was a Mormon church member and former LDS Primary teacher in Utah; was a branch president while on a Mormon mission to Argentina in the 1980s; in 2016, pleaded guilty to three first-degree felony counts of attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child; in 2016, was sentenced to prison; in 2023, pleaded not guilty to failure to register as sex offender; was an HOA president in Lehi, Utah

Case report

Paul Bryant was a former HOA president and LDS church member.

In 2023, Bryant pleaded not guilty to failure to register as a sex offender; at the time, he was an HOA president in Lehi, Utah.

Bryant served a full-time mission for the LDS church in Cordoba, Argentina.

LDS church callings Bryant held include branch president (on his mission to Argentina), cub scout leader, Primary teacher, young men’s leader, and elders quorum presidency member.

Bryant was married in the Salt Lake LDS temple. He was later divorced and his temple sealing was cancelled (often informally called a “temple divorce”).

In 2016, Bryant was convicted of child sexual abuse. He took a plea deal and served two years in prison.

Bryant was convicted in 2016 of:
Description : 76-5-404.1 – AGGRAVATED SEXUAL ABUSE OF A CHILD-ATTEMPTED/1ST DEGREE FELONY (attempted)

Bryant’s LDS bishop wrote to the judge in his behalf, according to a person familiar with Bryant’s case who asked to remain anonymous.

One of Bryant’s victims told an LDS bishop in Alpine, Utah about the abuse. The bishop called the victim a liar and did not notify police or Bryant’s wife, according to the source.

After Bryant’s divorce, plea agreement, admission of guilt and prison time served, his new Mormon bishop in Lehi, Utah continued to protect him at great lengths to his congregation, the source said.

Thanks to your donations, FLOODLIT has obtained court records in Bryant’s case.

A police probable cause statement in Bryant’s case reads in part:

“PROBABLE CAUSE STATEMENT: [officer], Utah County Sheriff’s Office, having probable cause to believe a crime was committed, submitted evidence in support of the filing of this Information: For more than a decade, Paul Bryant has been sexually abusing two [redacted] children, in the Highland/Alpine area, on a regular basis.

Between 3/25/1998 and 3/24/2005, Bryant molested [a boy] at least twice a year (he disclosed at least 1-2 times a month) for seven years when he was between 6 and 13 years of age (COUNTS 1-14). […] During the years of molestation, Bryant told [the boy] not to disclose the abuse, saying that if [the boy] did disclose, Bryant “would kill [him] or make [his] friends disappear and get away with it because he was in the FBI and knew all the laws and how it worked.” […] Bryant was in a position of special trust, which is an aggravating factor.

Between 7/6/2003 and 7/5/2007, Bryant molested [a girl] at least twice a year when she was between 10 and 13 years of age. […] Bryant was in a position of special trust, which is an aggravating factor.

During the investigation, [a woman] disclosed she was molested by Bryant when she was 6 or 7 (and he was 14 YO) […]. Post-Miranda, Bryant confessed that [the woman] was the sexual aggressor […]. He denied sexually touching [son] and or [daughter]

After Bryant was booked into jail on August 31, 2015 for the above 22 charges, he called his father and neighbor/girlfriend on September 1 to repeatedly asked them to tamper with the victims’ willingness to cooperate with the investigation and prosecution of the case. At 2:48pm, he called his father and told him to contact [the male victim] and [the female victim] to explain to them the “grave consequences” of what they were doing and to have them “go and tell the officers, ‘Hey, we were mad at [Bryant] and we were willing to work things out;’ maybe there would be a change of heart” (COUNTS 24 & 25). At 3:59pm, Bryant called his neighbor/girlfriend to tell her that she needed to “beg, plead, do whatever you have to do to talk to [[the male victim] and [the female victim]] and have them drop the charges” (COUNTS 26 & 27).”

According to Bryant’s plea agreement, he was to “serve two consecutive one-year sentences in the Utah County Jail” and be on supervised probation for five years.

On April 3, 2019, Bryant completed a sex offender treatment program.

Case facts

Case videos

    • Video title: Gaping hole in Utah law allows child sex offender to go into private park - KUTV 2 News Salt Lake City - 2023-01-12
    • Video description: "The victim’s mother [...] was emotionally distraught as she addressed her ex-husband Paul Bryant before he was sentenced for sex offenses against her children whom he adopted."

Case information sources

  1. Sex offender arrested after allegedly visiting Utah elementary school
    view source details | 4 Dec 2019 | KSL
  2. Man professes he was falsely accused of sexually abusing adopted children
    view source details | 20 Jun 2022 | KUTV
  3. Gaping hole in Utah law allows child sex offender to go into private park
    view source details | 12 Jan 2023 | KMYU
  4. Paul Bryant
    view source details | 30 Apr 2023 | Offender Radar
  5. Child sex offender pleads not guilty to failure to register as HOA president in Lehi
    view source details | 16 Oct 2023 | KUTV

Case information source details

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