Randall Craig Deaton

Summary

Note: Unlike most case reports in the FLOODLIT database, this one involves a perpetrator who sexually abused prior to becoming an LDS church member. However, we’ve decided to list the case report because it involves alleged failure to report abuse by LDS leaders.

Randall Deaton was convicted in 2002 of two counts of attempted 1st degree sexual assault of a minor.

Deaton wasn’t an LDS church member at the time of conviction, but his family was. He allegedly converted to Mormonism in prison shortly after failing his first parole hearing.

Deaton was called into a local YSA (young single adults) ward bishopric in summer 2020 before some local LDS members protested and he was released. Allegedly, local church leaders had obtained First Presidency approval to call him to the bishopric in the first place. He was subsequently called as stake presidency secretary. When a new stake presidency was called, Deaton was released a few months later.

Allegedly, before Deaton’s YSA bishopric calling, he and his wife led a local LDS church-run addiction recovery group for years.