things we absolutely loved.”

But after learning about what Adams did to their new daughter, and the failure of the church to stop him, the scales fell from their eyes. “We decided to remove our records from the church,” said Matthew Whitworth. “I personally couldn’t continue to provide tithing money to a church that would allow young children to be abused and not do anything to prevent it.”

Unlike the Whitworths, Nancy Salminen has never been a member of the Mormon church. But as a special needs teacher and a rape victim herself, she has a special affinity for MJ and others like her. Over the last five years, she has opened her home to 17 girls and boys who needed a safe place to stay. Her house is a modest, ranch-style structure she bought out of foreclosure.

“Everything’s a little broken here and that’s perfect because so are we,” she said.

Salminen said she met MJ after receiving an urgent call on a Friday evening to rescue a 12-year-old from another family. “She was pretty scared and pretty confused when I picked her up,” Salminen recalled. “She spent a lot of time in her closet in her room when we got home, but we got to know each other and got to like each other.”

Like the Whitworths, Salminen knew very little about what MJ had endured until Leizza Adams’s sentencing hearing.

“What I heard made me want to throw up,” she said. “And the more I learned the more I wanted to help her fight this fight that she didn’t even know about.”

Safely settled in Salminen’s household — which today includes a foster girl Salminen also plans to adopt — MJ has been transformed from a victim of unimaginable abuse to a bubbly 16-year-old who plays in the high school band and proudly dons a crisp, new uniform for her job at a fast-food restaurant.

“She had every excuse to fail and to just fold into herself and run away,” Salminen said. “But instead, she came back stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”

So strong that she appears eager to play an active role in the battle she and her two siblings are waging against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “I just want them to do what they’re supposed to do and report to the police,” MJ said.

The adoptive parents of the third Adams child who has filed suit declined to speak to the AP about the case. Like MJ, Miranda and Matthew Whitworth said they joined the lawsuit against the church on behalf of their young daughter not in hopes of a payday, but to change church policy so that any instance of child sexual abuse is immediately reported to civil authorities. “We just don’t understand why they’re paying all these lawyers to fight this,” Matthew Whitworth said. “Just change the policy.”

THE PRIVILEGE

That policy is the key to the church’s defense. In a recent filing asking a Superior Court judge to dismiss the case, Maledon and other lawyers for the church said the case “hinges entirely on whether Arizona’s child abuse reporting statute required two church bishops ... to report to authorities confidential confessions made to them by plaintiffs’ father.”

Whatever moral or public policy arguments one could make that the church should have told authorities that Paul Adams was raping his daughters are irrelevant, the lawyers argued. “Arizona’s reporting statute broadly exempts confidential communications with clergy, as determined by the clergyman himself,” according to the church motion to dismiss the case. “Reasonable people can debate whether this is the best public policy choice. But that is not an issue for a jury or this court.”

Bishop Herrod, in his recorded interview, said church officials told him he had to keep what Adams told him confidential or he could be sued if he went to authorities.

But McIntyre, the Cochise County attorney, said that’s false, noting the Arizona reporting law says that anyone reporting a belief that child sex abuse occurred “is immune from any civil or criminal liability.”

Aside from the legal arguments over whether Bishops Herrod and Mauzy were excused from their reporting obligations under the clergy-penitent privilege, critics of the inaction by the two bishops and the broader church have raised ethical issues.

Gerard Moretz, a seasoned child sex abuse investigator for the Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Department and an expert witness for the Adams children, is one of them.

“What aspect of your religious practice are you advancing if you don’t report something like this?” he asked.

Associated Press editor Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City and investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this story.

To contact the AP’s investigations team, email investigative@ap.org.


4 takeaways from AP’s Mormon church sex abuse investigation

August 4, 2022

When an Arizona bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church, learned that a member of his ward was sexually assaulting his 5-year-old daughter, he followed church policy and called the Mormon Abuse Help Line.

The bishop later told law enforcement that church attorneys in Salt Lake City who staff the help line around the clock said that because he learned of the abuse during a counseling session the church considers a spiritual confession, he was legally bound to keep the abuse secret.

Paul Douglas Adams, a U.S. Border Patrol employee living with his wife and six children in Bisbee, Arizona, continued abusing his daughter for as many as seven more years, and went on to abuse a second daughter. He finally stopped in 2017 with no help from the church only because he was arrested.

The Associated Press obtained thousands of pages of sealed court documents that show in detail exactly how the church’s “help line” can divert abuse complaints away from law enforcement, leaving children in danger.

Takeaways from the AP’s investigation:

THE CLERGY-PENITENT PRIVILEGE

The seven years of secrecy in the Adams case began when church attorneys in Salt Lake City advised Bishop John Herrod and later Bishop Robert “Kim” Mauzy they were exempt from reporting requirements under the state’s child abuse reporting law because of the law’s so-called clergy-penitent privilege.

“You absolutely can do nothing,” Herrod said he was told during an interview with federal investigators.

Arizona’s child sex abuse reporting law, and similar laws in more than 20 states, says clergy, physicians, nurses, or anyone caring for a child who “reasonably believes” the child has been abused or neglected has a legal obligation to report the information to police or the state Department of Child Safety. But it also says that clergy who receive information about child neglect or sexual abuse during spiritual confessions “may withhold” that information from authorities if the clergy determine it is “reasonable and necessary” under church doctrine.

An Arizona attorney who is defending the bishops and the church in a lawsuit filed by three of the Adams children, told the AP that Herrod and Mauzy — and by extension the church — were acting within the law and in accordance with their “religious principles.”

“These bishops did nothing wrong. They didn’t violate the law, and therefore they can’t be held liable,” said William Maledon. He also called the Adams children’s lawsuit “a money grab.”

THE HELP LINE

The Associated Press obtained nearly 12,000 pages of sealed records from an unrelated child sex abuse lawsuit against the Mormon church in West Virginia, which show that the help line is part of a system that can easily be misused by church leaders to divert abuse accusations against church members away from law enforcement and instead to church attorneys, who may bury the problem, leaving victims in harm’s way.

It was established in 1995 when legal claims of sex abuse against churches were on the rise.

Officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said in sworn statements included in the sealed records that the help line is staffed by social workers who destroy records of all calls at the close of each day.

When the social workers receive calls about abuse that may present a risk to the church — such as abuse committed by prominent church members, abuse perpetrated during church activities, or especially egregious instances of abuse — the calls are referred to attorneys with the Salt Lake City law firm Kirton McConkie. The church maintains that all calls referred to the attorneys are protected by attorney-client privilege, leaving no record of the accusations accessible to prosecutors or victims’ attorneys.

The lawsuit filed by the Adams children alleges: “The Mormon Church implements the Helpline not for the protection and spiritual counseling of sexual abuse victims...but for (church) attorneys to snuff out complaints and protect the Mormon Church from potentially costly lawsuits.”

THE SURVIVORS

Miranda and Matthew Whitworth adopted the Adams’ younger daughter when she was just 2 years old. Miranda said when they met, the toddler wrapped her arms and legs around her head, buried her face in her neck, and refused to look up to say good-bye to her mother’s family.

“It was the craziest thing,” Miranda Whitworth said. “It was like when you see a baby monkey or baby gorilla cling to their mother, and they just won’t let go.”

The couple said they joined the lawsuit to push the church to change its policy so that any instance of child sexual abuse is immediately reported to civil authorities. “We just don’t understand why they’re paying all these lawyers to fight this,” Matthew Whitworth said. “Just change the policy.

Nancy Salminen, a special needs teacher in public schools, adopted the older Adams daughter, MJ, after providing her with foster care when she was 12 years old. Today, MJ is a bubbly 16-year-old who plays in her high school band and proudly dons a crisp new uniform for her job as a fast-food restaurant.

“She had every excuse to fail and to just fold into herself and run away,” Salminen said. “But instead, she came back stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”

THE UPSHOT

Paul Adams died by suicide in jail before he could stand trial on federal child pornography charges and state child sex abuse charges.

Leizza Adams pleaded no contest to two counts of child abuse and served two-and-a-half years in state prison.

Judge Wallace Hoggatt called the abuse endured by MJ and her younger sister “one of the most horrendous cases of child molestation” he had ever encountered.

Today, the lawsuit filed by the Adams children in Cochise County Superior Court, as well as a criminal investigation by the Cochise County attorney, continue to unfold.

“I just think that the Mormon church really sucks. Seriously sucks,” MJ told the AP. “They are just the worst type of people, from what I’ve experienced and what other people have experienced.”

___

Associated Press editor Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City and news researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

To contact the AP’s investigations team, email investigative@ap.org.