Franklyn Richard Curtis

Sources

1. Book: The Sins of Brother Curtis, Lisa Davis, December 13, 2023.
2. LDS Church must release abuse records, Deseret News, February 10, 2001.
3. Mormons Paying $3 Million To Settle Sex Abuse Case, New York Times, September 5, 2001.
4. Mormons pay $3 million in sex-abuse settlement, East Side Journal, September 17, 2001.
5. Lawsuit alleges child molestation by Mormon elder , Arizona Daily Sun, June 9, 2002.

• 1. Book: The Sins of Brother Curtis

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  • Lisa Davis

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  This brilliantly reported, unforgettable true story reveals how one of the most monstrous sexual criminals in the history of the Mormon church preyed on his victims even as he was protected by the church elders who knew of his behavior.

  When Seattle attorney Tim Kosnoff agreed to listen to an eighteen-year-old man who claimed to have been molested by his Mormon Sunday school teacher, he had no idea he was embarking on a quest for justice on behalf of multiple victims or that the battle would consume years of his life and pit him against the vast, powerful, and unrepentant Mormon church itself.

  As Kosnoff began to investigate the case, he discovered that the Sunday school teacher, a mysterious figure named Frank Curtis, possessed a long and violent prison record before he was welcomed into the church, where he became a respected elder entrusted with the care of prepubescent Mormon boys.

  Through Lisa Davis’s deft storytelling, two astonishing narratives unfold. The first shows how Brother Curtis ingratiated himself into the lives of young boys from working-class Mormon families where money was tight, and was accepted by mothers and fathers who saw in him a kindly uncle or grandfather figure who enjoyed the blessing of the church. Having gained the families’ trust, Curtis became fiendishly helpful, offering to supervise trips or overnights out of the sight of parents, when he could manipulate his victims or ply them with alcohol.

  The other narrative is a real-life legal thriller. As Davis shows, Kosnoff and his partners tirelessly assembled the case against the church, sifting through records, tracking down victims, and convincing them to testify about Brother Curtis’s acts. What began as a case of one plaintiff turned into a complex web stretching across multiple states. Joined by what would become a team of attorneys and investigators, Kosnoff found himself up against one of the most insular institutions in the United States: the secretive and powerful Mormon church.

  The amazing legal case at the heart of The Sins of Brother Curtis shows how the church’s elite, well-funded team of attorneys claimed the church was protected under the Constitution from revealing that Curtis had molested a number of Mormon boys. Yet Kosnoff and his devoted legal team (which included a female investigator adept at getting parents of victims to talk to her) succeeded in forcing the church to reveal that it knew about Curtis and ultimately achieved a successful settlement.

  Emotionally powerful page by page, The Sins of Brother Curtis delivers a redemptive reading experience in which the truth, no matter how painful and hidden, is told at last and justice is hard won. This is a remarkable story, all true.

• 2. LDS Church must release abuse records

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  • Deseret News

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  PORTLAND, Ore. — Hoping to uncover what the LDS Church knew about a high priest convicted of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy, a Multnomah County judge ordered the church to release internal records of sex-abuse complaints and discipline actions.

  The church has filed an emergency appeal with the Oregon Supreme Court.

  The ruling stems from a 1998 lawsuit by Jeremiah Scott, now 21, who accused a high priest in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of sexually abusing him repeatedly in 1990 and 1991 in Portland, when he was 11.

  The high priest, Franklin Richard Curtis, was 87 at the time of the abuse. He was convicted of the charges and has since died.

  At issue is what the church knew about Curtis' past and when. Scott's lawsuit claims the church knew of Curtis' past sex abuse when Curtis moved in with Scott's family but didn't warn them.

  Curtis had been excommunicated from a ward in Pennsylvania for sex abuse when he moved to Oregon. Court records show he was rebaptized in 1984.

  The lawsuit claims that Curtis sexually abused at least five children in the Rocky Butte Ward in Portland, where he became a member. A bishop confronted Curtis, and he admitted the molestations.

  But according to the complaint, the bishop kept it quiet until parents began to complain and then reported only to church superiors in Salt Lake City, not police.

  Curtis joined another ward, where he told then-Bishop Gregory Lee Foster that he had abused in the past. Foster didn't report him because Curtis said he'd repented, the lawsuit states.

  In 1989, Scott's mother, Sandra, invited Curtis to live with the family and informed her bishop, Foster.

  Foster told Sandra Scott that "it was not a good idea" because of Curtis' advanced age but said nothing about Curtis' history of sex abuse, the woman said in a 1999 deposition in the case.

  Curtis abused the boy almost daily for about six months, according to the suit.

  Jeremiah Scott came forward after his family moved to Washington. Curtis was arrested and convicted of first-degree sex abuse and given probation in 1994. He died in 1995.

  The current lawsuit names the bishop and the church. A summary judgment hearing is scheduled for next month, but the fight over the church's internal documents could set it back.

  On Jan. 24, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Ellen F. Rosenblum ordered the church to produce not only all records of Curtis, but all records of reports of sex abuse made against anyone in the Portland or East Portland wards.

  The church has argued that the material is protected under the First Amendment and confidentiality laws between a church and a penitent.

• 3. Mormons Paying $3 Million To Settle Sex Abuse Case

  • 20010905
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  • New York Times

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  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disclosed yesterday that it would pay $3 million to settle a suit by an Oregon man who said he was sexually abused as a child by a church member. The suit said Mormon officials had known well in advance of that abuse that the accused man had also faced child molesting allegations before.

  The case is unusual not only because the church disclosed the amount of the settlement, in advance of news conferences by the plaintiffs' lawyers today, but also because it centers on alleged abuse by a man who held no ministerial or leadership role. That man died in 1995.

  In an interview, Von G. Keetch, a Salt Lake City lawyer representing the church, said it strongly believed that the case ''lacked merit'' and had settled only out of concern that the litigation, already a decade old, could continue for years more, at high cost.

  Mr. Keetch said the decision was made after a number of rulings against the church by a county judge presiding over the case in Portland. Among the rulings were that the church could be held liable for the conduct of one member against another, and that the plaintiff could argue that the abuser was a clergyman because he held the title of high priest, which the church describes as a common lay designation.

  The settlement follows by two weeks the disclosure of another settlement by a religious institution in a sexual abuse case. In that instance, two Roman Catholic dioceses in Southern California said they had paid $5.2 million to a man who maintained that as a high school student a decade ago, he was molested by a priest.

  The Oregon suit was filed in December 1998 by a Portland man, Jeremiah Scott, who eventually sought $1.5 billion in damages from the church. He accused its authorities of withholding knowledge from his family that another member, Franklyn Curtis, had previously been accused of molesting children.

  His lawyer, David Slader, said Mr. Scott was abused in 1991, the year he turned 11, after his mother invited Mr. Curtis to live with the family. Mr. Curtis, who was 88 and had been living in a group home, was a member of the same congregation as the Scotts.

  Before bringing Mr. Curtis into her home, Mr. Slader said, Mrs. Scott sought advice from a local Mormon bishop, who advised the family against it because it would be too much work, but who did not inform them of the earlier accusations.

  Mr. Slader noted that Mr. Curtis had been previously excommunicated after being accused of molesting children. But when he came to live with the Scotts, his membership had been restored and he held the title of high priest. He had not been criminally charged with abuse at that point, but later pleaded guilty to molesting Mr. Scott, Mr. Slader said.

  ''It's the institution that knew,'' Mr. Slader said, referring to church authorities. ''A church,'' he added, ''owes a very, very special and high duty to the children of its parishioners, the children whose souls it has taken responsibility for.''

  Mr. Keetch, the lawyer for the church, quoted the bishop who advised the Scotts as saying in a deposition that he had known of no abuse accusations against Mr. Curtis.

  Mr. Keetch said Mr. Curtis had been excommunicated in the 1980's in Pennsylvania, where he lived before moving back to Oregon. The decision to excommunicate, Mr. Keetch said, followed another Oregon bishop's notifying church authorities in Pennsylvania that Mr. Curtis had been accused of having ''inappropriately touched a child'' in an Oregon congregation different from the one where he and the Scotts were later members together.

  Mr. Curtis was readmitted to membership ''after a fairly lengthy period of repentance,'' Mr. Keetch said, but never had any supervisory position over Mr. Scott and in fact had no leadership position at all. According to the church, the title of high priest is bestowed on Mormon men in good standing over the age of 40.

  Mr. Keetch said he believed there was ''no church that does more either to protect children or to provide assistance to children'' who have been abused.

• 4. Mormons pay $3 million in sex-abuse settlement

  • 20010917
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  • East Side Journal

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  by Noel S. Brady

  The Mormon church recently settled a lawsuit by paying $3 million to a Kirkland man who was molested repeatedly by a church elder when he was 9 and 10.

  Jeremiah Scott, now 22, still has nightmares and attends counseling sessions to help him deal with the trauma he suffered as a child, said his mother, Sandra Scott.

  ``When he was younger, my son had periods when he seemed lethargic and withdrawn,'' Scott said recently. ``I asked him what was wrong, but he'd never say.''

  In fact, it wasn't until 1995, when Jeremiah was 16, that he told his mother what a frail, elderly Sunday school teacher did to him.

  While living in Oregon in 1990, the Scotts took in Franklin Richard Curtis, then in his mid-80s, so he could live with a family rather than in a nursing home.

  Five years later, Curtis, a Mormon high priest, was convicted of sexual abuse charges. He died the same year.

  For Sandra Scott, the criminal conviction might have sufficed had she not learned that her church knew that Curtis had a history of molesting children.

  He had been excommunicated from a Pennsylvania ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for sex abuse in 1983, and before that he had spent some 40 years of his life in prison for crimes ranging from forgery to attempted murder and armed robbery. He converted to Mormonism in the early 1970s.

  Soon after the 1983 incident, church records state, Curtis was rebaptized and offered a second chance. He joined the Rocky Butte Ward in Portland, Ore., where he sexually abused at least five children, according to the lawsuit.

  Parents complained

  When confronted by a bishop, Curtis admitted to the molestations. The bishop kept it quiet until parents started to complain. Then he reported it to his church superiors in Salt Lake City, but not to police, the suit states.

  Curtis then entered the Brentwood Ward, also in Oregon, where he confessed his abusive past to then-Bishop Gregory Lee Foster. Foster said nothing because Curtis had repented, according to the complaint.

  Foster knew Curtis also had abused his own stepchildren, but he still invited the man to teach Sunday school, the lawsuit states.

  Tim Kosnoff, the Scotts' Bellevue attorney, said the church intentionally hid the man's history and allowed him to work with children for years.

  Steve English, an attorney for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the church has taken steps to alert ward leaders when one of their members has a history of abuse. But the attorney didn't know if the church has begun doing background checks on its teachers who work with children.

  English said Curtis' history was kept confidential because church leaders learned about it through his confession.

  ``If a church gets information by confession, they're required by law not to reveal it,'' he said.

  English denied the Scotts' allegation that Curtis taught 8- to 10-year-olds in Sunday school. And he said the man's title of ``high priest'' vested him with no authority. The title is given to every church member of 40, he said.

  Curtis was 87, in declining health and living in a nursing home when he befriended the Scotts slightly more than a decade ago, Sandra Scott said. At the time, the family lived in Portland, Ore., and Sandra Scott, like her ex-husband, was a devout Mormon. She's since left the church.

  Advice ignored

  Scott said Curtis quickly became close to the family. His weekly visits to their house soon became daily. That's when he asked them to take him in so he could spend his final years with a loving family.

  When Scott and her husband consulted with Bishop Foster about the idea, Foster discouraged them, but only because of Curtis' health. He said the man would become a burden to the family.

  The Scotts ignored the advice, and Curtis moved into their basement, where he lived for about seven months. But one day, with no warning, he left. The Scotts didn't hear from him for several months, until he called around Christmas time and asked to return.

  By then, the family had dismantled the bed Curtis had slept in, so Sandra Scott invited him to sleep beside her son in his queen-size water bed. That arrangement continued for half a year.

  ``I didn't at the time see any harm in them sleeping together,'' the woman said. ``I literally kicked myself for doing that.''

  Curtis abused the boy almost daily for about six months, according to the complaint.

  Jeremiah Scott later came forward after his family moved to Kirkland in the mid-1990s. Curtis was arrested and convicted of first-degree sex abuse and given probation.

  Sandra Scott said her son didn't want to comment on the civil lawsuit or the abuse. Currently, Jeremiah is attending a film school in Santa Barbara, Calif., and trying to put the traumatic experience behind him, his mother said.

  The settlement was disclosed earlier this month by Mormon officials, who also revealed the $3 million figure.

  The family refused to sign a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement, she said, because they want the world to know what the church did.

  ``I'd really like to see the police get involved with checking out people who work with children,'' Scott said. ``They have no security checks, and you don't speak out, or if you do you're considered to be with Satan.''

• 5. Lawsuit alleges child molestation by Mormon elder

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  • Arizona Daily Sun

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  PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A lawsuit filed Wednesday seeks more than $120 million from the Mormon church for 12 victims it says were molested as children by a church elder in the 1970s and 1980s.

  Later damage claims could reach $12 billion.

  The lawsuit seeks $10 million each for physical and emotional pain and dysfunction plus payment for psychological treatment and diminished earnings of at least $850,000 each.

  It announces the intent of the plaintiffs to amend the suit to seek punitive damages of $1 billion each.

  The 12 are identified only by initials in the lawsuit.

  Portland attorney David Slader, who filed the lawsuit, said it involves the late Franklin Richard Curtis, who was convicted of repeatedly abusing Jeremiah Scott when Scott was 11.

  Scott was 22 last fall when he settled out of court against the church for $3 million.

  "The abuses were mostly in the Portland area however some abuse occurred in other states and some of the victims now live in other states," Slader said.

  "But we're looking at a pattern that primarily took place in the state of Oregon. We're looking at the late 1970s and the early 1980s."

  "Curtis' molestation of plaintiffs was malicious or the result of a reckless and outrageous indifference to a highly unreasonable risk of harm and a conscious indifference to the plaintiffs' health, safety and welfare," the suit charges.

  It claims two plaintiffs, identified only as BB and SR, told their bishop that Curtis had molested them and that the bishop "responded by humiliating and shaming BB and SR and blaming them for the abuse."

  "With respect to the litigation, the church absolutely denies it has any responsibility for the conduct of Franklin Curtis," said Steve English, an attorney who handles the church's legal matters in Oregon.

  "Mr. Curtis was never more than a member of the church. He was never a member of the clergy and he never held any other position of leadership.

  "Some of these men were never members of the church. These activities took place off church premises involving some kind of obviously inappropriate activity between Mr. Curtis and these young boys. The church condemns child abuse of any kind."

  Slader, who also represented Scott, said The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled that case to avoid publicity.

  Von Keetch, a church attorney, said the settlement was simply less expensive than a trial.

  At the time Slader predicted similar lawsuits would follow, saying they had identified 21 other victims including 11 in Oregon. Others were in Grand Rapids, Mich., Harrisburg, Pa., and Sheridan, Wyo.

  Under the agreement Mormon officials did not accept blame for the abuse.

  The Scott lawsuit claimed church officials knew Curtis was a pedophile but did not warn Scott's mother before she took Curtis into their home. Curtis, who died in 1995, was 87 at the time of the abuse. He was arrested and convicted of sex abuse and given probation in 1994.

  In addition to the cost of a court battle, the church decided to settle because of what they described as bad rulings by Multnomah County Circuit Judge Ellen F. Rosenblum.

  Keetch had said Rosenblum had allowed the Mormon church to be held liable for the conduct of one member against another when the abuse did not occur as part of a church activity or on church property.

  The Mormon church has a collective clergy, in which many older men in the congregation are designated as high priests. Keetch said the church confers the title on most men in their 40s and that it carries no particular leadership responsibility.

  The lawsuit filed Wednesday says Curtis was an elder and was at various times a high priest called by his bishop to provide religious instruction for 4- to 11-year-old boys and to lead Blazer Scouts, scouting activities for 11-year-old boys.

  — Arizona Daily Su