A Cochise County judge has been asked to referee a dispute over access to medical records of a victim of child sexual abuse, one of three pretrial issues among the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), two former bishops and a congregant of the LDS ward in Bisbee, and several children who claim their sexual abuse could have stopped -even prevented- if church officials had notified police.
The parties and their attorneys will appear before Judge Jason Lindstrom next month in the dispute over documents which might show a former LDS bishop, Dr. John Herrod, treated one or more of Paul and Leizza Adams’s children prior to 2017 when federal agents and Interpol identified Pail Adams as the man who recorded the abuse of children in his Bisbee home and shared the videos on the internet.
Three of the Adams’ children allege they were sexually and physically abused by their father for several years, even after Paul Adams told Herrod and Bishop Kim Mauzy of his actions. The bishops did not report the abuse to law enforcement on the advice of LDS Church attorneys who argue Paul Adams’s various confidential confessions could not be betrayed even if the children were likely to continue to be abused.
Paul Adams, who was a U.S. Border Patrol agent, killed himself in a pretrial detention facility in December 2017 after being charged with numerous state and federal felonies related to child abuse and child pornography.
Another of the three disputes Lindstrom is being asked to resolve involves access to employment records of Shaunice Warr, a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was a family friend as well as a fellow LDS member. Warr previously testified about her concerns with how Paul Adams treated his wife and children, but she did not report her suspicions to police either.
The third dispute for Lindstrom to rule on is whether a Utah-based attorney can serve as pro hac vice, or temporary, counsel for the LDS Church in the case. The attorney, Peter C. Schofield of Kirton McConkie, would take part through one of the Arizona attorneys already representing the Church. But attorneys for the Adams children object to Schofield’s pro hac vice application.
“All calls from LDS wards regarding child abuse go to the Kirton McConkie firm as they run the LDS abuse hotline,” the objection states, noting that records released by church officials list Schofield 19 times as the intake attorney for calls reporting abuse in Arizona.
“Peter Schofield and other attorneys from Kirton McConkie will be called as witnesses in this matter,” the objection states. “This creates a conflict of interest which should bar pro hac vice admission to any attorney from Kirton McConkie.”
The LDS Church has consistently asserted only Paul Adams could waive the confidentiality of his counseling sessions with bishops. The statute is silent on the issue of what clergy should do if they have a reasonable belief a child is being subjected to ongoing criminal abuse.
“Defendants assert that the Church Bishops had no right or obligation, consistent with the clergy exception to the Arizona reporting statute and other Arizona law, to disclose a confidential and privileged communication with a Church member,” the Church stated in its answer to the children’s November 2020 lawsuit.
Paul Adams was eventually excommunicated but his wife and children continued as members. The bishops told a federal investigator in 2018 they urged the children’s mother, Leizza Adams, to be more proactive in protecting the children. She later pleaded no contest to two counts of child abuse endangerment and agreed to sever her parental rights to her six children.
In asking for leniency, Leizza Adams argued she did her best to protect the children but “relied too much” on guidance from local church officials. She was released from prison in October 2020 to begin a four year term of probation.
