Utah Republican State Rep. Merrill F. Nelson has been in the Beehive State’s legislature since 2013. Before that, he was an attorney with affiliations to the Utah Supreme Court, the Utah State Bar, and many other prestigious Utah groups, in including the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. In December 2021, Rep. Nelson announced that he would not seek reelection and is due to leave at the end of 2022. In his announcement, Nelson said that one of the things he would “miss” was “having a voice and a vote on issues of public importance. Particularly, I hope that my efforts to protect children and strengthen states’ rights prove beneficial.”
On Thursday, the Associated Press released an explosive story showing that Nelson, who was also an attorney for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as the Mormon Church), once “advised a church bishop not to report a confession of child sex abuse to authorities, a decision that allowed the abuse to continue for years.” This truly detestable allegation was filed in the Arizona Court of Appeals by the abused children who are seeking to have the Church disclose their communications in an ongoing lawsuit.
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In 2010, church member Paul Adams admitted to sexually abusing one of his daughters. According to the lawsuit, Bishop John Herrod took this information to the church’s “help line” (established in 1995), where they were referred to the Church’s attorneys at the law firm Kirton McConkie. That initial call was answered by Mr. Merrill Nelson. Nelson was a shareholder in Kirton McConkie. Calling the helpline was a mandatory step for clergy who were informed of any abuse.
Call logs filed show that Nelson spoke numerous times with Bishop Herrod, and later Bishop Robert “Kim” Mauzy, from the period before until the period after Nelson became a state representative. Adams was not reported to law enforcement and continued to abuse multiple prepubescent children in his home for the next seven years.
An important warning: The filing is truly disturbing. It includes the graphic blow-by-blow details of one of the videos made by Adams with his daughter, who was 9 years old at the time. The detailed abuse, which the Mormon Church was aware of, is excruciatingly vile.
According to the report, Rep. Nelson advised the church not to report the abuse. More importantly, if the Church chose to report the abuse, Nelson could be sued. In fact, “the instruction by counsel not to report Paul to the authorities was the law in Arizona and had nothing to do with Church doctrine.” The Associated Press caught up with Republican Nelson before these documents were filed to ask him about the case:
“I don’t have all the facts, but it seems to me like it did operate as intended,” he said. “The bishop called the help line and was advised no duty to report it to civil authorities. In fact, could not report because of the clergy privilege,” Nelson said.
“It is intended and always has from the beginning been intended to to help victims get the help they need through social services, professional counseling, medical help, legal help, law enforcement,” Nelson said.
Nelson has also opposed “legislation that would do away with the clergy-penitent privilege.” That’s some dark magic right there. Nelson did not respond to the AP’s requests for a statement after this information came to light.
The Church excommunicated Adams in 2013, but still did nothing to protect the children being abused. Federal officials arrested Adams in 2017. Adams died by suicide while in custody before his trial. His wife, Leizza Adams, served two years in state prison. Three of the six children filed this lawsuit against LDS. The Church is appealing a judge’s ruling that determined they must provide any “confidential” records related to the case they have been withholding.
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