{"id":15703,"date":"2022-08-22T16:58:48","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T22:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/?p=15703"},"modified":"2024-02-23T15:29:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T22:29:47","slug":"ten-ways-ap-abuse-misrepresented-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/sexuality-family\/sexual-abuse\/ten-ways-ap-abuse-misrepresented-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Ways the AP Abuse Article Misrepresented the Evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"
Photo: Michael Rezendes, journalist for the Associated Press, who wrote the August 4, 2022 article, “Seven years of sex abuse: How Mormon officials let it happen.”<\/div>\n

Years ago, I had the privilege of working as research director at Utah Youth Village\u2014the state\u2019s largest and oldest non-profit for neglected and abused children. My office was adjacent to the area where foster parents brought in kids for therapy, and I often interacted with these remarkable children attempting to finally speak about the unspeakable. Before leaving, my wife and I lived as foster parents in a home that provided a healing atmosphere for sexually abused girls. We witnessed with our own eyes the enduring psychic toll imposed by these unimaginable early experiences on precious children that deserved so much more\u2014and so much better. One of those darling girls has become like a daughter to us and an older sister to our boys.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Like so many, I have mourned the revelations about what two girls in Arizona passed through, enduring 7 years of sexual abuse at the hand of their father. But recent weeks have brought a new kind of grief for me as well, in witnessing the hostile and accusing public conversation we\u2019re having about these incidents. If something as vicious and evil as child sexual abuse cannot <\/span>bring hearts and minds together<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to seek understanding and improvements while<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>presuming a willingness in those around us to fight this same horror, what will? Furthermore, if questions this weighty devolve into petty animosities this quickly \u2026 and if accusations this serious don\u2019t invoke our honest desire to understand the full truth, what hope do we have to transcend any other lesser issue?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of the full truth, I\u2019m not the only one who felt something was amiss about the initial report. The journalist responsible for this report, Michael Rezendes, recently claimed<\/a> The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints \u201cdid not dispute any facts in the story\u201d in its recent statement. But that\u2019s simply not true. In a strongly worded statement last week about the Arizona abuse case, the Church <\/span>raised concerns<\/span><\/a> with \u201c<\/span>egregious errors in reporting and editing\u201d in the original AP article involving \u201csignificant flaws in facts and timeline, which lead to erroneous conclusions.\u201d

If something as vicious and evil as child sexual abuse cannot bring hearts and minds together to seek understanding and improvements while presuming a willingness in those around us to fight this same horror, what will?<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div> L<\/span>ike others, I\u2019ve been curious to understand a little more about what exactly those errors are. A friend of mine (who prefers to remain anonymous) has spent a year reviewing the many documents in the case, reading them over multiple times. As she and I have reviewed some of the newest evidence, including sworn depositions by each of the bishops and a full transcript of the drop-in interview between special Homeland Security agent Robert Edwards and former Bishop John Herrod, we\u2019ve both been struck by the seriousness of the discrepancies between the portrayal in the AP story, and a remarkably different picture emerging in these other documents.<\/p>\n

In what follows, I summarize and walk through these key discrepancies, beginning with statements from the AP report, followed by what the full evidence appears to confirm. My primary focus here is on the direct statements from the bishops themselves (in statements under oath and in an interview federal agent Edwards conducted with John Herrod), with some reference to what Agent Edwards said about\u00a0<\/em>his conversation with Herrod. I lay this out in some detail, so you can review and decide for yourself what a fair and objective reading of the evidence in this heartbreaking case truly is.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ten Misleading Assertions in the AP Report:<\/b><\/h3>\n

1. The Bishops were aware of current<\/em> abuse in the Adams home. <\/b>Multiple times, Rezendes and his colleagues collaborating on the article insinuate that bishops were aware of sexual abuse <\/span>currently <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>actively <\/span><\/i>happening in the home. For instance, the report uses present tense verbs like:<\/span><\/p>\n