Court: LDS Church Had No Duty To Report Incestuous Child Porn Admitted To During “Spiritual Confession”

Salt Lake City’s Fox affiliate reports:

An Arizona judge has dismissed a high-profile child sexual abuse lawsuit against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ruling that church officials who knew that a church member was sexually abusing his daughter had no duty to report the abuse to police or social service agencies because the information was received during a spiritual confession.

In a ruling on Friday, Cochise County Superior Court Judge Timothy Dickerson said the state’s clergy-penitent privilege excused two bishops and several other officials with the church from the state’s child sex abuse mandatory reporting law because Paul Adams initially disclosed during a confession that he was sexually abusing his daughter.

Adams recorded his abuse of his daughters on video and posted the pornographic videos on the internet, starting when his second daughter was just 6 weeks old.

Read the full article. Adams killed himself in custody.

A judge ruled that LDS officials who knew that a member was sexually abusing his daughter had no duty to report due to clergy-penitent privilege—a loophole that has allowed “an unknown number of predators … to continue abusing children for years.”https://t.co/D7HJR8cwiS

— kate shellnutt (@kateshellnutt) November 9, 2023