It’s rare for a Mormon to face charges of child molestation. Yet Mormon official Eugene Bill Knox, the Mormon Church, and the Boy Scouts of America stand accused of abusing two boys three decades ago.
The suit claims the three brothers were children when they told the Mormon church that they had been abused hundreds of times by church official, Eugene Bill Knox, who was also their Boy Scout leader. Kelly Clark is their attorney.
I have a special spot in my heart for the Mormon church. I’ll watch this case, and the two other cases reported this week, very closely.
Seattle case: Dustin Hall
In the Seattle case, a man now in his early 40s claims he and other boys were abused in the late 1970s by Dustin Hall, an assistant scoutmaster chosen by the church's Shelton Ward near Olympia.
The plaintiff said in a statement released through his lawyer that the abuse — and his failure to protect the others — haunts him.
Portland Case: Michael Simms
The lawsuit filed in Portland on behalf of a man who is now 46 claims a Mormon youth leader abused him between 1974 and 1977. The suit claims the abuse was reported to a church bishop but never communicated to law enforcement.
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Seth R. · 803 weeks ago
Typically they grab some lay member out of the congregation and dump the job on him. That's what they did with me when they called me to be a Boy Scout leader (I don't even particularly like the Scouting program, but agreed to do it because they were short-handed).
Once I was in Boy Scouts, they gave us a bunch of strict rules about always having two adult leaders present with the boys. If my co-leader couldn't make it, we either found a substitute (usually one of the boys' dads) or we canceled.
We also had Scouts at the Church on Wednesday nights when there were a lot of other youth groups there with their leaders. Our bishop would sometimes even peek in on all the events there to "see how things were going."
We tried our best to insulate this problem. But let's face it, most sex abusers are outwardly pretty nice guys and seem trustworthy. You can't catch them all, and the failsafes don't always work.
Either way, I hope responsibility for this incident will be properly and fairly assigned.