'Recordings show how the LDS Church protects itself from child sex abuse claims'
Paul Rytting listened as a woman, voice quavering, told him her story.
When she was a child, she said, her father, a former bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had routinely slipped into bed with her while he was aroused.
It was March 2017 and Rytting offered his sympathies as 31-year-old Chelsea Goodrich spoke. A Utah attorney and head of the church’s Risk Management Division, Rytting had spent about 15 years protecting the Utah-based faith from costly claims, including sexual abuse lawsuits.
Rytting had flown into Hailey, Idaho, that morning from Salt Lake City to meet in person with Chelsea and her mother, Lorraine.
After a quick prayer, he introduced himself and said he was there “to look into” Chelsea’s “tragic and horrendous” story.
Chelsea and Lorraine had come to the meeting with one clear request: Would the church allow a lay Idaho bishop to testify at John Goodrich’s trial? Bishop Michael Miller, who accompanied Rytting to the meeting, had heard a spiritual confession from Chelsea’s father shortly before John Goodrich was arrested on charges of sexually abusing her.
While the details of his confession remain private, the church swiftly excommunicated Goodrich.
Audio recordings of the meetings over the next four months, obtained by The Associated Press, show how Rytting, despite expressing concern for what he called John’s “significant sexual transgression,” would employ the risk management playbook that has helped the church keep child sexual abuse cases secret. In particular, the church would discourage Miller from testifying, citing a law that exempts clergy from having to divulge information about child sex abuse that is gleaned in a confession. Without Miller’s testimony, prosecutors dropped the charges, telling Lorraine that her impending divorce and the years that had passed since Chelsea’s alleged abuse might prejudice jurors.
Rytting would also offer hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for a confidentiality agreement and a pledge by Chelsea and Lorraine to destroy their recordings of the meetings, which they had made at the recommendation of an attorney and with Rytting’s knowledge.
Today, John Goodrich, who did not respond to the AP’s questions, is a free man, practicing dentistry in Idaho.
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Unbeknownst to Chelsea, who believed Rytting’s main responsibility was to aid victims, at about that time he was deeply involved in defending the church in a highly publicized West Virginia child sex abuse lawsuit. Several Latter-day Saint families had accused the church of allowing a Latter-day Saint sex abuser, Christopher Michael Jensen, to babysit for their children, whom he allegedly abused. Jensen was sentenced to serve 35 to 75 years in prison after he was found guilty of abusing two of the children.
As revealed by the AP last year, Rytting made sworn statements in that case — which were sealed by a judge and obtained by the AP — describing the management of the secretive church help line, a phone number set up by the church for bishops and other lay leaders to report instances of child sex abuse. Church officials say that they don’t keep any records of the reports to the help line.
Rytting also revealed the lengths to which the church goes to ensure confidentiality for Latter-day Saint perpetrators who make spiritual confessions.
“Disciplinary proceedings are subject to the highest confidentiality possible,” Rytting said in one affidavit. “If members had any concerns that their disciplinary files could be read by a secular judge or attorneys or be presented to a jury as evidence in a public trial, their willingness to confess and repent and for their souls to be saved would be seriously compromised.”
