A lawsuit filed Friday in St. Louis County Circuit Court accuses higher-ups in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints of turning a blind eye to, and even encouraging, the sexual abuse of a teenage girl.
The girl, identified only as A.L., was sexually abused by Larry Deutsch, who held roles in the Mormon church that included serving as a bishop in St. Charles and Lincoln counties. Deutsch is currently serving a 12-year sentence in federal prison stemming from the crimes he committed against A.L.
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She is represented in the civil suit by St. Louis attorney Ryan Krupp, who says that suing the church, headquartered in Salt Lake City, is more than warranted. “The LDS exercises a unique level of control over both its clergy and its members unparalleled by other religions,” says Krupp. “In this case, they exercised that control by counseling both A.L.’s parents and A.L. regarding Deutsch’s behavior.”
A spokesman for the church did not respond to a message seeking comment yesterday.
Through his work with the church, Deutsch organized youth bicycle trips that A.L. took part in. After A.L. and her family moved to Arizona in 2018, she and Deutsch stayed in close contact, eventually spending hours on the phone in a given day, despite an almost 35-year age difference. In the fall of 2019, Deutsch, who was 50, also had A.L., then 16, send him sexually explicit photographs.
When A.L.’s family discovered this, they filed an order of protection against Deutsch. Then, in February 2020, Deutsch flew from Missouri to Arizona, picked up A.L. and drove her back to St. Louis. Within a few days, police located the girl in a Ballwin apartment. Deutsch pled guilty to charges of coercion and enticement of a minor and receiving child porn the following year.
The lawsuit paints a compelling picture of church leaders’ efforts on Deutsch’s behalf, including those of an Arizona bishop named Scott Donaldson, who allegedly abetted Deutsch in his predatory behavior throughout 2019 and into 2020 right up until Deutsch took A.L. from Arizona to Missouri.
The lawsuit says that A.L.’s mother was alarmed about the relationship between Deutsch and her daughter and in August 2019 wrote to Donaldson and other church leaders asking them to stop it. According to the suit, Donaldson not only ignored the request, but instructed the mother to allow the contact between her daughter and Deutsch to continue.
Donaldson himself met with the girl in secret about two dozen times without the consent of her parents starting in August 2019. At those meetings, the suit says, the topic of conversation was the relationship between A.L. and Deutsch, which “was being covered up by the church.”
Krupp says he has police reports showing that LDS leaders in Missouri and Arizona knew about the relationship. “But instead of reporting Deutsch, the LDS tried to sweep it under the rug and directly facilitated the relationship,” Krupp tells SLM.
In order to try to stop the communication between Deutsch and their daughter, A.L.’s parents took away her cell phone in the fall of 2019. Deutsch gave A.L. a “secret cellphone,” and when that phone was discovered by the parents, Donaldson acted as “middleman” for communication between her and Deutsch, the suit alleges.
That was in spite of the order of protection, the suit says. It cites one specific instance in which A.L. communicated to Donaldson that she was having trouble with her piano playing. “Bishop Donaldson then spoke directly to Deutsch who purchased a piano book for A.L. and sent it directly to A.L. from ‘Larry,’ illegally violating the Order of Protection,” the suit says.
Krupp says that based on copies of text messages he’s seen between the two men, Donaldson should have been fully aware of Deutsch’s illegal intentions concerning A.L.
“Donaldson had the power, responsibility, and opportunity to prevent A.L. from being harmed. He failed to do so and the phone logs and text messages will back that,” Krupp tells SLM.
The third named defendant in the suit is a counselor employed by the church. The suit says that A.L. and her parents told the counselor about the inappropriate relationship and, although she was a mandated reporter, she did not report it to law enforcement.
The suit alleges seven counts of civil conspiracy against Donaldson, the counselor, and the church itself. The church alone is accused of negligent and intentional failure to supervise clergy.
