Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's February 11, 2025, and today we have a very sobering, somber, and unpleasant and unfortunate sort of, but very important story to share with you all today. We have attorneys Ann Andrews and Kimberly.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] Tell me how to pronounce your name again. Kimberly Dagonia. Thank you. I need to practice that. I'm sure I'll be saying it more in the future. We have some very serious new rounds of allegations against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or the Mormon Church for systemically covering up sex abuse, for protecting perpetrators at the expense of victims. We have covered this topic, unfortunately, way too often on Mormon Stories podcast. And there's a whole new round. And it's not just one case.

John Dehlin [00:01:08] It's not just a couple of cases. It's a whole cluster of cases, not just in the state of California, but also in Utah and also nationwide. And then in addition, there's now a federal proceeding under sort of new, as I understand it to be sort of newish federal trafficking legislation or guidelines or policies as well. I don't know all the legal terms, but that's why I have Kolby Reddish here as my sort of co host today. Kolby, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast. Welcome back. We're so glad to have you.

Guests Introduce Themselves and Their Work

Kolby Reddish [00:01:46] Hi, John. Thank you so much for having me. Even on such a serious topic for folks that remember, this is the topic that basically catalyzed my faith crisis. And so I still care a lot about this and still care a lot about the children that are in the church.

John Dehlin [00:01:59] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we'll include in the show notes the interview that we did with you, Kolby. But just bizarrely and strangely, what makes this case one of these cases even more just gut wrenching for me is that it involves a family that I knew so many of. You know that when Margi and I moved to Washington to work for Microsoft around 1997, 1998, you know, that's, that's the place where I lost my faith. Well, is my memory holds. The very first bishop that I, that I had when I moved to Seattle was Phil Bussey. And Phil Bussey is named as one of the defendants in one of the lawsuits or the main lawsuit that we're going to be talking about today.

John Dehlin [00:02:46] And the way that I came aware of the, of the Bussey lawsuit specifically is I was on Reddit just a couple days ago and the amazing organization Flood lit, which was, which is a really important website and organization that's Trying to chronicle, archive and build awareness around sexual abuse cases and cover ups within the Mormon Church. Floodlit had just published a new sex abuse case. It seems like they're publishing something every week these days. But as I looked on the ex Mormon Reddit for the details of that particular case, I'm seeing the name Bussy. And again, Phil Bussy was my bishop, you know, my wife and I knew them, knew their family.

John Dehlin [00:03:33] I was a seminary teacher over one of the children in the Bussy family and, and as recently as last year, you know, Brandon Bussey, who is the father of the main victim in the case, the son of Phil and Kathy Bussey. He and I were in touch just because he, he particularly was listening to the LDS discussion series at the time and that he and his wife, that series meant a lot to them. And so I met with, with Brandon Bussey, the son of Phil Bussey, just, just last year to talk to them about how they're doing. And then right after that, if my memory holds, is around when a lot of the stuff broke for them.

John Dehlin [00:04:14] So, so much to unpack. But never did I expect that someone so close to me and my family would be involved in this sort of really significant case. So we've got a lot to cover today. Thanks for joining us. We are doing a live stream mostly because we want, well, this is breaking news, but also we want to incorporate questions and feedback from our live viewing audience. So we welcome our live viewing audience.

John Dehlin [00:04:45] We, we will do our best to star and ask any questions that you have as time permits. And mostly I just want to ask everybody to please take a minute to subscribe to this channel. That will help the word get out about what we're trying to talk about here. So subscribe to our YouTube channel, like it if you can. And I just want to thank our donors that make all this possible. So we've got a lot to cover.

John Dehlin [00:05:10] And so let me introduce our main two guests today. I, I reached out and invited them on because I, I felt like this was a newsworthy case and no one's going to really know the facts of the case and of the, of the broader legal proceedings. No one's going to know the facts of those proceedings better than our two guests. So let me begin by first welcoming Ann Andrews for the first time to Mormon Stories podcast. Hi Ann.

Ann Andrews [00:05:39] Hi John.

John Dehlin [00:05:40] Thanks for coming.

Ann Andrews [00:05:42] Thanks for inviting us.

John Dehlin [00:05:43] Tell us just briefly, kind of what you do, what your firm does and anything else you want to say by way of introduction.

Ann Andrews [00:05:50] So I'm Ann Andrews, the founding managing partner of Andrews and Thornton. We are a law firm that is of many things. We do a national law firm. We have cases across the country, but we have focused for many, many years on sexual abuse in many aspects of life. All churches, all organizations, schools, anywhere where we have found predators abusing children. Our law firm has been there in the court seeking justice for those victims. And we're joined today by Kimberly Degonia. And she can tell you about her background, but she and I met about two years ago and she joined the firm with a tremendous amount of experience in the areas of sexual assault in the criminal field, the criminal aspect of sexual assault and sex trafficking. And Kimberly's seated to my left.

John Dehlin [00:06:52] Hi, Kimberly. Thanks for, thanks for joining us today.

Kimberly Degonia [00:06:54] Hi, John. Thanks for having us.

John Dehlin [00:06:56] Anything else you want to say by way of introduction?

Kimberly Degonia [00:06:59] As Ann said, I joined her from about two years ago after spending about 15 years in the Riverside County District Attorney's office prosecuting pretty much exclusively for a decade the sexual assault and child abuse of children. And so when I transitioned to Anne's firm, I started leading the trials as far as the systemic sexual assault problem that, like Ann said, we see in these organizations throughout the country.

John Dehlin [00:07:25] Beautiful. Thanks again for joining us on such short notice. So before we begin, you know, there's always going to be new people joining who don't have any of the history of the Mormon churches, let's just say alleged patterns of systemically handling and or covering up sexual abuse cases.

Overview of Church Sexual Abuse Litigation

John Dehlin [00:07:47] So would you. And the Bussey complaint specifically touches on some of this. We've had attorneys in the past come on to talk about, for example, the hotline and the systemic sort of the systemic process that historically has been employed by the church, by its law firm, Kurtner McConkey, to funnel or channel any abuse cases, you know, made, made aware to bishops into the church, to their law firm to protect the church and not necessarily to protect victims. So I think it would be okay to begin with your collective impression of how the church, you know, how the church is said to historically be handling these types of abuse cases systemically.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] So then we can see whether these cases that especially specifically the Bussey case, kind of matches this pattern that's already been established by the journalist, you know, Michael Resendez, and by others historically. And by the way, Kolby, I forgot to give you a chance to just say who you are and what you do. Do you want to take a second to do that before we jump in?

Kolby Reddish [00:08:58] Sure. So I'm Kolby Reddish. I'm an attorney that practices law in Boise, Idaho. As I mentioned, actually three years ago this month, this was the exhib exact issue that catalyzed my faith crisis. My wife and I appeared on Mormon Stories with John back then. And so this is something that I care a whole lot about.

Kolby Reddish [00:09:15] While I have the mic for a second, I'll also just say I appreciate your shout out to Floodlight John. Those in the ex Mormon space know that there's a an annual award season called the Brody Awards, named after Fawn Brody and Floodlight. The this year for the 2024 awards, floodlight was awarded a Brody Award for their work on this. And they definitely need people's support. So I just want to echo echo your support of Floodlet and how they help bring these cases to light because the reality is, and I think we'll talk about, you know, some of the difficulty legal cases in the past have faced.

Kolby Reddish [00:09:50] But as we talked about with the Huntsman tithing lawsuits, part of the victory that we get from any of these cases coming to light is that these issues are brought to light and that people then have notice, people in the public have notice about how the church handles these issues. Even if we can't always find the legal remedies that we want, we can often at least give people that informed consent. And so I do think this is an important part of that project.

John Dehlin [00:10:13] Perfect. And I'm going to ask Maven, since she's moderating the chats, to please post a link to Floodlit right now so that viewers can write that down. And of course, I'll have Julia include a link to Floodlit in the show notes. We do appreciate any financial support y' all can offer to Floodlit because they do their work anonymously and heroically. I'll also just add, it probably goes without saying that there's kind of a content warning for today's episode we're going to be talking about. We're not going to be overly explicit, but we are going to be talking about very disturbing sexual abuse of children and of young children by adults.

John Dehlin [00:10:54] And so please take care about who's in the room and please take care of your own mental health and well being as you listen, because this is very disturbing content that we're going to be talking about. So back to your collective understandings of the church's systemic approach to abuse historically prior to the Bussey case.

Ann Andrews [00:11:18] So let's set the parameters. For purposes of being sure that I protect my clients and all those involved, I want your viewers to know that these are what we're going to be talking about today are all pled complaints. I have a very large file in front of me that I brought that constitutes the pleadings that we have filed in courts across the country that constitute the facts as we have alleged them. We are lawyers first and foremost.

Ann Andrews [00:11:56] Our opinions are not really what we're here to talk about, and they're not. They're not really the basis of why we filed a lawsuit. I could feel one way personally about something, but that's not the basis in law for lawsuit. What we have pled in these complaints are consistent with what you said, serious allegations of sexual abuse within an institution.

Ann Andrews [00:12:19] And the concerns that grow out of those pleadings and in the ways in which they're filed, appropriate under the requirements of law, are such that we can glean from the pleadings and from our investigation, our full investigation of these cases by an expert here sitting to my left, who was trained in this field and tried hundreds of these cases, that we believe that there is a policy, as reflected in the facts of each of the cases on file, that abuse is as reported to bishops and even higher up, not being reported to the constituent members of the congregations to protect their children, not being reported by not being reported to police or to law enforcement or to any outside organization that could charge these predators could protect the community and the congregants, the members of these organizations, these church organizations.

Ann Andrews [00:13:27] And that it is, in fact, consistently pled that these facts are hidden from public view and handled in a way that continues, that allows the abuse, the serious abuse of children to continue on a wholesale basis, which constitutes trafficking from child to child, from bishop to bishop. There's a very strong basis for the pleading in these cases that this is systemic abuse occurring within the church from policy at the very highest levels of the church and followed by bishops, as mandated by handbooks, by the institutional statements of how bishops are required to call a hotline if they receive a report of sexual abuse, they are required to not report it to police, law enforcement, or any other ways in which it would be stopped and prosecuted criminally.

Ann Andrews [00:14:31] And that because of that systemic abuse and because of that policy that is in place, every day has not changed. And I don't know when it started, but I'm sure it's been going on for some time. Children continue to be abused in this system of a religious organization that has a closed system. And when we talk about a closed system, what I'm implying is that when you don't have outsiders looking in and you don't have the places, the protections in place that are now instituted nationwide for the protection of children.

Ann Andrews [00:15:14] That mandated reporting, that constant investigation in vigilance, background checks, all the things that other youth organizations are doing and religions are doing to protect children from the predators that abound, even still to gain access to children. That when a closed system such as this institution allows this to continue without outside intervention, policing of their organization with standards that are in place now, it is the type of conduct that allows continued abuse and ongoing abuse of serious sexual assault to its victims. And they're largely children.

Ann Andrews [00:15:56] So we're here to talk about what we've pled. We're here to explain the context of our. Our methods and our. And our. Our pleadings, what they mean, what they will show, and how we will go forward with them.

John Dehlin [00:16:14] Thank you for that overview. And Kimberly, anything you want to add in terms of the Mormon church's systemic approach to abuse?

Kimberly Degonia [00:16:21] Historically, structurally, no, as Ann said, we've pled that.

John Dehlin [00:16:26] Okay.

Kimberly Degonia [00:16:26] This is the systemic approach in dozens of complaints that we've just filed over the past two weeks.

John Dehlin [00:16:31] Okay. Kolby, want to give you a chance to add anything contextually before we jump into the Bussey case.

Understanding Human Trafficking in This Context

Kolby Reddish [00:16:38] Yeah, I think before we jump into the Bussey case, I actually just have a question, Kimberly, since you're the subject matter expert in this field and mentioned that these complaints, or several of these complaints are premised off of the charge of trafficking, the civil claim of trafficking, can you explain just at a high level, what that would entail so that as people listen to the facts in the Bussey case, they can have that. That context?

Kimberly Degonia [00:17:02] Sure. So the human trafficking statute is a relatively newer statute that's been implemented in the past couple decades. So unfortunately, when the statute opened up in California, a lot of those older victims were. Were unable to be afforded the opportunity to bring the sex trafficking allegations. Brandon Bussey's complaint was pled human trafficking for several different reasons, but one of the most important being the knowing beneficiary liability, which basically puts the church's organization on notice and holds them accountable for these causes of action. And because Brandon Bussey's case, the conduct is so recent, they are able to plead these causes of action.

Kolby Reddish [00:17:49] Okay, so if I'm understanding you correctly, because when people hear trafficking, they may have like, a layperson's definition of what they think that means.

John Dehlin [00:17:56] What.

Kolby Reddish [00:17:57] What are some significant hallmarks they should look for as we walk through some of the facts in the complaint that help illustrate that this is trafficking and that this liability attaches to the church?

Kimberly Degonia [00:18:08] It's kind of what Ann mentioned A little bit ago. It's the systemic constant covering up. It's facts that lend themselves to a victim being sexually assaulted within an organization. And within that organization, they have knowledge. They have direct knowledge, indirect knowledge. They have a duty to care for the child. And with that knowledge, the organization does nothing. They continue to implement practices and policies that do not allow the victim to report to law enforcement. They don't encourage the abuser to be held accountable by law enforcement. They knowingly cover up a predator and do not protect the children with whom they are interacting with. These types of patterns that you see emerging over years and years can start to raise red flags as to whether or not this is sex trafficking.

Kimberly Degonia [00:19:01] When the organization is then on top of covering up that sex abuse, obtaining some type of benefit, such as, you know, positive reputation, positive member membership, growing membership, because these secrets per se are being kept within the organization, such as child molesters.

Ann Andrews [00:19:26] Yeah. Let me add to that, if that's okay. So it's a great question, Kolby, and the reason why the federal sex trafficking statute was enacted in 2016. So this is a federal law, and we pled it under the federal law because it's a systemic type of conduct that you think of when you think of a RICO type of claim. The kind of conduct that constitutes an agreed upon series of transgressions by an institution that constitute criminal conduct, which is set in a civil setting for using children in a way that is trafficking them for the benefit of an organization. And when we mean trafficking, we're talking about the serial abuse of multiples of children governed by the policies institute above them within the church.

Ann Andrews [00:20:18] So when you're allowing multiple victims to be trafficked within a closed organization, it is considered trafficking in the sense that these children aren't being protected. This is conduct that is clearly criminal to know and cover up acts of sexual abuse to children. We have pled them in a civil setting. We are civil lawyers. But the human sex trafficking statute is broadly interpreted across all of all different kinds of trafficking. We have multiple states involved, we have numerous bishops involved, we have policy coming from. Think of it as a corporate structure from the highest levels of a corporation up to its board that are implemented and forced down upon its members that constitute an enterprise that constitutes, that results in trafficking and the trafficking of children.

Ann Andrews [00:21:10] The movement from children across state lines, the benefit that these, that these churches are from hiding these predators is all pled in these complaints very accurately and will be the subject of the ongoing litigation.

Kolby Reddish [00:21:26] No, thank you very much. I think that context is very important. So can we, John, can we discuss now the facts of the Bussey case, at least as in the complaint?

Ann Andrews [00:21:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:36] And if it's okay, I'll just begin with what I know, which is that, I mean, this is what I remember. So around 1997, 98, Margi and I moved to the Issqua 3rd Ward on the Klahani Plateau, Sabamish Plateau in Klahani. And as I remember correctly, Phil Bussey was the bishop at the time. Margi and I actually remember when Peyton.

John Dehlin [00:21:59] So. So my memory is that the. The Phil and Kathy Bussy have two children, Brandon and one other child. I'm not going to name that child. No, no sense in naming that other child. And that they wanted more children. So at some point I remember them adopting a child from Russia and bringing the child into the ward. I believe we were there when the child was introduced to the ward. His name's Peyton.

John Dehlin [00:22:27] And you know, at some point, Phil was no longer bishop. But we knew that Phil Bussey ended up either either first in the state presidency or in the Stake High Council. But, you know, we knew that eventually he ended up as a stake president in kind of the Bellevue, Washington kind of area.

John Dehlin [00:22:47] And you know, and then I heard later and, well, this is where you all pick up. This is. I heard later that he ended up being an area authority for the Mormon Church, which if you think about the Mormon Church, you know, you know, there's a prophet, a first presidency of two counselors and the prophet, and then the Quorum of the twelve Apostles. Then the next highest level of leadership for those who are never Mormon are these seven quorums of 70 men that lead the church. And so Phil Bussey eventually, as I understand it was called as an area authority kind of over the Washington or, you know, sort of Pacific Northwest area.

John Dehlin [00:23:22] I'm not sure exactly the jurisdiction of his calling, but as an area authority for the Mormon Church, that's like a step under general authority. So we're now talking about one of the top 400 most powerful leaders in the Mormon Church by the time, you know, Phil Bussey becomes an area authority. And you know, we have to remind everyone the Mormon Church isn't this small, little high demand religion like Scientology, worth a couple billion.

John Dehlin [00:23:50] As if that's small. The Mormon Church currently is estimated to be worth somewhere above $250 billion. I've tried to rank the Morm Church if it were a Fortune 500 company, and I'm pretty sure it ranks somewhere in the top 100 most wealthy organizations in the United States.

John Dehlin [00:24:07] So it's a super rich, powerful, global multinational corporation that is also a church, but it is a corporation. And Phil Bussy was one of the top, I'd say four or five hundred leaders in that multinational global corporation. So that's where my experience drops off. Other than that, as I mentioned, Brandon and I, before any of this came out, Brandon and I met last year just because he was going through his own stuff and wanted to talk and we knew each other. So let's now pick up the facts of the Bussey case from where your amazing timeline begins.

The Bussey Family Case Explained

Kimberly Degonia [00:24:44] So Brandon Bussey, his family, they are our clients. We represent him in this lawsuit. And you're correct, the story picks up in 2010 where we have Phil, his father in Bellevue, Washington as working towards the mission presidency. They adopt Peyton. In 2014, Peyton has his first as pled in the complaint. Indiscretion with kind of a sexual encounter with, with a minor. And now Peyton is still a minor at this time.

John Dehlin [00:25:16] I think that was 2012. Is that right?

Kimberly Degonia [00:25:18] 2012. Correct. And then in 2014, the case continues. He is convicted as a registered sex offender as a result of sexually abusing another child at a swim meet.

John Dehlin [00:25:32] Yeah. And that was in Kalani at a swim meet.

Kolby Reddish [00:25:35] Apparently.

John Dehlin [00:25:35] He lures a couple kids into the woods. Some very disturbing things happen as he's kind of a 14 year old.

Kimberly Degonia [00:25:44] Right?

John Dehlin [00:25:44] Right.

Kimberly Degonia [00:25:45] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:25:46] And. And parents find out and complain. So as early as 14 years old, Phil and Kathy Bussey and I presume the Mormon church know that they've got a sexual abuser as a 14 year old in their ward and stake.

Kimberly Degonia [00:26:00] Correct. And at the same time that Peyton is going through this criminal process for these children that he's lured at the swim meet, he also discloses to Phil and Kathy, Peyton does that he has sexually touched Brandon's new infant at this point in time, at some point between the ages of 0 and 6 months

John Dehlin [00:26:19] old, this would be Phil and Kathy's grandson, Correct? Yeah.

Kimberly Degonia [00:26:24] So at this time in 2014, the church is on notice via Phil that he had. Peyton has been convicted of sexually touching children, a swim meet and now their grandchild who's just an infant. When Phil and Kathy presented this to Brandon as pled in the complaint, it's. It's kind of like a dismissive conversation that Peyton is trying to figure out his sexual identity, his sexual preferences, that it's not really child molestation. It's really his journey of whether he is a homosexual or whether he's not. And they're helping him through this journey in a loving, caring way and dismissed it with Brandon and his wife as nothing to be concerned about.

John Dehlin [00:27:08] Yeah, yeah. And that's a question that I, that I have had is like, how much did Brandon and his wife know and when did they know it? And that's so critical is just this instinct of a Mormon leader to downplay and dismiss behavior, to emphasize repentance and forgiveness and the atonement, but also to work really hard to protect the reputation of the church. Because what would it be if an area authority's son was revealed to be a sexual predator? Could that affect his mobility, upward mobility in the church? Could that affect the church's image? Could it become a scandal? So for all those reasons, there

John Dehlin [00:27:51] would be pressures applied to minimize the behavior not just to, you know, immediate family, but also to the surrounding members of the community, to the ward, to the stake, to people that would, that this son would have continued access to. And for all those reasons, that's, that's where it begins is the COVID up. Right.

Ann Andrews [00:28:12] Well, we don't, we don't. You know, as counsel to this family, we, we can appreciate your comments, John, about what the effect is of this conduct, but what the law requires is the protection of children. And the law requires it in every setting. And the law requires that children be protected by people and that their judgment about what should happen, particularly people of authority and people in leadership in any organization, be it a school, be it. Be a government, be a corporation, be it a youth organization, using any means, whether it's a religious purpose or a secular purpose, has no bearing on the fact that this is a violation of the laws that protect our children and each of them and all of them.

Ann Andrews [00:29:05] And that the continued systematic abuse of a child for whatever gain, as you pointed out, if that's the fact that he would have gained by doing this, is exactly what trafficking is, is designed to prevent that people who gain from the assault on children in the fashion that you describe, which I can't agree with or disagree with because I haven't established those facts. We'll take the depositions, we'll learn if they're shared, what the motive is, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that the systematic abuse of children within a closed organization constitutes trafficking of the child and the subsequent child and, and the child after that that will be, that will be harmed and abused by a predator.

Ann Andrews [00:29:52] And what often happens in these cases is the institution that's being pled about, about causing these harms to continue wants to blame the predator. Right? It's it's easy to blame the predator and a focus on the predator. And that's, that's a lot of the content that, that, you know, we as lawyers deal with is the blame on the predator. Wasn't us. It was a predator. These people are like sharks. They can't be controlled. We don't know where they are. Well, that's just not the facts. Trafficking is.

Ann Andrews [00:30:27] It disregards that. It's the conduct of the behavior of the institution, which you pointed out as a corporation, that condones it by the, by not stopping it. Whatever the benefit is, it's substantial, the way you've described it. I can imagine even more things will be discovered about what that might be. But what's limited, the pleadings right now are the trafficking of children by the failure to act responsibly and reasonably and violating the law. That's the essence of sex trafficking. Continual policy, a continuous policy that many, that affects many children. And when you pull the lens back from this case to many others, you'll see that this is a repeated practice, and it is coming from these quorums, these institutions that are allowing this.

Ann Andrews [00:31:19] So the church is not, or any institution, whether it be a corporation or a school or whatever closed system occurs, a private school, this can occur in. Trafficking of children is not limited to what we're pleading about this institution, but it is what has happened here because it's a consistent pattern across the country and perhaps across the world. But we're protecting, and we have the ability to protect through our justice system those children in this country, in this civil justice system, one of the greatest in the world.

John Dehlin [00:31:50] Kimberly, before we go on, Kolby, did you have a quick comment or question before we have. Kimberly, continue with the.

Kolby Reddish [00:31:55] I did, I did. I think, as, you know, someone who's grappled with cases like this before and looked at this issue and just wondered, how does this keep happening? I'll take off my legal hat for a second and just put on my, you know, lifelong member of the church hat for a second and just talk about how. I think, because people are going to hear those facts and wonder how in the world can anyone overlook the abuse of their own grandchild? You know, even if the other, even if the abuser, the victimizer is their son, how, how can they overlook that? And I think one thing that I think is important to understand is that in Mormonism, we are taught from a very, very early age to run away from hard feelings, from difficult topics.

Kolby Reddish [00:32:39] We're taught that talking about things like this are that they don't invite the spirit of God. That's something that I ran into when I was dealing with our local case here. And I think that's something that we see as a commonality throughout all of these cases. So as people are confused on how this can even happen in the first place, I think that's an important part of the conversation to keep in mind. This Mormon context that is, I think, very not unique to the church, but is something that makes these cases slightly unique, is that it may, you know, change the intent element. I'm not sure if we'll get into that later, Ann and Kimberly, but it's something that maybe you can speak to a little bit further, John, that as I've dealt with these cases and looked at the common factors, it's something this inability to sit with hard feelings or to discuss hard topics because they bring the spirit of contention or they don't invite the spirit, I think is something that supports this finding of it being a systemic issue over time. Even if the Church doesn't intend the results, because I don't think it does, the results keep happening as a result of this system.

Ann Andrews [00:33:47] Yeah, can I. Can I just pull back the lens to a non Mormon or non religious view of this? In every case that involves a predator and an organization, be it a school, be it a church, be it a youth organization, be it a Catholic church, there is always an excuse given for a purpose that somehow excuses the behavior to protect a predator. I don't care where you find it. I don't care where it happens, but when it happens and it is excused and it is covered up. And the rationale being, whatever Kolby has instructed us as, as part of his journey with this and an understanding of this institution has no bearing on how the law feels about it.

John Dehlin [00:34:41] Sure.

Ann Andrews [00:34:42] It's not. It's not. It's not available for excuse, and it is not allowable, and its conduct is reprehensible. And the people who do that continue the trafficking of children. So I refuse to sit in an interview like this and believe that there is not a reason to do it, that people who actually engage in this type of behavior. Not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I do not believe the people that do this are wound up in a belief system other than their own personal psychological defects that drive them to make decisions that harm children.

John Dehlin [00:35:32] I think that's one of the reasons we have y' all and Cody here is to Kolby here to make sure and provide the legal perspective. We're doing a bit of a dance because for our never Mormon listeners and for our newly questioning Mormon listeners, we want to help also provide some cultural context so y' all don't have to uphold anything that we might say as speculation or as our own cultural experience. Y' all can stick to the law and the facts and we'll provide some cultural analysis. Kolby, I was just going to add to what you said. I think there's a one, two punch of this teaching of the atonement and forgiveness that the church is just always eager to push forgiveness and Christ's atonement making all things healed and better.

John Dehlin [00:36:20] And again, I'll just say it. I think one of the motives for always relying on the atonement in Christ is that the church wants to protect its good name and it wants to protect itself from public scandals and from legal and financial exposure. And so I think those are all dynamics at play.

Kolby Reddish [00:36:36] So, yeah, I hope that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:36:39] Hope that's okay to say.

Kolby Reddish [00:36:40] Sorry, John, I just wanted to say one thing in response to Ant's point. I'm not at all attempting to explain away or excuse this behavior. I think I completely agree with everything you said. I'm more just looking at this from a Mormon lens and trying to analyze how exactly do otherwise good, you know, people who are bishops, who are members of their community, how do they get here? And I think that's an important part of the conversation. Maybe not on the legal side. That's why I insisted I take my legal hat off for a second and talk about it from the Mormon side.

Kolby Reddish [00:37:13] Kimberly, going back to the the Bussey case, you mentioned that as a result of this incident at the swim meet in 2012, maybe 2014, that Peyton Peyton was required to register as a sex offender. Correct. Can you explain, can you explain the significance of that and why it was so important as far as putting individuals on notice of Peyton's past behavior?

Kimberly Degonia [00:37:37] Sure, that's a great question. Being a registered sex offender, I don't know the laws in Washington or Utah. I dealt with registered sex offenders in California and holding them accountable. But in each state, the purpose is the same. It's to educate the community around you and let you know if you have a person who has been convicted of a child predatory criminal behavior that's contained within the penal code. And if that person lives as your neighbor, if they attend your church, if they live near the school your children walk to, it's to put the surrounding community on notice. You have a sex predator living among you and you want to take extra precautions. We're taking extra Precautions as the state by notifying you on this national database and as a result notice to the world. Right.

Ann Andrews [00:38:23] You know, it's not notice to the community of, you know, however many tens of thousands of people that live there. It's notice to anyone that can get access to protect all citizens. Those that don't live there now but might move there. Those that have concerns about predators living near their homes and what the laws in each state are about how far they can live from schools, what they have to do to report constantly the monitoring of them, even in some states, the critical monitoring of them to wear devices so that we know where they all at our times. These are animals. But the purpose of this law is so that all of us are protected from them.

Ann Andrews [00:39:04] So when a criminal prosecution such as Kimberly handled hundreds of affects this and an institution ignores it to the detriment of its very own members or undermines it. Undermines it. I, I will, I, I will repeat your word without agreeing with it.

John Dehlin [00:39:21] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [00:39:22] At this point, but I will say without requiring the same concern for the people who are at risk is the very fact of what trafficking is. They're not following the law. And, and it is a continuous systematic damage of children who are sexually assaulted because of these policies.

Parents Enable Son's Continued Access to Victims

John Dehlin [00:39:42] So maybe Kimberly, let's go to what Phil and Kathy did once their son was registered as a sex offender, maybe.

Kimberly Degonia [00:39:49] Right. So he was not only there's a level one, level two, level three sex offender registry in Washington and he was deemed a level two. So he's higher than the average low level sex offender. He's level two. Upon being charged, convicted and required to register as a sex offender not only in Washington, but also in Utah because Peyton, my understanding is he moved to Utah. One of our named defendants, which is Bishop Lyman, knowing that he's a current registered sex offender. After Kathy and Phil had spoke with the bishop, after Kathy and Phil had spoke with the the 70 quorum giving these facts, they proceed, they being Bishop Lyman, to ordain Payton as a registered sex offender into the priesthood.

John Dehlin [00:40:39] So he was ordained, I'm assuming a priest at age 16.

Kimberly Degonia [00:40:42] That's correct.

John Dehlin [00:40:43] End of the year he wasn't excommunicated.

Kimberly Degonia [00:40:44] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:40:45] I was excommunicated for doing a podcast. Hayden was not excommunicated for molesting a child and instead he was promoted eventually as a priest in the Aaronic priesthood.

Kimberly Degonia [00:40:56] Molesting two children, mind you, the child that he was convicted for, but also let's not forget Brandon's son at the age of 0 to 6 months.

John Dehlin [00:41:03] Yeah. And that signals to the entire congregation and the stake that this kid's repented, he's clean, he's safe, but they probably didn't know he was a perpetrator to begin with.

Ann Andrews [00:41:13] Well, and can we go back a step? So, Kimberly, one of the things we talked about that we would be sensitive to your listeners or viewers that we're not going to describe in graphic detail what happened. I think it's worth, Kimberly, describing in the way we lawyers do to each other and to protect our clients and to protect children. But this, this Peyton and the level of sexual abuse that he engaged in with these victims was what, Kimberly, how do you describe how you describe what high level means of the, of the ways in which we think of, you know, the kinds of crimes committed and sexual assault to children?

Ann Andrews [00:41:53] The highest level being the, the most un, the most unthinkable thing you could do to a child without mentioning, with graphic detail, you know, what that is. It involves the highest level of the most damaging, the most horrible thing a child can attempt to recover from and can cause, and often does cause a lifetime of pain, a lifetime of trouble and psychological consequences that are borne out through many, many ways documented by psychological studies. I don't think I have to convince your viewers that the damage to a child done at this age is extraordinary and continues forever.

Kimberly Degonia [00:42:34] And when gauging levels of sex abuse, you know, in the criminal justice system across all states, it's very important to hone in on the age in which the abuser victimizes. Victimizing an infant, 0 to 6 months is a high, high level of next level sex offender. When you're going after victims who are in the young, kindergarten, five, six, seven year old range, that is very, very young. That is very, very concerning, that you're committing the highest level of sexual abuse on the youngest member of our society. And in terms of rehabilitation, terms of accountability in the criminal justice system, that's the highest levels of convictions you can receive, the highest level of penalty you can receive within the penal code. And that's what we have here with Peyton.

John Dehlin [00:43:25] Yeah. And this is just when he's 14 to 16, correct?

Kolby Reddish [00:43:28] Yeah, well, and that was going to be one of my questions I had for you, Kimberly, is from your past experience. So Peyton was. So basically he had some type of, I'm sure it was some type of like pre sentence report or post sentence report that categorized him as a level two sex offender. You said in your experience, how often is that designation reached for a 14 year old offender? And then my follow up question would be what, what from your experience and your knowledge of the relevant psychological subject matter would indicate that someone like that is even capable of rehabilitation?

Kimberly Degonia [00:44:09] That's a good question, Kolby. I think across all 50 states dealing with juveniles who commit crimes, it's a very sensitive topic. Criminal justice system wants to see the minors, the juveniles reform if they have been criminally convicted of any crime. However, it's clear that they take sexual predators, whether you're a juvenile or not, very serious. Because they're forcing sex offender registration upon Peyton. Now, as he moves and he becomes older, he doesn't stop the abuse, he doesn't stop the victimization of the same level, the same, you know, type of victim, which is concerning. And there's no indication that he has been rehabilitated from this. There are, there's no level of information that we have that Peyton moves away from that behavior. And it was kind of just a juvenile acting out after he was registered as a sex offender.

John Dehlin [00:45:07] But I also don't want to miss the point that according to your, you know, my understanding, Kathy and Phil worked to get his classification reduced from level two to level one, which to me feels like it endangers the community by trying to minimize and downplay and reduce his level of registry. Is that correct?

Kimberly Degonia [00:45:32] That's correct. We have information that they did work to reduce his level of registration down to level one. What I don't have is the knowledge of whether that was successful or not. The knowledge that I have and what we've pled in our complaint is that while he was still a registered sex offender, there was a six month overlap where he was registering as a sex offender, that he was ordained into the priesthood. And that is the information that we have surrounding that while actively working to reduce it to level one.

John Dehlin [00:45:57] And as a parent, I can understand wanting to help your kid heal and wanting to protect your kid. I can't understand having a total disregard for your warden state community by not letting them know and by conversely promoting them to a priest, a sacred priesthood ordinance and a sacred priesthood status when they're a known level 2 sex offender and then working to reduce their level in the register so that that could endanger community members. I just, I don't understand. I can understand loving and trying to help your kid. I can't understand endangering the community, but it continues. So what happens after, after that?

Kimberly Degonia [00:46:38] So from 2017, he becomes a priest in the Mormon Church. We don't know the facts between 2017 and 2018, but we know that there is something going on with Peyton's sexual

John Dehlin [00:46:55] misconduct, can I add, was just one thing.

Kimberly Degonia [00:46:58] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:46:58] So I think it was around 2014, where he was ordained the priest in the Aaronic priesthood. Just. It's just so. Almost just a playbook textbook. In 2015, he shipped to Utah to go to one of those rehabilitation centers. I don't know if it was a wilderness camp, but just like so many other people we've interviewed, they don't know what to do with this kid, so they ship him to Utah because Utah has really lax laws on troubled teens. And he goes to one of these troubled teen centers to be rehabilitated, you know, in 2015.

Ann Andrews [00:47:37] Hey, John, can I just add something to. For your viewers?

John Dehlin [00:47:41] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [00:47:41] You know, John's adding his perspective and knowledge about various things that we don't know as lawyers. Right. We. What we do with a complaint is we use the law to frame the issues into a legal document that gets filed on a docket.

Ann Andrews [00:47:57] But I think it would behoove us to tell your viewers that the process of a lawsuit starts with a complaint, a charging document, which is what we have here, and then the process unfolds. It's called discovery. So to be fair to the system and to be. To have integrity and a view of integrity toward it, there will be discovery. And discovery in the legal sense is questions we will ask. Gaps will be filled. The knowledge that Kim is saying we don't know what happened between here and there, we will ask what happened. We will determine what happened. The facts will be explored, discovered, and answered under the guidelines of law, which are under penalty of perjury, the church and whoever we subpoena to answer the questions.

Ann Andrews [00:48:45] All the people you've mentioned and people beyond that will have to explain to us and explain to our client and this family what those gaps are and what happened. The why of it will be explained, and it will be all governed by a system of laws of fair play to. For the plaintiff people to an illegal proceeding, understand the facts and develop them to be presented at trial. So we're not there yet.

John Dehlin [00:49:09] Sure.

Ann Andrews [00:49:09] We came here to talk about what we've pled.

John Dehlin [00:49:11] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [00:49:12] And we're happy to. We're happy to listen to any things that hopefully stepping. Oh, no, I don't mean to suggest that, but I just want to always bring it back to what we know as lawyers.

John Dehlin [00:49:23] Yeah, sure.

Ann Andrews [00:49:24] Because that's our process.

John Dehlin [00:49:27] So they ship him off to Utah.

Kimberly Degonia [00:49:28] Correct. What happens next while he's in Utah? It's our understanding that the church begins to speak with Phil about becoming the mission President in Spain. He's now speaking directly to the first or second quorum about the issues with Peyton. We have the information pled that at this point, the church tells him, you need to figure out this stuff with Peyton before we can send you off to Spain. However, Phil and his wife are still actively inviting Mormon families into their home, with Peyton now being present to give blessings, which maybe you or Kolby can expand upon that to young children. My understanding is that happens one time in a child's life in the Mormon Church.

Church Leadership Calls and Concealment of Offenses

John Dehlin [00:50:09] So, yeah, I think what you're referring to is when he eventually was caught called as a stake patriarch. But I'm not clear whether he was called as a state patriarch after he was a mission president or before. But even as a stake president or as an area authority, I'm sure Phil and Kathy would entertain families in their home. And again, if they're. If they're trying to reduce or eliminate him being on a registry, if they're trying to minimize and hide his predatory behaviors, if they're promoting him within the priesthood, clearly they're not letting members of the warden stake in area know that a predator is living with them.

John Dehlin [00:50:51] And whenever they have guests at the home, they're not letting people know, make sure your kid doesn't go to the bathroom, because my son may be waiting for them in the bathroom. And that's the type of predator he appeared to have been. So in that sense, a real dereliction of responsibility.

Kimberly Degonia [00:51:09] That's correct. And the same fact pattern that we saw in the Jared Jones case that we've alleged on that complaint as well. Yeah, very similar facts.

John Dehlin [00:51:15] Yeah.

Kimberly Degonia [00:51:16] So by 20.

John Dehlin [00:51:17] So he's in waiting to be called as a mission president until he can wrap up this inconvenient thing with the son.

Kimberly Degonia [00:51:24] Correct.

Kolby Reddish [00:51:24] And can I ask a question about that, Kimberly? Which is one thing I'm curious about is, and I absolutely agree with everything Ann said about the discovery process and trusting that process. I'm curious what, if any, indication you have before the mission president calling that Phil and Kathy receive that the church was like, on direct notice of Peyton's past behavior. So far, have you uncovered any facts that show that Phil was directly discussing this with the church, or is the theory at this point really more premised on constructive notice through Peyton's sex offender registration?

John Dehlin [00:51:59] Well, they're chatting. While they're chatting, I'll just say Phil was a leader of the church. He was an area authority. So that's what's weird about this, is he was the church. Right. So, I mean, you could say, how much did Phil let people above him know? But you don't get much higher than Phil.

Ann Andrews [00:52:17] Right. So. So the reason. The. The reason, Kolby, I just want to take a pause here is because, you know, the system is an excellent one,

John Dehlin [00:52:28] and the legal system.

Ann Andrews [00:52:29] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:52:29] Okay. Which system?

Ann Andrews [00:52:32] Our civil justice system is the best in the world.

John Dehlin [00:52:35] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [00:52:35] I mean, all systems have flaws, but I am a very big believer in it. I uphold it every day. I believe in the system of justice here that is not afforded in other countries. It simply isn't available. The right to a jury trial in the seventh Amendment, that's guaranteed to this family and to all of our clients.

Ann Andrews [00:52:58] So while we can talk about, you know, what might happen if. Or what was known, I think that the way that we want to approach this case is to learn and to discover with testimony and with facts that are coming through the legal system.

Ann Andrews [00:53:16] We know from our client we have an obligation, and we fulfill that obligation of investigation. And we're sitting next to a pro. I mean, she was head of a very large counties sex crime, sex trafficking division for years.

Ann Andrews [00:53:31] We know things that happened, but in order for us to verify them and to be able to say with certainty what. What some. What more facts happened, I think to be fair to the process and. And that it is a new process, maybe we could talk more about things that are really well understood about this.

Kolby Reddish [00:53:51] Okay.

Ann Andrews [00:53:51] And you're leading the conversation very well, but I just want to be very restrained.

John Dehlin [00:53:55] That's good.

Ann Andrews [00:53:55] As lawyers.

John Dehlin [00:53:56] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [00:53:57] That it's a system of fairness and the other side isn't here.

John Dehlin [00:54:00] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [00:54:01] And I'm sure we'll. It's a public. It's a public. It's not a closed debate. It's not a closed process. These. These pleadings and the things we're going to talk about today are on file. They're. They're in full view of the public. Because it's a public process.

John Dehlin [00:54:16] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [00:54:16] Which is another guarantee of our constitution that's also a public trial.

John Dehlin [00:54:20] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [00:54:21] So.

John Dehlin [00:54:22] So, Kolby, we may not be able to talk about all that. We may or may not know yet. Anything else you wanted to follow up, Kolby, before we keep going, I just

Kolby Reddish [00:54:31] want to highlight there was an excellent comment from Floodlet, who we gave a shout out to earlier in the episode that you may want to pull up, John. They say that on Floodlet's website they have court documents from Washington showing Peyton's requirement to register as a sex offender was terminated in 2017. That case was sealed between 2017 and 2024. And then reopened because Peyton was newly charged. So, Anna, Kimberly, I won't ask you to comment on that, aside from just to say Floodlit's letting people know that they can go look at those documents themselves that they've gotten access to.

John Dehlin [00:55:03] So. So not only were Phil and Kathy attempting to reduce or eliminate him being listed on the registry, every attempt was made to seal off, you know, any access to these records.

Kimberly Degonia [00:55:16] Well, in all fairness, yeah. Juvenile records are by default seals because they are juveniles.

John Dehlin [00:55:22] Okay, okay, okay.

Ann Andrews [00:55:24] I mean that. And that, you know, the difference between rehabilitation of someone who has a psychological issue with sexual experiences with children is an attempt at rehabilitation. So we'll learn how the family thought about it. Whether, as Kolby suggested, what. Or as some other. Whatever their statements are about what they did with full knowledge will be held. They'll be held to answer for.

John Dehlin [00:55:51] Yeah. Okay. All right. Keep. Keep going.

Church Involvement and the Flight to Spain

Kimberly Degonia [00:55:55] So I think what's important for purposes of our case and how we pled our complaint for the Bussey family is that Brandon Bussey, as John Doe's father, remain kind of in the dark. He was unaware his brother was being required to be a registered sex offender. He was unaware of what the conduct was. And we've pled that very specifically in our complaint. He just didn't know. He really thought it had been taken care of and didn't find out until later all of this other communications amongst his parents in the church were actually going on.

John Dehlin [00:56:27] He trusted his parents.

Kimberly Degonia [00:56:28] He trusted his parents. And so when 2019 came to fruition, and his parents are now mission presidents in Madrid, Spain, and they invite Peyton and Brandon, along with his children and his family, to come out and visit for the holidays. To Brandon, it was. That's fantastic. The church is going to pay for us to fly to Madrid, Spain, to see our president, our parents who are serving as mission presidents. And that, in fact, is what he did. And that is where the second round of sexual abuse of his child began, was in Madrid, Spain, with Peyton.

John Dehlin [00:57:07] Okay. And should we just talk about that?

Kimberly Degonia [00:57:11] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:57:11] I mean.

Ann Andrews [00:57:12] I mean, they've moved a child out of the country who's now abused out of the view of American authorities. And one of the concepts of trafficking is that this is the type of thing that occurs on a basis and well known to these people what they were doing. And without the protections of even the American justice system, he's now in Spain being abused. So we're certainly not experts on what Spain would do about all this, but whether they would have jurisdiction over it if they had even reported it or not, or have the chance to report it. We don't know if the story has even, and we can't speculate and won't, but there will be a discussion about what happened in Spain under the context of law and through a penalty of perjury testimony.

John Dehlin [00:58:00] But from reading the complaint, the allegations are that Hayden abused this child again, you know, and that he was flown there by the church, correct?

Kimberly Degonia [00:58:15] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:58:15] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [00:58:16] Can you talk, Kimberly, about the significance of the fact that the church, at least as alleged so far, paid for the tickets and flew Brandon and his family to Spain? Why is that so important from the legal theory as the case has been pleaded?

John Dehlin [00:58:32] Hayden, Right. Peyton or Brandon.

Kolby Reddish [00:58:33] I'm sorry. Well, both. The church actually would have paid for both. But I'm wondering if Kimberly can speak to that Christmas flight in December of 2019, and why the church paying for that flight, at least is alleged in the complaint is such a significant fact for their theory of the case, the trafficking statute?

Ann Andrews [00:58:52] Well, we're going to struggle with that answer because they're going to have to answer why that happened and why you would move a child out of the country. And knowing that the expectation that you're putting a child in harm's way is something that we'll discover. But to speculate, other than the obvious, the child is now away from American authorities. There is no protection there from what happened in Washington. And the ability, you know, are they required in Spain to report to the Spanish authorities that they brought a predator into their country? These are all very heavy issues because sex trafficking is an international crime. It is monitored by many, many international organizations. It's an epidemic in our society. And this knowing act of moving a predator into another country is going to be discussed at a very serious level with consequences and penalty of perjury for the testimony and responses.

Kimberly Degonia [00:59:54] And, Kolby, I think that's a great question. That's exactly what the jury's going to need to decide. Why is that important that the Mormon Church paid for the tickets, housed the family in their mansion in Madrid versus just Kathy and Phil paying for it as mom and dad? I think that's a great fact that the jury's going to have to weigh.

Kolby Reddish [01:00:13] Yeah. And I'll just say I can't tell if the fact that I keep asking questions that make Ann hesitant means I'm a very good attorney or a very bad. But it's one of the two.

Ann Andrews [01:00:24] I think we know that in this type of a discussion, your probing of us is worthy of. Of note that we are, as I said, in the beginning, we're here to talk about the facts as alleged, now that we know that are contained in pleadings that are publicly filed about what happened to this family. But we're going to try and we're going to maintain that the justice system will do its. Do its best. And we will see to it, Chondelin, that it does its best to reveal the facts and to be sure that the accountability of the church at what the facts show and what a jury will find are. Are. Are the future. Right. This is the beginning.

John Dehlin [01:01:10] Yeah. Can I ask, does motive matter? Let's just say it's a fact that the church flew Paiden to Spain. Does their motive in flying him there matter as it relates to the federal trafficking statute or not? The intent, in other words? Let's just say there's a spectrum of horror of intent. And the most horrible place on the spectrum is they wanted Paden to have a new victim and so they intentionally fly him to Spain so that he can have a new victim or re. Reabuse a previous victim. That's like the worst case scenario of intent or motive. Or let's just say they didn't know at

John Dehlin [01:01:54] all the people that made that decision and they're just like trying to help a mission president's family get together over the holidays and they didn't even know that he was. Was a perpetrator. Does that at all matter in. In. In a federal trafficking sort of case? And to what extent does it matter?

Kimberly Degonia [01:02:17] It's a spectrum. That's a great question.

Ann Andrews [01:02:19] Right.

Kimberly Degonia [01:02:19] The motive. Absolutely. If we can prove that and we have facts to support that, that was the motive the moment they got on the plane. Child was going to be sexually abused. Correct. But let's we go back to 2014, and that's where the motive and intent really begin and the pattern and practice that emerges. Knowing that you're exposing the mission president's young minor children to be in close quarters with a sexual predator. And what benefit did the church receive from making it appear that it was just a mission president's family getting together versus a tarnished reputation for the church? So motive is a sliding scale that is heightened along the way with facts. Not so much on other years, but it's a sliding scale that is consistent from the beginning until the end of the abuse.

Ann Andrews [01:03:09] So what I would say is if you think of motive and intent as a difference, as more of a criminal type of proceeding. So intent is required for many kinds of crimes. We have the concept of grossly negligent.

Kimberly Degonia [01:03:22] Right.

Ann Andrews [01:03:22] That can be a criminal kind of negligence. If you think of someone who gets behind the wheel horribly drunk and does horrible things with a vehicle, people lose lives. But in the trafficking statute, it's the action. It's the facts of what was done. The intent will be important to. Facts to share with a jury, but it's. It's what was done as much as what was intended to do. Because the consequences of moving predators around and having them be abused by other. Having them be available. Having other children be available for abuse and covering it up.

John Dehlin [01:04:02] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [01:04:03] Not managing it, not controlling it, not acting reasonably, not following the law. Those are the things that. That the trafficking statute focuses on. But what you're suggesting is certainly an absolutely horrible thought that if. But it's all an if, and I'll leave it at that.

John Dehlin [01:04:21] The most. The most likely scenario that I would speculate would be that they knew that, you know, the. The high church leaders knew that Paden was. Was a convicted abuser and that they irresponsibly allowed him to go there, knowing that. That this was a. A likely possibility. That. So it's. It's somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. But I guess I'm saying if there's just neglect is, like, outrageous neglect, potentially enough to trigger a federal trafficking conviction. And maybe you don't even know or. But that's. That's what came to my mind as, like, something that this case may or may not turn on.

Ann Andrews [01:05:03] All of these facts and all these aspects of the law and its application to this case is a very serious matter, and it will be heavily litigated. That I can promise you. There are a lot of things I can't promise you today and won't, but that I can promise you.

John Dehlin [01:05:17] Yeah, I got that. Okay. So anything else you want to say about Spain before we.

Kolby Reddish [01:05:23] Well, I. Just so that it's clear, since we haven't, like, read from the complaint, a few facts that stood out to me. And, Kimberly, please correct me if I'm wrong. So aside from the incident involving John Doe, the. The victim and survivor here, in this case, Brandon's son, this was the first incident of abuse since the incident where he was between zero and six months old, If I understood that correctly, I

John Dehlin [01:05:47] would say first known.

Kolby Reddish [01:05:49] First known.

Ann Andrews [01:05:50] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:05:50] And first alleged. Can you also maybe explain the victim's age when this behavior started in Spain? And then the other thing that stood out to me is this is where some grooming behavior between Peyton and his nephew starts. Can you explain the significance of that and why it's important to your case.

Kimberly Degonia [01:06:11] Sure. So the grooming, I believe, occurred back when he was an infant, 0 to 6 months. While the client probably does not recall that the behavior and the techniques and infiltrating as a friend, as the fun uncle began long before they ever got to Spain. Spain is the first memory that our client has being sexually abused. And there was a few incidents there before they flew back to Utah. And then when they arrived in Utah, it continued for several more years.

Ann Andrews [01:06:47] Our.

Kimberly Degonia [01:06:47] Our client was in between the ages of 6 and 8 years old.

John Dehlin [01:06:54] Yeah. Any other. Does that answer your question, Kolby?

Kolby Reddish [01:06:58] Yeah, it does.

John Dehlin [01:06:59] Okay. Okay. So the more abuse happens in Spain, what happens next?

Kimberly Degonia [01:07:06] They come back from that vacation, Both Peyton and the busies, Brandon, his wife and the kids, come back to Utah, where, again, Brandon is unaware that his brother has this serious issue, that he continues to have the serious issues. And so to him, it's normal family business comes over to hang out the grooming. I guess you could argue, Kolby, to answer your question, in Utah, he would bring these. He being Peyton, would bring these blankets over to the house to create forts. So it looked to everybody at the house that, what a fun uncle. He's making these fun forts. But inside the fort is where a lot of the sexual abuse would occur. That proceeded until 2023, when our client, the miner, was able to articulate in detail what happened. And the criminal charges were filed against Peyton in Utah in 2023. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:08:00] Yeah. And that's when, as I understand it, Brandon kind of first confronts his parents and. And says this is happening. And. And, you know, and that's when the, you know, the family relations start being really challenged at that point.

Kimberly Degonia [01:08:16] Point. That's my understanding as well.

John Dehlin [01:08:18] Yeah. Okay, so. But that, unfortunately, that's not where it ends. Right. So charges are filed in. In Utah in 2023 by Brandon against Peyton, his parents, Phil and Kathy Bussy, and then also a bishop who is involved. Is that right?

Kimberly Degonia [01:08:35] So there's two things going on in the civil suit that our firm has filed against the Mormon Church. Yes. We have named Brandon's parents, Phil and Kathy Bussy, as well as Bishop Lyman, in the civil suit that we've just filed. A couple.

John Dehlin [01:08:48] Yeah.

Kimberly Degonia [01:08:49] Simultaneous prior to the civil suit being filed. It's my understanding that the criminal courts in Utah filed criminal charges against Peyton for the conduct that was committed in Utah against Brandon's son from Utah. It's my understanding that Peyton then goes to Washington while he's awaiting the criminal trial process here in Utah and is also charged in Washington state for a different victim in 2024.

Kolby Reddish [01:09:18] Kimberly, as someone who's transitioned from trying these cases as a prosecutor on behalf of the state and now is in a different system, still trying to achieve justice through the civil system, can you talk about the significance and maybe the. The legal effect of those criminal actions in Utah? Do they affect the civil case? Maybe just talk about the idea of judicial notice for the listeners.

Kimberly Degonia [01:09:43] Sure. That case, the criminal case in Utah is still pending. So as far as judicial notice, we're unable really to have any effect in the civil case because it would be unfair. Right. He hasn't been convicted criminally of that. Those charges.

Kimberly Degonia [01:09:59] If and when he is convicted criminally of those charges, yes, we could take judicial notice. A criminal conviction for sexually assaulting our client would weigh heavily, I believe, on a civil jury in trying to decipher what happened and whether or not this incident occurred. You know, that's the number one thing that every poor victim and survivor of sexual assault faces, whether you're in a civil trial or a criminal trial. It's that first milestone of, did it even happen? Do you even believe this kid? And so to have a criminal jury with a beyond a reasonable doubt standard or judge say, yes, he's convicted, it happened, I think that gives a lot of credibility to the victim and the survivor here in civil court. So it's kind of all three of these trials or these proceedings are happening simultaneously in three different states regarding pain.

Ann Andrews [01:10:50] But I think what Cole, I think what Kolby's asking is the concept of judicial notice for the viewers, that when there's a criminal trial and it's been established that facts are established, that a crime occurred and that that is entered as a criminal verdict against that person, the secondary court, meaning the civil court or any subsequent court can accept those facts as proven. In other words, they're not challengeable. We don't have to go into a court and retry everything that a criminal court found this person was criminally, criminally responsible for, criminally liable for. So those facts become proven, and the judge, through a judicial notice process that's available in all 50 states, can accept those facts as true, and so instruct the jury. Is that what you were looking for, Kolby?

Kolby Reddish [01:11:46] Yeah. So if I'm understanding your answers, together, the criminal convictions and the criminal matters are going to have a lot of relevance, a world of relevance to these civil cases. But those. Those cases are still pending. And so it won't be proper for a court to take judicial notice of those facts as found by the juries in those cases or if there's a guilty plea, however they exactly resolve. We're just not at that stage yet.

Ann Andrews [01:12:12] If I'm understanding and in fairness to the system, having tried cases with Kimberly, with such things as criminal convictions and complaints that were criminally charged, you know, we, we are not even allowed to comment on them. The protection of the, of, of the case from the comment that there's even a criminal proceeding is not allowable. So you're not allowed to prejudice a case with a criminal proceeding. You, this is a fairness process here. I believe that, you know, it's going to be some time before whatever happens in the current criminal proceeding will likely be concluded by the time of the civil trial because we're going to talk about the procedure of what we've done to bring these cases to justice in a forum and in a special way.

Church Discipline and Failure to Act on Abusers

John Dehlin [01:13:09] Thank you for that. Let me just. Maybe this is the time to revisit this idea of the state patriarch. So if Phil Bussey was a mission president, let's just say in 2018, he, his three year calling would have ended around 2021 and then the church would have wanted to give him a new calling. And so I'm guessing that he was called as a state patriarch somewhere around 2021, 2022. But I'm speculating, but that's just kind of how often these things work.

John Dehlin [01:13:43] But what, what I'm aware of is that part of what was very disturbing maybe to Brandon was that not only did all of this happen when Phil was an area authority and then a mission president, now the church has given him another very sacred high profile calling, Stake Patriarch. And it's the Stake Patriarch's job literally to bring families into his and Kathy's home on, I would say a weekly basis and to have grandparents, parents and young children all there gathered together so that their teenage child can have sort of this formative, once in a lifetime patriarchal blessing by the patriarch.

John Dehlin [01:14:27] And, and this is while Peyton is now living in the Bussy home. And you know, as I understand it, aside from all the, the valid reasons to file a lawsuit, I would imagine Brandon was particularly disturbed by the fact that these children are now continually brought into the Bussy home with paid in present by again a high level church leader to be continually exposed to now a repeatedly known, repeated sexual predator with what I would say would be reckless disregard for the safety of these Mormon families in the Seattle area who probably had no idea that they were visiting a home to get a sacred priesthood church blessing with a predator in their midst. That was probably lurking in the bathrooms, I'm guessing, or upstairs or wherever, potentially luring children to be potential victims. So.

Ann Andrews [01:15:32] Well, and John, your description of that and how we pled it in the complaint, I think it's worth mentioning that this is not an isolated event. What we're going to talk about, you know, in the, in the next part of this is, but I want to reference it now is this is a story that we have received and investigated from many families and that a predator sitting, a known predator in this case, convicted in other cases excommunicated, with bishops performing rituals in homes while children are living there that are being allowed, even as excommunicated by bishops to have access to children without telling the families that there is a excommunicated sexual predator in their home.

Ann Andrews [01:16:30] And then what happens is exactly as you've described. That is the essence of the trafficking complaint that we filed. This is happening in many ways and many instances across the country. And that children are being trafficked for the benefit of the church and at the expense of their entire lives in ways that are ongoing and serially even after the first victim complains to the bishop to stop it. And I'm repeating facts that are found in other complaints. I just want to contextualize it that we're not.

Ann Andrews [01:17:07] You've been spending a great deal of time learning facts that are very similar patterns. Systemic abuse of children through the same policies in states as west as Washington and as states as east as New York. So they're not isolated events. And that's what, that's what the civil justice system is going to address. That this is trafficking and moving them and assaulting them in multiple states by the same known predator. So I don't want to get too far beyond.

John Dehlin [01:17:42] We're about to jump there. So that's great. That's a great potential segue. Kolby or Kimberly, is there anything else we want to discuss about the Bussy case before we move on to the state and federal proceedings?

Kolby Reddish [01:17:53] Kolby, I had one last question and I think it connects to what angel said and then I'm ready to proceed to those consolidation proceedings. One paragraph of the complaint says that the defendants, which includes the church, each assumed responsibility for the well being of LDS Church members, whether as clergy or volunteers appointed by the LDS Church Church. The rest of that paragraph then discusses a special relationship. And Kimberly, I think you talked about this at the beginning when you were talking about what you'll ultimately have to prove as you, you move forward through the system. Can you talk about that special relationship requirement? How it maybe connects to the facts of the, the Bussey case as well as potentially other cases. You looked at that Am just referenced and talk about why that requirement is important and people will want to pay attention to that as these legal parts proceedings continue.

Kimberly Degonia [01:18:45] Yeah, that's a good question. And this kind of will go in line with what Ann's about to talk about with the coordinated proceedings, that special relationship basically bringing the church into the lawsuit, that they have a duty to protect these kids by way of what they do, by way of having these children present on their organization, by mentoring them, that they have a duty to protect these kids and there is a special relationship there. You know, they don't owe a duty to every child across the state, but they do owe a duty to a child who attends their ward, who they know is being taught by a child predator, who they know is coming into Sunday school class with a child predator.

Kimberly Degonia [01:19:23] That's they created a special relationship with that child, with that family and as a result they have a duty to protect that child and to implement policies and procedures that protect that child versus policies and procedures that cover up and make it more likely that the child's going to be harmed. So that's the pattern we kind of see throughout these cases and why Anne chose to coordinate these proceedings.

John Dehlin [01:19:49] Quick question. Did I hear either of you say that Hayden was excommunicated? Is there any indication that Peyton was ever disciplined by formal church discipline?

Kimberly Degonia [01:20:00] We have no information that he was

John Dehlin [01:20:02] ever excommunicated, communicated, but there's no indication that he was.

Ann Andrews [01:20:07] We are not aware of any. But the files on these facts are. Well, you know, we know where they are. We know that they're comprehensive. We know that, that, that we've learned, we've learned that people are, you know, the manner in which people are excommunicated or severed or however the church thinks of that is a process that has a committee that has findings, that has investigations and those, those files will be requested and we'll learn a great deal.

John Dehlin [01:20:41] I just want to note that historically the, the Mormon Church appears to have a long, long history of not excommunicating sexual predators unless public pressure forces them to do so. But the default is to not excomm, excommunicate child abusers, pedophiles, etc, and yet they have a history of excommunicating people like Sam Young, who's a former Mormon bishop who stood up to try and lead a movement to protect children from sexual abuse. Sam Young was excommunicated. Natasha Helfer Mental Health Professional who advocated for children. She was excommunicated and yours truly was excommunicated not for sexually abusing kids, but for criticizing the church for how they treated children.

John Dehlin [01:21:28] So there's this weird, potentially continuing disparity or mind blowing problematic behavior of the church, excommunicating honest critics and not excommunicating perpetrators. So had to, had to mention that. Okay, so before we talk about the California and the federal initiatives, can we talk about just high level sampling of the other many cases that y' all have become aware of?

California Cases Filed Across 29 Counties

Ann Andrews [01:22:03] Yeah. So as I've said, and we'll continue to say every case we've talked about or we'll refer to as something that is on file in public dockets in courts in California. If we want to take the, take the California cases first.

Ann Andrews [01:22:21] The. I think, I think most people know that there are a very large number of Mormons that live in California. There's some 850,000 of the 4 to 5 million. I'm not sure of the numbers, the census, but about a quarter of the Mormons live in California. So what, what came from many investigations over a period of time was a series of cases that grow out of very similar circumstances that we're describing now. The laws are different. These cases are pled under California law. And without going into analytics of what the differences are between the two statutes, the California system has a system of laws and a system of jurisprudence that requires certain things.

Ann Andrews [01:23:17] And the things that we have pled are that, yes, these abuses to children, though they might have occurred in different ways by different levels of people, often many times by the bishop, by a bishop himself, being the abuser, the predator or a member of their community, of their faith, community, of their congregation, their ward, being an abuser and having the facts be reported by the family. It's usually the family or the, or the abuser, as they grow as sorry as the victim, as they grow older, teen years, they will go to a bishop and say, I have been assaulted and this and this member of the church did it.

Ann Andrews [01:24:02] So it starts with the reports of abuse to children by parents, by children, by the victims, to the bishop, as we know and have learned and have alleged that this is the system that the families go to the bishop. That's, that's, that's the closed system. They're not told to go to the authorities. They're not encouraged to. They don't have, they don't have knowledge about what. In many instances, it seems as though the bishop has a very, very strong control over the Members of that church, that's the first place they go. So if they're not told to do anything else, like go report it to the authorities.

Ann Andrews [01:24:39] And we know of almost no cases where they are. Maybe I think you know of one. But my point is that then the predator continues to abuse that child. It's often denied. It's often refused to be believed, as in many children that report institutionally, but from a time long past where children weren't believed and there was no duty investigate and no mandated reporting, that once the complaint is lodged, then in full force and effect that next child that's abused, when it's been told to church authorities, or in the conundrum of the bishop being the abuser, you now have a system where the law upholds the church's responsibility to those victims.

Ann Andrews [01:25:31] And so the cases are pled in all the varying degrees of the very specific investigated facts of what happened in each case. There are also a number of other things that are talked about in our complaints, how children that have been adopted were abused.

Ann Andrews [01:25:50] Kimberly might want to talk more about some of the very disturbing cases about members of the church marrying an adopted child and how she escaped that particular trafficking, the trafficking of his other children. But I think for purposes of this exercise in this discussion, the laws the state of California protect children.

Ann Andrews [01:26:17] So the cases were filed in counties, some 29 counties were where cases were filed, where there was an instance investigated and a complaint filed in civil court upon the facts that occurred in that case.

John Dehlin [01:26:33] How many counties are in California?

Ann Andrews [01:26:35] What do we have? 58, I think something like that.

John Dehlin [01:26:38] So around half of the counties.

Ann Andrews [01:26:39] I get. I forget. But we have very big counties in the state of California.

John Dehlin [01:26:44] What are some of the cities where some of these cases have been filed?

Ann Andrews [01:26:48] It's, it's.

Kimberly Degonia [01:26:49] You know, it ranges from Santa Barbara, which is on the coastline, all the way down to Cerritos. Lots of cases in Los Angeles. We have a high number in Los Angeles area.

Ann Andrews [01:26:58] So then there's Northern California cases. Correct. And. And there's. But there's 29 courthouses where. Where there's a pleading on file alleging same or very similar facts, all with the same thing. We've started talking about the policy of failure to report and protect children and failure to control predators that. That these children have been abused.

John Dehlin [01:27:20] And y' all represent all these cases?

Ann Andrews [01:27:23] We are. They. We do not represent all of them.

John Dehlin [01:27:25] Okay.

Ann Andrews [01:27:26] But the other firms that represent them. We have a system in California. It's not a mandate, but it certainly. And urgency. Right. The whole idea that California courts is the biggest court system in the world. It is an enormously costly system to maintain of the budget of all strained budgets. For the civil justice system to have its full budget and support from the legislature is something that people who have sat as bar presidents like me, are very conscious of. So when we see 29 cases, well, there are 100 cases effect filed in over. There were 101 at filing. I believe they were added to a petition using the state's laws that for.

Ann Andrews [01:28:17] For the simple purpose of the economy that that 29 counties, not you, not have to rule on the same common facts and the whole notion of inconsistent rulings and overburdened courts. Everybody wants to get to court as fast as they can. Justice delayed is justice denied is a maxim of the law.

Ann Andrews [01:28:39] So we as practitioners feel that using what our Supreme Court acted into law, which is the coordination statute, which allows us to take a whole bunch of civil cases that grow out of the same facts, and they are the same facts. The policy of the failure to report the bishops holding the facts and reporting them to the hotline, things you've reported on or you've discussed earlier are a system that's put in place. That is what allows us to continue to the next child or the next child and the next child.

Ann Andrews [01:29:12] So these common facts about the church, about the institution and its policies are predominant in the case. How this happens is all understood at the highest levels of the church because that's where the handbooks are discussed. That's where the policy of the 800 number is mandated to the bishops to call it. That's where the people who answer it act upon it in the way they do. That's where the services that are provided that, you know, psychological services that are provided to children are by licensed psychologists in many cases that they don't report, and they're mandated reporters, which is also a violation of state law. So these are common practices. Not every case has the same exact facts.

John Dehlin [01:29:57] Sure.

Ann Andrews [01:29:58] But the common facts predominate. So the concept that you would file a petition for coordination and tell the entire state justice system all the way to the Supreme Court of California, we think these cases ought to be managed centrally, and we think that they ought to be managed by one judge so that all parties to all the cases can come with common issues and have one place to argue and decide them and appeal them from.

Ann Andrews [01:30:28] So rather than having 29 courts ruling on the same issues that could conflict with each other, they're going to be important issues. And we think that in fairness to all the parties. I'm sure the church doesn't agree, but they argued it.

Ann Andrews [01:30:45] We believed it was incumbent upon us to coordinate the proceedings and to also protect all the children, that they will be subject to a very organized, orderly process for the discovery of them, their depositions. The information gathering on all sides of the case is coordinated by a judge. It's a complex judge, which means the counties that have complex divisions, not all do. I mean, you can imagine Siskiyou county or Shasta county doesn't have a whole panel of judges to just hear very complicated business matters and complicated discovery matters with a lot of cases. So we don't ask for coordination in these faraway counties. Not because we don't think they're fine judges and good places that the case may occur, but because Los Angeles has the bulk of the cases, I think over half of them.

Ann Andrews [01:31:39] Our county provides for a complex bench of judges who are experienced in these matters, who have tools on their toolbox to use those methods that are time proven. I think this is probably my 20th coordinated proceeding. I've been practicing quite a long time, so I have a great deal of experience with how well this works and how, what, what an economy, what, what economies there are to be accomplished by it.

Ann Andrews [01:32:08] We think and thought that the best thing to do would be to, to put everyone on notice that we were going to move for coordination. So we did. It was opposed. We had an argument, what, three weeks ago now? It was opposed. That pleading is on file. We can still summarize it for you if you wish, but.

John Dehlin [01:32:28] Yeah. So you, you moved.

Ann Andrews [01:32:30] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:32:31] To consolidate these cases in California.

Ann Andrews [01:32:33] In, in Los Angeles.

John Dehlin [01:32:34] In Los Angeles.

Ann Andrews [01:32:35] Right. In one county.

John Dehlin [01:32:36] And then the Mormon Church didn't want that consolidation.

Ann Andrews [01:32:38] Right.

John Dehlin [01:32:39] Why would they not want these to be consolidated? Oh, I guess you would have to speculate. But what might be some of the reasons.

Kimberly Degonia [01:32:45] Well, some of the reasons in the

Ann Andrews [01:32:48] pleadings, some of the things they said in court, I mean, go ahead.

Kimberly Degonia [01:32:52] Was that it's not common fact. They're all different cases, they're all different fact patterns, they're all different bishops, and therefore it's not a systematic problem. It's. It's just each individual one off case.

Ann Andrews [01:33:03] Yeah. But what they led with, which was so interesting, was that it's the predator, that the predators are all different and that this is a case about a predator. So.

John Dehlin [01:33:13] So no systemic problems.

Ann Andrews [01:33:15] They didn't. They didn't. I don't, I don't have the record, but it, let's just say that they wanted the court to focus on the predators all being different. So there was no common issue. And, you know, we argued and they quoted scripture and, you know, a very fine lawyer argued for the, for the church's position that they should be allowed to go out of the counties where we filed them, and we did file them there. So there was a, a proceeding where both sides were heard. There was healthy argument, lengthy argument. A prominent judge who listened to the arguments ruled that they should be coordinated in one place in Los Angeles, and that's the order of the court.

Consolidation of California Cases Ordered

John Dehlin [01:33:54] So it's a done deal. It has been ordered as of a few weeks ago.

Ann Andrews [01:33:59] I think it was ordered last week.

Kimberly Degonia [01:34:00] Last week. She made the order.

Ann Andrews [01:34:01] We got the order last week.

John Dehlin [01:34:02] So pretty quickly, let's bring you in. Kolby, what questions do you have about this California initiative?

Kolby Reddish [01:34:08] What. So what, if any, can you explain the difference between your motion or petition for consolidation and what people might be more familiar with, which is like a class action? Can you explain just the difference?

Ann Andrews [01:34:19] Sure, yeah. That's a great question, and I, I'm glad you asked it. So the way I talk about class actions is, under The Federal Rules 23B, class actions are more for things. If you have a broken bumper on a car or a faulty ignition or an insurance policy that violates the law that tens of thousands of people received an invalid policy, they're for things.

Ann Andrews [01:34:47] And things matter because people who collectively need a thing to be litigated in a class. The system of the, the, the purpose and the philosophy behind the laws of class action are that a lot of people with a, with smaller damages, you know, like an ignition system, a repair to a Volkswagen or a, or an ignition system in a faulty ignition system in a, in a. Or defective truck or trailer.

Ann Andrews [01:35:13] Automobiles are often subject of class actions. Anything can be a class action, but they're usually about things because it's all, they're all common. Right. It was the same thing that was broken in that product. That's alleged. So you can hand out damages on a wholesale basis and pay people for the thing that was broken in their car or the insurance policy that didn't cover or misrepresented things. You can fix those things. You can't fix people on a class basis. What happened to our client in this case and our client in next case are all very different. The effects of these sexual assault, the levels of abuse, the amount of abuse.

Ann Andrews [01:35:54] People are not. People are not to be handled in class actions. It just isn't a good fit. And though there have been attempts to expand the rules in 23B and its related statutes have not allowed for it, except in very highly unique circumstances, like where you're recovering a defective device out of someone's body, but not about what happened to the person. This type of damage is very individual to the person. So what we do in these cases and what's protected by the coordination, Kolby, is every single client has a case, has a case number, has a complaint. We have them here in front of me on the table, some of them.

Ann Andrews [01:36:35] Every fact pattern that was investigated and filed about an individual person and a set of facts is filed in the proper venue, which I'm sure we'll talk about where a case gets filed and why it gets filed, where it does. So the confusion about why cases are spread around a whole state, a large state.

Ann Andrews [01:36:57] They're all the subject of an individual lawsuit. Each one of these clients has an individual case, so it will be tried in largely as individuals. We can probably not today, but there are coordinated proceedings and consolidated proceedings. The judge might decide it could be in the interest to try more than one case at the same time if they. Particularly if they grew out of the same fact pattern of these multiple children, multiple, you know, multiple ch. Victims of the same facts of. Of predators. We do have some of those.

Ann Andrews [01:37:30] So the judge has got the tools in her toolbox, but they're not to. To make this litigation be economical and be fair and to move it quickly. Yeah, that's the other benefit, is that all the parties are there at the same time weighing in on how it should go. It's a collaborative process with plaintiffs counsel and defense counsel, and then the rulings from the court will flow from our work to try to make sense of this so that everybody gets to the justice point at the same time, but in the same way, in an organized, economical, fair process.

John Dehlin [01:38:05] Let me ask a question of Kolby that y' all can answer if you want, but for some reason, I feel like I shouldn't ask you this question directly. Kolby, why would. Why what? What could you suspect would be the reasons why the Church. Mormon Church, would find it disadvantageous to consolidate the cases? And conversely, from the standpoint of the victims, why could you imagine it or speculate it being advantageous for the victims to have this. These cases, consolidated it. And then if y' all want to opine on that, you can. But for some reason, I felt like I shouldn't ask you that. Go ahead, Kolby.

Ann Andrews [01:38:44] Well, I'll actually let Kolby go first.

John Dehlin [01:38:46] Okay.

Kimberly Degonia [01:38:46] Well.

Kolby Reddish [01:38:47] And I actually think they'll be fine to answer this question, because I Think I can abstract it away from these cases that we're talking about and just say the premise behind consolidation, as, as Ann and Kimberly have both talked about, or coordination. This type of coordination, coordinated litigation, is to speed up the process and to not have disparate results on common questions of law and fact. So from the Church's perspective, I completely agree with Ann's comments about our litigation system. It's the best one we've got, and I still believe in it with all of my, all of my lawyerly heart. And from the Church's perspective, litigation,

Kimberly Degonia [01:39:32] in

Kolby Reddish [01:39:32] many cases, litigation is about money. It's about who can prove these facts, who can gather these facts through depositions, through the discovery process. That takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of money. So from the Church's perspective, how much a plaintiff has to spend to prove their case is always, and this is not common just to the church, it's to every defendant, anyone who's defending a case. It's going to be more advantageous for all of those plaintiffs having to individually prove all of those questions of fact and have those legal arguments on those issues when they arise from a plaintiff's perspective, again, separated from the merits of these cases.

Kolby Reddish [01:40:14] This speeds up that process. It allows for there not to be disparate results on those common questions of law or fact, which really shouldn't be occurring anyways. And so it does. Shortcut. I don't want to say shortcut because they still have to be proved, but those common questions only have to be proved once instead of repeatedly over and over and over again in each of these hundred cases.

John Dehlin [01:40:35] Faster and cheaper for the victims to have these cases consolidated. Is that what I just heard?

Ann Andrews [01:40:42] Well, we, that's what I think that he's suggesting, but it's the cost efficiency of everyone.

John Dehlin [01:40:47] But I'm, Yeah, I'm, I'm particularly interested in the victims.

Kolby Reddish [01:40:50] So. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:40:51] Not the system overall.

Ann Andrews [01:40:52] All it's cost efficient for, for them.

John Dehlin [01:40:54] Okay.

Ann Andrews [01:40:54] Because. And it's also, and it's also fair for the victims. These are victims of extreme abuse. Their psychological well being is our responsibility. We brought these claims forward and we believe through a series of protocols. Let's just say, for instance, depositions are very challenging for some of our clients. Right. We know how it's difficult. It is. They're willing to go through them. But the law protecting the rules of engagement of a deposition must be understood and agreed to. So simple things that get, you know, orders of protocol of electronic discovery that you probably would find in your bailiwick ESI how documents are stored, where they're kept, how we have access to them.

Ann Andrews [01:41:37] An enormous library of materials will come forward, available to all who are in the case now and may join the case later. It's not a closed case. It's open to other people. People may come forward. So a protocol for deposing the victim of severe sexual abuse might not be well understood by a lawyer up in Siskiyou county who might have a very aggressive style of taking a deposition that could be harmful to a person who's experienced such abuse and trauma. Informed counsels such as our firm and others.

Ann Andrews [01:42:13] It's not really my job, though. I often have to teach that lawyer how to handle a deposition in a manner in which is fair. It comports with the law, it comports with the clients and their privacy. Or concerns about not being inflammatory, accusatory, attacking. The things you think about that you see on tv. The kinds of cross examination techniques that can be very damaging. They're not fair. So what happens is a deposition protocol that establishes how you conduct yourself in a deposition, how long it is, who can be present, who asks questions, how, how many breaks you can take.

Ann Andrews [01:42:56] Things that are just civilized and supported in law, but not always followed. In 29 counties over, over dozens of depositions. My conduct as well, of taking their depositions, all these things are well understood. Ground rules are established by judges according to the needs of the case.

John Dehlin [01:43:14] Okay, so it maybe it allows as many victims as possible to get the best possible representation. That's kind of what I'm hearing. And treatment during the process.

Ann Andrews [01:43:27] I think that's a main concern of ours. It's different for every case. Right? Coordinations are, are very different depending on the. But what we will seek to achieve is fact discovery. Right? That's what we talked about earlier. What happened to this person, what happened to this victim.

Ann Andrews [01:43:44] Questions that'll be answered. What we call a standard series of questions that we develop. And we negotiate with all the parties. A fact sheet. It's a universal document that's used for every case. And a fact sheet then gives the judge an expression and an answer to all common questions with a penalty of perjury answer from a client.

Ann Andrews [01:44:09] So that that's the same set of questions that every client gets. And it's negotiated. Understood. And we are open to have a choir under the coordination statutes and proceedings to meet and confer with the other side. It's not just catastrophic, you know, epic theater of war bombing of each other. It has a controlled, effective manner of moving a litigation Forward our depositions of the church officials involved.

John Dehlin [01:44:38] Yeah.

Ann Andrews [01:44:39] And how these policies occurred. There'll be one set. They'll be handled by the lawyers representing all of the leaders, which is myself, and a lawyer in another. In another firm will be taking those depositions. A group of us, about how the policies came to be, what they mean, how they're implemented, all the things that, you know, that are common issues about the policy of reporting or failing to report sexual assault to children.

John Dehlin [01:45:08] Okay, Kolby, if it's okay, let's flip it now. You know, you could. You could imagine a scenario where the. The Mormon Church would be thrilled to have all these cases rolled up into one. So they could just focus all their efforts on beating one case, so to say, one. One initiative. And that defeats all the cases underneath. So why would the Mormon Church oppose consolidation? Why would it be against their interest in your speculating, you know?

Kolby Reddish [01:45:34] Well, you know, I completely agree with everything Ann said. I don't think there's a whole lot of. And I haven't read the briefing on that issue from the church or listen to the arguments, but if I'm guessing, it's mostly because litigation is expensive. The Church is aware of this. I know Tim Koznoff, who you've hosted before, John, has talked about the church's litigation tactics and the way that they. They seek to bury these cases early. And I think that the reality is this coordinated litigation will not really allow those same tactics to fly. I know Ann and Kimberly probably can't comment on that, but that would be my guess.

Ann Andrews [01:46:11] Guess.

Kolby Reddish [01:46:12] But I want to be clear that I'm purely just guessing.

John Dehlin [01:46:15] So what I'm hearing is that if the church has $250 billion, they can spend infinite amount of money to bury individual, smaller lawsuits. Well, potentially.

Ann Andrews [01:46:27] Sorry to interrupt.

John Dehlin [01:46:30] And that's a tactic that it might use to gain advantage over smaller, more vulnerable victims, whereas they're not going to as easily be able to use those tactics with. With potentially better representation at a higher level. Is that what you're saying, Kolby?

Kolby Reddish [01:46:49] And to go directly to the example that Ann gave, one way, that one example I would give of that is the depositions of the church officials. So at the higher levels, obviously, depositions are going to have to happen for all of the bishops or stake presidents or direct church leaders who are involved. But at the higher levels, as far as, like, the church's systemic policies and how the systemic policies either address or don't adequately address, you know, mandatory reporting requirements or lapses in mandatory reporting requirements, if all these cases were separate. If there were a hundred different cases, every single plaintiff is going to have to go to the cost and expense of deposing that person.

Kolby Reddish [01:47:29] Every single time is the way it would work. Whereas in this coordinated litigation, that will only have to happen once, and that cost is going to fall on the plaintiffs or the plaintiff's law firm. Whereas here, now, it will only have to happen that one time.

Ann Andrews [01:47:45] The only thing I would say is that, you know, that's not. That's not anything special to this case. I mean, with reference to the seventh Amendment, again, I mean, law firms like ours can bring an individual, the least of us, can get the most justice.

Ann Andrews [01:48:03] So our civil justice system and our law firm in particularly, we face this in every case. This is not auto vi. Auto accident out on your highway here. These are issues of large consequence to our clients. And we take on cases involving the biggest defendants that in the world and the country, if not the world.

Ann Andrews [01:48:28] And so Kolby's description of the outsize, or your description rather of the outsize aspect of this, the church being so much larger than us, we handle that every day. And that's something that, you know, the justice system protects an individual case to be able to have the right to do that.

Ann Andrews [01:48:48] So we feel, and I feel as a bar leader and as somebody who understands the complexities, litigations, and the burden on the courts, that the statute was enacted for a reason. And the Supreme Court wanted this to unburden the court. So, like I said, 29 counties were involved.

John Dehlin [01:49:09] So that ruling came from the California Supreme Court.

Ann Andrews [01:49:11] It came from this. It came from. The petition is filed with the Supreme Court. It is heard by the court in which we've requested the petition, which was the supreme, which was the superior court judge in Los Angeles. She has, and it's a woman who heard it, a very prominent judge and very smart, accomplished judge. And it's just such a practical thing.

John Dehlin [01:49:35] I mean, it's like, no, it makes sense.

Ann Andrews [01:49:37] No, I want the court system. I. She manages the biggest courthouse in the country, the Los Angeles Stanley Moss courthouse. She was a presiding judge of it and just came back to the bench. So the common sense of this is really what predominated in the argument. Like, why wouldn't you want this? Well, they had their reasons, but we take on large cases, we take cases on against large defendants all the time.

John Dehlin [01:49:58] Is it likely the Mormon Church will appeal this ruling, or is it something that really can't be appealed? In terms of the California consolidation?

Ann Andrews [01:50:10] You know, I think that's. I think I. I'm a little baffled by that because I don't know of the multitude of cases that have been coordinated that there has been an appeal. I believe they can appeal, but the discretion of the Supreme Court assigning it for hearing and the fact of the petition being granted that the petition being granted is I'm sure, appealable. I'm a little stumped here. It's sort of like why would you appeal it but the case would not be stayed.

John Dehlin [01:50:44] It's certainly not something appears like you're worried about.

Ann Andrews [01:50:47] You could. No. If they appealed it to the Supreme Court and said we want to stop the proceedings while we spend years getting this case, getting your discretion to tell us we should coordinate this statute that is very strong and it's in its, in its applicability to a case just like this. If it happens, it happens. But I doubt, I seriously doubt the case will stop.

John Dehlin [01:51:08] If there are other sexual abuse cases in motion in California that involve the LDS Church. Is this the type of thing where those attorneys and, or victims could reach out and add themselves to your consolidated case?

Ann Andrews [01:51:23] Absolutely. So what happens is anytime there's a case filed now, it's incumbent upon the parties and the clerks who then add them. They, they come on as add on petitions. So if a new case is filed today, the clerk and the parties, if they don't know about the petition, the clerk will know and it becomes transferred into the coordination for all proceedings.

John Dehlin [01:51:44] So hopefully it'll be automatic.

Ann Andrews [01:51:46] Oh, it's, it's a pretty automatic system and we, but we're always sort of scrolling and looking for to be sure that the cases come forward to the right place for the very reasons that the judges now have an order. They don't want clerks out there working on cases and judges being assigned to hold routine hearings. So we, we monitor that and all sides monitor it.

Kolby Reddish [01:52:06] Okay.

Ann Andrews [01:52:07] Good faith.

John Dehlin [01:52:07] Got it. Anything else you want to say about the consolidated initiative in California, COLBY or, or YouTube before we move on to the federal.

Mandatory Reporting Failures and Legal Strategy

Kolby Reddish [01:52:19] Well, I do just have a question about something that Anne mentioned and I, I particularly am interested in Kimberly's perspective on this. So one issue that recurringly comes up in these cases is mandatory reporting laws. Can you one maybe dispel some common myths that people will hear when mandatory reporting is brought up? So for example, I know one thing that church lawyers have been in the news for having told and Mike Resendes brought this to light with Merrill Nelson, a lawmaker in Utah in the case involving the children in Bisbee, Arizona, which is on appeal.

Kolby Reddish [01:52:55] One thing that comes up Is that the church lawyers occasionally have represented that mandatory reporting exemptions mean that church officials or church leaders cannot advise police or child protective services of these types of cases. Can you maybe speak to that from your experience as a career prosecutor on these types of cases and talk about how mandatory reporting exemptions or mandatory reporting laws or exemptions kind of fit into your cases in California before we talk about the multi district litigation issue?

Kimberly Degonia [01:53:28] Sure. The mandatory reporting laws across the states are pretty clear if somebody's being injured sexually or if there's a imminent death present that they, they're not exempted from reporting state by state. I have heard that the church advises their, their members that they're unable to report, but that's the very, one of the very issues why we need coordinated proceedings. So we have one judge deciding each incident that they tried to raise that they didn't need to report, that they didn't have the duty to report. We don't have a judge in Southern California saying they did have a duty to report and then a judge in Northern California saying they didn't have a duty report.

Kimberly Degonia [01:54:05] It's all encompassed in one area, one judge, one proceeding where we, we put this issue at rest for all the plaintiffs across California. The mandatory reporting has evolved over the years. It is an area of law that probably in the mid-90s has really gained traction and it's been very well litigated, very well, you know, revised. And it's clear that you do have a mandatory reporting when you are in certain positions of authority, such as clergy, teachers, coaches. And I believe each year it gets more expansive as far as who's required to report.

Kolby Reddish [01:54:46] So how would an exemption from a mandatory reporting law fit into this? And does California have one of those?

Kimberly Degonia [01:54:52] California does not have an exemption. So it would be defense arguing that there was an exemption and plaintiff arguing that there was not. And that's the only, that's the only real way I see it fitting into California's litigation. Our statute is very, very clear and has been for some time since 1996 as to reporting requirements, what they entail. They've evolved from telling your immediate supervisor to reporting to law enforcement and then now reporting directly to child protective services. And who must report if they are given this information.

Kolby Reddish [01:55:30] Yeah, and I understand those are always going to vary state by state. Some states do have an exemption. Some states mandate reporting for all adults where other times it's maybe someone who's kind of in a trusted role, a contact point with children in society like you talked about. Teachers, coaches, clergy do you know, is there any mandatory reporting exemption or any mandatory law in any of the 50 states that would prohibit the church in a case like any of the ones we've discussed today, from reporting that to authorities?

Kimberly Degonia [01:56:00] I'm unaware of any.

Ann Andrews [01:56:04] But what I would say is that, you know, one of the, in one of the issues that will be of great interest to both sides is what, what, what are the layers of what mandatory reporting is required or reporting even to your congregation to protect children? I mean, these are the layers of the onion that will be peeled back legally once we find out what happened and why it happened the way it did, we will be able to examine with a very close microscopic legal lens whether it followed the law or not. All right.

John Dehlin [01:56:41] Anything else you want to say about the California. You know, look, before we go to the federal.

Ann Andrews [01:56:46] This is, you know, this, this is a very organized system. It benefits all the parties. And I just want, I think it bears mentioning we're all members of the same bar. We all owe the same responsibilities to our clients. And there's some very fine lawyers in this case. I know many of them. I know the firms. And we'll be having this, this, this litigation in a public forum where, you know, the rules of California will be applied. And I don't, I don't want to be unfair to my brothers and sisters in the law that have their obligations to their clients. I mean, being an attorney is a, is.

Ann Andrews [01:57:25] This is, is a sacred responsibility. It's a. And we take it very seriously and the fairness of it that both sides will have their say. It'll be, it'll be presented in, in a, in a forum that is one of the best in the country and decided is, is a really great thing for these clients to be able to have access to. And I'm very proud of that.

John Dehlin [01:57:47] What's just. If you even know what's. A rough timeline for how this will proceed and is settlement still a possibility with a consolidated case like this?

Ann Andrews [01:57:58] So that's a great question. So a coordinated proceeding of this type with this number of cases, I'm thinking, even on a pretty, pretty solid fast track, I'm thinking two to three years. If we were to fully litigate every issue and if we get to what we call a bellwether trial, which is a really interesting phenomenon of having a group of people harmed by the same set of facts or policies, the court, the cases come forward through a process known as the bellwether system, and judges can use that system or a system of their own, but you look for Representative cases, right? To sort of set the bellwether.

Ann Andrews [01:58:38] And the bellwether is the sheep, you know, out in the field with the bell and bellwether. Sheeps are the ones that tell the, tell the weather. It's an ancient concept about representative cases that will inform facts across many, many other cases to help guide the judge in resolving cases or getting other cases to trial.

Ann Andrews [01:59:04] Your question about settlement, you know, we have a lot, it's pretty premature. We have a lot to learn and our clients are very, very insistent that we learn facts about what happened, why it happened, and who was responsible for it.

Ann Andrews [01:59:20] We can resolve cases at any time. Oftentimes a resolution process grows out of a system like this because everyone knows what the facts are, everyone knows what the court rulings are. We're all in the same place at the same time.

Ann Andrews [01:59:33] So I think that's another reason why the coordination statute is so effective. Because 29 counties, having a handful of, you know, a sprinkle of cases around 29 counties is not an effective way to manage any of the issues that resolve or try cases.

John Dehlin [01:59:49] Couple things that I perceive about the way many of these cases work is number one in terms of like, victory, oftentimes a goal can be just getting past discovery. So it's assumed that the church is going to try and get this thrown out in some sort of pre trial motion, summary judgment sort of thing. And it'll do that, at least in part, because the last thing it wants to do is provide documentation of the evidence of what happened behind the scenes, what conversations happened by the church, by its law firms, by its PR representatives.

John Dehlin [02:00:28] So my understanding is the Mormon Church will do almost anything to avoid being opened up to the discovery process. So if you're able to surmount the initial attempts to have the case thrown out, then what would. The most likely scenario for how this resolves is it gets right up to the point where the Mormon Church thinks it's going to be subject to discovery and then it's going to settle because there's no way it wants to open up its kimono. So, you know, that's my understanding. And then also there are benefits to that because sometimes you can get a very large settlement for minimal effort.

John Dehlin [02:01:11] So that can benefit the victims because you get a very large settlement without having to be drugged through, you know, depositions and a hearing and trial, and then risking a verdict that may or may not go their way.

John Dehlin [02:01:24] Some people don't like the idea of settlements in these types of cases because ultimately, while ultimately, number one, settlements are often private so you never know what was settled and why and what the damages were. But then also, I guess organizations like the Mormon Church, if a settlement happens, they're never quite exposed or held accountable for what they did. It's all, you know, it's all secret because the settlement's secret. And that's part of what the church pays for when they do. A settlement is ultimately not a guilty verdict. Anything you don't want to say about that.

Ann Andrews [02:02:04] It's just, you know, look, there are pressure points in every case, whether it's a pharmaceutical case or, you know, I just tackled the Sacklers and the, you know, one of the biggest catastrophes in, in our American existence of what happened in the opioid, the process to market opioids that weren't addictive. I mean, there that these kinds of high profile cases that affect people in the most horrible ways, children.

Ann Andrews [02:02:33] One of the, one of the concepts here is that this is an ongoing problem. That's why you asked us here, right? This isn't one set of cases. This isn't one. It would not be very, it'd be interesting, but it wouldn't be compelling if it was just a discrete group of people who are going to bring their case to justice, are going to get what, what the law allows.

Ann Andrews [02:02:55] This is an ongoing problem and I can't speculate how the church is going to handle it. I, I don't think you can. You probably do, but I don't think it would be, you know, I don't think we know.

Kolby Reddish [02:03:08] No, of course.

Ann Andrews [02:03:09] And what I really want to say about settlement is settlement is an individual client's decision. Each one of these people that have come forward with the brave, with the brave, the courage that it takes to do so, and what we know about victims of sexual assault and the challenges that they face and how incredibly courageous it is, will be handled individually for their best interests in what they require. And I can tell you that, you know, he may be listening in, but I've had some very, very emotional conversations with a client who says that he believes God put him here to put this right and to see to it that the bishop, for what this bishop did, allowing him to be abused, his brother to be abused, and another relative of the predator to be abused going on I think was over what, 15 years these group of boys in this particular ward were abused by the same man with two bishops who knew it.

Ann Andrews [02:04:17] He's not going to take it. And he's a member of the armed services, he's a patriot, he's a Mormon and listening to him and the effect that it has on me as his carrier for justice, as his advocate for justice, is going to be very important to him.

Ann Andrews [02:04:37] And as of now, when clients have to be explained what it means to go through this, they have to take on the responsibility with us as counsel, that that's what they want. Nobody gets dragged into court. This isn't a criminal proceeding. These people want this, so it's very much what they want, John. And what justice means for them and what the resolution means for them. And there are other aspects to resolution that you haven't even talked about. You've only probably suggested money is a resolution. There are policies that can. That can. The resolutions of other things. The church came to the table and wanted reform.

Ann Andrews [02:05:15] Imagine what that would mean. We have to prove what they need to do. They're not going to. It's not a. It's not a hearing for them before Congress to be exposed about, you know, practices that. That violate the sex trafficking laws. But if they want reform, it's. It's in their hands, but it's in our clients and in their decision for what they want from their lawyers. They tell us. We don't tell them.

John Dehlin [02:05:43] Thank you. That was a great answer. And one of the many good things I heard from that is it sounds like in a consolidated case like this, some of the victims can choose to settle, while others of the victims can choose to take it all the way to trial. Is that what I heard? It's not all go to trial or all are settled.

Ann Andrews [02:06:04] It's any and all of that.

John Dehlin [02:06:05] Got it.

Kimberly Degonia [02:06:06] It's good.

Ann Andrews [02:06:06] It has a recipe, yet to be defined, of many, many different kinds of dispute resolution. And it will be like every other case, informed by the pressure points of the litigation and the will of the plaintiffs.

John Dehlin [02:06:23] Gerardo's asking if we have any sense for what the likely deadlines will be for discovery. Do you even have.

Ann Andrews [02:06:29] Pretty fast. You know, I would. I would think our. We'll negotiate a case management order. We have not had a permanent judge assigned in the California case, so as soon as that happens, there'll be a status conference, and then the real work starts where we do. We'll call it the carpentry of the case, the discovery of the case. So for Gerardo, it will. We'll negotiate how the case will move forward through discovery and depositions, and a case management order will be entered that'll apply to everybody.

Kimberly Degonia [02:06:56] Our order just came out January 30th, so we're still pending.

Ann Andrews [02:06:58] Pretty new, right?

Kimberly Degonia [02:06:59] Very new. Our assignment for our judge.

John Dehlin [02:07:02] So discovery could happen as soon as like probably.

Ann Andrews [02:07:06] It's not uncommon for fact sheets to be or agreed upon, you know, if necessary, ruled upon. If we can't agree, we do almost always agree as counsel on each side. Part of the beauty of coordination is that we have to sit down as counsel face to face and bring things to the court to make her job or his job easier. So in our, in our lives, of our clients, so we're expected to meet and confer the toolbox of things that we can do. Everyone knows what they are and they. And it happens faster. Like I could imagine we being asked to answer fact sheets within the first 2, 3/4 of the case.

Ann Andrews [02:07:44] You know, probably, you know, maybe by summer of this year we could be answering fact sheets. We don't have a lot of clients. We've had coordinations with tens of thousands of victims. So this is a manageable case. We want it to be well done and we want it to be a beacon of justice for these victims.

John Dehlin [02:08:02] Got it. Okay. Anything else, Kolby, about the state California consolidation before we go to the federal trafficking?

Federal Multi-District Litigation Petition

Kolby Reddish [02:08:10] No, I think those comments lead really well into the federal multi district litigation petition. So Ann or Kimberly, do you want to address that basically that your firm is also handling some federal cases and seeking basically the same type of coordination that we just discussed in California in the federal system as well, Correct?

Ann Andrews [02:08:30] Correct. So that's really my bailiwick. This will be my, I don't know, fifth or sixth case I've argued in front of this particular panel. So the corollary in the federal system is a system of multi district litigation. So for your viewers, our country is divided into judicial circuits, districts, and we file a case in a district according to the venue laws about things like where it happened, where the parties reside, and cases get filed all over the country over the same facts. Like I think I used the class action example of automobile ignition cases, right. There could be cases filed in every jurisdiction in America over a class action type of or product liability kind of case.

Ann Andrews [02:09:29] So we filed a number of cases in various districts and moved. And then, and then a group of cases came in by a system known as removal, where they were taken from the state court and moved into the federal system.

Ann Andrews [02:09:44] So we notified a panel that sits in whose offices are in Washington D.C. made up of seven distinguished judges called the Joint Panel on Multi District Litigation, the jpml. That panel takes all of the petitions for coordination from across the country. And there's many kinds of cases that get subject to this kind of a petition in the federal system. There's antitrust cases, there's data breach cases, there's product liability cases. You know, every case that has multiple districts with a certain number of cases meets the requirement. So we filed a similar petition in the federal court before the federal panel. And have we been notified of the hearing date?

Kimberly Degonia [02:10:30] No, we just filed it February 6th.

Ann Andrews [02:10:32] So it's a new filing. The petition was to coordinate some. Our petition was very fluid in the last minute. So it's what, 100 cases?

Kimberly Degonia [02:10:41] Yes.

Ann Andrews [02:10:42] So those cases have been asked for the same reasons that the state of California needed, 29 cases put in one place. We have asked the federal system to do the same thing under the federal statute, which will put the cases all before one federal judge.

Ann Andrews [02:11:00] The federal laws that are alleged in these complaints are as we've described the sec. The human sex trafficking is a. Is a federal civil statute designed as a corollary. Corollary to the criminal statute of sex trafficking. It is the civil statute that allows for victims of sex trafficking to file under the federal. Federal statute. So we moved for consolidation last week, and the petition was filed, and we'll be hearing. We expect that. We know that the next hearing and the court moves around. They kind of go from different areas to hear the petition. So they were in Miami on January 30th, and we believe they're going to be in Charleston in the federal building in Charles, the federal court in Charleston, South Carolina, January 20, March 27.

Ann Andrews [02:11:50] So we haven't been officially notified it'll be heard then. But once again, the lawyers will all come and argue their petition, argue their positions in front of a panel of seven judges, which is quite an interesting experience.

John Dehlin [02:12:03] So there's going to be a panel of seven federal judges.

Ann Andrews [02:12:07] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:12:08] Deciding whether or not would. Would any of these California cases be included in the federal consolidation as well?

Ann Andrews [02:12:16] There are federal cases filed in California. So remember, there's a state court proceeding and then there's federal cases. So we have cases filed in districts in California that are filed in federal court. We have them in multitude of states.

John Dehlin [02:12:33] And this is where I'm just totally clueless. So I know you can file federal or state. Can you file both state and federal

Ann Andrews [02:12:39] one place for one case?

John Dehlin [02:12:41] You have to pick.

Kolby Reddish [02:12:41] Right.

Ann Andrews [02:12:42] But we have selected this federal statute that is a relatively new statute. The human sex trafficking statute for civil statute was enacted by Congress in 2016. It has not been used that widely yet. It's, you know, maybe 200 cases have used it, two or 300 cases now nationwide there's vast amount of reporting on it. It involves labor trafficking, it involves prostitution trafficking, involves trafficking of all kinds. Right. And we use the federal statute, which means an application of federal law, means that it automatically goes to the federal system.

John Dehlin [02:13:22] Okay.

Ann Andrews [02:13:23] Once you've, once you have invoked a remedy using a federal statute, it immediately goes into that court because the federal system of churches is in charge of interpreting its statutes. It gets complicated. States can interpret federal statutes, but this case is clearly one of federalism and it will be managed by and decided by federal judges.

John Dehlin [02:13:46] Okay. So if I'm understanding right, the cases that are consolidated in California will not be appearing in the federal consolidations and vice versa.

Ann Andrews [02:13:55] But there is. Sorry, but there is a cooperation among them.

John Dehlin [02:13:58] Right.

Ann Andrews [02:13:58] Okay. So even though we're coordinating California and I've been the liaison between a California coordination and a federal multi district litigation. So they talk to each other, the judges are allowed to talk to each other, the council talk to each other. There's liaisoning once again for the economy of the system. So we'll be able to take depositions that might be noticed in the federal system, but we can make an agreement and we are available to make agreements that that deposition will apply equally to all cases filed wherever California or in the federal. So you can see why these things for experienced practitioners such as myself, we're very comfortable with this. And it is a very, very important way in which judicial economy and efficiency for where everybody occurs.

John Dehlin [02:14:45] So is the, which is the busy case part of either of these consolidations or is it.

Ann Andrews [02:14:50] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:14:51] Okay. It is federal. I'm guessing yes. Because it's not in California.

Ann Andrews [02:14:54] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:14:54] Okay, got it.

Kimberly Degonia [02:14:56] And he has human trafficking alleged, the federal claim.

John Dehlin [02:14:59] Right, okay, got it.

Kolby Reddish [02:15:01] So when we saw on the tithing lawsuits, there was a hearing in front of the multi district litigation panel, I think last year, and those cases were consolidated in the 10th Circuit in the district of Utah in front of Judge Robert It. Shelby and John and I have talked about that before. Where are you seeking to have these cases consolidated? The federal cases. And if not Utah, why not Utah?

Ann Andrews [02:15:24] Well, that's a great question. Right. So the, the, the mandate of the Fed of what, what, what guides the judges. Right. And the, and the judges have discretion. But what guides the judges is something called the complex on the, I'm sorry, the manual on complex litigation. It's a large document, you know, volume, you know, six inch thick volume. I think I even have a copy of it where we don't really use books anymore. We do use the complex manual as a book. So the manual instructs the judges about what, where the venue of the case should lie. Right. So the bulk of the, as I mentioned earlier, what is it, a quarter, a quarter of, of Mormons reside in California.

Ann Andrews [02:16:09] The bulk of the cases are in California, in the central district, Kolby. So we, that's where they emanate from. So although there are smatterings of other states, the vast majority of cases are coming from the large population area of California. And we have asked for it to be, to be assigned to the central district of California, which would be the normal course for, for that would be what you would normally expect.

Kolby Reddish [02:16:43] That makes sense to me. Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:16:46] Gerardo is asking why do you strongly believe that the federal church autonomy doctrine does not apply in this case? He's assuming you don't think it applies. That's kind of a cold out of the blue question. But any thoughts on that? On, I mean, church and state?

Ann Andrews [02:17:12] So, you know, this is, this is the, this is the, the legal tangle that we find ourselves in. Is there autonomy for any, any organization? And if you are going to say the church autonomy first that will allow systematic abuse against children is a purpose of, of, of of that particular theory, I would say, I think what will, what will bear out is that it will be likely intolerable for any judicial system to believe that the constant, pervasive and ongoing systematic abuse is the result of a policy of any organization that continues to allow the abuse of children cannot be held accountable under the laws of this country. And I would find it, though I won't be surprised, I would not want to make that argument. And I've taken both sides of issues throughout my career. I would not want to be trying to make that argument.

John Dehlin [02:18:30] Do I think Kimberly?

Kimberly Degonia [02:18:31] No. I enjoyed her answer.

John Dehlin [02:18:34] Okay. Okay. Kolby, Other questions about the federal consolidation?

Federal Anti-Trafficking Statute and Church Autonomy Doctrine

Kolby Reddish [02:18:40] No, I think just since I saw a comment in the live chat, there was someone who asked for more clarity on the federal anti trafficking statute and exactly how that claim can be proved, at least as, as it's been pleaded in the, the Bussey case. Do either of you want to address that? I think aside from that, I'm just very happy that you're, you're standing up for these victims and survivors. This is a systemic issue. I think anyone who spends some time looking into it understands that. And I think it's very important that these victims and survivors have their day in court. And I thank you for being a part of that.

Ann Andrews [02:19:21] Thank you, Kolby. Look, we feel very strongly about these cases. It's obviously a huge undertaking and we're passionate about our practice in standing up for victims of sexual assault in every way.

Kimberly Degonia [02:19:37] And

Ann Andrews [02:19:40] this series of abuse that we believe violates federal law because it's consistent, systematic, it's policy that set in a way in which the church has trafficked children. I mean, I don't think we could consider. I don't think the fact that we were brought here to discuss a case like this Bussey case could show a better aspect of trafficking than the way in which children are moved into areas where known abusers are and trafficked in a way that they are so damaged and in ways that are not to be spoken about in this sensitive setting about people that we represent, but in the highest level of abuse ongoing for years.

Ann Andrews [02:20:25] And the fact that they went to Spain with a child, that abused a child. I mean, the movement of these people alone is not a mandatory report, part of the. Of the statute, but it is definitely identified as one of the things that is looked to in the statute.

Ann Andrews [02:20:43] Traveling to victims, using the. Using. Using the. The. The. The. The transportation system, flying to places to meet children, to have sex with them, to abuse them. That's happened in variations and degrees of all of these cases, and with no specific reference to any one case. This is a case of trafficking.

John Dehlin [02:21:07] A couple questions that come to my mind really quick as we're kind of wrapping up here. One is my guess is the United States Supreme Court as currently constituted, is heavily religious, by the way, heavily Catholic, by the way. And we all know the Catholic Church, with its spotlight sort of past, has a history of, as found in court, of protecting and relocating, abusing priests at the expense of victims.

John Dehlin [02:21:41] And we know that the current U.S. supreme Court is highly religious and highly Catholic, constructed. There probably would be people who would worry that maybe with today's Supreme Court, any ruling against the church has a high probability of being overturned in the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court would likely be inclined to protect religious liberty and frankly, just to protect the interests of churches, especially prominent, wealthy churches.

John Dehlin [02:22:14] I don't even know if y' all would be in a position to comment on that or speculate on that, but obviously that comes to my mind in 2025.

Ann Andrews [02:22:24] I would simply say that the earlier question about church autonomy doctrine applying to this. I will say the same thing. Of all the Supreme Court high flyers that I know, and I know many of them, the one that argued, you know, Harrington versus Purdue against the, The. The large structure that we use to punish the Sacklers through the bankruptcy process, it was, it was a, you know, pretty Difficult argument. There are, there are difficult arguments for these Supreme Court high flyers. They take on these challenges, the cases that are argued. There was one of them that appeared in the tithing case recently, very prominent one, Paul Clements.

Ann Andrews [02:23:10] I think talking about the difference between money and church autonomy, about where they put their money and the discretion that, that that autonomy might allow to money. I would not want to be arguing that such autonomy would allow crimes against children on a systematic basis. I will say again, I would not want to be, would not have, have, want to have the challenge of making that argument to any court and even this Supreme Court.

John Dehlin [02:23:33] Okay, makes sense. So again, you haven't seen this question beforehand, so it's kind of asking you to come up with something on the fly. You mentioned that one of your primary goals might be, or the victim's goals might be to get the Mormon Church to change its policies, to do a better job of protecting its most vulnerable members. Are y' all in a position now to just sort of list what some of the recommendations from a constructive standpoint you might have to the Mormon Church to do a better job of having it set?

Kimberly Degonia [02:24:09] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:24:09] Perpetrators achieve justice and accountability and also of its victims to be protected better

Ann Andrews [02:24:15] and protect the integrity of the, of the culture of, of. Of a religion of people who have, you know, following in numbers of 5 million in America. I mean, look, most people who know my background, I didn't talk about it very much, but I was one of the principal negotiators of the national Boy Scout bankruptcy settlement that did mandate through a, through a survivors committee that mandated reform within, within the Boy Scouts, used policies that are now instituted nationwide in youth groups and followed by churches, by youth groups and schools systematically for the safe safety of children. We want children to be able to go to programs.

Ann Andrews [02:25:00] We want them to be able to go to camps. We want them. And the Mormon Church has many common things. As a matter of fact, there were 500,000 Boy Scouts that were in Mormon programs at one time. There are very safe, practical systems in place in organizations and churches included, that if they chose to follow them, they could be enacted easily.

Ann Andrews [02:25:24] Why they don't is going to be up to them to explain to a jury. If they came to us and said, ann, we'd like to sit down with you and as part of the resolution of this case, enact policies that we would like to change the way the church operates up to the apostles and quorum levels and see to it that it has real teeth and see to it that it has real reporting like the Boy Scouts has now because of this or this group that grew out of the bankruptcy formed by my firm and other firms, a coalition of firms that protect youth activities and scouting.

Ann Andrews [02:26:02] That's in there. That's, that's, that's, that's in their world. It's not. I mean, imagine if something like that were to happen. Imagine if my. I could be proud as I was of what we accomplished in Boy Scouts that a church came forward and though it was of the, though it was, it grew out of some horror and some harm to children, that the future of children would be a safe place in your church and this church and this place. So it's theirs to choose.

Ann Andrews [02:26:36] And I think that as long as they don't change it, these, this litigation is not going to stop. It's going to continue. And cases are occurring. The tragedy and to anybody watching who has any sort of influence or communication with the people who are making these decisions within church policy, it can be stopped.

Ann Andrews [02:27:03] And why it's not being stopped is what they must ask themselves. And I think that the good people, I think there are good people in all organizations. And whatever caused this and whatever outmoded way of doing things the way the Catholic Church did in Spotlight have now changed. So join us in that challenge. Come to the table and, and make, make it known that you can change, but we can't let it go because it's. A boy or a girl will be assaulted each day and every day until the policy changes in the Mormon Church. Yes.

Comparing Abuse Prevalence Across Institutions

John Dehlin [02:27:45] I was going to ask if y' all had any reason to believe that per capita child abuse was. And child abuse cover up was as or more prevalent in the Mormon Church than in the Catholic Church. Do you all even have a sense for that?

Ann Andrews [02:28:01] So all we know is that is that the national crime statistics and this, this was an education that I got from this fine attorney. So maybe she should speak to the incidents and the prevalence and you know how prevalent predators can be in an organization that is a closed system. Kimberly, why don't you answer that?

Kimberly Degonia [02:28:24] What's terrifying about these situations is it's like a DUI driver. They'll drive drunk how many times before they actually get a dui. Right? That's statistics. That's national statistics. That's if you ask any person who's received a dui, the same is true for a child molester. They will molest dozens of children in a pattern that they've learned to be successful in obtaining their victims dozens of times before they're ever caught. So that alone we have national statistics to support that. The hotline for the Mormon Church is receiving thousands of calls a year to report or to obtain advice on children in their wards getting sexually abused. So if they're obtaining thousands of calls a year, a year on just the reported knowledge of the children being abused, how many more acts are being done that are going unreported?

John Dehlin [02:29:22] Because the percentage of unreported,

Kimberly Degonia [02:29:25] it's much greater.

Ann Andrews [02:29:26] The national crime statistics are only about a third of cases are systematically reported that are. That are followed through with an actual report, either by mandated reporting. And I don't. We don't have any evidence because we'll be asking those questions. But it would seem that the prevalence of. Of any closed system and the Catholic Church is the best example. It was a closed system with priests being recycled with. With reports of horrible abuse being known to bishops and cardinals and not being reported. It was, you know, it continues to be a very dangerous and very difficult situation for Catholics to deal with. And I think that the spotlight's now on Mormonism.

John Dehlin [02:30:12] Possibly more than 10,000 cases a year just in the US alone.

Kimberly Degonia [02:30:16] Right.

John Dehlin [02:30:16] 10,000 or more. Go ahead, Kolby.

Kolby Reddish [02:30:18] Well, I was just gonna say, if I can just share my concluding thoughts. And then, unfortunately, I do have a hard cut off is to Anne's point and to what Kimberly said, my understanding is that Peyton Busey, who we talked about and Bussy, I'm sorry, that even though I understand those criminal proceedings are still working their way through the system, there at least have been other children that have come forward to say that they have been abused by Peyton. And I think that kind of gives a concrete example of what you're talking about on a statistical lever level, Kimberly. And the last thing I wanted to say is, you know, three years ago, when this issue is what catalyzed my personal faith crisis.

Kolby Reddish [02:31:02] And I don't want to make this about me at all, but I just want to echo what Ann's saying in the sense that what my wife and I did is we returned from Mormon stories. We came here, we met with the stake president, we met with an area president. We shared three policy change suggestions in a letter with the stake president. And to the stake president's credit, he moved forward and improved the youth protection training and program in our stake above what the church's kind of like baseline manuals require. Okay. So he did what I would say is the right thing. It was when we started exchanges with Salt Lake that we received nothing but resistance and borderline insults in their letters back to us because they ultimately can set the policy for the entire church.

Kolby Reddish [02:31:45] And so I just want to echo Ann's comments when she says, you know, this can be changed. That's exactly why we're talking about this. There were people in the comments who. Who were claiming that this is all about making the church look bad. And the reality is, it isn't. It isn't for me, and I know it's not for Ann. I know it's not for Kimberly, and I know it's not for John. It's about those children. It's about those future children who will continue to be harmed by people until the church figures out how to correctly handle this issue. And the bottom line is they've been messing it up for generations, and they need to be better on this issue by bringing in fresh ideas, fresh perspectives from outside.

Kolby Reddish [02:32:23] And if that needs to happen through litigation, then so be it, because those children are important. Important enough. And I just wanted to end with those comments. I'm so sorry. I have to run. But thank you again for having me be part of this discussion, because I do care about this issue. I care about those children. And the bottom line is the buck stopped somewhere, and the buck stops with the people at South Temple. They can change this tomorrow if they want to. And the fact that they don't demonstrates that they're at least accepting of what continues to happen to the children in this church.

Kolby Reddish [02:32:54] And I find that behavior disgusting and reprehensible. And I don't expect Kimberly or Ann to comment on that. But I want to. To go and state that. That. That I wish it would change. It needs to change. And I hope in the future we will see that change. Thank you for being part of that.

John Dehlin [02:33:11] Thanks. Kolby. This. This episode wouldn't. Wouldn't have happened without you and Gerardo, because I don't know enough to feel comfortable proceeding with the case like this. So, Kolby, thank you for that passionate plea and for all your work behind the scenes, to be kind of one of our legal correspondence, so to speak. Bless you, Kolby. Take care. Okay. Any response to Kolby? I mean, I, I, some would say, oh, attorneys are all about just money, money, money. This is all about money. I don't know if y' all even would want to dignify a response to that, but I have interacted with y' all enough to know that this is about much more than that, if, if that at all, as a primary motivation.

Ann Andrews [02:33:50] You know, I founded this firm almost, I hate to say, 40 years ago. I've been a lone wolf in this practice and started As a woman in practice, taking on causes of great concern to me. And one of the things I learned about the great thing of the practice of law is that because of the way I determined my life and my practice to inform my beliefs and my morals, I was able to use it as a great instrument of change.

Ann Andrews [02:34:20] And I don't have a board of directors or a bunch of senior partners that are telling me what I do, what I can do and I can't do like so many institutions in law and other places. And I've hired great attorneys like Kimberly, who share, who share my passion for moral justice and change.

Ann Andrews [02:34:38] And, you know, that's who we are. If, if, if part of this is to pay for our, to pay for us and our, our work, that's part of the system that we belong in and, and are proud to represent clients. But what. And to offer them the ability to hire us when they don't have a billion dollars or even $10,000 to go hire a lawyer to fight a cause, an enemy, somebody on the other side of a case of this size. We are, we can.

Ann Andrews [02:35:09] But what I would say is, you know, it took Rome a long time to wake up, right? I mean, institutions are created in, in, in all kinds of ways to, to not be change makers, to not be. And those decisions are made by people, not, not in this room. And maybe we'll never come to court. I don't know. We'll see. But it took Rome and it took cardinals, and it took many people, the United States, decades to change what the Catholic Church did and is apologized and responsible for. And it's still working its way through a lot of bankruptcies and a lot of things which we're very involved in.

Ann Andrews [02:35:54] I don't want to go into, you know, all the committees I sit on in bankruptcies seeking justice for those victims. But it did eventually happen, and maybe it will happen here. A lot of times. It is the litigation of lawyers, of brave lawyers and change makers like legislators, that change the law that rolled back statutes, the first one In California in 2003, that was rolled back to allow, to allow adults who were assaulted as children in the Catholic Church to sue, to extend the statute of limitations, because the child's brain that is so damaged from sexual assault could not possibly find the wherewithal to bring a case until a legal case to come forward and have the courage to do so.

Ann Andrews [02:36:43] So legislators across the country have been convinced that that need was necessary for these old cases and to reform the church. But what I say about this church is What? I've already said that if they want to change, change can start with this.

Ann Andrews [02:37:03] And I'm proud to represent every single client that I represent. I'm honored and privileged that they trust me and my law firm with the damaged goods that they are and the worthlessness that they feel and the betrayal that they're experiencing by the church that represented a God that they so loved.

Ann Andrews [02:37:26] And that's my job. And because of our system of justice, they have that right. And I'm grateful for it. I'm proud to be a part of it. And I'm very much looking forward to tackling all the legal issues, standing for them with all these great lawyers on my firm and other firms to collectively, collectively do justice. But if the church wants to change and any institution wants to change, school districts have had to change policies over the years where teachers were allowed to be alone with students, where teachers were allowed to drive children anywhere and anywhere. The grooming behavior, all this grooming behavior that occurs in, in places which these are not secrets.

Ann Andrews [02:38:10] These have been studied and knowledge and known about how to supervise the protection of youth in any institution is an understandable, knowable, effective and able, capable of being policed series of practices to protect children. So that's in their world to change, and I hope they do. But we're here to protect these people now and to do right by them.

John Dehlin [02:38:37] Thank you. Kimberly Degonia, do you want to add. Yeah. It seems like you've based your entire legal career on, on these sorts of cases. Is there anything you want to add on a personal note for what this means to you?

Kimberly Degonia [02:38:49] I just echo what Ann and said. It really, truly is not about the money, as you stated. I spent 15 years of my career on a government salary in Riverside county because being able to have the internal fortitude to be the voice for a victim, for a child who comes to you and tells you the details of their sexual assault, it takes a special kind of lawyer. And not every lawyer is cut out for it, and that's fine. But those of us who are, who have that internal fortitude, who have that ability to compartmentalize and to go to court and shed light on the facts on really, really dark areas in our world.

Kimberly Degonia [02:39:25] It's not about the money. It never has been and it never will be. It will always be about moral justice, about standing with the most vulnerable who have been, like Ann said, the most traumatized in our society. It's incumbent upon us to use our skill set as lawyers to be their voice. And that is why our firm diligently seeks to shed light all kinds of organizations who cover up sexual abuse. And I stand with our clients and I stand with their voice. And I am more than grateful to be a voice for them so that they have a little more strength and a little more courage to come forward with what they've been through.

Utah Legislation and How Survivors Can Seek Justice

John Dehlin [02:40:01] Beautiful. Okay, two more quick things. Maven called my attention to a bill, a proposed bill that's in front of the Utah legislature. And you mentioned legislatures are an important part of this process. The headline of this KSL article is Proposed bill would shorten time on Utah's registry for some sex offenders and it says key takeaways. Senator Todd Wyler proposes a bill to shorten registry time for some Utah sex offenders. The bill would allow certain offenses to shift from lifetime to 10 year registration. The proposal faces potential opposition and will be reviewed by Utah's legislative committees. We all know that if there's a theocracy in the United States, it's probably Utah because something like 80 to 90% of the of the state legislature identifies as active LDS.

John Dehlin [02:40:54] We would assume that any proposed legislation by a faithful active Mormon likely has potential backing for the Mormon church. But regardless, why in the world would a state legislator and or a church that might be backing that state legislature propose such legislation? And is this something that y' all would think would be more harmful to victims or potential victims versus helpful?

Ann Andrews [02:41:19] I like Kimberly, Take that.

Kimberly Degonia [02:41:20] So we actually saw this movement in California in the last 10 years very specifically and in some instances I agree that it shouldn't be a lifetime registration. And those instances are as follows. You have a 17 year old girl who's dating a 20 year old boy. They've grown up together, they were in ninth grade together, tenth grade together. And but for he graduates two years beforehand and now it's called statutory rape. And there's a potential for him being a lifetime registrant. Is he really the child molester that you need to be made aware of if he lives next door to you that's going to prey upon your 5

Ann Andrews [02:41:55] year old or this pled in these

Kimberly Degonia [02:41:57] cases or that's pled in this case,

Ann Andrews [02:41:58] in this fact, in these facts in these hundreds of cases filed across the country.

Kimberly Degonia [02:42:03] Probably not. Right? And as a society we probably want to give that 20 year old some grace. Maybe never have him register or maybe have him do it only for a lifetime of probation, two years in the penal code. Across the states it's very clear there's a defining age where it's reprehensible. There's no coming back from molesting a child who's under the age of 10, you should be a lifetime registrant. But as we inch up to the, you know, puberty stages 12 to 14, 16, for some reason, the legislation changes and doesn't view those sexual assaults as serious, as damaging to a child. So oftentimes in other states, you'll see that the registration requirement if you've victimized a child between the age of like 14 to 17 isn't as strict.

Kimberly Degonia [02:42:52] So I would imagine that Utah is trying to fall in line with the rest of the state. I've not read that new legislative, what they're trying to pass. Nonetheless, there, there are tiers, and I think that's the way that the legislation is taking this. And the tiers are kind of what we talked about earlier. If you are the child molester who is molesting six years old and under, seven years and under, that's really bad. That is really aggressive. And there is a, there's a strong indication that you cannot be rehabilitated from that. As such, you should register for life. And if anybody is trying to have them not register for life when they are committing sexual assaults with young minor children, I think that's a problem.

John Dehlin [02:43:31] Got it. Okay.

Ann Andrews [02:43:33] You know, I'm thinking of one last thing that I think might help your viewers understand how change can be accomplished through litigation and whatever people think about shedding people in negative light. You know, one of my mentors was a great attorney named Mark Robinson. And when I was a young, young lawyer still in law school, as a matter of fact, he was one of the first great auto product liability lawyers which tried the issue of safety of cars, which in the 70s, of which this area of car, the Pinto was made. And he was the one that found the smoking gun document that a board of directors and a whole team of managers decided that $1.99 to reinforce a gas tank was not enough to save lives, that people would perish in rear end collisions and forward Pintos and be burned alive.

Ann Andrews [02:44:25] And as a result of people like that, the automobile industry completely changed the way. And if we think about being exposed to predators and going to church and you're all the ways in schools you might be exposed to predators. Unknowingly, every time you got in a car, every time you got in a Ford Pinto, you were risking your life in a collision. And that man changed the way cars were made. And this woman changed the way the Boy Scouts operates a youth program. And this woman would like to change many institutions Ways to better protect children. But that litigation is what brought that to light.

Ann Andrews [02:45:00] That document would never have been known. It was a document that was covered extensively, that a memo was sent that said $1.99 times however many hundreds of thousands of cars they made was not going to be paid to save lives.

Ann Andrews [02:45:16] That's exactly what they said in the memo. It was too expensive to. To share up the gasoline, the gas tanks of Ford Pinto that had incredible risk of being rear ended at people burning to death. So I hope that, you know, over the, over the time of my career, these changes have been brought in my cases. I'm not gonna, you know, describe them all here today, but this is the kind of thing that litigation does. And this is why trial lawyers are very respected, admired, and to be thought of as heroes. And that's what we hope to accomplish is a heroic, a heroic thing here.

Ann Andrews [02:45:55] And if I can be the change that Mark Robinson got, that Ford that made all those vehicles safe and eventually took them off the road, if I can do something similar for the youth of the Mormon religion, I hope it's me.

John Dehlin [02:46:11] Beautiful. Last question. It's always a complicated situation for a victim to decide whether, whether or not they want to prosecute. There are so many, so many victims of, of assault or rape don't report. I've heard it is as low as 1%. But regardless, is there anything I. I assume that if somebody either has a case, federal or State. State, or if they have a situation that could become a case, they have to make that difficult decision of whether or not they want their case to be potentially made public. Do you all have anything to say to any victims out there who are trying to make that very difficult decision about whether or not to prosecute?

Ann Andrews [02:47:06] Sure. So, you know, it's obviously a decision that, that is best made with the support of family, Having people standing with you to help you through that because you will suffer. The. Our clients do expose themselves to harm that needs to be managed while they go through it. The ultimate success of going through it and taking back the power from the predator is a well known healing factor for victims that can have the power to. The courage to come forward.

Ann Andrews [02:47:40] But what I would say is you need to find counsel that is trauma informed and that has real meaning. You know, we at Andrews and Thornton and the law, some of the great law firms that handle these cases nationwide, we know what our clients need. We know the psychological experience to have with them, the time it takes the patients, the team of counselors we have standing by to aid and Assist them through that process. You know, every state has a different requirement about what you must file in order to bring forward a case of this serious nature.

Ann Andrews [02:48:14] And, you know, some law firms, as Kimberly mentioned, just simply can't do it. And we understand, you know, I couldn't do probably what they do. But you looking for a. Looking for a firm that has experience in this type of case that uses trauma informed techniques and uses victim support. You know, we are called upon in cases to help our clients through the criminal prosecution, to support them as their lawyers and their voice in a criminal prosecution, which can also be a slippery slope for them, how a prosecutor uses their testimony and how damaging that can be them and what their. Their voice. We can represent them under Marcy's law, which allows us to come into a criminal case and advocate for the victim, witness the complainant.

Ann Andrews [02:49:05] And we do that as well. And that's been quite a journey to understand in this time in my career to learn from someone that's experienced as Kimberly how to serve the needs of those clients. And we have. We have at least one or two of those representations going on now. And we're doing that on a pro bono basis, by the way. So you want to add to that? Sorry, I'm losing my voice.

Kimberly Degonia [02:49:28] Yeah, I just echo, Ann. It's super important to have a trauma informed lawyer. The cases that we have as the Marcy's Law, a couple of them have been on your show, and it really is just an added layer of support that they have along with their family. Oftentimes in the prosecution, it becomes this tug of war with, you know, the perpetrator oftentimes is the father, the stepparent, the uncle, the mother is now not receiving benefits from the father, the stepparent who's in custody, and the child's put in the middle, and they have to testify regardless. Very difficult for them to walk through the prosecution testifying, you know, being asked questions by a defense lawyer, but also dealing with the trauma of the actual abuse in the civil setting.

Kimberly Degonia [02:50:15] It's kind of the victim takes the power back. She or he decides that they want to file this lawsuit and that they want to stand with their lawyer in order to be the voice for change, to be the voice for the abuser or the organization being held accountable. And it's very empowering for a civil victim. But again, like Ann said, they really do need to have some support. That would be my encouragement. Or go to a firm that has the ability to support you through it.

Closing Thoughts and Words for Survivors

John Dehlin [02:50:41] Beautiful. Well, really quickly we've got 1400, 1500 people joining us on the live stream. It's fantastic. Audience, please take good time for the sake of the victims and the hope for change. Please take a moment to like this episode wherever you're watching it, to subscribe to YouTube, our channel on YouTube, on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram, wherever you're seeing this. Because that's the best way for the algorithm to push this episode far and wide.

John Dehlin [02:51:11] Something like 80% of our views come from YouTube pushing our programs into other people's Watch now feed. And that only happens when you guys like comment on and subscribe to the channel. So please do that. Thank you. I just want to thank so much Kolby Reddish for coming on today. He's so great. Gerardo for his background research.

John Dehlin [02:51:34] I want to thank Julia and Maven and Brooklyn for all they do behind the scenes production wise for us and our board of directors. And then I definitely want to thank you, Ann Andrews for being willing to come here on like a couple days notice and to fly here to help us understand better what's going on with these cases. So thank you, Ann Andrews for coming on and also thank you so much, Kimberly Degonia for, for your advocacy and for your participation as well.

Kimberly Degonia [02:52:07] Thank you for having us.

John Dehlin [02:52:08] Yeah. Any final words?

Ann Andrews [02:52:12] Just you know, to those that haven't found a voice, you know, find an advocate, find a friend, find a way to, to do what you think you can do. And there are, you know, obviously we know about accesses to services in your communities. Rape crisis hotlines, sex trafficking organizations are well known that take in complaints and really do have an incredible impact upon victims lives. Find the resources and you know, find your way to help and find your way to justice if you can.

John Dehlin [02:52:56] I also want to thank. Thank you. I agreed. I also want to thank the Floodlet group. Yes, I would not know about the Bussy case. Weirdly, even though I know the Bussy family, I would not know about the Bussy case if it weren't for Floodlit. So please check out Floodlit. I think it's floodlit.org but check them out. They have this registry of over a hundred active sexual abuse cases involving the LDS Church. They need your financial support just like Mormon Stories and the Other Stories foundation do. So thanks to floodlight.org for making this possible. Thanks to Brandon Bussey and any family members that are supporting them during this very difficult time and all the victims that have come forward to fight their cases because that's really the only way change ever happens.

John Dehlin [02:53:45] So thanks to all you victims out there, ones that we have not named or ones that we have. We couldn't do this without you. So, anyway, thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Thanks again to Ann and Kimberly. Thanks to all of you for joining us. And again, thanks to the donors who make this possible. If you value this type of content, want to see, Continue. The way to make it possible is to go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button, become a monthly donor, and we'll keep providing you with all this content.

John Dehlin [02:54:14] Thanks for joining us. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again very soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.