Jeffrey Butler Rock

Sources

1. STATE OF UTAH vs. JEFFREY BUTLER ROCK, Utah Xchange Court, December 4, 2025.
2. An Arizona family sent their grandfather to jail. They worry about other sex crime victims., 12 News (Arizona), February 13, 2026.

• 1. STATE OF UTAH vs. JEFFREY BUTLER ROCK

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  FOURTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT - PROVO DISTRICT COURT
  UTAH COUNTY, STATE OF UTAH
  STATE OF UTAH vs. JEFFREY BUTLER ROCK
  CASE NUMBER 241401894 State Felony
  CHARGES
  Charge 1 - 76-5-404.3 - AGGRAVATED SEXUAL ABUSE OF A CHILD - 1st Degree Felony
  Offense Date: January 01, 2005
  Location: Provo (SE) 84606
  Disposition: June 26, 2024 Transferred

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  FOURTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT - PROVO DISTRICT COURT
  UTAH COUNTY, STATE OF UTAH
  STATE OF UTAH vs. JEFFREY BUTLER ROCK
  CASE NUMBER 241100815 State Felony
  CHARGES

  Charge 1 - 76-9-702.1 - SEXUAL BATTERY - Class A Misdemeanor
  Offense Date: January 01, 2005
  Location: Provo (SE) 84606
  Plea: December 04, 2025 Guilty
  Disposition: December 04, 2025 Guilty

  Charge 2 - 76-9-702.1 - SEXUAL BATTERY - Class A Misdemeanor
  Offense Date: January 01, 2005
  Location: Provo (SE) 84606
  Plea: December 04, 2025 Guilty
  Disposition: December 04, 2025 Guilty

  Charge 3 - 76-9-702.1 - SEXUAL BATTERY - Class A Misdemeanor
  Offense Date: January 01, 2005
  Location: Provo (SE) 84606
  Plea: December 04, 2025 Guilty
  Disposition: December 04, 2025 Guilty

  IN PERSON SENTENCING is scheduled.
  Date: 02/03/2026

• 2. An Arizona family sent their grandfather to jail. They worry about other sex crime victims.

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  • 12 News (Arizona)

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  PEORIA, Ariz. — A former lay minister and youth leader for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was sentenced to 18 months in Utah County jail for sexual battery earlier this month. Family members of 70-year-old Jeffrey Butler Rock worry there are other victims. Rock was a U.S. State Department official and held leadership roles in LDS congregations around the world.

  Five family members have alleged sexual abuse

  In June 2024, Utah prosecutors charged Rock with aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony. The victim is Rock’s now-adult granddaughter who lives in Arizona. She accused Rock of molesting her when she was between ages 5 and 8.

  Rock pleaded guilty to three lesser charges of Sexual Battery in December and was sentenced on Feb. 2.

  During sentencing, Utah District Court Judge Denise Porter said Rock had “blamed everyone but himself” for his criminal conviction before Rock was led away in handcuffs.

  Since the 1980s, Rock held positions of trust as a Boy Scout leader and local lay minister in LDS congregations in Utah, California, and many countries. Rock also carried credibility because he was a high-level official with the U.S. State Department.

  “His behavior was always very conducive to grooming behavior and he consistently put himself in positions to be around children,” said Pawranee Shipley of Peoria, Ariz., who was raised by Rock and is one of four other alleged victims. “We are worried there are others, especially because of the positions of influence he held in the LDS Church.”

  A history of volunteer church positions internationally

  12News contacted Rock’s attorney, Jacob Gunter, for comment about the allegations against him. Gunter and Rock declined to respond.

  The Salt Lake City-based LDS Church did not confirm leadership positions Rock has held. However, a spokesperson confirmed the church “placed restrictions” on Rock’s membership in 2023.

  A total of five relatives of Rock have publicly accused him of sexual abuse in police reports, written statements to the LDS Church, and a 2017 social media post. A second grandchild filed a police report in Surprise, Ariz., in 2023, alleging molestation dating back several years. That investigation has not resulted in charges.

  In 2017, an adult stepson of Rock, Patrick Rock, alleged in a Facebook post that he grew up in terror and wanted to alert others. He described Rock as a gregarious “pillar of the community” but a “violent sexual predator” to his family members.

  “We lived in many countries abroad. We were isolated. He was a diplomat. His immunity protected him from local authorities,” Patrick Rock wrote. “Myself, my mom and my sister reached out to the LDS Church for help. He lied to them. They protected him with misguided mercy.”

  Rock was part of LDS congregations in Corona, California; Provo, Utah; Virginia, Taipei, Taiwan; Suva, Fiji; Jakarta, Indonesia; Bangkok, Thailand; and Beijing, China. Over four decades he held volunteer positions including Branch President, High Councilman, Youth Leader, Boy Scout Leader and Primary Counselor, say family members now estranged from Rock.

  As recently as 2022, the LDS Church appointed Rock to be a bishop’s counselor in Bangkok, Thailand, according to Shipley. Rock was also on a church public affairs committee in Bangkok during the construction and dedication of a temple, according to one source familiar with that committee who spoke with 12News.

  Shipley: Rock used drugs, surveillance, and intimidation

  Shipley’s description of being raised by Rock as her stepdaughter is dark. She alleges Rock used a hidden camera, phone surveillance, drugs and physical abuse to stalk her and abuse her. Shipley alleges she was sexually assaulted by Rock beginning around age five until she left her Thailand home in 1995 to attend college at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

  “When I was a girl he would use cold medicine to make me drowsy. We decided grape was the easiest flavor for me to take,” she said. “I would wake up while he was abusing me. He ended up using stronger prescription drugs when I got older. A lot of the abuse did not involve drugs.”

  Shipley said she and her mom reported Rock to local church leaders and Rock was disciplined (disfellowshipped) in Thailand for two years. However, the abuse did not stop, she said.

  “Over and over, we were told to support him and help him with his repentance process. But we were never offered help,” Shipley said.

  LDS Church Media Specialist Jennifer Wheeler tells 12News: "Anyone who abuses others should be subject to all that the law requires and will also face formal review and restrictions from local ecclesiastical leaders, which may include the loss of their membership in the Church.”

  Notifying the Church again as an adult

  Shipley said as an adult she communicated again to the church about Rock’s abusive history. While receiving therapy from LDS Family Services in Arizona in 2011, she requested the church place a “red flag” on Rock’s church records globally. Rock was living in Provo at the time and would soon move out of the country again. At the time the family still had contact with Rock.

  Shipley said LDS Services told her a Utah law firm, acting on behalf of the church, requested she provide dates and locations of the alleged abuse and no other details.

  “I provided it all and two weeks later, my therapist, with tears in his eyes, said that he was told to tell me, word for word that ‘I am to no longer concern myself with the membership of Jeff Rock in the church and I need to focus on my own healing and I must still have healing that needs to take place or I would not have found myself in their counseling services’,” she said. “It felt like they were saying ‘mind your own business.'”

  Two years later, Rock told family members in a September 2013 email he had been appointed to a Stake leadership position (High Council) in Bangkok, assisting other lay leaders who oversaw youth and primary programs, according to Shipley.

  “We have worried the church did not put guardrails in place to protect others from him,” Shipley said.

  Family asks LDS Church to remove Rock from leadership

  In November 2023, Shipley traveled to Salt Lake to personally deliver a written dossier of allegations against Rock to the LDS Church’s top fifteen leaders in Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time Rock was living in Thailand. The packet of information contained claims of sexual abuse by Shipley (stepdaughter), Rock’s stepson, and Rock’s niece Kami Mauldin. It also contained a letter written by Rock’s ex-wife (who lived with Rock for nearly two decades) alleging severe sexual and physical abuse by Rock against her.

  “Jeff has spent a lot of money to lure vulnerable women with children to get close to him,” said ex-wife Jessica Chantawichian. “I have spread the words of warning to some of my friends about Jeff’s being a child molester and to stay away from him.”

  Chantawichian and relatives of Rock asked the church to ensure Rock was not in a position of authority. They also requested policy changes to prevent the likelihood of church volunteers being alone with children in the future.

  Church has made policy changes; Family wants more done

  The family’s concerns reflected a larger debate.

  The church relies exclusively on local worshipers to voluntarily fill leadership roles. The organizational model has come under criticism over the past decade particularly as it relates to men in leadership positions who often hold one-on-one “worthiness interviews” with children and teens.

  These concerns were reflected in one investigation by 12News in 2024, which detailed a former Arizona ward bishop (akin to the role of local pastor) who was accused of groping, unwanted touching and sexual assault by five girls and seven women dating back to the 1980s.

  In 2018, a former bishop made national headlines by publicly demanding it ban sexually explicit youth interviews. The church has updated guidelines for worthiness interviews and it requires adults working with children and youth to complete the church’s child protection training.

  Church 'placed restrictions' on Rock in 2023

  During the same month Shipley submitted complaints to LDS Church headquarters, a Stake (local) representative of the church contacted Shipley to tell her Rock had been released from his position of counselor (akin to an assistant pastor) in Bang Na, Thailand, Shipley said. Shipley said she could not believe he would be allowed to have such a position.

  Wheeler of the LDS Church tells 12News: “In 2023, the Church received letters regarding this individual and encouraged family members and others to report concerns and cooperate with the criminal investigation. The Church placed restrictions on this individual and does not allow him to participate in any activities or meetings involving youth or children.”

  12News asked the LDS Church if local leaders where Rock has moved to had access to records of previous abuse claims against Rock. 12News also asked if the church has records of any other allegations against Rock in the many congregations where he has been a member. Wheeler did not provide responses to those two questions.

  Non-relative also alleges 'calculated grooming' by Rock

  Another reason Rock’s family is speaking out is because a non-relative accuses Rock of “calculated grooming” when she was young.

  According to a written statement submitted to Utah Justice Court in January, the woman writes that while she was living in Thailand in the early 1990s, Rock began giving her “inappropriate attention” when she was 15.

  “I was both a close friend and classmate of his stepdaughter when his predatory behavior toward me began,” she writes.

  The woman alleges Rock “corrupted my understanding of what trust means.”

  “The grooming process itself left deep psychological scars. I continue to suffer from intense emotional distress- persistent anxiety, sleepless nights and panic attacks,” she writes.

  'Babysitting' in Provo and working at an orphanage in China

  Shipley hopes anyone who had contact with Rock will spread the word about his various church positions where he would have had contact with children and teens.

  Between 1985 and 1995, Rock lived in Corona, California; Taipei, Taiwan; Suva, Fiji; and Bangkok, Thailand. He then lived in Jakarta, Indonesia between 1995 and 1998.

  While in Indonesia, Rock was a Branch Mission Leader and was assigned as a “home teacher” to a family of seven children, Shipley said.

  'Credible reasons' to believe Rock babysat children in Provo

  Rock returned to Bangkok, Thailand and lived there between 1998 and 2001.

  For the next several years, he worked in Iraq and China before moving to Provo, Utah in 2009 where he lived for about three years, Shipley said.

  “While he lived in Provo, we have credible reason believe he babysat children of families in his home ward during that time period,” Shipley said.

  During that time, family members held “an intervention” with Rock.

  “We told him to remove himself from being in the lives of children at church, scouts and with babysitting,” Shipley said. “He got angry.”

  Spending time at Beijing Orphanage

  By 2011 or 2012, Rock moved to China where he lived for several years and volunteered at the House of Hope orphanage near Beijing, Shipley said.

  “I have since contacted the orphanage to notify them about the allegations. An administrator confirmed he was there for a time,” Shipley said. An email from the orphanage shows correspondence with Shipley.

  It is not clear, based on website information, if the orphanage is still running today. 12News was unable to contact the organization.

  By 2015, Rock was back in Thailand where he held volunteer positions in the church as a High Councilman and Bishopric Counselor in the Bang Na Ward in southeast Bangkok, Shipley said.

  Publicly listed as an educator

  Rock is listed online as a faculty member in the “Helping Hands Thailand” program at the Paris University of International Education. He is also Head of Academics at Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin, according to that school’s website. His bios describe him as a former State Department official.

  12News sent messages to both schools to ask if Rock is still employed and did not receive responses.

  The U.S. State Department has not responded to requests for Rock’s employment records.

  Tracking Mormon Leaders Accused of Abuse

  The website, floodlit.org, documents lawsuits, convictions and news stories involving lay leaders accused of abuse, as well as cases where the LDS Church is accused of failing to adequately address reports of abuse.

  Shipley said she hopes fellow members of the faith she grew up in, will be aware of signs of grooming.

  “He has always aligned himself with young people, sharing secrets with them to make them feel special,” Shipley said.

  Do you have information or tips about this story or other cases? Contact 12News Journalist Joe Dana at jdana@12news.com.