Woman Accusing Joseph Bishop to File Suit (Against Bishop & LDS Church)

[juliann]

http://kutv.com/news/local/woman-who-accused-mtc-president-of-sexual-assault-has-been-telling-her-story-for-3-decades

Now we know what the VCR  in that room was for.....

Quote

 

(KUTV)- When you ask the former bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, Ron Leavitt, about the recent allegations against former MTC mission president, he says he remembers them vividly.

“Oh heavens yes,” Leavitt said as he recalls what he was told in 1984.

Leavitt was a single ward president from 1979 to 1985 and said during his regular post-church meetings with parishioners, a woman told him that Joseph Bishop, a former president of the Missionary Training Center, had acted inappropriately with her.

“According to her he took (her) and I think another sister missionary down to the basement and showed them some pornography,” Leavitt explained.

 

When asked if he reported the incident to the police or the leadership of the LDS Church Leavitt said he did not. “I didn't think it had much credence. I wasn't going to risk sullying the reputation of someone based on that kind of a report,” Leavitt said.

 

 

[Gray]

4 minutes ago, juliann said:

http://kutv.com/news/local/woman-who-accused-mtc-president-of-sexual-assault-has-been-telling-her-story-for-3-decades

Now we know what the VCR  in that room was for.....

 

That's what I suspected he was doing with it, sadly.

Quote

When asked if he reported the incident to the police or the leadership of the LDS Church Leavitt said he did not. “I didn't think it had much credence. I wasn't going to risk sullying the reputation of someone based on that kind of a report,” Leavitt said.

It's the same story over and over again. Sigh.

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, Gray said:

That's what I suspected he was doing with it, sadly.

It's the same story over and over again. Sigh.

I suspected as much, too. I wondered if the people who latched onto the "DVD" misstatement did so at least partly because they had the same suspicion.

[hope_for_things]

37 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

And this is the conundrum because most abuse victims aren't psychologically functioning in a capacity to be gathering evidence after they have been abused.  This is why we need to put as many protections in place as possible, and I think its clear that the church was negligent on multiple levels.  

I am not convinced of this. 

Why not?  Are you saying abuse victims should do a better job of gathering evidence, or are you disagreeing why my point that proper protections weren't in place?  

[Storm Rider]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I avoid defending sexual predators and am comfortable if God wants to judge me harshly if I were to choose to do so.

That you see that bar as a high standard that is difficult to achieve and that one should worry about being held to that standard via judgement is more than a little disturbing.

If this missionary were your daughter would you still defend her assaulter with calls not to judge lest you be judged by the same standard?

Great, glad for you.  How about you keep your opinion and I will do the same.  There is nothing for us to discuss.  You will be on ignore and I never have to see stupid comments again.  Cheers

[SeekingUnderstanding]

5 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

You will be on ignore and I never have to see stupid comments again.  

I think you greatly underestimate the number of stupid commenters and stupid comments on the internet. Not that I think Nehor's comment fits in that category, but just saying. 

[CA Steve]

24 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I suspected as much, too. I wondered if the people who latched onto the "DVD" misstatement did so at least partly because they had the same suspicion.

I believe it was more of an attempt to show small inconsistencies in her story to cast doubt on what she was saying. Given what has come to light since then, it looks like her memory that far back and under those circumstances, is  impressive but then i think that sort of trauma is bound to leave some lasting impressions.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, CA Steve said:

I believe it was more of an attempt to show small inconsistencies in her story to cast doubt on what she was saying. Given what has come to light since then, it looks like her memory that far back and under those circumstances, is  impressive but then i think that sort of trauma is bound to leave some lasting impressions.

I agree. I just wondered if that particular inconsistency was pointed out for a reason. 

[Storm Rider]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I think you greatly underestimate the number of stupid commenters and stupid comments on the internet. Not that I think Nehor's comment fits in that category, but just saying. 

The hypocrisy belongs to this Board.  Nehor writes a post that is strictly a personal attack, I report it, and nothing happens.  Instead, one of my posts gets some ridiculous comment about if I don't like discussing current events then find another thread.  Who in the heck is this mod?  Gads, get someone with a modicum of objectivity.  Either follow the rules for all or don't enforce them for anyone.  This can teach people to hate.  

When you cannot discuss the topic and begin to attack the individual then there is no discussion. 

poster removed

[Jeanne]

Don't get this shut down guys..

[Gray]

Edit: never mind, off topic

Edited March 23, 2018 by Gray

[bluebell]

23 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

The hypocrisy belongs to this Board.  Nehor writes a post that is strictly a personal attack, I report it, and nothing happens.  Instead, one of my posts gets some ridiculous comment about if I don't like discussing current events then find another thread.  Who in the heck is this mod?  Gads, get someone with a modicum of objectivity.  Either follow the rules for all or don't enforce them for anyone.  This can teach people to hate.  

When you cannot discuss the topic and begin to attack the individual then there is no discussion. 

Edited-nevermind.

Edited March 23, 2018 by bluebell

[Thinking]

34 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Given what has come to light since then, it looks like her memory that far back and under those circumstances, is  impressive but then i think that sort of trauma is bound to leave some lasting impressions.

My memory of significant events is crystal clear.

[provoman]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

I suspected as much, too. I wondered if the people who latched onto the "DVD" misstatement did so at least partly because they had the same suspicion.

As I recall it was only one person who had issue with “dvd” and as I recall smac responded to the effect of not making her an offender for a word.

Given the recent statements about the room, there very likely will be other victims.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, provoman said:

As I recall it was only one person who had issue with “dvd” and as I recall smac responded to the effect of not making her an offender for a word.

Given the recent statements about the room, there very likely will be other victims.

I would assume so. I really hope he didn't do this to a lot of other women, but that seems unlikely.

[CA Steve]

3 minutes ago, Thinking said:

My memory of significant events is crystal clear.

All significant events in your life or just the ones you can remember?

 

For example I can remember pretty well the events of my wedding day but not so much the birth of my first child, both significant events. I can remember my baptism but not my ordination to be a deacon.  There were a lot of significant events in my life some I can remember well, some not so well and some not at all. I also think you would be surprised how crystal clear your memory actually is about those events you do think you remember well. The further back a memory is the more it likely has been unconsciously changed in our  own mind. For example, I have been camping with a certain friend for over 20 years. This guy works in the entertainment industry and has great stories to tell. He once spent five years traveling with Frank Sinatra. The other day when we were out camping he was telling people some of these stories and I asked him to tell the story about asking Sammy Davis Jr for change for a $20.00 bill. (The punch line I clearly remembered was Sammy replying "Babe, $20 is change"). My friend stops and says, "I never worked with Sammy." yet I have this crystal clear memory of my friend telling that story.

 

[Jeanne]

5 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I would assume so. I really hope he didn't do this to a lot of other women, but that seems unlikely.

My hope is that umpteen women that could have been assaulted is not better than one man authority priesthood holder being held accountable for this church.

[ttribe]

55 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

The hypocrisy belongs to this Board.  Nehor writes a post that is strictly a personal attack, I report it, and nothing happens.  Instead, one of my posts gets some ridiculous comment about if I don't like discussing current events then find another thread.  Who in the heck is this mod?  Gads, get someone with a modicum of objectivity.  Either follow the rules for all or don't enforce them for anyone.  This can teach people to hate.  

When you cannot discuss the topic and begin to attack the individual then there is no discussion. 

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

In theory, sure--they should have been informed immediately.

But I'm trying to imagine exactly how that would work. The CEO of Federal Express famously gives his home phone number to all employees, and they are instructed to call him if there is a problem that needs to immediately be escalated that high. But in the mission structure, the rule book is clear--all problems go to the mission president. Missionaries should never contact general authorities--not to question your mission president's judgment. Not to report a problem. Not even to report a rape.

These days, most college campuses have lighted emergency phones so that if you are attacked in the middle of the night you can call the cops for help. Do they have those installed in the MTC? Of course not. So what do you do? At a secular college, at orientation you are instructed on what to do if you are the victim of a crime. But in the mission, you aren't instructed on what to do, other than talk to your priesthood leaders, who all report to the guy you are alleging violated you.

In this case the victim did tell her bishop what happened soon after her mission, and he didn't believe her. If her own bishop didn't believe her, why would the Provo police department? The only reason anybody believes her now is she secretly taped a conversation.

There have always been such communication problems, and they have sometimes meant that the Brethren do not get informed in a timely way.  For example, the French Mission in the late 50s had a major apostasy taking place, led by the Mission first counselor.  All complaint letters sent to the Brethren were rerouted back to the Mission, where they were intercepted by the Counselor.  An immense amount of damage took place before the Brethren became aware of the problem (when a missionary told his father, who knew some of the Brethren personally).

One must otherwise use common sense and realize that complaining to the perpetrator is idiotic.  Calling 911 is best.  An organization like Provo PD is required to do certain things immediately, which cannot be undone.  It immediately becomes a criminal matter.  A victim advocate is immediately assigned and accompanies the victim to the hospital for a rape kit.  The prosecutor cannot ignore the case, and SLC will soon have the details.  Provo PD does not have the luxury of disbelieving the victim.

Waiting to tell a bishop until after a mission is doomed to failure, and the bishop is not the right guy to tell in any case.  Despite that rational argument, a lot of women are going to fail to tell the right person, and are not going to do so in a timely way.  I understand that and I am highly annoyed by it, but that is the real world we live in, and blaming the Brethren is only appropriate if they have not done what they can to put into place policies which ameliorate the problem.

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, churchistrue said:

Does she seem like she's lying to you? Fact after fact has been corroborated. Even that she's naming Asay I think tells something. He's the one that would have been assigned to her, based on his personal knowledge of Bishop and the situation at the MTC. And he's the one that she's claiming to have met with. Also, the Church's answer was not that they were never told, only that "no record exists". Carefully worded. I think there's very, very solid reason to believe she talked to Asay. 

I still want facts, not assertions.  That means reviewing actual records, not rumormongering.  If Asay was an idiot in this matter, then we need to know it based on facts.  At that point, it is appropriate to drag his name through the mud.  This applies to all others potentially involved.  In a social media world, people no longer care about facts.  They prefer assumptions.  They prefer to tar and feather someone immediately.  Guilty till proven innocent.

[rockpond]

4 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

... blaming the Brethren is only appropriate if they have not done what they can to put into place policies which ameliorate the problem.

I totally agree.  And there is certainly work that can be done in this regard.

• End closed door one-on-one interviews.
• No secret settlements
• Publicize data regarding reports of abuse
• Phone number (well publicized) for confidentially reporting of abuse
• Additional counseling/instruction to priesthood leaders on the matter
• And probably a dozen more things that I can't think of.

We can look at just the Joseph Bishop case and ask ourselves some questions to see where the gaps are:

• Why was Bishop permitted to continue holding leadership callings after having confessed instances of inappropriate conduct?
• Why did reports to the YSA bishop of the "secret room" and MTC president go unreported to anyone?
• Should Robert Wells have done something difference with whatever confession he received from Bishop?
• Why did Carlos Asay not speak with Bishop or do something with the allegations received from the woman? (I know I'm making an assumption here but everything else she said in that recording is turning out to be verified.)
• What was really happening behind the scenes over the last three months regarding this case?

[SeekingUnderstanding]

17 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There have always been such communication problems, and they have sometimes meant that the Brethren do not get informed in a timely way.  For example, the French Mission in the late 50s had a major apostasy taking place, led by the Mission first counselor.  All complaint letters sent to the Brethren were rerouted back to the Mission, where they were intercepted by the Counselor.  An immense amount of damage took place before the Brethren became aware of the problem (when a missionary told his father, who knew some of the Brethren personally).

 

  I understand that and I am highly annoyed by it, but that is the real world we live in, and blaming the Brethren is only appropriate if they have not done what they can to put into place policies which ameliorate the problem.

I’m having trouble with your logic. The brethren put policies in place that make it difficult to communicate with them (they discourage it in general conference, they send letters back), but we can’t blame them for these policies?

 

The brethren tell us they have the gift of discernment, Elder Eyring tells us callings are perfect.  The brethren tell us not to criticize them. We are taught to trust our bishops, to go them with our life’s struggles. And when people believe this and act on it, the brethren have no responsibility?

[Calm]

4 hours ago, Nofear said:

The ethics of how to respond to abuse is something I considered with this event. So let's make a short hypothetical where there is a he said / she said scenario with an accusation of rape. For the purposes of the hypothetical no other evidence is available. There are two basic scenarios where the accounts disagree.

False Denial -- rape did occur but was denied by the perpetrator
False Accusation -- rape did not occur

In the false denial situation if the perpetrator is believed the victim receives non-trivial emotional and social harm from the failure to be believed. The harm of the rape is exacerbated.
In the false accusation scenario, the life of the accused is potentially ruined with very possible outcomes of loss of employment, imprisonment, family disruption, etc.

From a strictly utilitarian view, the harm/damage created by a false accusation is new, significant, and very damaging. The harm from the false denial is certainly not to be discounted but I see it as less than the harm of most false accusation scenarios. Given that ethical calculus, it is better to error by not punishing an accusation without non-trivial evidence to change the ethical calculus as it were.

One objection to this is the statement that very few false accusations occur, relatively speaking. Suppose that 99% of accusations are true. Does that change the above weighting? What if only 1% of accusations were true? Where do we draw the line? Believing in Blackstone's formulation, I prefer to error on letting the guilty go unpunished than to falsely condemn the innocent. This is, of course, one of the themes of the book To Kill a Mockingbird, where the community erred by believing the false accusation because the woman was white and the accused black.

That same line of reasoning occurred de facto in this thread. Many were willing to withhold judgment barring more significant evidence. More significant evidence did come to light and fewer interlocutors here seem to favor the false accusation scenario.

There is another factor...if true accusations are not believed, the predator is not prevented from abusing others.

[Analytics]

25 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There have always been such communication problems, and they have sometimes meant that the Brethren do not get informed in a timely way.  For example, the French Mission in the late 50s had a major apostasy taking place, led by the Mission first counselor.  All complaint letters sent to the Brethren were rerouted back to the Mission, where they were intercepted by the Counselor.  An immense amount of damage took place before the Brethren became aware of the problem (when a missionary told his father, who knew some of the Brethren personally).

One must otherwise use common sense and realize that complaining to the perpetrator is idiotic.  Calling 911 is best.  An organization like Provo PD is required to do certain things immediately, which cannot be undone.  It immediately becomes a criminal matter.  A victim advocate is immediately assigned and accompanies the victim to the hospital for a rape kit.  The prosecutor cannot ignore the case, and SLC will soon have the details.  Provo PD does not have the luxury of disbelieving the victim.

Waiting to tell a bishop until after a mission is doomed to failure, and the bishop is not the right guy to tell in any case.  Despite that rational argument, a lot of women are going to fail to tell the right person, and are not going to do so in a timely way.  I understand that and I am highly annoyed by it, but that is the real world we live in, and blaming the Brethren is only appropriate if they have not done what they can to put into place policies which ameliorate the problem.

Calling 911 is best. Sure. But missionaries aren't allowed to use the telephone without permission. So how does a trainee at the MTC go about getting permission from their priesthood authority figures to call 911 and report that the president of the MTC attempted to rape you? Or do you make the call without permission? If so, how to you get access to a phone?

In principle, a missionary should simply exert his free agency and act like a free-thinking adult and demand to use the phone. But is it really that simple? It reminds me of Bill Shunn's memoir, The Accidental Terrorist: Confessions of a Reluctant Missionary. The book is about a couple of missionaries who wanted to do what probably most missionaries want to do at one point or another--exercise your free agency and simply quit. However, as the book illustrates the system and its culture make doing this extremely difficult. Just as it is nearly impossible to quit a mission, it would be nearly impossible to gain access to a telephone in the MTC so you could call 911.

If members are supposed to act like adults living in the real world, this should be taught to them and they should be treated that way. But they aren't.

[ttribe]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There have always been such communication problems, and they have sometimes meant that the Brethren do not get informed in a timely way.  For example, the French Mission in the late 50s had a major apostasy taking place, led by the Mission first counselor.  All complaint letters sent to the Brethren were rerouted back to the Mission, where they were intercepted by the Counselor.  An immense amount of damage took place before the Brethren became aware of the problem (when a missionary told his father, who knew some of the Brethren personally).

One must otherwise use common sense and realize that complaining to the perpetrator is idiotic.  Calling 911 is best.  An organization like Provo PD is required to do certain things immediately, which cannot be undone.  It immediately becomes a criminal matter.  A victim advocate is immediately assigned and accompanies the victim to the hospital for a rape kit.  The prosecutor cannot ignore the case, and SLC will soon have the details.  Provo PD does not have the luxury of disbelieving the victim.

Waiting to tell a bishop until after a mission is doomed to failure, and the bishop is not the right guy to tell in any case.  Despite that rational argument, a lot of women are going to fail to tell the right person, and are not going to do so in a timely way.  I understand that and I am highly annoyed by it, but that is the real world we live in, and blaming the Brethren is only appropriate if they have not done what they can to put into place policies which ameliorate the problem.

I'm curious, Robert; have you ever had occasion to interact with an individual in the minutes immediately following a traumatic sexual assault?  Rational thought is not necessarily a reasonable expectation.   Moreover, the suggestion to use "common sense" is often overridden by fear of retribution, especially in relatively authoritarian organizations, in the weeks and months that follow.  I don't think you are setting reasonable expectations on the alleged victim in formulating your argument.

Edited March 23, 2018 by ttribe