A Mormon church is facing a $25 million lawsuit after one of its members said that the religious organization failed to report her being abused as a girl by her adoptive father.
The victim is suing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, claiming that a bishop from a branch in Vancouver that she attended was informed of her abuse. However, she argued that the religious leader failed to report the incident to law enforcement authorities or child welfare workers.
Suffering From Child Abuse
The situation then resulted in the girl suffering many more months of abuse when her adoptive parents split, and the father, identified as Craig McNeil Ford, took her to live with him in Oregon. It was not until a biological daughter passed a note to one of her classmates alluding to the sexual abuse that law enforcement personnel got involved.
The operation then resulted in the adoptive father getting arrested and facing convictions in Clark County in Washington and Linn County in Oregon. The 40-year-old suspect is currently in custody at Snake River Correctional Institution in eastern Oregon and is serving a 33-year jail term, according to Oregon Live.
The victim in the case, identified as only Julie Doe in the lawsuit, wrote in a statement to a judge in 2022 that her adoptive father was 30 when he decided to take everything from her. She described herself as a damaged, scared, broken 15-year-old girl.
The $25 million lawsuit was filed on Monday in federal court in Eugene, accusing the Mormon church of negligence. It has become the latest legal challenge to accuse the church of hiding away information that involves suspected child abuse perpetrators.
Ford was also found to have been convicted of child molestation and related charges involving another adoptive daughter in Clark County in 2018, based on court documents. These came before he was convicted of charges that involved Julie Doe in Linn County, KOIN reported.
The Church's Failure To Intervene
Despite the suspect being incarcerated, plaintiffs are arguing that the Mormon church neglected to intervene beforehand in order to prevent the teenagers from being abused even more than they already have been.
The situation was not addressed despite the adoptive mother, Jennifer, informing the LDS Church's bishop and stake president about sexual letters that her husband wrote to the victim. Attorneys also said that she told leaders her husband had bought a sex toy for Julie Doe and suspected that they had a sexual relationship.
The case comes as the Catholic church is still failing to address sexual abuse cases properly, a Vatican report notes. The Vatican's child protection commission added that church leaders who fail to take proper action against pedophile priests are a "further source of evil" for victims of sexual abuse.
The first report was on a scandal that has plagued the Catholic church for decades and has the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors saying that it has still failed to ensure that clerical sexual abuse cases are appropriately addressed. The commission also criticized the Vatican office that was in charge of processing complaints because it was slow and secretive, as per The Guardian.
