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The Pinal County Attorney’s Office announced that two bishops in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will not be charged with crimes, despite knowing Susan Brock had a sexual relationship with a teenage boy and not calling police.
Rather than call police, the boy’s parents — and Brock’s husband, Maricopa County Supervisor Fulton Brock — called their bishops in the LDS church after learning about the abuse.
Bishops Matthew Meyers and Troy Hansen each knew Susan Brock was sexually abusing the boy, but they failed to report the abuse to authorities. In fact, the only reason police found out about the abuse of the boy was because his father got “tired of waiting” for LDS church officials to contact police.
Get all the details here.
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Under Arizona’s vague duty-to-report laws, clergy “may withhold” information, even when it comes to child abuse learned during a confession. In other words, the bishops had the option to call police, but they didn’t. Not to mention, Arizona’s legal definition of “confession” is as vague as the law itself.
We want to know what you think: did the LDS bishops break the law, or are they guilty of nothing more than bad judgment?
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