Church fights plaintiff's attempt
for force financial disclosure
Associated
Press
July 17, 2001 07:45:00
SALT LAKE CITY - The Mormon church is fighting a sex-abuse
victim's attempt to force it to disclose financial information.
Jeremiah Scott, 22, sued The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints in an Oregon court after a Sunday school teacher
was convicted of repeatedly sexually abusing him in Portland when he
was 11.
The suit claims church officials knew Franklin Richard Curtis
was a pedophile but did not warn Scott's mother before she took
Curtis into their home.
Curtis was 87 at the time of the abuse. He was arrested and
convicted of first-degree sex abuse and given probation in 1994. He
died in 1995.
Church attorneys have told Scott the church is able to pay
punitive damages of $162 million, or twice the amount of the largest
punitive damages award in Oregon history.
But they say his request that the church produce any
documents it has detailing income and financial interests, including
tithing revenue and property values, goes too far.
The church contends such disclosures would violate its First
Amendment right to operate free from government entanglement.
A Multnomah County judge in May allowed Scott to seek
punitive damages.
His attorneys argued Scott's case and others like it showed a
pattern within the church of failing to report, warn members about
and prevent the sexual abuse of children.
"This case is about making the church live by the same laws
the rest of us have to in protecting children," said Jeffrey
Anderson, one of Scott's attorneys.
Portland attorney Stephen English, representing the church,
said, "There is no pattern of protecting child abusers of any kind
in the church. That is nonsense."
Earlier this month, church attorneys asked Judge Ellen
Rosenblum to rule that the church will not be required to disclose
its finances. At most, any financial information required to be
disclosed should be limited to Oregon, the attorneys said.
Determining the value of properties with "infinite spiritual
and symbolic value to the church," such as Temple Square in Salt
Lake City, would be impossible, they said.
Scott's attorneys counter the church's net worth is a factor
in determining how much he should seek in punitive damages.
Scott's suit claims the church knew of Curtis' past sex abuse
when Curtis moved in with Scott's family but didn't warn them.
Curtis had been excommunicated from a ward in Pennsylvania
for sex abuse when he moved to Oregon. Court records show he was
rebaptized in 1984.
In 1990, Scott's mother, Sandra Scott, asked then-Bishop
Gregory Lee Foster for advice about taking Curtis in, and he told
her "it was not a good idea" due Curtis' age, she said in a
deposition.
The lawsuit claims Foster knew Curtis had a history of
sexually abusing children dating back to the 1970s, but gave him
access to young children as a teacher and did not warn parents
because Curtis had repented.
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