Leizza Alcantara Adams

Sources

1. No contest pleas in case connected to child porn investigation, Herald/Review (Sierra Vista, Arizona), April 18, 2018.
2. 4 takeaways from AP’s Mormon church sex abuse investigation, ABC 4, August 4, 2022.
3. Mother Who Did Not Stop Years-Long Abuse Of Her Kids Wants An Early End To Probation, Arizona Daily Independent, December 25, 2022.
4. Paul Douglas Adams case information page (Leizza's husband, deceased in 2017), FLOODLIT, July 13, 2026.

• 1. No contest pleas in case connected to child porn investigation

  • 20180418
  • News article
  • Herald/Review (Sierra Vista, Arizona)

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  BISBEE — A Bisbee woman charged last year with 13 felonies related to a child pornography investigation is eligible for probation when sentenced in June after she accepted a plea deal on two counts of child abuse involving minors under her care.

  Leizza Alcantara Adams entered two no contest pleas Friday as part of an agreement with the Cochise County Attorney’s Office. No contest means she neither admits nor denies guilt, but agrees to accept punishment for the offenses.

• 2. 4 takeaways from AP’s Mormon church sex abuse investigation

  • 20220804
  • News article
  • ABC 4

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  SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – When an Arizona bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church, learned that a member of his ward was sexually assaulting his 5-year-old daughter, he followed church policy and called the Mormon Abuse Help Line.

  The bishop later told law enforcement that church attorneys in Salt Lake City who staff the help line around the clock said that because he learned of the abuse during a counseling session the church considers a spiritual confession, he was legally bound to keep the abuse secret.

  Paul Douglas Adams, a U.S. Border Patrol employee living with his wife and six children in Bisbee, Arizona, continued abusing his daughter for as many as seven more years, and went on to abuse a second daughter. He finally stopped in 2017 with no help from the church only because he was arrested.
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  The Associated Press obtained thousands of pages of sealed court documents that show in detail exactly how the church’s “help line” can divert abuse complaints away from law enforcement, leaving children in danger.

  Takeaways from the AP’s investigation:
  THE CLERGY-PENITENT PRIVILEGE

  The seven years of secrecy in the Adams case began when church attorneys in Salt Lake City advised Bishop John Herrod and later Bishop Robert “Kim” Mauzy they were exempt from reporting requirements under the state’s child abuse reporting law because of the law’s so-called clergy-penitent privilege.

  “You absolutely can do nothing,” Herrod said he was told during an interview with federal investigators.

  Arizona’s child sex abuse reporting law, and similar laws in more than 20 states, says clergy, physicians, nurses, or anyone caring for a child who “reasonably believes” the child has been abused or neglected has a legal obligation to report the information to police or the state Department of Child Safety. But it also says that clergy who receive information about child neglect or sexual abuse during spiritual confessions “may withhold” that information from authorities if the clergy determine it is “reasonable and necessary” under church doctrine.
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  An Arizona attorney who is defending the bishops and the church in a lawsuit filed by three of the Adams children, told the AP that Herrod and Mauzy — and by extension the church — were acting within the law and in accordance with their “religious principles.”

  “These bishops did nothing wrong. They didn’t violate the law, and therefore they can’t be held liable,” said William Maledon. He also called the Adams children’s lawsuit “a money grab.”
  THE HELP LINE

  The Associated Press obtained nearly 12,000 pages of sealed records from an unrelated child sex abuse lawsuit against the Mormon church in West Virginia, which show that the help line is part of a system that can easily be misused by church leaders to divert abuse accusations against church members away from law enforcement and instead to church attorneys, who may bury the problem, leaving victims in harm’s way.

  It was established in 1995 when legal claims of sex abuse against churches were on the rise.

  Officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said in sworn statements included in the sealed records that the help line is staffed by social workers who destroy records of all calls at the close of each day.

  When the social workers receive calls about abuse that may present a risk to the church — such as abuse committed by prominent church members, abuse perpetrated during church activities, or especially egregious instances of abuse — the calls are referred to attorneys with the Salt Lake City law firm Kirton McConkie. The church maintains that all calls referred to the attorneys are protected by attorney-client privilege, leaving no record of the accusations accessible to prosecutors or victims’ attorneys.

  The lawsuit filed by the Adams children alleges: “The Mormon Church implements the Helpline not for the protection and spiritual counseling of sexual abuse victims…but for (church) attorneys to snuff out complaints and protect the Mormon Church from potentially costly lawsuits.”
  THE SURVIVORS

  Miranda and Matthew Whitworth adopted the Adams’ younger daughter when she was just 2 years old. Miranda said when they met, the toddler wrapped her arms and legs around her head, buried her face in her neck, and refused to look up to say good-bye to her mother’s family.

  “It was the craziest thing,” Miranda Whitworth said. “It was like when you see a baby monkey or baby gorilla cling to their mother, and they just won’t let go.”

  The couple said they joined the lawsuit to push the church to change its policy so that any instance of child sexual abuse is immediately reported to civil authorities. “We just don’t understand why they’re paying all these lawyers to fight this,” Matthew Whitworth said. “Just change the policy.
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  Nancy Salminen, a special needs teacher in public schools, adopted the older Adams daughter, MJ, after providing her with foster care when she was 12 years old. Today, MJ is a bubbly 16-year-old who plays in her high school band and proudly dons a crisp new uniform for her job as a fast-food restaurant.

  “She had every excuse to fail and to just fold into herself and run away,” Salminen said. “But instead, she came back stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”
  THE UPSHOT

  Paul Adams died by suicide in jail before he could stand trial on federal child pornography charges and state child sex abuse charges.

  Leizza Adams pleaded no contest to two counts of child abuse and served two-and-a-half years in state prison.

  Judge Wallace Hoggatt called the abuse endured by MJ and her younger sister “one of the most horrendous cases of child molestation” he had ever encountered.

  Today, the lawsuit filed by the Adams children in Cochise County Superior Court, as well as a criminal investigation by the Cochise County attorney, continue to unfold.

  “I just think that the Mormon church really sucks. Seriously sucks,” MJ told the AP. “They are just the worst type of people, from what I’ve experienced and what other people have experienced.”

• 3. Mother Who Did Not Stop Years-Long Abuse Of Her Kids Wants An Early End To Probation

  • 20221225
  • News article
  • Arizona Daily Independent

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  A former Bisbee woman who never told authorities that her husband was sexually abusing their children for years and making videos of the abuse is asking a Cochise County judge to end her supervised probation almost two years early.

  Leizza Alcantara Adams was sentenced in 2018 to 2.5 years in prison after pleading no contest to two felony counts of child abuse. A no contest plea does not involve an admission of guilt but is treated as a conviction.

  Adams, 39, was also ordered to serve four years of probation once out of prison. She has been supervised by Lake County Adult Probation in Illinois where she relocated after being released by the Arizona Department of Corrections.

  Last month, her attorney petitioned a Cochise County judge to grant Adams early termination of the probation set to run through October 2024.

  “She has performed well on probation in Chicago, IL, where Ms. Adams now resides and has been fully complaint,” attorney Perry Hicks wrote in the petition. “In light of the foregoing, it is respectfully requested that this Court issue its order terminating Leizza Adams successfully from probation.”

  A hearing is set for Jan. 11 on whether the probation should be terminated early. A report from Adams’ probation officer will be provided to the judge prior to the hearing, and the Cochise County Attorney’s Office has a right to comment on the petition as well.

  There is also an opportunity for the victim representatives for the two Adams’ children named as victims in the plea deal to weigh in on the petition. The children are currently represented by Lynne Cadigan in a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint and several of its members in 2020.

  A motion to amend that lawsuit to allow the children to include their mother as a defendant is awaiting a decision by a Cochise County judge.

  The lawsuit stems from the sexual abuse of the children by their father, Paul Douglas Adams, who confessed his activities to two local Mormon bishops years before being arrested in February 2017. Some of the abuse was recorded by Paul Adams in the family’s Bisbee home and uploaded to the internet.

  One of the bishops even included Leizza in a counseling session with Paul Adams during which the ongoing sexual abuse was discussed. But neither Leizza nor that bishop notified police.

  Nor did another bishop who Paul Adams also confessed to while he continued to molest the children. Instead, the Mormon Church excommunicated Paul Adams without taking steps to ensure the children were protected.

  Court records show Paul Adams, who was working for the U.S. Border Patrol when arrested, continued the abuse for several years. He killed himself in a federal detention center in December 2017 while awaiting trial.

• 4. Paul Douglas Adams case information page (Leizza's husband, deceased in 2017)

  • 20260713
  • Website
  • FLOODLIT

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  (Visit Paul Adams's case report for full information.)