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Payment to Kirkland resident Settles Lawsuit Alleging Church Concealed Knowledge That High Priest was Serial Pedophile.
Child’s Mother Sought Bishop’s Advice Before Letting Priest Move into Her Home.
Priest Sexually Molested Child Nightly For Several Months.
Church Repeatedly Put Pedophile in Charge of Kids Despite Ten Prior Warnings to Church Officials and 1983 Excommunication of Priest for Molesting Boys.
Church Claims it “Wiped the Slate Clean” After High Priest “Repented.”
Second Largest Settlement Ever Paid to Individual Child Sex Abuse Victim (Highest Announced Last Week Against Archdiocese in Orange County, CA)
Twelve Other Victims Have Been Identified and Many Others May Still be Afraid to Disclose Abuse.
Other Information:
Portland, OR - The Mormon Church today paid $3 million to settle a child abuse lawsuit that charged the church with covering up, for over a decade, a High Priest’s sexually molesting young boys. The lawsuit of one of the priest’s victims, Jeremiah Scott, 22, Kirkland, WA, was scheduled to go to trial August 20th in Portland, Oregon. Calling the Mormon Church a “sanctuary for pedophiles,” Scott’s mother and his legal team celebrated the settlement as “one victory for one victim in the long struggle to expose the Mormon Church’s tolerance for child abuse.”
Scott is one of 16 victims of High Priest Franklin Curtis who abused boys in Portland, Oregon, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Sheridan, Wyoming. Curtis, who was convicted of molesting Scott, has since died. Scott’s mother and his lawyers made the settlement public today and issued a statement that they had uncovered a epidemic pattern of the Mormon Church of “recycling known pedophiles into positions of prominence in the church where they have unlimited access to young children.”
The church claimed throughout the litigation that it had a constitutional right to “wipe the slate clean” of any member who had “repented” for his abuse of children and had been forgiven by the church.
Scott’s mother, Sandra Scott, read an emotional statement concluding that “the Mormon Church can forgive whomever it chooses, but it is a sin and a crime to allow known child molesters to have unsupervised access to children.”
Scott’s lawyers pointed out that the church, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had been repeatedly warned at least twelve times that Curtis was using his position as a High Priest, boy scout leader and Sunday school teacher to seduce and molest young boys. Mrs. Scott described the church’s conduct as “a coverup on a massive scale, covering several states and multiple church leaders. Jeremiah would never have been abused were it not for the church’s policy of concealing the truth members.”
Scott’s Bellevue, WA lawyers, Tim Kosnoff and Joel Salmi, described the church’s conduct as among the worst of any religious organization in the country. “Most churches have finally caught on that they have a duty to protect their children from pedophiles in clerical garb, but this church still destroys records, still recycles known child molesters into positions of prominence, and still denies that it has any responsibility to tell its members the truth. The church’s secrets are safe, but its children are not. It is time for the Mormon church to change its priorities to protect the children in its care and live by the same laws that apply to the rest of America.”
“Time after time, Kosnoff described, “shattered children and distraught parents informed church officials of Curtis’ crimes. The church knew beyond any doubt that Curtis was a serial pedophile. But still the church let him lead scout troops of young boys, honored him with ordination to the High Priesthood, and assigned him to Sunday school classes for children. Never once did any church leader report Curtis to the police, and when Jeremiah’s mother asked her bishop for advice after Curtis asked to live in her home, the church covered up Curtis’ record. The Scotts’ bishop knew Curtis was living in a home with a young boy-and he issued not a word of warning.”
Kosnoff described the Mormon Church as “the most meticulous keeper of records in the history of religion. It knows where its members were born, when they were baptized and married, when and where they have moved, how much they contribute to the church each year and numerous other facts. Yet they hide the fact that they have High Priests who will molest any young boy he can gain access to. It would only have taken one word, ‘beware,’ and this little boy would have been saved from the horrors of nightly sexual abuse. We now know of twelve other victims of the church’s coverup. Many more may be still be living in the silence that shame imposes. It has to stop.”
Mrs. Scott will be available to meet with representatives of the press in Portland, OR on September 5, 2001 at 9:00 a.m. at the Embassy Suites Airport Hotel and at Temple Square in Salt Lake City at 2:00 p.m.
Abuse survivors in Washington can reach out to several organizations for help.
King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, 800-825-7273 and Harborview Center for Sexual Assault, 206-521-1800.
Page Modified September 4, 2001