Adding to our Timeline page:
January 2024
Former LDS bishopric counselor Cortney Andrew is sentenced in Utah to 60 days in jail with work release. The victim, a teen girl, told detectives she began texting with him to receive counseling. His texts then turned inappropriate and sexually graphic.
Tim Ballard, anti-trafficking advocate, faces four new sexual assault charges.
Pennsylvania stake president Rhett Hintze is charged with failure to report sexual abuse of a child. Related case: Shawn Gooden
FLOODLIT.org launches a “failure to report” database to document instances where LDS church leaders allegedly kept sexual abuse allegations secret from law enforcement authorities or failed to help abuse victims.
February 2024
Ken Richens, a former hospital CIO in Utah, pleads guilty to sex crimes.
FLOODLIT.org announces that it has documented at least 41 ongoing criminal cases involving Mormon defendants accused of sex crimes, including child sexual abuse.
West Linn, Oregon city council releases documents on an independent investigation into how its police department investigated former doctor David Farley, an LDS church member accused of sexual assault by over 200 victims. He was never charged. Report says lead detective was unqualified.
Former Colorado stake president David McConkie (a grandson of Mormon apostle Bruce McConkie) pleads not guilty to child sex abuse charges, despite a plea deal offer. He is a former deputy district attorney. A police PC affidavit says he confessed sexual abuse of a child to an LDS leader in 2008. That leader’s name is redacted in the affidavit.
A Utah woman sues LDS nurse practitioner Derrick Pickering for alleged sexual assault during cosmetic procedure. Three other women had reported (two to Utah Valley University campus police, one to Draper police) that he had touched them during medical procedures in inappropriate ways.
March 2024
FLOODLIT.org announces that it has documented 100 “failure to report” cases so far, where Mormon clergy allegedly failed to report sexual abuse allegations to police or legal authorities.
In Heber City, Utah, Mitchell McKee, a licensed marriage and family therapist with experience helping Mormon clients address “pre and post mission sexual issues,” is arrested on suspicion of child sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of a minor. He is also a retired Utah State Highway Patrol officer.
In Idaho, Mormon church member Eric Jones is sentenced to two to 20 years in prison for “felony battery with intent to commit lewd conduct with a minor.” He tearfully tells the court he is an avid church-goer and has finished a 12-part addiction recovery course.
Former Mormon bishop John Goodrich is arrested in Virginia on suspicion of child sexual abuse, three months after the Associated Press reported on an LDS church $300,000 payment offer to the victim.
Former LDS missionary Kurt Vanwagoner is arrested in Centerville, Utah and charged with 10 felony counts of child sexual exploitation. He admitted to sharing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Police say he chatted online about secretly taking photos of women during LDS church meetings and recently worked with young men in his Mormon ward.
April 2024
South Jordan, Utah Mormon primary teacher Joseph Dunlop is charged with five felony counts related to child sexual abuse. According to a probable cause affidavit, he “told law enforcement that he wants to sexually abuse children and that children are not safe around him.”
Former LDS bishop and stake presidency counselor DeRon Olsen is sentenced in Washington to five years in prison for child sexual abuse over 15 years.
May 2024
Former Mormon missionary Calvin McGee is sentenced to prison in Idaho for sexual assault of a minor. During his LDS mission in Virginia, McGee also admitted on video to soliciting a minor. A family member of the Idaho victim told FLOODLIT a Boise bishop told young women leaders not to report sexual abuse of another child.
Former Teton County, Idaho sheriff’s deputy and Mormon church member Troy Dameron is sentenced to 15 days in jail (with work release) and two years probation for indecent exposure to a 911 dispatcher during work. His attorney praised Dameron’s participation in an LDS church 12-step program for porn/sex addiction.
Former Mormon bishop Tevita Mounga is arrested in Salt Lake City, Utah and charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl who was walking home from school.
June 2024
Former Utah OB/GYN David Broadbent is criminally charged with forcible sexual abuse, more than two years after initial accusations by women (eventually over 200) that he sexually assaulted them during “premarital exams” and other healthcare appointments.
Criminal charges are dropped against Mormon stake president Rhett Hintze after he was accused in January of failure to report child sexual abuse.
Former LDS scout leader and retired air traffic controller Alan Bassett is charged in Utah with nine felony counts of child sexual abuse. According to charging documents, he “admitted that he sexually abused many neighbor children while he was living in Davis County.”
Logan, Utah temple worker and former stake presidency member David Keller is charged with seven first-degree felony counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child.
Utah LDS church member Ruth Worthen is arrested and charged with 23 first-degree felonies related to child sex abuse, including prostituting kids. Some alleged abuse took place in a Mormon church bathroom. A family member was secretly recorded saying he saw her crimes in a vision but chose to “let it go.”
July 2024
In California, a newly filed civil lawsuit says the Mormon church failed to report sexual abuse by former ward executive secretary Craig Harward. In 2004, Harward, a former elementary school “teacher of the year” in Santa Clara County, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for molesting multiple children.
August 2024
Nearly 100 civil lawsuits are filed in California against the Mormon church, alleging sexual abuse by a church leader or member and failure by LDS church leaders to protect victims.
September 2024
FLOODLIT.org announces that it has surpassed 1,000 documented cases of sexual abuse or other sex crimes allegedly perpetrated by Mormon leaders or church members.
Chubbuck, Idaho LDS young men’s leader Virgil Larson is arrested. Police say that from 2023-24, he molested at least five boys he led at church, ages 12-15. Police report says Kirton McConkie (LDS law firm) contacted Idaho Dept. of Health and Welfare, which told local police in July.
A new civil lawsuit claims an LDS bishop in Arizona secretly encouraged a relationship between a 16-year-old girl and a former LDS bishop in Missouri, and that an LDS counselor (church employee) kept the abuse secret. The former Missouri bishop, Larry Deutsch, is in federal prison.
October 2024
FLOODLIT.org breaks the story about the nearly 100 California civil lawsuits filed beginning in August.
November 2024
A volunteer indexing project launches at FLOODLIT.org to catalog information related to criminal and civil cases involving allegations of sexual abuse by Mormon leaders or church members.
The FLOODLIT.org database of accused individuals surpasses 4,000 published case reports, after adding information about approximately 3,000 reports of sexual abuse by former Boy Scouts who said a Mormon scout leader abused them.
A newly filed Illinois lawsuit says a Mormon bishop, Douglas Holyoak, sexually assaulted an underage girl in 2000 in his office when she reported sexual harassment by other youth. She then told a stake presidency counselor, who attempted to gaslight her, according to the suit. He later became a stake and mission president.
December 2024
A KUTV news article is altered within hours of publication, removing references to the Mormon church after initially reporting that LDS “temple prep” class teacher Paul Spencer was criminally charged with multiple felonies related to arranging to meet a police detective posing as a 13-year-old girl for sexual assault in Lehi, Utah.
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