Page 28 - bon-dia-aruba-20220806

A28 u.s. news
Diasabra 6 augustus 2022

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

(AP) — MJ was a tiny, black- sician, followed church policy and church in a lawsuit filed by three of
haired girl, just 5 years old, when called what church officials have “They said, ‘You absolutely can do the Adams’ six children, told the AP
her father admitted to his bishop dubbed the “help line” for guidance. nothing,’” Herrod said in a recorded last month that the bishops were not
that he was sexually abusing her. interview with law enforcement. required to report the abuse.
But the call offered little help for
The father, a member of The Church MJ. Lawyers for the church, widely Herrod continued to counsel MJ’s fa- “These bishops did nothing wrong.
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints known as the Mormon church, who ther, Paul Douglas Adams, for anoth- They didn’t violate the law, and
and an admitted pornography addict, staff the help line around the clock er year, and brought in Adams’ wife, therefore they can’t be held liable,”
was in counseling with his bishop told Bishop John Herrod not to call Leizza Adams, in hopes she would do he said. Maledon referred to the suit
when he revealed the abuse. The police or child welfare officials. In- something to protect the children. as “a money grab.”
bishop, who was also a family phy- stead he kept the abuse secret. She didn’t. Herrod later told a sec-
ond bishop, who also kept the matter In his AP interview, Maledon also
secret after consulting with church insisted Herrod did not know that
officials who maintain that the bish- Adams was continuing to sexually as-
ops were excused from reporting the sault his daughter after learning of the
abuse to police under the state’s so- abuse in a single counseling session.
called clergy-penitent privilege.
But in the recorded interview with
Adams continued raping MJ for as the agent obtained by the AP, Herrod
many as seven more years, into her said he asked Leizza Adams in multi-
adolescence, and also abused her in- ple sessions if the abuse was ongoing
fant sister, who was born during that and asked her, “What are we going to
time. He frequently recorded the do to stop it?”
abuse on video and posted the video
on the internet. “At least for a period of time I assumed
they had stopped things, but — and
Adams was finally arrested by Home- then I never asked if they picked up
land Security agents in 2017 with no again.”
help from the church, after law en-
forcement officials in New Zealand The Adams family was deeply in-
discovered one of the videos. He died volved in the Mormon community,
by suicide in custody before he could and on Sundays they attended servic-
stand trial. es in Bisbee. So Adams turned to his
church, and to Bishop Herrod, when
The Associated Press has obtained he sought help and revealed his abuse
nearly 12,000 pages of sealed records of MJ.
from an unrelated child sex abuse
lawsuit against the Mormon church Herrod later told Homeland Secu-
in West Virginia. The documents of- rity agent Robert Edwards he knew
fer the most detailed and comprehen- from the start that Leizza Adams
sive look yet at the so-called help line was unlikely to stop her husband, af-
Herrod called. Families of survivors ter he called her into the counseling
who filed the lawsuit said they show sessions. The bishop, who was also
it’s part of a system that can easily be Leizza’s personal physician, said she
misused by church leaders to divert seemed “pretty emotionally dead”
abuse accusations away from law en- when her husband recounted his
forcement and instead to church at- abuse of their daughter. The bishop
torneys who may bury the problem, also recognized the harm being done
leaving victims in harm’s way. to MJ. “I doubt (she) will ever do
well,” he said in his recorded inter-
The help line has been criticized by view with Homeland Security agents.
abuse victims and their attorneys
for being inadequate to quickly stop Herrod also told Edwards that when
abuse and protect victims. Yet the he called the help line, church offi-
Utah-based faith has stuck by the cials told him the state’s clergy-pen-
system despite the criticism and in- itent privilege required him to keep
creasing scrutiny from attorneys and Adams’s abuse confidential.
prosecutors, including those in the
Adams case. But the law required no such thing.

“’I just think that the Mormon church Arizona’s child sex abuse reporting
really sucks. Seriously sucks,” said law, and similar laws in more than
MJ, who is now 16, during an inter- 20 states that require clergy to report
view with the AP. “They are just the child sex abuse and neglect, says that
worst type of people, from what I’ve clergy, physicians, nurses, or anyone
experienced and what other people caring for a child who “reasonably
have also experienced.” believes” a child has been abused or
neglected has a legal obligation to re-
MJ and her adoptive mother asked port the information to police or the
the AP to use only her initials in part state Department of Child Safety. But
because videos of her abuse posted by it also says that clergy who receive in-
her father are still circulating on the formation about child neglect or sex-
internet. The AP does not publish ual abuse during spiritual confessions
the names of sexual abuse survivors “may withhold” that information
without their consent. from authorities if the clergy deter-
mine it is “reasonable and necessary”
William Maledon, an Arizona attor- under church doctrine.
ney representing the bishops and the