Episode 7: Justice

Source: Episode 7: Justice
Publisher: YouTube | Author: Architecture of Abuse Podcast
Published: July 22, 2025 | Archived: August 2, 2026

Video: Episode 7: Justice
Channel: Architecture of Abuse Podcast
Published: July 22, 2025
Duration: 53:00
Views: 547
Category: Nonprofits & Activism
Video ID: rd7urHMiSr8

Description — YouTube

When abuse was enabled or hidden by religious institutions, the idea of justice can take on many forms. In this powerful final episode of Season 1, attorney and co-host Tim Kosnoff and legal scholar Marci Hamilton join host Alyssa Grenfell to unpack the legal, cultural, and institutional obstacles survivors face when seeking accountability from the organizations society deems to be the most moral. Together, they explore the heartbreaking realities of delayed disclosure, the role of statute of limitations laws, and the entrenched systems that protect abusers, and Marci shares her experience challenging unconstitutional religious exemptions and leading the national fight to reform child sex abuse laws.

⚠️ This podcast contains discussions about child sexual abuse. Please listen with care.

Episode Transcript: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bv-uomyIdCeC9l-IHqLKXWwTGq0epZiD/view

Additional resources, and a contact form are available at https://ArchitectureOfAbuse.com

Visit CHILD USA’s website: https://childusa.org

God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law by Marci A. Hamilton. Cambridge University Press, June 2005: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/god-vs-the-gavel/9211D0C4A049C02D44D49AFA44C7DB1D

Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children by Marci A. Hamilton. Cambridge University Press, April 2012: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/justice-denied/B59AFACE9DB61ACB4AF5AB2E163BC869

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All views expressed are opinions only and do not constitute legal advice.

Every case is unique and should be considered and handled on a case-by-case basis. Under current law, and after decades of experience bringing cases against institutions like the LDS Church, it is our professional opinion that there is no mechanism to handle CSA-related claims other than individually. Under current law we do not anticipate that, without substantial changes to the law, there will be a mechanism—class action, consolidated cases, federal multi-district actions, or anything else—that will allow these claims to proceed on anything other than an individual basis. They are all simply too fact dependent. For inquiries about legal representation, visit https://kosnoff.com

Hosts | Alyssa Grenfell & Tim Kosnoff
Executive Producers | Lindsay Hansen Park & Eric W. Phillips
Producer | Lizzy Bean
Researcher | Emily Sellers

Transcript — English (AssemblyAI, diarized)

0:01 Speaker 1: Hi, I’m your host, Alyssa Grenfell. Before the episode begins, we have a few notes for listeners. This podcast is hosted by me and veteran attorney Tim Koznoff, but you’ll also hear other voices from our production team introducing topics and guests.

0:15 Speaker 2: Our team produced this podcast with the mission to educate people on the issue of child abuse in the LDS community, help victims of abuse, and encourage us all to work together to help fix this issue.

0:25 Speaker 3: We occasionally use excerpts of speeches by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints publicly available on their website. These excerpts are used under fair use for the purposes of commentary and public interest.

0:37 Speaker 4: If you’re listening and anything you hear feels close to home, please know it should not have happened to you. You are not alone. There are people who believe you, and we can help. Episode transcripts, resources, and our contact form are available on our website.

0:56 Speaker 3: architectureofabuse.com. This podcast contains discussions of child sexual abuse. Please listen with care.

1:04 Speaker 5: This is Architecture of Abuse, and I’m your host, Alyssa Grenfell. Episode 7, Justice.

1:12 Speaker 2: That Spotlight report was not just about the Church in the end. It was the paradigm for cover-ups in the Mormon Church, in the Catholic Church, at Penn and elsewhere, I learned relatively quickly, within several years, that religious groups routinely harm people. They routinely break the law, but the society operates as though they never will.

1:35 Speaker 4: There’s always this institutional drive. I don’t care whether it’s the Mormon Church, the Catholic Church, you know, what about, what about the Catholics? What about the Boy Scouts? What about everybody else? They never want to, you know, say, yeah, we’ve got a problem. And it’s, okay, well, let’s say you’re no worse. Well, that means all you’re saying is you’re no better either.

1:52 Speaker 1: I can look up on a map through my state database where the pedophiles near me live. And the fact that I can have that information at my fingertips about my community, but I can’t have that about my congregation, is kind of inconceivable.

2:10 Speaker 2: Girls who are sexually abused have a significantly higher rate of multiple sclerosis. Later in life, we know that there are higher rates of heart disease. And so this trauma manifests physically.

2:23 Speaker 4: In sexual abuse cases, the difficulty is not victims coming forward and telling falsehoods. It’s that victims are not coming forward and telling truth. That’s the problem.

2:34 Speaker 2: It’s highly unlikely they’re making it up. Very few make it up.

2:39 Speaker 4: We know from statistics that the average age of first-time disclosure For men is age 53. For women, it’s about a decade earlier.

2:48 Speaker 2: I mean, why would you have a statute of limitations on child sex abuse? You would always want to help the victims and put away the perpetrators.

2:58 Speaker 4: My obligation as a lawyer is to serve the interests of the client. What does the client want? They want accountability. What is accountability? Depends on the client.

3:09 Speaker 2: I’ve dedicated my career To your first question, what do you do about religions breaking the law? And the answer is you either enforce the law or you give them a pass on hurting others. And it’s just my view, you can’t do that.

3:28 Speaker 5: Advocating for the safety, well-being, and protection of children should be non-controversial. It should transcend party lines, religious beliefs, and ideology. And telling the truth clearly and without shame is the first step toward meaningful change. Addressing the problem of child sexual abuse requires more than awareness. It requires citizens, advocates, and institutions working together to demand accountability and build a safer future.

3:55 Speaker 2: Well, I couldn’t agree more that this should be nonpartisan. It should be everybody rowing in the same direction. But I found out early on it’s not.

4:07 Speaker 5: Marcy Hamilton is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania. She’s also the CEO and founder of ChildUSA, a nonprofit interdisciplinary think tank that focuses on child sex abuse, both prevention and justice for the victims.

4:24 Speaker 2: So we’re the leaders in statute of limitations reform for child sex abuse victims, both here and abroad. And it’s just, it’s an extraordinary group of dedicated intellectuals that are putting out the best policies right now.

4:39 Speaker 5: Together, she and my co-host Tim Kosnoff demystify some of the realities of the justice system in the United States.

4:46 Speaker 2: So I had a very important case at the United States Supreme Court in which the court held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was unconstitutional. And I only bring that up because all of a sudden I was on the opposite side of organized religion, including my own. I mean, I’m a Presbyterian. Protestant, and they were all fighting for the ability to have more rights than anybody else.

5:12 Speaker 2: But even more troubling to me was this demand that they were better than other institutions for society.

5:24 Speaker 6: A few weeks ago, I was returning from the East with President Hinckley. We conversed with a passenger who said something to the effect that All churches lead to heaven. They claim one church is not really better than another, just different. While this seems to be very generous, it just cannot be true. It is our firm conviction that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, as the revelations state, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.

6:00 Speaker 2: Not too long after that, I was brought in by a lot of groups that work to protect children from religion. And that included the National Association of Regulatory Agencies. They oversee camps and they oversee some private schools. And what I quickly learned, I didn’t really want to learn it, that children were being harmed by all these supposedly good organizations. But I quickly learned that was just a fact and the public didn’t know about it because the public had this very false face for religion, that it was always good for you, that we defer to religion.

6:40 Speaker 2: And so I learned relatively quickly within several years that religious groups routinely harm people. They routinely break the law. But the society operates as though they never will, and our elected representatives operate as though they never will. And, you know, a lot of our elected officials think they’re voting blocs, so they defer to them in ways that they never should. But then came 9/11.

7:11 Speaker 2: So, you know, it was 2001. It was 4 years after that case. I’d been learning, force-fed a lot of sad things that I never wanted to know but needed to know. And look what you had here. It was religious fervor that led to 9/11. It wasn’t some, you know, neutral group that sat around and just wanted to wreak havoc. It was for their God. And look what they were willing to do for their God.

7:37 Speaker 2: You know, President Bush held a prayer service after 9/11. And what he said was that this was not true religion. No, that was false. It was true religion. It was just terrifying religion. It was deadly religion. So, you know, that gave me an example of what to talk about. But then the next year, the Catholic sex abuse crisis became apparent to the country. When you brought those two together, all of a sudden you could talk honestly about religion.

8:14 Speaker 2: I could talk honestly about religion harming others.

8:17 Speaker 1: Yeah.

8:18 Speaker 2: While the culture was really struggling being able to do that. But I, in 2002 is when I really started talking to people about statute of limitations. But I also started talking about, we have to drop the rose-colored glasses on religion. It’s too dangerous in too many ways. We have to be talking about, at the time, Oregon had many faith healing organizations. Children were dying of easily treated illnesses.

8:51 Speaker 2: There were cemeteries where there were more children and infants than there were adults. And it was just wrong. So I took that as, as an academic, I needed to quantify it. I needed to tell the world about it. And I wrote the first edition of God Versus the Gavel. in which I laid out, okay, here are the ways that children are being harmed. Here are the way other sectors of our society are being harmed by religion.

9:21 Speaker 2: You know, so I’ve dedicated my career to your first question. What do you do about religions breaking the law? And the answer is you either enforce the law or you give them a pass on hurting others. And it’s just my view, you can’t do that.

9:37 Speaker 4: So Fortunately, we’ve come to understand how they think. You know, this is, this wisdom, this understanding has been an education learned over 30-plus years of doing this, which is if you have a good case, they want to resolve it with your client. And my obligation as a lawyer is to serve the interests of the client. What does the client want? They want accountability. What is accountability?

10:09 Speaker 4: Depends on the client. But if it’s a meritorious case, and again, they do not doubt or question the abuse, they will negotiate based upon what they perceive to be bona fide legal defenses. We have been able to resolve cases with no lawsuit complaint. Because a litigation is, in the modern world, what replaced mortal combat in the medieval world. It carries many of the same features and engenders the same kind of emotions.

10:42 Speaker 4: You know, you strap on your armor and as a lawyer, and that’s, that’s sort of the way you feel when you’re going up against the dragon.

10:50 Speaker 1: When I think of, you know, what it meant for me to leave the church and how that was viewed as such a, such a betrayal. And all I did was just stop attending. And I can’t imagine, you know, someone who’s been wronged by the church, really deeply wronged by not being protected by their ecclesiastical leaders, to then bring a case against the church. You’ve not only been— experienced this awful crime against you of sex abuse, and then you have to deal with that, but you also have to deal with the social fallout of coming out against the church.

11:25 Speaker 1: When all you’re doing is trying to get just some amount of justice for yourself.

11:30 Speaker 4: I think that, I think that, that, that’s a, a, a, an important point about how maybe the church has evolved or changed in the 30 years I’ve been doing that, that it’s more advantageous to them to deal with meritorious cases fairly and equitably. Does it mean they’re going to pay the maximum amount that you might have gotten had you taken this all the way to trial? and gotten a jury verdict.

11:57 Speaker 4: Particularly for LDS abuse survivors, the cost, the price that they pay is beyond what you normally find in sexual abuse litigation against other entities.

12:14 Speaker 2: One of the reasons that I became heavily involved in child sex abuse prevention generally is that I, I am a law and religion scholar, and I became the leader in the country, the expert on clergy sex abuse. And I saw that the statute of limitations were stopping very meritorious cases from going forward. So I wrote a book, Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children.

12:40 Speaker 2: It was going to be— it was just a no-brainer. I mean, why would you have a statute of limitations on child sex abuse. You would always want to help the victims and, and, uh, put away the perpetrators. But, uh, as soon as I published it, the Catholic bishops, through a right-wing organization, uh, a magazine called First Things, came after me. It was clear that the bishops did not want statute of limitations reform for any child sex abuse victims.

13:15 Speaker 2: So as soon as I hit that nerve, I knew that something else was going to— I would have to do something else. And, uh, and in the end, I have dedicated my career to, uh, working on how do we get all of us rowing together in the same direction. The Mormons and the Catholic bishops frequently unite, uh, in terms of trying to stop child sex abuse reform. And it’s just a fact that these issues are carried out very similarly across religious institutions.

13:49 Speaker 4: There’s always this institutional drive. I don’t care whether it’s the Mormon Church, the Catholic Church, and I’ve had clients from every faith denomination there is. But unfortunately, you know, the church comes out with its PR and says it’s a problem everywhere. It’s in schools and, you know, we’re not a perfect people and yada yada. So they do this sort of you know, what about?

14:11 Speaker 4: What about the Catholics? What about the Boy Scouts? What about everybody else? They never want to, you know, say, yeah, we’ve got a problem. And it’s okay, well, let’s say you’re no worse. Well, that means all you’re saying is you’re no better either.

14:22 Speaker 1: Yeah.

14:24 Speaker 7: And as you teach your missionaries to focus their eyes on us, teach them to never follow those who think they know more about how to administer the affairs of the Church than Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ do through the priesthood leaders who have the keys to preside. The Lord reminds us, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of mine servants, it is the same.

14:58 Speaker 2: So let me start with the big picture. The big picture is that Um, the crime of child sex abuse and the tort, or the, you know, suing for damages for child sex abuse, are state laws. There are statutes of limitations for federal torts and crimes, but, um, child sex abuse is almost always a state issue.

15:21 Speaker 1: Could you define for the audience what it, what the statute of limitations is and what it is according to the state of Utah and maybe what’s more the national norm?

15:30 Speaker 2: So, you know, statute of limitations are maybe the most boring thing that you would ever study in, in law, which is why I can’t believe I devoted my whole life to it. But a statute of limitation is just a deadline. It’s the deadline for prosecutors to file charges or for a victim to be able to sue for damages. You know, the, the easy example I can give you is, is you want a relatively short statute of limitations on contracts.

15:56 Speaker 2: Because you want to know, you want certainty, and you want to know what the relationship is and what the requirements are and what each side is doing.

16:06 Speaker 4: In a contract dispute case, you know, a breach of contract, in most states it’s 5 years. If you don’t bring your lawsuit, file it within 5 years, it’s barred. So it varies from state to state, but for example, in an automobile accident case, If you were injured in an automobile accident, you’ve got, in most states, 3 years, other states maybe 2 years.

16:29 Speaker 2: With respect to crimes, we have short statutes of limitations for misdemeanors or for lesser crimes because we don’t want to be fooling around with them for year after year after year. And, but we have no statute of limitations on murder.

16:51 Speaker 6: murder.

16:51 Speaker 2: Now, why? Because the murder— the victim can’t come forward. And it’s absolutely critical to society that we know who the killers are. So when you get to child sex abuse and you understand delayed disclosure, where you land is that it’s a lot more like murder, where the victim can’t come forward.

17:16 Speaker 4: The reality of child sexual abuse is that for most victims, they don’t have the capacity, or they may not even understand that what happened to them was a legal wrong for which they can seek redress. Or they are, have been so filled with shame and self-blame and so forth, and wanting to simply forget about it, to bury it, that by the time they reach the point where The damage has been done.

17:44 Speaker 4: They call it child sexual abuse, but it’s really an adult disorder because the full consequences of it don’t unfold until years later. We know that children have been sexually abused, you know, most often struggle in school, develop behavioral problems, end up in the juvenile justice system, the adult criminal system, but they don’t connect that to to the sexual abuse. And we see this pattern over and over again.

18:13 Speaker 4: And it’s not always the same sequelae. It changes. It’s different. It’s individualized. But we know generally that these are the kinds of outcomes that we see. So setting an arbitrary cutoff to seek accountability from those that were responsible, whether it was the abuser or the church that knew and covered up for that abuser, is unfair. It’s unscientific. It’s unrealistic to expect somebody at age 20 or 21 to deal with it.

18:44 Speaker 2: And secondly, you want to know who the perpetrators are. And with respect to child sex abuse, we know that they can abuse their entire lives all the way into their 70s, 80s, and 90s. So if you get an adult who names a perpetrator, They may well save another child from being abused. You don’t grow out of being a sex offender.

19:12 Speaker 4: What does that mean? It means that when you hear about a particular case, a particular offender, that is likely not the first victim. And unless they are stopped, it will not be the last. And it also means that on average, There’s probably other victims, most of whom have been living in silence and shame and who will never come forward. Over the last 35 years of doing Mormon Church sex abuse cases, I’ve kept book.

19:42 Speaker 4: We have a massive database of names of sex offenders, most of whom are unknown to the public. We can’t make those public unless we file a lawsuit or unless something gives us legal permission. We can’t make it public, but if you were abused and you want to know whether or not that person is in our database, call us and we will tell you.

20:08 Speaker 2: So when you talk about the 50 states, the states are all over the place. The movement, I’m glad to say, is a movement away from statutes of limitations where you had 2 years from the date of the act. So if a 6-year-old was sexually assaulted, they had until age 8 to come forward. As it turns out, there is a science, which ChildUSA leads in the research on this, of delayed disclosure.

20:38 Speaker 2: And on average, victims don’t come forward for at least 20, 30, 40 years after the abuse. So expecting an 8-year-old to come forward Especially as it almost always is, if it’s a person who’s in their trusted space, it just doesn’t happen. So, so states then started moving to age 18 or age 21 plus 2 years. That still missed out on a lot of victims who still were not coming forward.

21:11 Speaker 2: We did a study of Boy Scout victims, and what we found is just over half came forward after age 50. And so if you don’t have your statute of limitations at a much later age or eliminated, you miss justice for a lot of victims.

21:32 Speaker 4: We know from statistics that the average age of first-time disclosure for men is age 53.

21:39 Speaker 5: Wow.

21:40 Speaker 4: For women, it’s about a decade earlier. And too often I’ve had to tell people, you know, that I believe them. I tell them, I’m sorry that happened to you. And I wish that there was something that we could do, but, you know, in this particular state, statute of limitations.

21:58 Speaker 2: Well, and, and, and think about this, 30% never come forward, never tell anybody. So, so why does this happen? A child does not understand what’s happened to them. They can’t understand the gravity. They can’t understand the impact, and they frequently can’t— process is the wrong word. They can’t understand why someone they love or trust is doing this to them. They don’t understand sex.

22:30 Speaker 2: And so there’s a tremendous amount of confusion. But then you add to that adults who are engaged in this behavior often threaten They say, I’ll kill you, or your parents are going to hell, or, um, we will excommunicate your family if you tell anybody in the religious setting, or you will never be on the Olympic team in the sports setting. So the bullying, the suppression coming from the perpetrator also reinforces that.

23:01 Speaker 2: But the other part of this is the trauma that’s generated by the abuse. We do know that girls who are sexually abused have a significantly higher rate of multiple sclerosis later in life. We know that there are higher rates of heart disease. And so this trauma manifests physically. At the same time, it manifests itself psychologically in depression, PTSD, and suicide ideation and substance abuse.

23:31 Speaker 2: So this poor child has been sexually abused, doesn’t understand what happened, and the weight of the trauma and the threats make it very difficult. And so instead of coming forward, they just live with it. You know, they compartmentalize it, they put it away. There are a lot of different, very negative, serious effects that happen. And And so it’s sad that, that the, this vulnerable, this deeply vulnerable child, and by the way, we define child up to age 25 based on brain development.

24:10 Speaker 2: The brain does not fully develop the executive function that could give them some kind of defense to this until age 25. So we don’t, when I’m talking about child, I mean that 17-year-old as much as I mean that 5-year-old.

24:25 Speaker 3: Yeah.

24:27 Speaker 4: You know, for many years, uh, before society came to understand the nature and prevalence of child sexual abuse, perpetrators and institutions would defend on the it didn’t happen defense, or it’s a false memory, or this person is making it up for what they call secondary gain. You know, they’re doing it for money. In my experience, You don’t see that defense anymore because it’s a lie.

24:55 Speaker 4: In sexual abuse cases, the difficulty is not victims coming forward and telling falsehoods. It’s that victims are not coming forward and telling truth. That’s the problem.

25:09 Speaker 2: Right. Well, and also, as the country and law enforcement and judges especially, we’ve We’ve just launched a series of videos to educate judges. As they understand where the child is coming from and where this victim at age 50 is coming from, they become a lot more trustworthy. And it, you know, I think one of the most fascinating facts and sad facts here is that a child who starts telling this story as a child is much more likely to recant.

25:45 Speaker 2: And so you, you’ve got to be careful when you respond to a child in any of these settings. If they start talking about this, one, you need to know it’s highly unlikely they’re making it up. Very few make it up. And second, you need to know that if they start, you know, taking in the room and feeling like they shouldn’t be telling people this, that this is hurting mom or it’s hurting, um, them, all of a sudden it didn’t happen.

26:18 Speaker 4: So survivors have banded together and they’ve gone to state legislatures around the country and they’ve gotten them to pass laws. And they call it a window because the window opens and it may be 1 year or 2 years, and then the window closes. But during that period of time that the window is open, anybody, no matter how long ago they were abused as a child, can come forward And seek justice and file a lawsuit complaint.

26:43 Speaker 4: After the window closes, it goes back to the way it was before. So we deal with states that have passed all kinds of reforms in this regard. And, you know, we have to pull out the book and look at it every time because it’s, it’s complicated going through it and saying, well, is this person’s claim in Illinois still viable? I think it is, you know, because of this 2016 amendment.

27:07 Speaker 4: So I think it revived it.

27:09 Speaker 2: So what’s been happening since 2002 with, with the country coming to see how you cover up abuse, that, that Spotlight report was not just about the church in the end, it was the paradigm for coverups in the Mormon Church, in the Catholic Church, at Penn State and elsewhere. And once we saw it, a movement started to really take hold. And collectively between my work as an academic and then my work starting Child USA, We’ve been involved in a minimum of 305 laws being passed.

27:45 Speaker 2: This is an incremental movement. You add 2 years, then you get them 5 years later to add 7 years, and then you add a discovery rule, and then maybe you add revival of the expired statutes. But it is, uh, it’s a very heavy list, but the move right now is toward more opportunities for the victims. And by the way, we have a treatise on statutes of limitations that we just published this year.

28:11 Speaker 2: It’s everything you’ll ever need to know, um, which we’ll be updating annually. So I’m looking at the Utah page and the Utah page, the state did have a window. And what I mean by a window is where the state revives the expired statutes of limitations and gives those victims a moment in time. We did get a bill passed and it was very exciting and it was a wonderful thing. But the Utah Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional, which was in the interests of the Mormon Church because it was surely going to be sued.

28:50 Speaker 2: So it’s, it’s sad that the vast majority of child sex abuse among that was experienced by adults in the society of Utah, they don’t have an option right now.

29:05 Speaker 4: So the cases we handle, I think the clients, I think their biggest surprise when they contact us is we say, we believe you. And you know what? The church is going to believe you too. You know, that’s not how they defend on these cases. They don’t say it didn’t happen. They look for legal defenses, statute of limitations, or You know, how was the church responsible? Did this happen on church property?

29:29 Speaker 4: Was this done by a church official?

29:37 Speaker 2: Well, there’s a very simple instinct that I’ve learned over the years to take very seriously in every scenario, and that is that adults prefer and protect adults, and it is much easier to protect an adult instinctually for an adult and to then treat children’s problems as just collateral damage. Uh, you know, either they’ll get over it or it’s obvious that my issues are so much more important.

30:07 Speaker 2: And so that’s what’s happened is we’ve had largely men, some women, but largely men in power, uh, in very high power scenarios, which would be the clergy. and sports and extracurriculars like the scouting and other issues where they have let the children suffer while they shore up the protections for the organization’s image, for its leaders’ images, and for the money. The money, in my view, is never as important to these groups as the the ego and the protection of the institution.

30:49 Speaker 8: It is not enough for us to live the gospel inwardly. We need to be shining examples to all with whom we come in contact. In this sense, it’s not only what we are that’s important. What others think of us is also important. In order to be truly effective as missionaries, we need to be known for our good qualities, to have an unspotted reputation in all things. As a member of the church, we all represent the church through our actions.

31:20 Speaker 2: Well, let me back up a little bit. So I actually worked with theological texts quite a bit in order to understand the framing of the United States Constitution, which, by the way, is not a Christian country, but that’s a completely different interview. But One of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that religious institutions act very similarly in what they lobby for.

31:47 Speaker 2: They have very similar demands. The rule against scandal in the Catholic Church is an internal rule that you should not put the organization in a bad light. The Mormons have a very similar belief. You may not put the organization in a bad light. As do Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc. And you know, the reasoning of the church in some elements is that they don’t want to lead their believers astray with bad examples.

32:18 Speaker 2: But it’s also very convenient to cover up the bad actions and not ever let anybody know what was really going on. But I wrote a column in which I said the Mormons were just like the Catholics. They had their own rule against scandal, and they would not tell the truth to the public about what was happening with child sex abuse. Within minutes, the public relations folks at the Mormons had gone out and criticized my column.

32:49 Speaker 2: It just would— they were very, very sensitive to that. But it’s just a fact. The Mormons, every bit as much as the Catholics, do not want their members to put them, the Church, in a bad light.

33:10 Speaker 9: Sometimes there’s a difference of opinion as to what the facts really mean. A question that creates doubt in some can, after careful investigation, build faith in others. And to be perfectly frank, there have been times when members or leaders in the Church have simply made mistakes. There may have been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles, or doctrine.

33:47 Speaker 9: I suppose the Church would only be perfect If it were run by perfect beings. God is perfect, and his doctrine is pure, but he works through us, his imperfect children, and imperfect people make mistakes.

34:10 Speaker 2: Well, the, the greatest truth in this universe is that the biggest problem for religion is human beings. So if we just had God or, you know, a book over here by themselves, fine. They’re, they’re okay. Maybe that will work out. When you introduce humans who are always fallible and tempted to abuse their powers, you open the door to corrupting religion. So for those who are trying to say, oh, they’re just a few bad apples.

34:45 Speaker 2: They’re really not looking themselves in the mirror. There are many good acts coming from religious actors. Many, many. Um, there’s support of the poor, there’s feeding of the poor, there’s help with the homeless. Many of these groups do these things. Not all, but many of them do. But what you’ve got to understand is the human element, and it’s the human element. Which has led to children being sexually abused, number one, and the cover-up, number two.

35:18 Speaker 1: Is there a particular story, like a specific example?

35:21 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, no, so this one I’m thinking of, I mean, it’s, he’d been on the stake high council and either knew or had heard that the perpetrator had been the subject of discussions at the stake high council. This is in Martinsburg, West Virginia. And he is a colonel in the Army and actually commutes to the Pentagon. And he knew a lot of stuff. I mean, this is a guy who was, you know, a high priest in the church.

35:50 Speaker 4: And part of his interest was that he suspected that his own disabled son may have been abused by the perpetrator as well. And so I said, well, what I’d like to do is I’d like to record this. You know, I’ll provide a rec— you know, a copy of it to you. but I don’t want to, you know, I don’t want to be mistaken and I want to make sure I get my facts right. So he talked and talked and talked, and I had my recorder going.

36:15 Speaker 4: It was one of these smart pens. That became the subject of tens of thousands of dollars of litigation. They came up with every which way to try and prevent this coming in as a piece of evidence. You know, that was a huge piece of evidence in the case as to critical elements of the case, which is that the church Leaders back there, all the way up to the stake, knew about the perpetrator’s propensity to abuse children and didn’t do anything to stop him, and was aware that he and his parents were presenting himself as somebody who needed to earn money to go on his mission and was worthy to babysit their children, and then was abusing them in their own homes as the babysitter.

36:58 Speaker 4: And we were able to figure out who the social worker was. He had retired and was living in Idaho, and we were zeroing in on him to get him served with a deposition subpoena when we discovered that, lo and behold, he’s been sent on a mission to South America. When’s he going to be back?

37:20 Speaker 3: Hmm.

37:21 Speaker 4: So this is another thing the Church can do. That case dragged on from 2012 until it settled in 2017 after 3 and a half months of trial. So that was an example of a litigation that shouldn’t have happened. It’s unfortunate that it unfolded that way. These victims, by the time the case settled, I think there were 11, all under the ages of 12. And it was rare. I mean, most of my clients are adults or at least late teenagers.

37:52 Speaker 4: I’d never had a case involving children that young, which presents a whole panoply of challenges just because you’re dealing with such young children, particularly with respect to evaluating what their cases might be worth, what their future damages might be, because who knows? Most of them can’t even really effectively communicate or talk about what happened to them, or don’t even understand exactly what happened to them.

38:19 Speaker 4: But enough of them were able to to say in detail what he did for any jury to conclude that we were dealing with a serial child molester who did the same to all these children or worse.

38:32 Speaker 2: So, you know, I was invited to come out and do a debate with the Attorney General on polygamy. I am absolutely opposed to polygamy because it operates to the harm of both the women and the children. And that’s just a fact in terms of poverty, lack of education, and control by the man. But when I got the invitation, uh, they didn’t tell me who I would be debating. And I really was disappointed when I was taking the position they should enforce the polygamy laws and the Attorney General’s office was taking the position they should not enforce the polygamy laws.

39:11 Speaker 2: And the bottom line is there’s one very good reason. Why politicians talk that way. And a lot of them talk that way about religious groups. And that is that it’s a voting bloc. And it was very clear that they were pandering to the prophets from a variety of religious organizations that were there in favor of polygamy. In fact, there were 4 in a row sitting shoulder to shoulder glaring at me.

39:42 Speaker 2: As though, what nerve did this woman have coming in and saying that they shouldn’t be able to, um, practice polygamy? So the, so the exactly the same thing happened in Brooklyn, New York, with respect to Orthodox Jews, uh, ultra Orthodox Jews. The, the district attorney’s office for a, a significant amount of time did not investigate reported child sex abuse if it was in that community.

40:11 Speaker 1: Hmm.

40:11 Speaker 2: They simply gave the— they took down the name and they told the community that you have a problem. And early on in the first grand jury report, the first major grand jury report in the country was Philadelphia about the Philadelphia Archdiocese. And one of the documented facts was that the reports of child sex abuse would be made to the authorities, and then they would simply pass it on to the bishop to take care of it himself.

40:44 Speaker 2: So this is a very common factor, and it’s another reason we have to get lawmakers to understand that children need to be protected even from religious groups.

40:57 Speaker 1: As you’re saying that, I’m thinking about how if I, I can look up on a map through my state database where the pedophiles near me live, that that is public access information. And not only that, I can see their photos, I can see what their offenses are, I can see how often they’re reporting to probation. All of that information is accessible to me as a resident of the state I live, and that’s the case in all of America, all of the United States.

41:25 Speaker 1: And the fact that I can have that information at my fingertips, About my community, but I can’t have that about my congregation, the people I’m going to associate with the most closely within my community, is kind of inconceivable. That the church knows, that church headquarters knows and can point them out in a crowd, and that I don’t, as a member of that crowd, and as a tithe-paying member of that crowd, that is kind of inconceivable.

41:55 Speaker 1: And the fact that they can claim Well, because he said it to me in confidence, in spiritual confidence, I don’t have to tell you that your child might be abused. That is absolutely wild.

42:06 Speaker 4: And that is reality. That is exactly what’s happening. And those photographs that you’re able to get and see online, you know, is a result of a whole chain of things that has to happen that doesn’t happen in this church. It starts with a report, a police investigation. sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction, either through a verdict or a guilty plea. And then the person is subject to all the things you’ve described, and the public has access to that information.

42:36 Speaker 4: But I was, you know, in a particularly like a place like Utah, it’s, it’s, it’s just the tip of the iceberg, you know. So you’ve got one person on your block. The reality is you’ve probably got Yeah. Exponentially more than that on that block. But because they were never reported by their bishop, it never went through the system. And because the Church never discloses that information, yeah, it’s just, it’s like, trust us.

43:03 Speaker 4: Just trust us.

43:05 Speaker 7: There’s this idea that the Church is hiding something, which we would have to say as 2 apostles who have covered the world and know the history of the Church and know the integrity of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve from the beginning of time. There has been no attempt on the part in any way of the Church leaders trying to hide anything from anybody. So just trust us wherever you are in world, and you share this message with anyone else who raises the question about the church not being transparent.

43:48 Speaker 7: We’re as transparent as we know how to be in telling the truth. We have to do that. That’s the Lord’s way.

43:58 Speaker 2: So let me talk about the generic push to get children’s interests taken seriously by our elected representatives. The political scientists will tell you that if a lawmaker gets 5 calls in one day, they think the house is on fire. You know, think about it. They get a lot of emails and they’ll get one call on one thing, one call on another thing, but it’s 5 individuals who have banded together and are all constituents.

44:26 Speaker 2: You call where you are a constituent and all of them say, You need to do a lot better job of protecting children in this state. Here’s what needs to be done. So I highly encourage getting at least 4 of your friends and family to do it all at the same time and to have a designated day. One. Number 2, you want to have a clear message. You want to know exactly what you’re demanding.

44:49 Speaker 2: If it’s going to be in the SOL space, call Child USA. Uh, we can answer any question. There are no new arguments on the other side, I can tell you. So, as I mentioned earlier, I published a book called Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children. It’s written to be readable quickly. In fact, I did the table of contents assuming that lawmakers would never read the book, just the table of contents.

45:12 Speaker 2: It’s the big picture. It explains SOL reform. I also wrote God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty. If you want to understand when religion can go bad, Uh, and why we must protect ourselves even from religion. This is the book. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and published about, I can’t believe already, 10 years ago. And then finally, we have just published a treatise on all statutes of limitations in every state, the federal government, the territories since 2002.

45:44 Speaker 2: So if you want to understand the map of the whole country, That’s the book. You know, it’s tough in these legislatures because you get lawmakers— it does tend to break Republican being defensive for the organizations and Democrats listening to the victims. But you’ve got to talk to both to get anything passed. And if you’re going into an office with Republicans, You need to understand they make arguments against survivors.

46:21 Speaker 2: And what you cannot do is scream at them. You cannot go after them. You cannot make a scene. You have to be extremely calm as you make your points and hand them over in writing. So, going out on a limb, When the law doesn’t protect you can be very painful. And, you know, for some people, you don’t have to do this. Not everybody needs to be an advocate or an activist. You know, just because you were hurt when you were a child doesn’t mean you have to carry posters around.

47:01 Speaker 2: So no guilt for those who can’t or won’t. And for those who feel like they’re ready and can do it and have ongoing therapy, Go for it. Go to our website, childusa.org. Dive into all the materials. Call us with questions because we’re more than happy to help. And at the same time, there’s something else to fight for, and that’s prevention. Schools, sports teams, religious organizations need to dramatically improve their child sex abuse prevention policies.

47:36 Speaker 2: Child USA has put together a groundbreaking, efficient, and affordable and science-based system where they can find out what’s wrong and get recommendations. Our goal is to set the standard for the entire country. So we’re all talking about— so parents are talking about, oh yeah, yeah, I heard you need whistleblower protection. Oh, absolutely. Is that— do you have that on your kid’s soccer team?

48:04 Speaker 2: Oh wait, I didn’t see that. Okay, now it’s called Child USA. So we need both. We need justice for the victims. At the same time, we need prevention. And, uh, I, we can change the world together. I really, really believe in that.

48:22 Speaker 1: I am ultra curious what comes of these conversations, and I hope reaches the ears of people who need help, who’ve experienced this, people who can also raise alarm bells, maybe former bishops who experienced this type, these types of dynamics and said, no, I’m not doing that, and putting their foot down. And, and I think anyone with children should hear this. And I, I, I’m so sad that typically as a member, you won’t even interface with this type of content.

48:55 Speaker 1: You know, hopefully some, there are those who are willing to share it. If you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, You know, my active member friend might not click on this if they see it in the wild, but maybe if I say, you should like, hey, maybe you should listen to this, maybe that will— I think that that’s often how information is best spread through communities like believers.

49:18 Speaker 1: Because I wouldn’t have clicked on something like this. My hope would be that this becomes part of the collective consciousness of what needs to be fixed about the church, because right now I can definitively say that this is not part of the collective consciousness. And that is surprising to me as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about the collective consciousness of what needs to be changed about the church.

49:42 Speaker 4: You know, I hope this has been helpful to people that have listened to it, that you’ve gotten something useful. If there’s anything that you want to ask me about, Contact me. You know, there’s no fee for calling me. You know, whatever. It may not involve a case or anything. I don’t care. But if you have some questions about my comments or something you were curious about, or if you just want to like chew me out, I’m used to it.

50:08 Speaker 4: So again, we want this to be helpful and for survivors who are suffering in silence and have been keeping it all inside. Don’t be afraid any longer. Contact us, and if there’s if there’s a way, we’ll work with you to find that way and hopefully help you on a journey of healing and recovery from what happened to you. And lastly, I’m very sorry that happened to you. If you’d like to discuss a potential claim, you can contact me via my website, kosnov.com.

50:58 Speaker 4: If you are not a survivor but still want to do something to help our community, you can make an impact. Here are some things you can do to help. If someone shares their experience with you, the most important thing you can do is listen. The most important thing you can do is listen with empathy and guide them toward professional resources for support. Support them, but let them decide what is best for them.

51:19 Speaker 4: Contact your local legislators and emphasize your support for removing the clergy-penitent privilege in child sexual abuse situations. Churches need to report child abuse to those with the knowledge, training, and authority to deal with these crimes. It is the only way of breaking the chain of abuse. Urge your local legislators to support a look-back window law to give child abuse victims additional time to pursue justice and publicly identify their abusers.

51:48 Speaker 4: Cutting off child sexual abuse survivors’ access to the courts at age 21 is unrealistic and wrongheaded because most survivors have not processed the trauma by that age sufficient to take that step. Thank you for listening.

52:05 Speaker 3: This episode of Architecture of Abuse was hosted by Elissa Grenfell and Tim Kosnov. Executive producers are Lindsay Hansen Park and Eric W. Phillips. Produced, edited, and mixed by Lizzy Bean. Research and fact-checking by Emily Sellers. Music by Ian Post, licensed through Artlist. Show notes, transcripts, and additional resources are available at architectureofabuse.com. You can follow us on all platforms @architectureofabuse.

52:32 Speaker 3: If this episode resonated with you, please consider leaving a review and sharing it with someone who might benefit from the conversation.

52:39 Speaker 1: Via email, we asked the LDS Church for comment, and although we didn’t get a response, we did inform them we would include their standard policy that abuse of any kind is not tolerated in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.