Richard Swank Richard Jay Swank was a Mormon church member in Apple Valley, California, where he served as ward executive secretary and as a Primary teacher; in 2009 he was convicted of child abuse including sexual abuse and torture, and is serving two life sentences plus 96 years.

Richard Jay Swank was a Mormon church member in Apple Valley, California, where he served as ward executive secretary and as a Primary teacher. In 2009 he was convicted of child abuse including sexual abuse and torture, and is serving two life sentences plus 96 years.

An adult child of Swank’s, one of 16 children in a household described as homeschooled, reported to FLOODLIT that the abuse was widely known long before he was excommunicated, that he was called as ward executive secretary as part of an effort to reactivate him, that he molested a teenage friend of the family at a Mutual activity, and that a young woman in another ward accused him of rape while she was under 18.

According to the report, a bishop convened a disciplinary council over that accusation, nothing came of it, and it was never reported to authorities.

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