Denson's Lawsuit Dismissed by Federal Judge

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, rockpond said:

There is a third group... or is it just me?

I believe Denson, I think Bishop is a predator, but I suspect that the Church did NOT know. 

I think a couple of leaders knew, but not the top three leaders of the church. And I wish she had told Pres. Monson when she met with him. Of course he wasn't the prophet at the time.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Tacenda

[rockpond]

24 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I think a couple of leaders knew, but not the top three leaders of the church.

... and it's the First Presidency who extends mission president calls (or at least it was as of 10 years ago, I assume it hasn't changed).

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, rockpond said:

There is a third group... or is it just me?

I believe Denson, I think Bishop is a predator, but I suspect that the Church did NOT know. 

I believe that something very inappropriate happened to Denson and that Bishop did it.  I don't know that I believe all of Denson's claims.

[LoudmouthMormon]

17 hours ago, changed said:

Just out of curiosity, what does it take to put an asterisk next to someone's name - indicating that they should not hold leadership callings, or callings with children?  

I read through the process once a few years ago - so, going from memory here.  First, you need proof of something.  A criminal conviction, or a disciplinary council outcome, or a confession or something.  Then there are forms to fill out.  I think the SP does the form, which is reviewed by an area authority or something.  I seem to remember it's an annotation (meaning, a brief sentence) - I've never heard that it's just an asterisk.  Also, once on the record, only a member of the first presidency can remove it.

This is a reason, if not the reason, why we keep records for excommunicated people.  There are predators who will go "ward-shopping" for victims, so it's important they have a permanent record that follows them no matter what church discipline happens.

[Jeanne]

55 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I believe that something very inappropriate happened to Denson and that Bishop did it.  I don't know that I believe all of Denson's claims.

I gave you a rep...for fair ..as fair as you can be.  As a woman, I thank you.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, provoman said:

I think he is waiting for the Utah Supreme Court to rule on a separate case - that he is not part of - that will determine if BYU PD should obliged to follow GRAMA. 

 

As to Bishop's confession to Elder Wells, it is not known what was confessed. Bishops mentions 2 incidents that occurred prior to his confession to Wells:

1. A female in Argentina when when he was a young missionary; he says he did not tell his mission president everything.

2. A woman wearing a skimpy bathing bathing suit...he provides no additional detail.

So there is not much there to say he confessed to sexually abusive behavior.

Did he detail those incidents to Elder Wells?

He also tells Denson that he never sought treatment, but rather he determined to fix himself and served as much as he could in an attempt to fix himself.

With 2, another man, his friend, was present and iirc, he said she was flirting with him...but you are right no additional detail in terms of his behaviour.  The presence of another person suggests nonpredatory though.

There was another incident he mentioned but unknown timing iirc (please correct me if it happened for sure after the alleged confession) and that was a hot tub/springs, some public bathing place where he was with a group of Church leaders and a woman took off her top.  He doesn't say why they were there and doesn't mention wives being present either, so it sounds like a weird situation to me now that I think about it unless there was a meeting of regional leaders who stayed overnight in a hotel and hit the pool after meetings for the day were over.  I would not be surprised though if he confused a non Church conference/seminar experience with a church one as either he or Denson claimed it was in Wyoming iirc and there seems little reason that any of his church callings would have taken him there rather than Utah.  He kept mentioning events where he was interacting with Church authorities (never mentions his wife or their wives either and any story he tells unless his wife is the story), seemed like it was very important to him to have those connections, so it increases the likelihood imo he 'remembers' events in that context whether or not they happened that way.

That is irrelevant to any issue though since there was no part of that narrative that puts him in a predator position, rather he is completely passive in his description just as in the flirtation incident.  I am just wandering, passing time.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

Something inappropriate definitely happened imo between Denson and Bishop.  Bare minimum he was telling her way too intimate details of his married life, that exchange describing he and his wife where they are both adding details shows prior knowledge on her part that I see it as unlikely she heard from anyone else, though it is remotely possible an actual victim (I say actual if Denson was lying about this, which I don't believe) shared with Denson details of inappropriate conversations Bishop had with the victim.  I see that as really unlikely though.

I don't see it as an unreasonable step to move to either consensual (in the sense she was adult and going along with it, not in terms of power dynamics) sexual behaviour or nonconsensual assault.  I also don't think it unreasonable that it was only those inappropriate conversations during counseling sessions with Denson.  Since Denson stated she was not the victim who was asked to expose herself unlike Bishop's memory, I think there is more evidence for the second victim likely being sexually assaulted than Denson.

The problem is though that Bishop in the transcript never described actual molestation (at least as I define it), unless one labels the frisky back rub that the sister may have asked for (that would be sexual inappropriateness if she asked to have a back rub, molestation if she didn't imo).  He said he molested women, but the examples of him just looking or no details at all don't match up.  He is either very careful to avoid any suggestion that he physically harmed someone in his details or he just sees himself as a passive observer that things happen to.

------

Since Denson has demonstrated blatant dishonesty in order to achieve what she wants (telling the local leaders of Bishop's ward they were not recording the conversation and doing so by elaborate deception imo, suggesting they even put their phones outside the room), I don't trust anything she says at this point on its own.

 Since her former teacher confirmed she was pulled out of classes and Bishop told on his own a reasonable explanation of why he was seeing sister missionaries (they were going to him for counseling on how to deal with past trauma), I have no problem believing he was having private sessions with her.  The shared stories points to inappropriate conversations.  

The anonymous source about the basement room simply demonstrates it exists.  Denson could have found out about it from Bishop describing it himself rather than being taken there.  Leavitt's comments are now useless imo due to dementia and having no way of knowing what was said to him prior to the interview (if he was told there were two victims, told Denson reported there was a VCR in a basement room, he could have put those details together to come up with her reporting to him she was shown porn with another sister).  Denson had a relationship with Leavitt's family in the past outside of just conversations with him. It might have continued. She could have been aware of his condition and depended on that to completely create her telling him.  Not saying this is likely, just saying at this point the possibility renders Leavitt's comments and her claim of telling him useless on their own.

She has demonstrated she is willing and even eager it seems to me to 'go the extra mile'.  It may be because she is an actual victim of assault and just has an unexpected affect in dealing with it (the video with Norton and her bragging about lying to track down Bishop suggests it is a game to her at times, maybe trivializing it with her antics is her way of establishing control) or it maybe this is a scam by her and that is why she is so careless and switched so easily between trivializing and seriousness (5 minutes after the games with Norton she is giving her 'testimony' calmly and with dignity, like she appeared at the press conference).  Even if she has poor impulse control and thus has damaged her case over and over again by her methods, she is quite intelligent imo, so a scam getting this far because she is good at doing research and finding opportunities is not completely unreasonable imo, though improbable to me at this point.  A scam would explain why she interrupted Bishop right at the point he might have said something actually useful and on point to the alleged assault, what he said he remembered about the basement encounter.  I have never been able to understand why she didn't come back to that in 2 hours of talking even if she had lost control in anger the first time and interrupted him.

----

It would help if more people from her past spoke up (though I get why they don't).  So far I am only aware of three...Leavitt (discounted for anything he says now, but he apparently let his daughter stay with her in Japan; I assume this detail is from Denson and could be a lie, but surely easily disputed by his family so it would be a very dumb lie), her ex-husband (sounds like nothing good to say about her now, but he married her in the temple and had children with her), and one anonymous source on ldsfreedom boards (who I would normally completely discount base on anonymity, but I was very impressed by his posts he made there on other topics prior to his comments about Denson and it seems contrary to his character to treat an individual as he treated Denson if he didn't have a negative history with her...not weighting this that much since it is a very limited view into his character, but it has created a space for me for questioning her behaviour at the MTC).

Otoh, besides his son, has anyone spoken up for Bishop?  He might have asked them not to, but it feels off there wasn't more outcry at the beginning.  The anonymous report claiming to be a relation to his exwife reported the dementia, but also seemed rather negative about him (giving his description about her in the transcript understandable).

Edited October 28, 2018 by Calm

[esodije]

Some people seem to think the BYU police report is a smoking gun. I don’t get it: one thing we do know Bishop told the BYU police was that he asked Denson at some point to bare her breasts to him. Denson herself has said repeatedly that she wasn’t that person, and that she had no chest to speak of at age 21. If Bishop is still confusing Denson with someone else, how can anything he says be regarded as conclusive? To me, there is no greater evidence of the extent of his dementia than that he continued to run his mouth to Denson in December 2017, even after her false pretenses in procuring the interview became clear. What clear-thinking person do any of you know who would have done that?

[Calm]

3 hours ago, esodije said:

Some people seem to think the BYU police report is a smoking gun. I don’t get it: one thing we do know Bishop told the BYU police was that he asked Denson at some point to bare her breasts to him. Denson herself has said repeatedly that she wasn’t that person, and that she had no chest to speak of at age 21. If Bishop is still confusing Denson with someone else, how can anything he says be regarded as conclusive? To me, there is no greater evidence of the extent of his dementia than that he continued to run his mouth to Denson in December 2017, even after her false pretenses in procuring the interview became clear. What clear-thinking person do any of you know who would have done that?

Yep.  

There is one another possibility and that is painkilling drugs he was taking due to surgery three days before might have removed common sense and inhibitions for the interview...but unlikely to have still been affecting him for the police interview as I doubt his lawyer would have allowed it and police would have known better, but I find that as unlikely that if he was that much affected he would have even been able to go to the interview in the first place. So the confusion over who was asked to expose herself (assuming that was not a complete fabrication due to dementia or false confessing) seems to me very indicative of dementia.

Also at the very end of the transcript he tells her he needs to go to the bathroom and she responds as if she is responsible for him, that she is the one who must call whoever came with him.  Even if wheelchair bound or otherwise temporarily movement limited (in the video of Bishop's ward, he was sitting on a pew), someone mentally aware would be handling this kind of stuff on their own, imo.  It is a matter of simple dignity.  

"Oh, I'm sure there's one right out there. Let me call______ Let's see here."

 

Edited November 5, 2018 by Calm

[esodije]

The post-op pain meds might have aggravated the effects of Bishop’s dementia, but they aren’t likely to have been the cause of them.

Edited November 12, 2018 by esodije

[provoman]

Update.

 

Wells and Bishop have been deposed. Denson claims their "testimonies" are conflicting. Denson remains "cautiously confident" that Summary Judgment will not be granted. Her attorney Craig Vernon is "cautiously optomistic".

[Duncan]

1 minute ago, provoman said:

Update.

 

Wells and Bishop have been deposed. Denson claims their "testimonies" are conflicting. Denson remains "cautiously confident" that Summary Judgment will not be granted. Her attorney Craig Vernon is "cautiously optomistic".

"I know you all want to know what happened in Joseph Bishop's deposition but while the case is pending the information is under a protective order. 
I will say this ... between the conflicting testimonies of Elder Robert E Wells, Emeritus General Authority, and Joseph L Bishop, former Mission President, I am confident that there's enough conflicting testimony to get us past Summary Judgment.

SUMMARY JUDGMENT 
n. a court order ruling that no factual issues remain to be tried and therefore a cause of action or all causes of action in a complaint can be decided upon certain facts without trial. A summary judgment is based upon a motion by one of the parties that contends that all necessary factual issues are settled or so one-sided they need not be tried. The motion is supported by declarations under oath, excerpts from depositions which are under oath, admissions of fact and other discovery, as well as a legal argument (points and authorities), that argue that there are no triable issues of fact and that the settled facts require a summary judgment for the moving party. The opposing party will respond by counter-declarations and legal arguments attempting to show that there are "triable issues of fact." If it is unclear whether there is a triable issue of fact in any cause of action, then summary judgment must be denied as to that cause of action. The theory behind the summary judgment process is to eliminate the need to try settled factual issues and to decide without trial one or more causes of action in the complaint. The pleading procedures are extremely technical and complicated and are particularly dangerous to the party against whom the motion is made.

Although my attorney Craig Vernon is "cautiously optimistic" I remain "Cautiously Confident"!!!

I believe I can safely confirm that Elder Wells and Joseph Bishop were neighbors in Argentina, their children attended school in Argentina together and their wives traveled and performed musical numbers throughout areas of the mission. They have been friends for over 40 years. This is not privileged information but something most of us didn't know, as we didn't live in Argentina nor did we ever have reason to care.

More to follow when it's appropriate !!

Thank you all for your loving support!!"

 

She also said she recently spent time in Jail

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Duncan said:

She also said she recently spent time in Jail

Where was this? (Want to read how she says it)

[Duncan]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

Where was this? (Want to read how she says it)

on her FB!

[Calm]

Missed that, thanks, will take closer look.  I hate FB, btw. (Trying to find things and then having to keep redoing click to read longer conversations).

Found it.

Edited December 2, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

Could a lawyer or someone else with experience in the area explain to me how she could be jailed with no bail and then get bailed out later?

She mentioned she was dealing with family court, has she explained that elsewhere?

Edited December 2, 2018 by Calm

[provoman]

51 minutes ago, Calm said:

Could a lawyer or someone else with experience in the area explain to me how she could be jailed with no bail and then get bailed out later?

She mentioned she was dealing with family court, has she explained that elsewhere?

I think her legal issues are 3

 Federal case against the Church , custody for her daughter, accusation of identity theft.

https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=330293367800418&id=100024592716248

Edited December 2, 2018 by provoman

[Calm]

removed because it isn't relevant, I just find her incomprehensible in her choices

Edited December 2, 2018 by Calm

[strappinglad]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

I just find her incomprehensible in her choices

This is a very kind way of putting it. A couple of other phrases come to mind. I will defer.

[provoman]

The remaining claim Denson's case tends to go directly too the Ramani case, wherein the Nevada Supreme Court ruled on a Synogogue liability and a Rabbi's misconduct.

I beleive David Jordan was the attorney who filed an amicus brief.

So basically it seems we are at the same situation in Ramani, ergo, Does a Court have Constitutional authority to reveiw essclesiastical decisions - in this instance calling JB to Pres. of the MTC.