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1 year ago
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Mormon families who tried to expose cases of sexual abuse within their communities have alleged they were 'silenced' and threatened with disciplinary action by church leaders, DailyMail.com can reveal.
In one instance, two Idaho members claim they were warned they could be punished after the pair alerted others in their congregation to the fact that their former bishop faced child sex abuse charges dating back 10 years.
In another case in Minnesota, a church member and social worker claims he was stripped of his positions within the church after he spoke out about a registered sex offender who had been placed in a leadership position.
On both occasions, the dissidents felt compelled to raise the alarm after church leaders allegedly kept the abuse under wraps.
It comes after DailyMail.com revealed that victims have accused Mormon leaders of hiding an 'epidemic' of sexual abuse that rivals scandals within the Catholic church.
Kolby Reddish, 35, (right, with wife Cami) has slammed the Mormon church after it allegedly failed to inform his congregation that their bishop had confessed to child sex abuse
Social worker Michael Benjamin, 48, claims he was stripped of his positions within the church after he spoke out about a registered sex offender who had been handed a senior role
Around a dozen victims have taken the brave decision to tell their stories of abuse within the church, exposing decades of alleged cover-ups.
Meanwhile, the Utah-based religion faces a bombshell lawsuit in which it is alleged to 'maintain a pattern and practice' of 'concealing' sexual abuse from the police in a bid to avoid costly legal action and protect its reputation.
Today, DailyMail.com can reveal police records suggest church leaders failed to report a bishop who had confessed to sexually abusing a minor.
The church allegedly allowed him to remain an 'active member of the church' months after they had been made aware of the allegations against him, the records show.
Members of the congregation - known as a ward - in Nampa, Idaho, who tried to speak out about the case claim they were threatened with disciplinary action.
Kolby Reddish, 35, told DailyMail.com that the church's silence was motivated by its desire to protect its reputation 'at all costs'.
The bishop in question, Dylan Whiting, served the ward from December 2019 until January 2021, when he was removed from his post without explanation.
A Nampa Police Department report, obtained by DailyMail.com, dated February 1, 2021, suggests the church was made aware of the allegations when Whiting 'confessed' to his stake president - who oversees multiple wards - on January 10, 2021, four days before police were informed by the victims' grandfather on January 14.
The document adds that the church did not report the matter to the police.
Whiting was charged with two counts of lewd conduct with a child and two counts of child sexual abuse on April 12, 2021.
But a second police report details a call on April 19 from a member of the community concerned that Whiting was still 'an active member of the church' and 'is still around children'.
The report said the caller 'feels the church leaders are not taking this seriously and 'sweeping it under the rug', so the RP [reporting person] fears for all the children at the church'.
It is unclear what contact the church had with the police during this time.
Dylan Whiting was removed from his position as a Mormon bishop in Nampa, Idaho, after he confessed child sex abuse to senior leaders. But records suggest the church did not report the matter to police
Whiting was sentenced in January 2022 to three years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of child sexual abuse of a minor.
The other three counts that Whiting was charged with were dismissed as part of his plea agreement.
Yet Reddish claims it took church leaders until April 2022 to properly address Whiting's offenses in an email to members that shared details of his conviction but only 'with permission from the Whiting family'.
When he and friend Brian Tooley tried to alert fellow ward members of the charges against Whiting via email in August 2021, both were shocked to be threatened with disciplinary action by local leaders for using the church's contact database to send the emails.
Reddish, who is an attorney, said he found out about the charges shortly after they had been filed when a friend alerted him to them.
Shocked that he and other members of the ward had not been informed, Reddish sought out stake president - who is charge of multiple wards - to grill him on the church's inaction.
Reddish claims the stake president told him he had been informed by church lawyers that he could not tell police or other church members due to the confidential nature of the confession.
Reddish, a father-of-four, countered that there was nothing confidential about the charges against Whiting.
There is also nothing in Idaho state law that prevents clergy from reporting child sexual abuse to the police.
Idaho and more than 20 other states require clergy to report child sex abuse and neglect, but there is an exemption for information gleaned during spiritual confessions.
But even then, clergy can choose to report the abuse should they wish to.
This echoes a similar case in Arizona, in which a Mormon bishop said he did not report a member of his ward who had confessed to abusing his daughter because church lawyers had told him the state's laws prevented him from doing so.
The abuse continued for seven more years until the abuser was caught.
'The church always says that they care most about the victims,' Reddish said. 'But the truth is, it doesn't. That's disgusting to me.
'They [the church] say they are the gold standard for youth protection. It's just a lie. But members believe it, they trust it and they make decisions based on that.
'That's the big problem.'
Church leaders said in an April 2022 email to Idaho stake members addressing the Whiting case that 'the church condemns abuse in all its forms' and 'those who commit abuse are subject to church discipline and should be held accountable before the law'.
It added: 'The church endeavors to provide support and love to victims.'
The Mormon church has been embroiled in several high-profile cases in which it has been accused of covering up sexual abuse over the years
Meanwhile, lifelong church member Michael Benjamin claims he was 'silenced' when he spoke out about a registered sex offender who had been placed in a leadership position.
The social worker, 48, said he was stripped of his positions within the church and barred from accessing his membership account after he questioned why a man who had a history of sexually assaulting children had been appointed to a senior role.
The pedophile, Michael Adam Davis, was a registered sex offender in Utah, but was later appointed to a senior role in a church in Minnesota.
He went on to reoffend while in that role and was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy whose family were members of the church.
Benjamin was dumbfounded that the church either failed to perform or ignored background checks on Davis.
The Mormon church has a policy of annotating a person's membership record when they are convicted of a crime, but background checks are not mandatory.
Benjamin said this means church leaders in Utah either failed to annotate Davis' record, or those in Minnesota failed to check, or ignored the mark.
'It breaks my heart that one simple check would have saved this kid from abuse that has probably affected him for the rest of his life,' he told DailyMail.com.
'I started speaking out because there is a systemic problem within the church,' he added. 'It is not doing background checks on its leaders, and so these offenders are not getting caught. Then leaders are covering it up once it comes out.'
Benjamin filed a civil complaint last year claiming the church suspended his membership account for allegedly violating the 'terms of use' when he sent an email to other members of his congregation about the case.
The social worker told DailyMail.com that he believed the suspension was in part motivated by the church's desire to stop him spreading dissent.
But his complaint was filed on the grounds that his membership account was his intellectual property.
In response, the church said Benjamin's account had been suspended by Salt Lake City headquarters because he had been spreading 'inaccurate or incomplete information'.
An agreement was reached in which the account was restored and the case dismissed.
Davis, 38, was convicted of two counts of attempted forcible sexual abuse in Davis County, Utah, in 2006.
He was listed as a registered sex offender in Utah as a result.
Despite this, he was later appointed as Elders Quorum President - a respected position in local congregations - in Kasson, Minnesota.
Other members of the church community were completely unaware of his past.
Michael Adam Davis was given a senior position within a Mormon church in Minnesota, despite being a register sex offender in Utah. He would later be sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of abusing a boy whom he knew from the Minnesota church
In May 2022, Davis was sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of one count of criminal sexual conduct - a first-degree felony - and two counts of second-degree felony criminal sexual conduct, and one count of indecent exposure.
His actions only came to light after a sheriff stopped Davis in his car because a boy in the passenger seat was not wearing a seatbelt.
The deputy ran his license and found he was a lifetime registered sex offender in Utah.
The boy would later admit Davis repeatedly sexually assaulted him and tried to rape him, with court documents stating the pair knew each other from church.
Charges filed against Davis accused him of abusing his 'position of authority'.
The Mormon church has not responded to a request for comment on the claims it 'silenced' and threatened members who spoke out about abuse.
But its 2010 handbook for church leaders says 'the first responsibility of the church in abuse cases is to help those who have been abused and protect those who may be vulnerable to future abuse'.
It adds: 'Abuse cannot be tolerated in any form.'
'90 percent' of Utah abuse cases linked to Mormon church
Church President President Russell M. Nelson
A Utah therapist has said up to 90 per cent of abuse cases he deals with are related to the Mormon church - but none of these are reported to police by ecclesiastical leaders.
Austin, who didn't want his surname to be made public, told DailyMail.com that his own children had been sexually molested by a boy within the church.
The therapist claims a church bishop informed him of the abuse, but refused to report it to police, citing legal advice.
Austin claims the bishop told him the case 'wasn't severe enough' to warrant a police report.
He said this was typical of his experience while working as a therapist with juvenile sex offenders for five years.
'The way the church operates, their standards, their procedures - I hold that responsible for why my children were harmed,' Austin added.
The therapist said he has made 'several hundred reports' of juvenile sexual abuse to the police in his work as a therapist and that '85 to 90 percent' were related to the Mormon church.
He claimed that in all instances, the church had not reported the abuse to law enforcement, because 'they just don't want the publicity'.
'I never had one that was reported by the church,' Austin added. 'It was always the parents or a neighbor, if it was reported at all.'
The therapist said he and his wife have since left the church and he now specializes in helping people deal with the fallout that comes with ditching Mormonism.
'There are droves of people leaving the church right now and it's hugely detrimental to their mental health,' he said. 'Everyone they know is now against them. They're finding that they can think for themselves and that scares the hell out of them.
'Before, someone was always doing the thinking for you. There's just these societal agreed-upon norms that they adhere to. It's heartbreaking.'
DailyMail.com has contacted the Mormon church for comment.
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