MORMON CHURCH ABUSE – WHAT SURVIVORS NEED TO KNOW

Fighting for LDS Sex Abuse Survivors Nationwide

If you or someone you love were sexually abused by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you may have grounds to pursue legal action and a financial recovery of your damages.

The Mormon Church has been under fire for decades over claims of sexual abuse. Investigations and lawsuits show numerous incidents of sexual abuse within the LDS Church, along with allegations that the Church has for years maintained an internal system to cover up abuse.

Now, thanks to the passage of survivor-friendly legislation in states across the country, survivors of Mormon church abuse are standing up in record numbers to share their stories and hold the Mormon Church accountable.

If you or a loved one is an LDS church abuse survivor and want to know how to file a sexual abuse claim, we can help you take the next steps.

At Levy Konigsberg, our award-winning sexual abuse team has cultivated a legacy helping adult and child sexual abuse survivors fight for justice. We have litigated high stakes sexual abuse claims against the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts of America, and other powerful religious organizations and institutions, and have recovered millions of dollars in compensation for survivors.

Learn more about the clergy abuse lawsuits overview and how these cases are shaping the fight for survivors’ rights. 

Decades of Legal Filings, Investigations Detail History of Sexual Abuse in the Mormon Church

Sweeping investigations, legal filings, and criminal arrests have contributed to a growing cache of evidence about sexual abuse within the Mormon Church.

According to reports, the LDS fostered an insulated culture that enabled LDS bishops, clergy, and church members to sexually abuse parishioners.

Some examples include:

• In October 2025, a plaintiff in Washington state filed a lawsuit alleging that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints allowed former High Priest David Herget, a convicted pedophile, to remain active in the congregation and sexually abuse more children.  The lawsuit alleges that Herget’s ongoing access to children led to the sexual abuse of four boys in the Mountlake Ward in Mountlake Terrace.  The four plaintiffs allege that Herget’s involvement in church activities enabled him to exploit and abuse them between 2001 and 2005.  According to the lawsuit, Herget was convicted in 1993 of raping his 13-year-old daughter and served 180 days of a seven-year sentence after senior Church members allegedly wrote letters advocating for leniency.  The complaint states that following his release, Herget attended services and was given church responsibilities involving children.  In 2002, Herget was allegedly rebaptized into the Church despite ongoing abuse, and his position as a High Priest was restored in 2004. Each plaintiff describes separate instances of abuse that included masturbation, oral sex, groping and fondling, some of which occurred in the Church parking lot and involved victims as young as 5.  Mountlake Terrace police reportedly arrested Herget in 2005 on 18 charges, including child molestation and child rape.  Herget reportedly died by suicide while in Snohomish County Jail in 2005.

• In July 2025, an Arizona court of appeals ruled that a civil lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints arising out of a bishop’s failure to report allegations of sexual abuse to law enforcement could go forward. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs’ father confessed to his bishop in 2011 that he had sexually abused one of his daughters.  The bishop then allegedly then asked the man’s wife to join them, and the man told his wife he had abused their daughter. The bishop reportedly encouraged the man to turn himself in, or alternatively have his wife turn him in.  But, according to court documents, the bishop thought he couldn’t inform law enforcement because, in his view, what the father told him was a confession, one of the statutory exemptions to the law that mandates certain people have a duty to report such abuse.  The church reportedly excommunicated the father from the Mormon church in 2013, a process during which he discussed his actions at a hearing.  Still, according to court documents, no one from the church alerted police or the state’s child protection agency. The Arizona court of appeals ruled that when the father admitted the abuse to his wife, the bishop was merely observing the interaction, not taking a confession. The judges said that a jury might conclude that the exemption to the law did not apply in that circumstance. The panel also said that a juror might find that the father’s confession before the panel considering his excommunication also wasn’t privileged. The judges also cited a portion of a handbook of Mormon church doctrine that says a bishop should disclose information to authorities to prevent life-threatening harm or serious injury.  According to court records, the father, Paul Adams, initially confessed in 2011 to abusing one daughter.  But he reportedly went on to abuse his other two children.  The abuse reportedly continued until February 2017, when police arrested him after finding a video he had posted online of himself abusing one of his daughters.  The father committed suicide in December 2017.  His wife, Leizza, reportedly pleaded guilty to knowing about the abuse of their daughters and failing to stop it.  She was sentenced to two years and six months in prison and was released in October 2020.

• In May 2025, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints agreed in principle to settle more than 100 childhood sexual abuse lawsuits filed against it in 2024 in San Diego and across California.  Each of the lawsuits alleged sexual abuse of a minor by church leaders, and that other church leaders either knew or should have known about the abuse but did not act to stop it.  Five plaintiffs alleged they were abused in San Diego County, including three who alleged they were sexually assaulted by their bishops, the top spiritual leaders of local congregations in the LDS church.

• In April 2025, a federal judge ruled against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a lawsuit over payment for sexual abuse settlements.  The ruling arose out of a 2016 settlement over accusations of repeated sexual abuse of children by Michael Jensen, a former member of the church who was convicted of sexual abuse and is serving prison time.  Following the settlements, the Church sued its own insurance companies to try to force them to pay for the settlements.  Instead, the Court sided with the insurance companies, ruling that “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.”

• In April 2025, a survivor filed a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by two people in the Mormon church in two California cities: Hayward and, later, Modesto. In her lawsuit, the plaintiff alleges that in Hayward, she was groomed as a 6-year-old by a deacon of the Aaronic Priesthood — a program for boys age 12 or 13 that prepares them for becoming a church priest — during her Sunday religious classes. He then allegedly progressed to sexually abusing her, including forcing her to fondle his genitals at least eight times, and forcing her to perform oral sex.  In around 1994, when the plaintiff was approximately 11 years old, she and her family moved to Modesto and became members of the local LDS church. The complaint alleges that while at a meetinghouse sleepover, girls were told to use the restroom to change into their pajamas.  While she was changing, a deacon — who allegedly was the son of the Modesto-area bishop at the time, entered the bathroom and forced her to perform oral sex. This perpetrator’s abuse allegedly escalated to digital penetration and vaginal rape, according to the complaint. The abuse allegedly happened uninterrupted, every couple of weeks, for about a year and a half.  It didn’t stop until the girl moved out of the Modesto area, according to the complaint.

• In March 2025, it was reported that a three-year look-back legal window that allows adult survivors of sexual assault to file claims in California had produced almost 100 allegations of childhood sexual abuse by Mormon leaders.  It was reported that a theme of the cases are allegations that officials used their power to groom, manipulate and abuse children, and that senior leaders of the institution either knew or should have known about the abuse did not act to halt it.  Instead, for example, one plaintiff alleges he was assaulted by a bishop in 1995 and reported the abuse to his father, who in turn reported it to an LDS official who warned him that he needed to support his son’s abuser or risk being excommunicated from the church.  As another example, another plaintiff claims he was abused at age 16 during private lessons by a bishop who told him, the lawsuit alleged, that if he kept quiet, he would go to heaven, but if he told of the abuse, he would go to hell.

• In February 2025, a woman filed a $25 million federal lawsuit in Oregon against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints alleging church leadership failed to report allegations of sexual abuse by her adoptive father.  According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff was placed in the foster home of Craig Ford and his wife.  The plaintiff alleged that Ford began sexually abusing her in 2015.  She was 15 years old at the time, and Ford was 31.  The Plaintiff further alleged that the Ford family regularly attended the LDS church near Ridgefield at the time.  According to the lawsuit, when Ford’s wife uncovered the sexual abuse, she reported his misconduct to a church bishop and the stake president and shared evidence.  The suit alleges the stake president did not report the abuse to police or intervene to protect the plaintiff against any further abuse. The stake president did not advise Ford’s wife to report the abuse, and he placed blame for the abuse on the plaintiff, the suit states. When Ford’s wife left him, he began participating in church activities with the plaintiff.  Ford and the plaintiff lived alone in the Albany area for months, during which time Ford sexually abused her on an almost daily basis, according to the suit. Eventually, through one of Ford’s biological children, authorities learned of the abuse.  During an interview with Department of Social and Health Services, the church stake president acknowledged Ford’s wife had notified him of the sex abuse, the lawsuit says. In 2022, Ford pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court to four counts of third-degree rape of a child and one count of first-degree incest for abuse against the Plaintiff in Washington. 

• In September 2024, a lawsuit filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court alleged that higher-ups in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints turned a blind eye to and even encouraged the sexual abuse of the plaintiff when she was a teenager.  The plaintiff alleges that she was sexually abused by Larry Deutsch, who held roles in the Mormon church that included serving as a bishop in St. Charles and Lincoln counties. Deutsch is currently serving a 12-year sentence in federal prison stemming from the crimes he committed against the plaintiff.  Through his work with the church, Deutsch reportedly organized youth bicycle trips that the plaintiff took part in. After the plaintiff and her family moved to Arizona in 2018, she and Deutsch reportedly stayed in close contact, eventually spending hours on the phone in a given day, despite an almost 35-year age difference. In the fall of 2019, Deutsch, who was 50, also reportedly had the plaintiff then 16, send him sexually explicit photographs. When the plaintiff’s family discovered this, they filed an order of protection against Deutsch. Then, in February 2020, Deutsch flew from Missouri to Arizona, picked up the plaintiff and drove her back to St. Louis. Within a few days, police located the girl. Deutsch pled guilty to charges of coercion and enticement of a minor and receiving child porn the following year. According to the civil lawsuit, church leaders, including an Arizona bishop, Scott Donaldson not only ignored the plaintiff’s mothers request to stop Deutsch, but instructed the mother to allow the contact between her daughter and Deutsch to continue.  Donaldson also acted as a middleman for Deutsch and the plaintiff to communicate, in violation of an order of protection.  The lawsuit also alleges that Donaldson himself met with the plaintiff about her relationship with Deutsch about two dozen times without the consent of her parents. Further, according to the lawsuit, the plaintiff and her parents told a counselor employed by the church about the inappropriate relationship and, although she was a mandated reporter, she did not report it to law enforcement. 

• In September 2024, a plaintiff filed a lawsuit in Napa County Superior Court in California alleging two members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Napa sexually abused her when she was a child about three decades ago.  One of the members is accused of fondling the plaintiff and engaging in oral sex with her when she 4 years old to when she was 6, according to the complaint, and raped her when she was 8 years old.  The plaintiff alleged the other fondled and engaged in oral sex with the plaintiff when she was 5 and 6 years old. The alleged abuse took place at the Napa church’s meetinghouse at 2590 Trower Ave., at the home of the plaintiff’s grandmother and in one of the members’ cars. The plaintiff disclosed the sexual abuse to her foster mother, her grandmother — also a member of the church — and police in 1995, the complaint says. And she had displayed behavior suggestive of childhood sexual abuse, including sexual conduct toward other children. But, according to the complaint, church leadership — including bishops and counselors — never spoke with her to investigate the abuse or check in with her.

• In January 2024, Rhett Hintze a “stake president” in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was charged by the Pennsylvania State Police. The charges allege that he did not report accusations of child sex abuse against a former bishop, Boy Scout leader, and attorney in central Pennsylvania in connection to the July 2023 charges against Shawn Gooden.

• In December 2023, the Associated Press published an article detailing how the LDS Church maintained a Risk Management Division and internal processes intended to shield the Church from sexual abuse allegations and their associated liabilities. The article details the story of a woman who was repeatedly sexually abused by her father John Goodrich, a former LDS Bishop in Hailey, Idaho, and how, despite the father’s confession of the abuse to another bishop prior to his arrest, the father evaded conviction by relying on the Church’s protection, including its practice of offering cash payouts in exchange for confidentiality and pledges from victims to destroy evidence, and a controversial Utah law that exempts clergy from reporting information about child sexual abuse obtained from religious confessions. It also discussed how Goodridge was able to evade sex crime charges in connection to claims brought by another LDS church member who accused the former bishop of raping her after giving her the drug Halcion. Goodrich pleaded guilty to only a charge of distribution of a controlled substance in that case and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

• In April 2023, a jury in Riverside County, California awarded $2.8 billion in damages to a woman who had been sexually abused for years by her stepfather at her Mormon Church and other locations. According to the suit, rather than notifying authorities after she disclosed the abuse, a bishop and other Mormon Church leaders held a meeting and instructed her to forgive her stepfather, and ultimately shamed her into silence. The church settled its part of the lawsuit for $1 million prior to the jury’s award.

• In January 2023, the LDS Church agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a Washington man who was sexually abused as a preschooler by a teenage volunteer in his Tacoma congregation. The suit claimed that when the plaintiffs told their Mountain View Ward bishop of the abuse involving their then 5-year-old child in the 1980s, the bishop informed them that the volunteer had been accused of sexual abuse months before, but dissuaded them from going to authorities.

• In August 2022, an AP article detailed another shocking story of the Mormon Church’s internal handling of sexual abuse allegations regarding a father who admitted while in counseling with his bishop that he had been sexually abusing his 5-year-old daughter. According to the article, the bishop called the Church’s “help line” for guidance and was told not to report the allegations to authorities or child welfare officials. By keeping silent, the bishop enabled the father to continue raping his daughter for another seven years before he was arrested by Homeland Security agents in 2017. The article went on to discuss how the Church regularly used this hotline to keep sexual abuse allegations within the Church where they could be buried away from authorities and a pending lawsuit against the Church over its use of these tactics.

• In September 2022, Carl Matthew Johnson, a former LDS bishop and mayor of West Bountiful, Utah, was arrested on charges that he sexually abused at least three children in the 1980s and 1990s. According to investigators, Johnson was suspected of abusing as many as six victims, including one as young as 2-years-old. They also stated that his victims were instructed by the LDS Church to keep silent about their abuse.

• In February 2021, a lawsuit was filed against the LDS Church by an Oregon man who was sexually abused as a minor by a youth leader in his Oregon Mormon congregation. The suit claims that the man was abused by Ron Kerlee in the 1980s, and that the Church allowed Kerlee to stay on as a youth leader even after he was convicted of sodomy in 1983. Kerlee remained affiliated with the Church and continued to work as a licensed counselor in Oregon until his license was revoked in 2014 for engaging in sexual conduct with a male client.

• In November 2018, the LDS Church agreed to pay a confidential sum to settle lawsuits brought by four Native Americans who claimed that they were sexually abused by enrolled in a Mormon Church foster program decades ago. The lawsuits were among more than a dozen filed by members of the Navajo Nation and Crow Tribe of Montana concerning sexual abuse in the Indian Student Placement Program, which placed thousands of Native American youth into Mormon foster homes in Utah, Idaho, and New Mexico, between the 1960s and early 1980s. The program ended in 2000.

• In April 2018, the Mormon Church agreed to a confidential settlement to end a civil trial in Berkeley County, West Virginia brought by survivors who alleged that they were sexually abused by LDS member Christopher Michael Jensen, who was sentenced in 2013 to 35-75 years in prison for sexually abusing two minors. The suit claimed that the Mormon Church knew about Jensen’s sexual abuse convictions and allegations for years, including his arrest and felony indictment at the age of 13 in 2004, but did nothing to protect the children.

• In August 2017, Mormon Leaks™ published a document compiling records of more than 300 instances of sexual abuse committed by church leaders from 1959 to 2017. The report contains abuse allegations involving church officials from California, Idaho, Utah, Florida, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and numerous other states.

These and numerous other filings and investigations serve to illustrate a critical point: the LDS Church has for decades viewed sexual abuse survivors not as people or victims, but as potential threats to the church’s reputation and bottom line. Further, they show that bishops and church officials relied on expertly structured internal divisions, policies, and “best practices,” when handling complaints of sexual abuse brought by church members – all of which were intended to keep allegations away from authorities and within the church itself, where they could be buried and hidden from view.

Now, a growing number of LDS sexual abuse survivors are taking a stand to fight back and pursue civil legal action. These civil lawsuits function not only to out the Church’s internal processes for silencing sexual abuse allegations and hold them accountable for decades of willful deceit, but to also provide survivors with the justice and compensation they deserve.

What is the Statute of Limitations for Mormon Church Abuse Lawsuits?

Like other civil “torts,” or legal actions that seek a recovery of damages, sexual abuse lawsuits are subject to a legal deadline known as the statute of limitations. If you have a potential claim, it’s important to know the statute of limitations for sexual abuse that applies to your case, as survivors are generally barred from filing lawsuits and recovering compensation if the statute of limitations has expired.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy for survivors to accurately assess the statute of limitations applicable to their claim. That’s because laws regarding filing deadlines vary depending on several factors, including:

• The state where your abuse occurred. States can have vastly different statutes of limitations for civil sexual abuse lawsuits, as well as nuanced rules or requirements.

• Your age at the time of abuse. Most states differentiate between claims involving survivors who were abused by adults and survivors who were abused as children. While survivors of childhood sexual abuse are typically granted more time to file, that time may not always be significant.

• Delayed discovery rules. Laws in some states allow survivors to “toll” or delay the statute of limitations in their case until the “date of discovery,” which is when a survivor “discovers” the connection between their abuse and the harm they’ve suffered, including depression, relationship issues, substance abuse problems, and other issues. The delayed discovery rule, when applicable, provides survivors who often repress and block memories with more time to file civil legal actions.

In addition to these factors, statutes of limitations in civil sexual abuse cases can be subject to new legal changes. Laws regarding the rights of survivors are rapidly evolving, and more and more states are passing survivor-friendly measures that better account for the challenges survivors face when processing their abuse, connecting that abuse to the damages in their lives, and making the courageous decision to step forward. Some also pass laws that retroactively lift filing deadlines or create temporary filing windows for survivors with decades-old claims to seek justice.

Some state-specific examples of the statute of limitations for civil sexual abuse cases and pending or recently passed survivor-friendly laws include:

• In Maryland, a new law has removed the statute of limitations on child sex abuse claims and revived claims that previously expired.

• In Pennsylvania, a pending bill would create a temporary two-year window for survivors to file claims.

• In Maine, new laws lifted the statute of limitations for all child sexual abuse lawsuits and created an indefinite lookback window for survivors with previously time-barred claims.

• In California, adults have 10 years from the date of abuse or 3 years from the date of discovery to file claims for sexual abuse and survivors of child sexual abuse have until the age of 40 or within 5 years of discovery to file claims. A temporary one-year lookback window was also created for adult sexual abuse claims involving certain factors, but that window closed in 2023.

• In Washington, state lawmakers are considering a measure that would eliminate the statute of limitations in civil sexual abuse cases and retroactively apply the law to previously time-barred claims, giving survivors an opportunity to file legal actions over abuse that occurred as any time.

• In Idaho, the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse lawsuits is capped at 23. However, there is a delayed discovery rule that allows survivors to file a suit within five years of discovering the connection between their abuse and resulting damages.

• In Utah, survivors of child sexual abuse are permitted to file civil claims against abusers no matter how long ago their abuse occurred, but claims against institutions are capped at age 23 or within 4 years of the date of discovery.

Given the variance in state laws and the rapid pace of legislative amendments, it can be difficult to determine the statute of limitations that applies to your case. However, because these laws enforce strict filing deadlines and occasionally limited filing windows for retroactive claims, it’s important to be prompt in seeking information about your rights and options.

At Levy Konigsberg, our Mormon Church sexual abuse lawyers are readily available to answer questions regarding the statute of limitations and how we can help you in the fight for justice. We offer FREE and confidential consultations and serve survivors nationwide.