38 matching Mormon sex abuse cases

  • Criminal case result: Admitted guilt
    • Stephen Boyd was a Mormon church member in Colorado and Eagle Mountain, Utah; graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1991; accused in 2023 asking a person he thought was a 13 year old girl in an online chat to meet up for sex; April 2025 plead guilty; May 2025 plea was held in abeyance; Boyd was ordered to register as sex offender for 36 months and serve 90 days in jail with credit for 7 days
    • Allen Brinkerhoff was a Mormon bishop and stake president and manager of an LDS stake welfare farm in Nevada; arrested in Nevada in 2007 and admitted to sexually abusing two children; was convicted and sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison for battery with intent to commit sexual assault, and 12 to 32 months in prison for sexual abuse of a child; died in 2019
    • Mark Cram was a former Mormon bishop and stake presidency counselor, and city manager in Riverton, Utah; charged in 2006 with voyeurism; admitted climbing a 9-foot wall at a tanning salon to watch a 16-year-old girl undress; pleaded guilty; plea was held in abeyance; he completed the terms set by the court, charge was dismissed and case was expunged in 2008; as of February 2024, lives in Riverton, Utah
    • Alleged coverup
    • Daniel Cupyrna was a Mormon assistant stake clerk and stake technology specialist in Middlesbrough Ward, Billingham Stake, UK; accused of possession of child sexual abuse material; admitted to wrongdoing; convicted
    • Buckland Darrell was a former LDS Primary teacher in Redmond, Washington; accused of molesting young boys in sacrament meeting and at their homes; charged with first-degree felony child molestation in 2022-23 (5 victims); admitted to sexually abusing around 6 to 8 boys; pleaded guilty; sentenced in 2024 to at least 8 years in prison; faced two additional counts in March 2025 after two more victims came forward
    • Alleged coverup
    • Richard Dilley was an LDS church member and scout leader in Burien, near Seattle, Washington; dishonorably discharged from the Navy in 1983 after admitting to abusing boys in a Scouting program in Athens, Greece; pleaded guilty in 1990 to one count of third degree child rape and five counts of child molestation for "repeated" offenses over two years of the scouts in his LDS troop; sentenced to 9 years in prison
    • John Doe was an LDS church member and former Mormon bishop in Alabama, Alaska and Texas; in 2022 or 2023, confessed to child sexual abuse to his LDS bishop and stake president in Texas, according to a person familiar with the case; they reported him to local police in 2023; in 2024, a plaintiff filed a civil lawsuit against him; Doe and the church settled with the victim in 2025
    • Alleged coverup
    • LDS church payment: Undisclosed amount
    • Joseph Dunlop was a Mormon church member in South Jordan, Utah; accused of sexual abuse
    • Alan Dunn was a Mormon church member and scout leader in Venice, California (Los Angeles); accused in 1978 of child sexual abuse; confessed to the police
    • Alleged coverup
    • Gerald Elison was an LDS church member and junior high school drama teacher in Orem, Utah; accused in 2014 in a civil lawsuit of sexually abusing a boy student in the early 1980s; died in 2019
    • Samuel Faber was an LDS church member in Sandy, Utah; charged in 2022 of sexually assaulting a woman he met on an LDS dating app called Mutual; in 2024, admitted to sexually assaulting three women and pleaded guilty to amended first-degree felony charges of rape and forcible sodomy, and third-degree felony aggravated sexual assault and two counts of third-degree felony forcible sexual abuse
    • John Fanning was a former Mormon bishop and scout leader in Utah; accused of sexual abuse in 1987 of a teenage boy during an overnight scouting activity; two victims later sued the Mormon church; died in 2012
    • Kevin Garn was a former Utah House majority leader and LDS bishop in Utah; admitted in 2010 to a nude encounter with a 15-year-old girl in a hot tub in 1985, when he was 28
    • Alleged coverup
    • Joseph Hastings was a Mormon church member in Clevedon, UK; sentenced to prison for sending child pornography to an undercover police officer online in 2015; sentenced to 13 years and eight months in prison, including a custodial term of eight years and eight months
    • Elwood Haws was an employee and vice president of an LDS church-owned trust company in Utah; charged in 2020 with 13 second degree felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor (related to possession of child pornography); admitted that he viewed child pornography 3-4 times a week over a 3-4 year span; in 2021, pleaded guilty to three counts and was sentenced to 180 days in jail; in 2023, violated probation
    • Paul Jellum was a Mormon scout leader in Logan, Utah in the 1980s; suspended by the BSA in 1987 after being accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old Boy Scout in his troop during a 1986 Scouting event at Camp Hunt near Bear Lake, Utah; in 1990, Jellum became a scoutmaster in a Nevada LDS ward despite his prior suspension; in 1991, Jellum admitted to the abuse
    • Alleged coverup
    • Bruce Jeppesen was a Mormon elders quorum president when he sexually abused a child; sentenced to two concurrent terms of 15 years in the Utah State Prison
    • Melvin Johnson was a Mormon seminary teacher and Brigham Young University (BYU) religion professor; accused by multiple victims of sexually abusing them when they were children; excommunicated and rebaptized; reportedly confessed to sexual abuse, but was not criminally charged; two victims filed lawsuits against him; one named the Mormon church as a defendant; it settled out of court
    • Alleged coverup
    • LDS church payment: Undisclosed amount
    • Church discipline: Excommunicated, Rebaptized,
    • Larry Judd was an LDS church member in Mesa, Arizona; accused of sexual abuse; admitted to molesting 12 girls over a period of about 20 years; some of the alleged abuse took place at church and at church-sponsored summer camps
    • Alleged coverup
    • David Keller was a Mormon temple worker, Sunday school teacher and former stake presidency member in Paradise, Cache Valley, Utah; admitted in May 2024 to child sexual abuse and was charged with seven first-degree felony counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child
    • Franklin Mathias was a Mormon church member and Boy scout leader in Oregon; had a career as a schoolteacher; accused in 1987 of sexual abuse; sentenced in 1988 to four years in prison for molesting a child; he said that he had 242 victims over a 30-year period
    • Calvin McGee was an LDS missionary in Virginia in 2022; accused of soliciting sexually explicit pictures and video from a person he believed to be an 11-year-old girl, and inviting her to meet in person; arrested in Boise, Idaho in July 2023 and accused of rape of a minor; pleaded guilty to two charges related to child sexual abuse; sentenced in May 2024 to three to 25 years in prison
    • Alleged coverup
    • Bill McKay was an LDS church member and mayor of Kennewick, Washington; admitted in 2023 to police he paid for sexual services at multiple massage parlors in Kennewick; was not criminally charged
    • Shawn Mortensen was a former Mormon bishop and stake presidency member in Albuquerque, New Mexico; in February 2021, admitted to police that he had sexually abused an 11-year-old girl in January 2021; convicted of child sexual abuse; sentenced in 2022 to prison in New Mexico
    • Gerald Mortimer was an OB/GYN doctor in Idaho and former Mormon temple president and mission president in the Philippines; admitted in 2019 to secretly using his sperm to artificially inseminate multiple women; a civil suit against him was dismissed with prejudice in 2021, possibly because of a private settlement agreement
    • Steven Murdock was a Mormon stake high council member and former LDS bishop in Holladay, Salt Lake County, Utah; allegedly sexually harassed multiple women in his ward while he was their bishop (he was bishop from 2013 to 2017); in 2019, was caught taking photos of a young woman in a dressing room in Tennessee; pleaded guilty in November 2019; sentenced in 2019 to one year probation, 48 hours community service
    • Alleged coverup
    • Ralph Neeley was an LDS church member in the Beaumont, Texas area; was sentenced in January 1994 to life in prison in Texas for repeated sexual abuse of an 8-year-old girl in an LDS chapel during church meetings and in other locations; died in prison in 2020; the Mormon church reportedly paid several million US dollars in a settlement to the victim
    • Alleged coverup
    • LDS church payment: $3,000,000
    • Church discipline: Excommunicated,
    • David O'Connor was an LDS church member and high school wrestling coach in Tacoma, Washington; convicted of sexual abuse in 1977; once reportedly confessed his sexual abuse in an LDS sacrament meeting; in 2021, a victim sued the Mormon church
    • Alleged coverup
    • Patrick Oliphant was a Mormon missionary from Carlsbad, New Mexico who was serving a mission in Michigan in 2013; reportedly turned himself in for sexual abuse of a child he was babysitting; charged with six counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor and three counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor; convicted in 2015 of nine felony charges
    • Eric Olsen was an LDS church member and schoolteacher in Bakersfield, California; admitted to Ontario, California police that he had sexually abused between 200 to 300 girls, with as many as 30 victims in Kern County; convicted in 2007 in California of 6 felony counts of child sexual abuse; sentenced to five years in prison; lifetime registered sex offender; as of 2023, lives in Brigham City, Utah
    • Ryan Pugh was a former Mormon missionary and BYU-Idaho student in Rexburg, Idaho; arrested and charged in 2024 with sharing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online
    • Jason Smith was an LDS church member in Indiana; in 2019, confessed to sexually abusing a child; pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2021 to 728 days of probation for battery against a child under 14 years old
    • Church discipline: No action,
    • Peter Taylor was a Mormon church member in Washington; confessed to sexual abuse of his two underage stepdaughters; convicted; Mormon church lost a civil lawsuit and was court ordered to pay the victims $2.5 million; the church appealed and the amount was reduced to $1.2 million
    • Alleged coverup
    • LDS church payment: $1,200,000
    • Robert Tubbs was an LDS scout leader in Slaterville, Weber County, Utah; admitted he told a Mormon bishop in the early 1970s he had molested multiple boys; Tubbs said the bishop kept the abuse secret; nearly 20 years passed and Tubbs molested others; in the 1990s, Tubbs pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse charges; sentenced to six years to life in prison; paroled in 2000; violated parole; released in 2008
    • Alleged coverup
    • Thomas Wallin was a Mormon church member in South Jordan, Utah; admitted to sexually abusing a child within an LDS chapel; in 2022, sentenced to 18 years in prison
    • LaVar Withers was a Mormon and physician in Rexburg, Idaho; accused of sexually abusing at least 133 women and children as young as 13 years old over a period of 30 or more years; admitted to sexual abuse; in 1996, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery; sentenced to 30 to 60 days in jail and two years probation; the Mormon church placed him on probation and took his temple recommend; died in 2005
    • Alleged coverup
    • Chauncey Worthley was a former LDS bishop in Orange County, California; admitted to sexual abuse and had his foster parent license taken away
    • Jimmy Young was a Mormon church member and scout volunteer in Texas; arrested for sexually abusing a scout in his troop

 

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International map of locations where active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints perpetrated or allegedly perpetrated sexual abuse or other sex crimes, or where LDS leaders failed or allegedly failed to help abuse survivors.

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FLOODLIT.org has a free public database of hundreds of reports about people who committed or allegedly committed sex crimes, including sexual abuse, while they were active Mormon church members. You can browse the entire database by LDS church position, number of victims, places where crimes took place, criminal/civil case results, and other criteria.