There is a small town in Arizona calledbisBEE. When her father told his bishop that he had sexually abused her, she was just 5 years old.
The father, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an admitted pornography addiction, was in counseling with his bishop when he discovered the abuse. The help line was called by the bishop, who was also a family doctor.
The call didn't offer much assistance for MJ. The lawyers for the Mormon church told the bishop not to call the police or child welfare officials. He didn't tell anyone about the abuse.
In a recorded interview with law enforcement, Herrod said that they told him he couldn't do anything.
Herrod counseled Paul Douglas Adams for another year and brought in his wife to try to protect the children. She didn't After consulting with church officials, Herrod told a second bishop that the abuse had not been reported to police.
Adams abused her infant sister and continued to rape her into her adolescence. He recorded the abuse and uploaded it to the internet.
After law enforcement officials in New Zealand discovered one of the videos, Homeland Security agents arrested Adams without assistance from the church. He died in jail before he could be tried.
Records from a child sex abuse lawsuit against the Mormon church have been obtained by the AP. The help line Herrod called was the subject of the documents. The families of survivors who filed the lawsuit said they show that it is possible for church leaders to divert abuse accusations away from law enforcement and leave victims in harm's way.
Abuse victims and their attorneys have criticized the help line for being too slow in stopping abuse. Despite criticism and increased scrutiny from attorneys and prosecutors, the Utah based faith has stuck by the system.
The Mormon church is really bad. During an interview with the AP, the 16-year-old said that it was "seriously sucks". From what I have experienced and what other people have experienced, they are the worst type of people.
The AP was asked to only use her initials because videos of her abuse by her father are still on the internet. The names of sexual abuse survivors can't be published without their consent.
William Maledon told The Associated Press last month that the bishops were not required to report the abuse.
The bishops did not do anything wrong. He said that they can't be held responsible because they didn't violate the law. The suit was described as a money grab by Maledon.
Maledon told the AP that Herrod didn't know that Adams was molesting his daughter after learning of the abuse in a single counseling session.
In the recorded interview with the agent obtained by the AP, Herrod said he asked Leizza Adams if the abuse was continuing and asked her what he could do to stop it.
I assumed they had stopped, but I never asked if they came back.
The perfect lifestyle.
An old copper-mining town in southeastern Arizona known today for its antique shops and laid-back attitude, the Adams family lived on a dirt road 8 miles away from the center of the town. The Adams home, a three-bedroom, open concept affair surrounded by desert, was often littered with piles of clothing and containers of lubricant Adams used to sexually abuse his children.
Leizza assumed most of the childrearing responsibilities, including getting their six children off to school and chauffeuring them to church and religious instruction. Paul, who worked for the U.S. Border Patrol, spent a lot of his time online looking at porn, often with his children watching, or wandering the house naked.
He yelled at his wife and beat his children because he had a short temper. Warr, a Border Patrol agent and a Mormon who worked with Paul, said that he had an "exploding personality". He had a lot of anger.
Paul encouraged his daughter to record him while he sexually abused her. He bragged that he could have sex with his daughters whenever he wanted, even though his wife knew and didn't care.
He told investigators he couldn't stop abusing. He said that he couldn't pull himself out of something. I'm not saying the devil made me do it.
The Adams family was very involved in the Mormon community. Adams turned to his church and Bishop Herrod when he disclosed his abuse of MJ.
Herrod said he knew from the beginning that Leizza Adams was unlikely to stop her husband. The bishop said that when her husband recounted his abuse of their daughter, she was pretty emotional dead. The bishop was aware of the harms being done to MJ. He said in his interview that he didn't think she would do well.
Church officials told Herrod that the state's clergy-penitent privilege required him to keep Adams's abuse confidential.
The law didn't require anything like that.
Clergy, physicians, nurses, or anyone who cares for a child who has been abused or neglected has a legal obligation to report it, according to Arizona's child sex abuse reporting law. Clergy who receive information about child neglect or sexual abuse during spiritual confessions may not give it to authorities if they decide it's reasonable and necessary.
The abuse in the Adams household was the subject of a conversation Herrod had with the incoming bishop. The information within the church was kept, instead of reporting the abuse to authorities.
According to an interview with federal agents obtained by the AP, church officials told him to convene a confidential hearing for Adams after he was ex-communicated. Adams wasn't reported to the police by church leaders.
Leizza Adams gave birth to a second child in 2015. It took just six weeks for her husband to sexually assault her and record the abuse.
The revelation that Mormon officials may have directed an effort to conceal years of abuse in the Adams household sparked a criminal investigation of the church by the Cochise County Attorney.
Who is to blame for Herrod not revealing? McIntyre asked about something. The church lawyers told Herrod not to report the abuse. Is that advice coming from the people who gave it to him?
The call comes to my phone.
According to the handbook for church leaders, the first responsibility of the church is to help those who have been abused and protect those who may be vulnerable to future abuse. The handbook states that abuse cannot be accepted.
The abuse in the Adams family was not reported to the church.
In her AP interview, she said that they just let it continue. They told her to excommunicate her father. The thing didn't stop. It would be great if they could do therapy. The thing didn't stop. Let's forget and forgive and everything will be fine. It didn't leave.
In West Virginia, church leaders were accused of covering up the crimes of a young child molester from a prominent Mormon family even after he had been convicted in Utah. Michael Jensen was sentenced to between 35 and 75 years in prison for abusing two children. They settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money.
The lawyer for the Adams children said that child abuse grows in secret. The reporting came into effect because of that. It is the most important thing to do.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and several members, including Bishops Herrod and Mauzy, are accused of negligently and conspiring to cover up child sex abuse to avoid costly lawsuits. Most of the church's 16 million members are outside the United States.
The policy of the defendants was to block public disclosure to avoid scandals, to avoid the disclosure of their tolerance of child sexual molestation and assault, and to avoid investigation and action by public authority. The actions were motivated by a desire to protect the reputation of the defendants, according to the lawsuit.
The help line of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not been mentioned in many of the lawsuits against the organization. The documents show how it works.
Craig Vernon, an Idaho attorney who has filed sex abuse lawsuits against the church, said that the help line is there to help the church keep its secrets.
Vernon is a former member of the church and he wants the church to require the reporting of sex abuse to police or state authorities.
The sealed records show that calls to the help line are answered by social workers or professional counselors who decide if the information is serious enough to be referred to an attorney.
The Mormons in the West Virginia case couldn't verify the Protocol. A ranking church official confirmed that those answering the help line used a written protocol to guide them.
Harold C. Brown was the director of the church's Welfare Services department.
The help line is told to only use first names. Identifying information should not be given. Under the heading "High Risk Cases," it instructs staffers to ask a series of questions, including whether calls concern abuse by a church leader, an employee, or abuse at a church-sponsored activity.
The protocol states that those taking the calls should encourage the perpetrators, the victim, or others who know of the abuse to report it. The capital letters say that those taking the calls should never advise a priest to report abuse. Legal counsel is the only one who should be handling this type of case.
Attorneys from Kirton McConkie represent the church.
One of the lawyers assigned to take help line calls said in a deposition that he is always prepared to deal with sex abuse complaints.
I'm wherever I am. He said the call came to his phone. He admitted that he wouldn't know how to refer calls to a social worker.
Church officials didn't comment on the matter. The lawyer associated with the help line refused to answer questions from the AP.
Hundreds of reports of child abuse have been made to civil authorities in Arizona by clergy or church attorneys, according to Maledon. He didn't know how many calls to the help line were not referred to police or child welfare officials.
Two church practices work together to make sure that the contents of help lines calls are not made public. Every call to the help line is destroyed. The church's director of Family Services said in an affidavit that the notes were destroyed by the end of the day.
Church officials say that all calls made to Kirton McConkie lawyers are covered by attorney-client privilege. The church considers the communications between its lawyers and local leaders to be attorney-client privileged, according to a sealed affidavit.
A very long time.
The help line was established by Mormon leaders in 1995 in order to protect the church and members from injury and liability in the event of fires, explosions, hazardous chemical spills and severe weather. Records in the sealed documents show that the department reports to the First Presidency, which has three officials at the very top of the hierarchy.
All sex abuse lawsuits against the church are tracked by risk management, according to an affidavit by a former director of the department. The members of the First Presidency were aware of the help line.
Training of ecclesiastical leaders and the establishment of a help line have been discussed in those types of meetings. He said that the members of the First Presidency and the presiding bishopric were there.
The help line was established by the Mormon church after they were told to comply with child sex abuse reporting laws.
Child sex abuse lawsuits were on the rise and juries were awarding victims a lot of money. The Mormon church is vulnerable to costly lawsuits because it's mostly self-insured.
The lawyers for the church said in a sealed legal filing that there was nothing wrong with identifying cases that could pose litigation risks to the church.
One affidavit in the sealed records suggests that the church is more concerned about the spiritual well-being of perpetrators than the physical and emotional well-being of young victims.
The confidentiality of the proceedings is high. If members had any doubts that their files could be read by a secular judge or attorneys, they would be less willing to confess and be saved.
There is a global investment.
Police in New Zealand arrested a 47-year-old farm worker on child pornography charges after finding a nine-minute video on his cell phone that showed a man in his 30s raping a girl.
There was a global search for the rapist. According to a Homeland Security synopsis obtained by the AP, investigators used facial recognition technology to match a rapist with a passport photo of a Border Patrol employee.
Adams was a mission support specialist with the Border Patrol when he was arrested. Adams admitted to raping MJ and to sexually abusing her sister, and to posting the assaults on the internet. More than 4,000 photos and almost 1,000 videos depicting child sex abuse were seized when agents raided his home.
The video was nine minutes long. The Homeland Security agent testified that the dialogue between Adams and his daughter made the video stand out in his mind.
It took nine minutes and 14 seconds for that video to show seven years of trauma for MJ and a lifetime of abuse for her little sister.
Leizza Adams was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after pleading no contest to child sex abuse charges. Three of the Adams children moved to California with their family. Local families took in the others.
The survivors.
When her adoptive mother met her, she was only 2 years old. The toddler buried her face in her neck, and refused to look up to say good-bye to her family. The toddler was welcomed into the family by the couple. It was similar to when a baby monkey or baby gorilla clings to their mom and won't let go.
Much of the abuse the toddler was subjected to at the hands of her father was recorded on video. When a man tried to touch her, she screamed in terror. Miranda said the nurse was fine but the doctor climbed onto her and began screaming.
The 2-year-old was terrified of the water and had a hard time bathing. She wouldn't tolerate it. She hid behind Miranda whenever anyone greeted her with a nickname.
Miranda and Matthew didn't know a lot about what happened to the toddler when they took her in.
Many new followers of a religion are enthusiastic about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They appreciated the Mormons helping fellow church members in times of need through church organizations.
Miranda said it's all about family. One of the things we loved was that.
The scales fell from their eyes after they learned about Adams' actions and the church's inability to stop him. Matthew said that the church's records would be removed. I couldn't continue to give money to a church that would allow young children to be abused and not do anything to stop it.
Nancy doesn't belong to the Mormon church. She has opened her home to 17 people over the last five years. She bought a modest ranch-style house after it was foreclosed on.
She said that everything is a little broken here and that is great.
After receiving an urgent call to help a child from another family, she met MJ. She was frightened and confused when she was picked up. We got to know each other after she spent a lot of time in her closet.
Before Leizza Adams's sentencing hearing, Salminen had no idea what MJ had gone through.
She said that she wanted to throw up. I wanted to help her fight this fight that she wasn't aware of.
A victim of unimaginable abuse who now plays in the high school band and proudly wears a crisp, new uniform, MJ has been transformed from a victim of unimaginable abuse to a happy 16-year-old who plays in the high school band and proudly wears a crisp, new uniform.
She had a lot of excuses to fail and to just run away. She came back stronger than any other person I have known.
She and her siblings are fighting against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. MJ wants them to report to the police.
The adoptive parents of the third Adams child refused to speak to the AP. Miranda and Matthew said they joined the lawsuit against the church because they wanted to change the church's policy on reporting child sexual abuse so that it wouldn't happen again. Matthew said they don't understand why the lawyers are fighting this. Change the policy, that's all.
The right to privacy.
The church has a policy. In a recent filing asking a Superior Court judge to dismiss the case, Maledon and other lawyers for the church said the case was dependent on whether Arizona's child abuse reporting statute required two church bishops to report confidential confessions made to them by their father.
The lawyers argued that the church should have told authorities that Paul Adams was raping his daughters. According to the church motion to dismiss the case, confidential communications with clergy are exempt from the reporting statute. People can debate if this is the best public policy choice. That is not a problem for a jury or this court.
According to Bishop Herrod, church officials told him to keep what Adams told him confidential or he would be sued.
According to the Cochise County attorney, anyone who reports a belief that child sex abuse happened is immune from civil or criminal liability.
Critics of the lack of action by the two bishops and the broader church have raised ethical issues.
One of them is an expert witness for the Adams children and a seasoned child sex abuse investigator.
If you don't report something like this, what part of your religious practice are you going to advance?
That's right.
Brady McCombs is the editor of the Associated Press in Salt Lake City.
The AP's investigations team can be reached by email.
That's right.
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