Martinsburg WV Sex Abuse Settlement Details Leaked

[Just This Guy]

https://floodlit.org/90-million/

Per this, back when the abuse case when to trial in WV, the church spent a total of $27M in legal fees trying the case and then paid $32M in settlement to the 6 victims. The church then sued several insurance companies who had umbrella policies for LDSinc. when they refused to cover the legal costs.

It also goes into detail the timeline of events for the abuse, trial, and outcome of the case.

[deacon blues]

thank God for the rainy day funds!

[deacon blues]

I read part of the report. The Church was incredibly negligent in this situation. I'm not cheering for the insurance company, but I think they have a good defense because the Church is so secretive about this kind of thing.

[moksha]

Think about how much the Church would have paid if Kirton McConkie and whoever they reported to at Church HQ had been brought to justice.

[Hagoth]

This is truly disturbing. How many others are there that we'll never hear about? The stupid thing is that if the church had just obeyed the law and reported the first incident, and if they had focused on helping the victims and getting mental health attention for the perpetrator so much of this could have been avoided. Maybe they don't care that they could have prevented the abuse of dozens of kids, but if they were just a tiny bit more honest and logical they would have saved $60 million (plus whatever amount of money they'll waste suing their insurance company) and totally avoided what could prove to be a massive media black eye.

[Red Ryder]

Looks like the church lost it’s lawsuit against the insurance companies. You know it’s bad when people are rooting for the insurance company!

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/s/UXQ96tmOy8

Think of all the tithing money you paid with the expectation it was helping the needy and building the kingdom of god. What a piece of crap corporation.

[deacon blues]

If this would have happened in the open disclosure days of the 1950's it might have been mentioned in the General Conference financial report.
$60 million dollars is nothing to sneeze at.

[Just This Guy]

https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-new ... ettlements

One of the parents of the abused kids was interviewed by Fox13 News for this.

Per the judge in the case:

“Once the Church had knowledge that Mr. Jensen posed a risk of abuse to Church members, the Church had a duty to its members to prevent the abuse. The Church had multiple opportunities to act and failed to do so,"

[alas]

Once again, the church had a duty to report because their knowledge of abuse came from victims telling their parents, not confession. But the church seems like it thinks it is easier to repent for the perpetrator if they are not punished by the law. So, they talk to the perp, telling him to repent, he says sorry, and they sweep it all under the rug. Perpetrator of sin confronted and told to repent and repentance all taken care of, we can all forget this and move on. But it does nothing to help the victims. In fact, this refusal to have the perpetrator prosecuted and punished looks to the victim like condoning the abuse while the victim is still injured. It is Mercy for the sinner robbing justice for the victim. And the church just doesn’t get that. The victim is injured a second time by this injustice of letting the perpetrator off with nothing but a little bit of the bishop talking to him. It really doesn’t matter to the victim that they are showing such “love” to the perpetrator even when they themselves love the perpetrator. As a victim I still did not want daddy to be sent to prison because that hurts my whole family. But all the church talking to my father and showing him love, didn’t help me feel loved. It didn’t do any more for me than shrugging it off, because from MY end, what I saw was nothing bad is happening to the rapist, and he is having all kinds of love dumped on him in efforts to assure his “repentance”. But there is restitution in repentance. And when we can’t do restitution, then at least hurt the sinner enough to make him think. But the church avoids any punishment and ignores the whole concept of restitution. Because you can’t give a child back their childhood after someone shatters it. So, they just ignore restitution as impossible and then protect the offender from punishment and ignore the victim. This translates to the perpetrator is worth something. He didn’t do anything that bad. And it is all the victim’s fault if they are injured. You might as well just tell the victim that you don’t give a shit that they were injured because they are worthless to God and they are now damaged goods anyway.

The church and our whole society needs to get away from “criminal justice” that focuses only on the criminal who is innocent unless proven guilty and proving them guilty hurts victims of child sexual abuse/rape sometimes more than just the child sexual abuse/rape did. Sending “daddy” to prison and leaving the family destitute actually punishes the innocent with poverty. And the rest of the family almost cannot help but to blame the victim for telling because if she had just kept her mouth shut *they* would have been alright. Yeah, been there done that. Didn’t tell. Society needs to somehow step in and help children in this situation.

And the church is worse in that they even fail to protect the victim from further abuse. By not reporting or talking the victim out of reporting they leave the victim vulnerable to more abuse. And even when they just neglect the victim, they are telling the victim that it really is all her fault. If she and she alone is responsible for fixing it, then that shows whose “fault” it really is. They mouth the words that it isn’t her fault, but treat her like it is. So, she believes their behavior rather than their empty words.

They need to treat the victim with MORE love than they offer the hopefully repentant sinner. The Good Samaritan did not go chasing after the robbers to get them to repent and leave the man on the roadside to die. The Good Samaritan saw to the injured man. And he let God see to the sinner. The church does it the other way around. They only care about the repentance of the sinner and leave children on the roadside to die.

Yes, they deserve to be sued. They care more about the remote possibility of repentance than they care about the victim’s injuries or even the possibility of more victims and more injuries.

The victim needs to see some justice. She/he needs to see the abuser punished so SHE knows what he did was wrong and she needs help in healing. So, why is her/his healing so unimportant to the church that over and over, they leave the victim at the side of the road to die and go chasing after the sinner to beg them to repent. Not to punish them or lock the up so they can’t hurt again, but just to beg them to repent and show them love and compassion while begging them to repent.

They have it backassjackwards.