According to court documents, a former bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints was criminally charged on charges that he sexually abused his son while going with her on an academy trip when she was a child. This blameworthiness was the subject of an Associated Press disquisition into how the church defends itself against allegations of sexual abuse. This week, police in Virginia arrested the bishop.
After a grand jury in Williamsburg determined on January 17 that there was probable cause to believe John Goodrich had committed four felonies—rape by force, intimidation or threat, forced adultery, and a second charge of a crime worsened sexual battery by a parent of a child—police and the government had been looking for him.
Charges on bishop
Charges were filed against a Mormon church member for using a risk management playbook to conceal child sexual abuse cases, following reports of Goodrich’s abuse of his daughter Chelsea two decades prior, and a school field trip to Washington, D.C.
In an AP statement, Chelsea Goodrich said, “I hope this case ultimately results in closure for my growing up sexual abuse.” “I’m glad it appears that the state of Virginia takes a single instance of child sexual assault with greater urgency than decades of repeated assaults suffered in Idaho.”
On Wednesday, a call to John Goodrich’s mobile phone was promptly sent to voicemail. John Goodrich’s Williamsburg defence lawyer, Thomas Norment, refrained from commenting, stating that he was still getting to know the case. In addition, the Williamsburg Police Department did not reply to several inquiries about Goodrich’s case.
Goodrich was detained in Idaho on comparable allegations over eight years prior to his arrest in Virginia. In 2016, Chelsea and her mother Lorraine went to the Idaho police to report many accusations that Chelsea had been abused as a youngster.
After a crucial witness in the case—another Mormon bishop to who Andrew had confessed a spiritual confession regarding him and his daughter—refused to testify, those accusations were ultimately withdrawn. The specifics of that confession remain undisclosed, but Goodrich was excommunicated by the church.
The AP’s investigation into Chelsea’s 2017 meetings with Utah attorney Paul Rytting, head of the church’s Risk Management Division, was based on audio recordings.
Chelsea sought help from Rytting to get the bishop to testify about John’s spiritual confession. Rytting expressed concern about John’s significant sexual transgression, but the bishop couldn’t testify due to a “clergy-penitent privilege” loophole in Idaho’s mandatory reporting law, exempting clergy from divulging information about child sex abuse.
Prosecutors in Idaho dropped an earlier case without the clergy privilege testimony. Rytting used risk management in the Goodrich matter, offering Chelsea and her mother $300,000 in exchange for confidentiality and destroying recordings of meetings. The AP obtained similar recordings from a church member who attended the meetings as Chelsea’s advocate.
The church’s sex abuse Helpline, established by bishops to report child sex abuse, often reports serious allegations to a church law firm, rather than connecting victims to counselling or other services, as reported by John Goodrich’s bishop after his confession.
The church has stated that the abuse of a child or any individual is inexcusable and that John Goodrich, who was excommunicated, has not been readmitted to church membership.
A 53- time-old single mama indicted John Goodrich of having non consensual coitus with her after giving her the medicine Halcion, a controlled substance used to sedate cases during dental procedures, following her cut off of a sexual relationship with him.
John Goodrich successfully negotiated a plea agreement and avoided sex crimes charges in that particular case.
