11 matching Mormon sex abuse cases

  • LDS position: Mission president
    • Joseph Bishop was a Mormon church member and president of the Provo, Utah Missionary Training Center (MTC) in the 1980s; allegedly sexually abused multiple sister missionaries; not criminally charged because the statute of limitations had expired (in 1984, the legal deadline in Utah for filing a rape charge was four years); civil lawsuit was dismissed after an agreement by the plaintiff and the LDS church
    • Church officials allegedly failed to report abuse
    • Pierre Euvrard was a Mormon mission president from 1991 to 1994 in the Mascarene Islands mission / South Africa Durban mission; died in 2000; accused in a 2020 Arizona lawsuit of sexually abusing two underage teen boys for years while working as a mission president
    • Richard Miles was an LDS church member in Bountiful, Utah; accused of sexual abuse in a civil lawsuit; case was dismissed with prejudice in 2020
    • 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
    • Spencer Palmer was a Mormon temple endowment ceremony actor, BYU professor, mission president, temple president, LDS church area authority; lived in Utah; posthumously accused of child sexual abuse by his grandson
    • Ramiro Saenz was an LDS mission president and temple president in Bolivia; accused of sexually abusing two teenage girls
    • Philander Smartt was a Mormon mission president in Puerto Rico; accused of sexually manipulating some of his sister missionaries; in 2014, the LDS church sent him home and called his behavior "immoral and sinful," but no criminal charges or civil lawsuits resulted
    • Orson Wright was a Mormon mission president in Sydney, Australia from 1978 to 1980; accused of grooming some of the sister missionaries in his care to be his polygamous wives; removed early from his mission assignment; LDS church leaders in Salt Lake City, Utah allegedly covered up the reasons for Wright's removal
    • Church officials allegedly failed to report abuse