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AP Story about Abuse


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Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, webbles said:

Yes, there are bishops who don't report.  But the helpline is not telling them not to report.  They are making that decision on their own.  They absolutely should be reporting and the bishops are liable.  The church is also partly liable because they need to improve the instructions given to the bishop.

I'm afraid you're most likely mistaken if bishops are told to call the helpline, how are you so sure about that? If memory serves I read of instances where the helpline said not to report, will have to dig them up from the youtube.

ETA: Went back to the FB post, here is the portion, I'd forgotten the bishop called the helpline:

She hadn’t heard about the case in AZ, or read the article—instead, she was referring to the fact that her teen daughter was sexually assaulted at a stake function last week, and she’s been blasted by the youth leaders and bishop for reporting it. They’ve told her repeatedly that she should drop charges and ‘forgive’ because that poor boy’s life will be ruined.
So the sequence was that the bishop called the help line, they told him not to report, he told my friend to forgive and forget and let him (bishop) work with the perpetrator to help him repent so he can someday put this behind him. No help for her daughter. No consequences. No commitment to prevent it from happening again. Just...gaslight and sweep it under the rug.
Edited by Tacenda
Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I'm afraid you're most likely mistaken if bishops are told to call the helpline, how are you so sure about that? If memory serves I read of instances where the helpline said not to report, will have to dig them up from the youtube.

ETA: Went back to the FB post, here is the portion, I'd forgotten the bishop called the helpline:

She hadn’t heard about the case in AZ, or read the article—instead, she was referring to the fact that her teen daughter was sexually assaulted at a stake function last week, and she’s been blasted by the youth leaders and bishop for reporting it. They’ve told her repeatedly that she should drop charges and ‘forgive’ because that poor boy’s life will be ruined.
So the sequence was that the bishop called the help line, they told him not to report, he told my friend to forgive and forget and let him (bishop) work with the perpetrator to help him repent so he can someday put this behind him. No help for her daughter. No consequences. No commitment to prevent it from happening again. Just...gaslight and sweep it under the rug.

This sounds more like they reported to the police before they talked to the bishop.  And now the bishop is being stupid and trying to "protect" the abuser.  I don't see a helpline being used.  Also, do you know what state?  If a victim talks to the bishop, in most states that isn't priest-penitent privilege.  So, this is an easy case of suing the bishop for not reporting.  That's why I have a problem with the timeline.

Edited to add: the only cases where a bishop could be told to not report would be when they received it in a manner that is covered by priest-penitent privilege.  And even then, we also have a lot of people who have stated that everytime they call the helpline, they are told to report or the helpline itself reported.

Edited by webbles
Posted (edited)
27 minutes ago, webbles said:

This sounds more like they reported to the police before they talked to the bishop.  And now the bishop is being stupid and trying to "protect" the abuser.  I don't see a helpline being used.  Also, do you know what state?  If a victim talks to the bishop, in most states that isn't priest-penitent privilege.  So, this is an easy case of suing the bishop for not reporting.  That's why I have a problem with the timeline.

Edited to add: the only cases where a bishop could be told to not report would be when they received it in a manner that is covered by priest-penitent privilege.  And even then, we also have a lot of people who have stated that everytime they call the helpline, they are told to report or the helpline itself reported.

Yes, I finally understood that recently that the bishops can report no matter what if it isn't a priest-penitent privilege according to the law in their state. 

Isn't that sad that a good portion go unreported then, and in many cases I saw that the bishops even told the victim to not report on the youtube I watched. You can't tell me that bishops don't do this. For as long as I've lived, in my memory bank, I remember people I've known not report because of this and trying to help the sinner repent etc. Well, repentance involves consequences of their action.

Edited by Tacenda
Posted
9 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Yes, I finally understood that recently that the bishops can report no matter what if it isn't a priest-penitent privilege according to the law in their state. 

Isn't that sad that a good portion go unreported then, and in many cases I saw that the bishops even told the victim to not report on the youtube I watched. You can't tell me that bishops don't do this. For as long as I've lived, in my memory bank, I remember people I've known not report because of this and trying to help the sinner repent etc. Well, repentance involves consequences of their action.

More training would help. What if victims don’t want it reported? 

Posted (edited)

I also grabbed another file from the documents.  It is the first deposition of Richard Fife who was, at one time, the ward secretary.  If have it attached.  I've read through it.  Some interesting items:

  • Fife and his family took in the abused kids shortly after the arrest of the abuser.  He stated that he was not aware of the reason why the abuser was arrested but came to believe (through newspaper reports and discussions with child protection agents after the fact) that it was because of child abuse
  • He was ward secretary during the time of Bishop Herrod but was released either at the end of Bishop Herrod's term or at the very beginning of Bishop Mauzy.  He doesn't think he was ward secretary during the disciplinary council of the abuser.
  • He did attend the disciplinary council of the abuser.

There's also a lot of argument between the lawyers on how much Fife can talk about the disciplinary councils.  The plaintiff's lawyer, Cardigan, has experience with suing the Catholic Church and knows about its secret documents and how they are not privileged (the 489 files are explicitly mentioned).  Cardigan believes that disciplinary council records are similar and are not protected.  The church's lawyer, Maledon, thinks otherwise and points to a case in Washington (which I've mentioned before in the threads).  Cardigan would really like to find out who was in the disciplinary council.  If a woman was there or a police officer, Cardigan thinks that would break any sort of clergy-penitent privilege.

I found it a little interesting that Fife, who sat through the disciplinary council of the abuser, was somehow not aware of the child abuse when the abuser was arrested.  Either he has poor memory of the event, lying, or the disciplinary council really wasn't about child abuse.

Edited to add a quote from the deposition.  This is Cardigan speaking to the judge by telephone after the deposition has ended:

Quote

He just testified that in 2017, when Paul Adams was arrested, and it was all over the news, and he took the children into his home, he had no idea, really, why it may have something to do with child abuse. This is a man who sat through his excommunication hearing in 2013.

2028896_fife_disposition.pdf

Edited by webbles
Posted
12 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Yes, I finally understood that recently that the bishops can report no matter what if it isn't a priest-penitent privilege according to the law in their state. 

Isn't that sad that a good portion go unreported then, and in many cases I saw that the bishops even told the victim to not report on the youtube I watched. You can't tell me that bishops don't do this. For as long as I've lived, in my memory bank, I remember people I've known not report because of this and trying to help the sinner repent etc. Well, repentance involves consequences of their action.

Yes, I do agree it is really sad that bishops tell victims not to report.  People should not be doing that.  And it isn't just bishops who will do that.  Mothers, fathers, siblings, teachers, doctors, etc have all been known to tell victims to not report.  That's one of the reasons why the mandatory reporting laws came into affect.  It was to try and stop that bad behavior.  The church needs to do to better education to bishops (and really all members) that if a victim comes forward, report immediately.  Don't try and convince the victim to not report.

Posted
1 hour ago, webbles said:

I went ahead and got it from the eaccess site.  It is 18 pages long and I haven't read it yet but it is the interview transcript.

I've read through it now.

Here's one of the parts that dealing with reporting:

Quote

EDWARDS: Okay. So it's your understanding that-and your legal counsel explained to you-that when confronted with a situation like that-uh, and, and I mean, we can call it what it is, you know, the sexual abuse of his children and his own hands
HERROD: Whenever- Yeah. If there's the kids, anyone else tells me, then I can, but if it comes from him then I can't.
EDWARDS: Okay. Okay. And that's your understanding of it?
HERROD: Mm-hmm.
EDWARDS: And I, and I apologize, I'm not as well read on onto how it works in the Mormon church. And as far as-
HERROD: Nah, I uh-
EDWARDS: -the clergy penitence
HERROD: No, no, that's Arizona state law.
EDWARDS: Okay. Okay.
HERROD: Yeah, because the church didn't, it says you, you do whatever the state tells you to do.
EDWARDS: Sure.
HERROD: If they say that if you know something and the state says, you tell, you tell.
EDWARDS: Okay.
HERROD: But on the other hand, they say, if it's illegal for you to tell-if he could sue you for telling, then you can't do it.

HERROD: And so,
EDWARDS: okay.
HERROD: So yeah, it has nothing to do with church rules, if those are there, they're Arizona rules.
EDWARDS: Okay. Those are the Arizona laws that you were advised to phrase?
HERROD: Yes.

Sounds like he was told that if the knowledge came from anyone else, he could have reported.  But if he reported the confession from the abuser, he could have been sued.

For the actual confession, it does sound like just one time.  Once the abuser confessed, the other sessions was trying to get him to go to the police and help the family.  He also had the assumption that it had stopped.  Here's a section about that (there's other places in the interview that discuss this as well):

Quote

HERROD: I don't remember any explicit, uh, descriptions of what went on and I would remember that. And so I just, it was kind of general, general at that time.
EDWARDS: Okay. And yeah, I mean, you just remember the action being sexually explicit in nature, correct? I mean, it was bad enough to bring in Leizza, right?
HERROD: Yeah. I mean, I think it was uh, I don't know if it was as much what he had explained to me and I, I, from what I gathered, it's uh worse has come out.
EDWARDS: Yeah.
HERROD: It was, I don't even remember how old she was. It was more either him, it seems like he made... made videos and her acts to him rather than his acts to her.
EDWARDS: Okay. And that's what you recall?
HERROD: That's kind of what I recall.
EDWARDS: Well, you kind of, that's where you kind of recall him telling Leizza during that, that at least that one counseling session.
HERROD: Yeah.
EDWARDS: And you said this counseling session happened a couple of times. So over similar topic?
HERROD: Similar talk, uh, topic. Uh, I don't remember, you know, discussing everything. If I remember right, we discussed probably what went on the one time.
EDWARDS: Okay. Okay.
HERROD: And then from then on, it would have been, okay, what are we doing to stop it? Is it still going on? And uh yet he's never home alone with the kids and I've got him and you know, and stuff like that. So,

EDWARDS: And that was the action she was going to take?
HERROD: And apparently she was because, uh, uh, you know, as we talked, she said, you know, he's never home with them and I'm always there when he's there. And okay. And so, uh, you know, at least for that period of time, I assumed that she had stopped things, but-
EDWARDS: okay.
HERROD: And then I never asked if they picked up again, I assume they did from-
EDWARDS: Yeah. And, and they did, you know, until our intervention in, uh, 2017. So, um, are you still active in the church, sir?
HERROD: Mm-hmm.

 

Posted
17 hours ago, Danzo said:

My attitude comes from actually helping people in real life end abusing situations and recover from them. Your approach seems to be to read about it on the internet. 

Not sure in what capacity you are helping people or how many you have helped.  As a full time therapist I try to maintain the fragile balance of empowerment and validation.  Leaning too far in on personal responsibility has real potential for damage IME. 
 

Respectfully your black and white/words in your mouth approach here on this board has me questioning your approach with actual victims. 
 

It can be very tempting to strong arm a weaker person into leaving or stopping abuse.  But there is a unique damage that is incurred in that process IME.  True change can come when a person faces the reality of their abuse, finds compassion for themselves, sees their own value, and responds with self esteeming resilience.  Rescue seldom achieves this.  It makes the rescuer feel powerful and wonderful though, doesn’t it. 

Posted
1 hour ago, webbles said:

I went ahead and got it from the eaccess site.  It is 18 pages long and I haven't read it yet but it is the interview transcript.

Herrod also explains why he didn't do any church discipline against the abuser.  It was because he wasn't sure what legal actions were going to happen and you are supposed to wait till after legal actions have finished before doing church discipline:

Quote

HERROD: If somebody does something that warrants them having church action or discipline action taken against them and there's legal proceedings pending.
EDWARDS: Okay.
HERROD: It's advised that you wait until legal proceedings are taken care of before you proceed with any church action. So if someone does something that they're going to get kicked out of the church for you wait until whatever legal proceedings are going to happen, and then you take care of the church action.
EDWARDS: Okay.
HERROD: Cause it's not as important as the other actions. So you get that. And so I hadn't done any church action with him yet since we didn't know where the legal action was going.

 

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, webbles said:

Herrod also explains why he didn't do any church discipline against the abuser.  It was because he wasn't sure what legal actions were going to happen and you are supposed to wait till after legal actions have finished before doing church discipline:

I know of another situation where the accused is facing Church discipline but the hearings have been delayed until criminal proceedings are finished (and they have been delayed a horrible amount because of the pandemic).

Edited by Nofear
Posted (edited)

@webblesWas Harrod worried about getting sued, after the helpline warned of it? And they were derelict of not checking the AZ laws at the time and it being a choice? Several balls dropped, and seems no one's conscious was affected, 2555  days of knowing children were or could be being abused more than once. A doctor of all people! 

After listening to the Mormon Land podcast, I remember the AP reporter saying that Harrod said the wife was battered, or had battered wife syndrome. Does that count for reporting something to the authorities I wonder?

Edited by Tacenda
Posted
1 hour ago, webbles said:

Herrod also explains why he didn't do any church discipline against the abuser.  It was because he wasn't sure what legal actions were going to happen and you are supposed to wait till after legal actions have finished before doing church discipline:

 

And no legal action took place because nothing was reported.    Rather than reporting himself, he encouraged Paul and his wife to report in order to avoid a potential lawsuit.  Am I understanding correctly?

Posted (edited)
28 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

After listening to the Mormon Land podcast, I remember the AP reporter saying that the wife was battered, or had battered syndrome. Does that count for reporting something to the authorities I wonder?

Reporting on battered wife syndrome isn't mandatory nor protected from liability.  Herrod might have reported that to the police, but I'm not sure what could have happened because of that report.

28 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

@webblesWas Harrod worried about getting sued, after the helpline warned of it? And they were derelict of not checking the AZ laws at the time and it being a choice?

Herrod appears to have believed that would he be liable unless he gained the information from another person.  Is that because the helpline said that or if that was his own interpretation of what the helpline said, I don't know.  I don't think anyone knows at this point, unfortunately.  Too many years have gone by.

28 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Several balls dropped, and seems no one's conscious was affected, 2555  days of knowing children were or could be being abused more than once. A doctor of all people! 

This is assuming that people knew.  That's what the case is about, did someone know?

In the interview with the agent, Herrod said he knew of one incident and that he believed that the wife had stopped the abuse.  So Herrod (unless he is lying) did not know that children were being abused during that entire time.  He thought it had been taken care of by the mother.

With the new bishop, it is possible he was under the impression that it was taken care of as well.  If the excommunication was because of incest with the abuser's mother, then no one might have known of the on going abuse.

Edited by webbles
Posted
8 minutes ago, Rivers said:

And no legal action took place because nothing was reported.    Rather than reporting himself, he encouraged Paul and his wife to report in order to avoid a potential lawsuit.  Am I understanding correctly?

My understanding of the interview is that Herrod felt that if he reported, he would be liable.  So, he encouraged Paul to report himself and also encouraged the wife to report.  She did not want to because her husband was her only source of income (she was a mother of 6 kids).  Instead, she told Herrod that she would implement changes to prevent any further abuse (such as never allowing Paul to be around the daughter alone).  Herrod believed the mother was successful at that.

There's some timeline issues around this, though.  If Herrod didn't think legal action was going to take place (because no one was going to report), then he could have started the disciplinary council at that time.  But it wasn't until the next bishop.  So why did Herrod keep waiting for legal action to occur?

Posted (edited)

Note: I am not excusing any one or any action.

Having leaders that do all these calling with minimal training and as a ‘second no pay job’ is wonderful, until it’s not.

The honest truth is many of the leaders in the church are not, professional clergy, lawyers, counselors, etc. But many times they are in the ‘thick’ of these types of issues.

This means a lot of mistakes are and will be made. I have been in a lot of callings and at times felt very inadequate, but just tried to do my best. I am sure sometimes that wasn’t enough and/or made poor decisions.

Edited by Ragerunner
Posted
11 hours ago, Tacenda said:

verified what I saw yesterday on an unmentionable youtube with hundreds of written in instances of bishops not reporting even when it wasn't a priest/penitent situation. Or bishops advising not to report for fear the perpetrator would have their lives ruined and needing to just go through the repentance process. Well, what about the victims, and they rarely get the counseling the perps get. Hundreds of Instagram posts were sent to the people putting on the youtube

Verified or anonymous?  Anecdotal or documented?

Posted
6 minutes ago, Calm said:

Verified or anonymous?  Anecdotal or documented?

Most anonymous, no not documented, came through Instagram when the unmentionable podcaster asked for personal stories.

Posted
On 8/20/2022 at 8:35 AM, Nofear said:

A call to publicly release the Herrod interview and other documents.
https://publicsquaremag.org/sexuality-family/sexual-abuse/associated-press-interview-documents-public/

 

I think I know where the AP got the documents.  I was looking at various attachments in the Bisbee case and there are several with a lot of pages.  I picked one at random and it had letters back and forth between both West Virginia attorneys, the church attorneys, and the plaintiff attorneys in the Bisbee case.  It looks like the plaintiff attorneys contacted the West Virginia attorneys and asked for any details and help in the case.  The attorney said that fighting the church was really hard but he'd gladly give some stuff.  He referred them to a paralegal (I think) who gave a dropbox link.  Turns out that the dropbox link included a ton of protective order items.  The Arizona attorneys say they didn't know it had protective order.  The church attorneys and other West Virginia attorneys aren't very happy about it.  And I think a lot of these documents got added to the court data as attachments.  The AP reporter came along and happened to notice it and grabbed all of them.  I think the most of the protective items have been removed from the court data.

Posted

From what I'm seeing of this thread and those that read more, it seems that the Church's claim that the AP journalist significantly misrepresented the situation is a justified position. He may have a Pulitzer for his Catholic abuse work, but his work here comes across to me as more shoddy. But, I'm open to correction on this view.

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Nofear said:

 but his work here comes across to me as more shoddy.

It's worse than shoddy.  The AP journalist Rezendes is not just incorrect or misleading in some cases.  He is either grossly negligent or straight up lying.  For example, after the church responded and said the work was flawed, he had an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune where he said this:

image.png.c5eb2f0a3f8ac394678495ca65a7c1cb.png

But Leizza testified of the exact opposite:

image.png.91f0f6e49555aed2cf25f1a0b43e107f.png

This is just one of many examples where Rezendes either stated something that's flat out contradicted by the court record, or stated something where he ignores evidences that goes against his narrative and instead latches onto weak hints that he can make go his way.  He seems to have largely adopted the story from the attorney helping to sue everyone involved on the church's side.  This attorney also made the same fundamental lie regarding shredding documents.   (And the attorney could have asked Warr this when she was examining Warr, but chose not to...)

I know sometimes media is biased.  But I've been surprised and shocked at how badly Rezendes has deliberately twisted or hidden the truth.

 

Edited by helix
Posted

That Liezza Adam's started shredding documents doesn't necessarily preclude the idea that the help line also destroys documents at the end of the day.

Though, just to be clear, in the document photograph "she" is the visiting teacher and she was telling Liezza that she should stop the shredding and not helping her?

Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, Nofear said:


Though, just to be clear, in the document photograph "she" is the visiting teacher and she was telling Liezza that she should stop the shredding and not helping her

The red underlined portion is where the AP journalist's statement of what occurred directly contradicts the court testimony.  He said the visiting teacher helped shred the documents.  Leizza testified that the visiting teacher told her not to shred documents, but Leizza did it anyway.

 

Edited by helix

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