Current:Home > ScamsFormer Mormon bishop highlighted in AP investigation arrested on felony child sex abuse charges-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
Former Mormon bishop highlighted in AP investigation arrested on felony child sex abuse charges
View Date:2024-12-23 16:29:43
A former bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who was featured in an Associated Press investigation into how the church protects itself from allegations of sexual abuse was arrested by police in Virginia this week after being indicted on charges he sexually abused his daughter while accompanying her on a school trip when she was a child, according to court filings.
Police and federal authorities had been searching for John Goodrich after a grand jury in Williamsburg on Jan. 17 found probable cause that he committed four felonies, including rape by force, threat or intimidation, forcible sodomy, and two counts of felony aggravated sexual battery by a parent of a child.
Those charges were filed weeks after the AP investigation revealed how a representative of the church, widely known as the Mormon church, employed a risk management playbook that has helped it keep child sexual abuse cases secret after allegations surfaced that Goodrich abused his daughter Chelsea, now in her 30s, at their home in Idaho as well as on a school field trip to the Washington, D.C., area 20 years ago.
“I hope this case will finally bring justice for my childhood sexual abuse,” Chelsea Goodrich said in a statement to the AP. “I’m grateful it appears that the Commonwealth of Virginia is taking one event of child sexual assault more seriously than years of repeated assaults were treated in Idaho.”
A call Wednesday to John Goodrich’s cellphone went immediately to voicemail. Thomas Norment, a Williamsburg defense attorney for John Goodrich, declined to comment, saying he was still familiarizing himself with the case. The Williamsburg Police Department also did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Goodrich’s case.
Goodrich’s arrest in Virginia comes nearly eight years after he was arrested in Idaho on similar charges. Chelsea and her mother, Lorraine, went to Idaho police in 2016 to report wide-ranging allegations of abuse during her childhood.
Those charges were eventually dropped after a key witness in the case, another Mormon bishop to whom John had made a spiritual confession about him and his daughter, refused to testify. While the details of that confession have not been made public, the church excommunicated Goodrich.
The AP’s investigation was based in part on hours of audio recordings of Chelsea’s 2017 meetings with Paul Rytting, a Utah attorney who was head of the church’s Risk Management Division, which works to protect the church against sexual abuse lawsuits and other costly claims.
Chelsea went to Rytting for help in getting the bishop to testify about John’s spiritual confession. During the recorded meetings, Rytting expressed concern for what he called John’s “significant sexual transgression,” but said the bishop, whose position in the church is akin to a Catholic priest, could not testify. He cited a “clergy-penitent privilege” loophole in Idaho’s mandatory reporting law that exempts clergy from having to divulge information about child sex abuse that is gleaned in a spiritual confession.
Without that testimony, prosecutors in Idaho dropped that earlier case.
Invoking the clergy privilege was just one facet of the risk management playbook that Rytting employed in the Goodrich matter. Rytting offered Chelsea and her mother $300,000 in exchange for a confidentiality agreement and a pledge to destroy their recordings of their meetings, which they had made at the recommendation of an attorney and with Rytting’s knowledge. The AP obtained similar recordings that were made by a church member at the time who attended the meetings as Chelsea’s advocate.
The church also employed the use of its so-called sex abuse Helpline, which John Goodrich’s bishop had called after his confession. As AP revealed in 2022, the Helpline is a phone number set up by the church for bishops to report instances of child sex abuse. Instead of connecting church victims to counseling or other services, however, the Helpline often reports serious allegations of abuse to a church law firm.
In a statement to the AP for its recent investigation, the church said, “the abuse of a child or any other individual is inexcusable,” and that John Goodrich, following his excommunication, “has not been readmitted to church membership.”
News coverage of the Idaho case brought out another alleged victim. After learning about Chelsea’s allegations, a 53-year-old single mother accused him of having nonconsensual sex with her after giving her the drug Halcion, a controlled substance John Goodrich often used to sedate patients during dental procedures. She alleged that Goodrich drugged her the previous July after she cut off a sexual relationship with him.
In the end, John Goodrich reached a plea agreement in that case, and escaped sex crimes charges.
Chelsea Goodrich approached the AP with her story, she said, because her father remained free and practicing dentistry in Idaho with access to children.
On Tuesday, after authorities spent two weeks searching for him, Goodrich turned himself in to police in Williamsburg, a court official told Chelsea Goodrich, and he posted bond. He will be allowed to leave Virginia during legal proceedings, the court official said.
—-
Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected] or https://www.ap.org/tips/.
veryGood! (1562)
Related
- Let Demi Moore’s Iconic Fashion Give You More Inspiration
- Wildfires can release the toxic, cancer-causing 'Erin Brockovich' chemical, study says
- Analysis: It’s uncertain if push to ‘Stop Cop City’ got enough valid signers for Atlanta referendum
- Five whales came to a Connecticut aquarium in 2021. Three have now died
- 'The Penguin' spoilers! Colin Farrell spills on that 'dark' finale episode
- 'This is completely serious': MoonPie launches ad campaign targeting extraterrestrials
- Serbian democracy activists feel betrayed as freedoms, and a path to the EU, slip away
- Video game expo E3 gets permanently canceled
- What are the best financial advising companies? Help USA TODAY rank the top U.S. firms
- 'Now you’re in London!': Watch as Alicia Keys' surprise performance stuns UK commuters
Ranking
- Nicole Kidman Reveals the Surprising Reason for Starring in NSFW Movie Babygirl
- China-made C919, ARJ21 passenger jets on display in Hong Kong
- Man shoots woman and 3 children, then himself, at Las Vegas apartment complex, police say
- China’s Xi meets with Vietnamese prime minister on second day of visit to shore up ties
- Kevin Costner Shares His Honest Reaction to John Dutton's Controversial Fate on Yellowstone
- How the remixed American 'cowboy' became the breakout star of 2023
- Are the products in your shopping cart real?
- North Carolina officer who repeatedly struck woman during arrest gets 40-hour suspension
Recommendation
-
Taylor Swift touches down in Kansas City as Chiefs take on Denver Broncos
-
Biden to meet in-person Wednesday with families of Americans taken hostage by Hamas
-
Attacks on health care are on track to hit a record high in 2023. Can it be stopped?
-
Punter Matt Araiza to be dropped from rape lawsuit as part of settlement with accuser
-
Former Disney Star Skai Jackson Is Pregnant, Expecting First Baby With Her Boyfriend
-
Hilary Duff’s Cheaper By the Dozen Costar Alyson Stoner Has Heartwarming Reaction to Her Pregnancy
-
Delta passengers stranded at remote military base after flight diverted to Canada
-
Judge rejects delay of ruling backing North Dakota tribes’ effort to change legislative boundaries