The Case of a Fallen Mission President: When the Mormon Church Promptly Removed a Leader Who ‘deceived and Victimized’ Young Female Missionaries

By Peggy Fletcher Stack
Salt Lake Tribune
April 26, 2018

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/04/26/the-case-of-puerto-rico-when-the-mormon-church-promptly-removed-a-mission-president-who-deceived-and-victimized-young-female-missionaries/

Lennie Mahler | The Salt Lake Tribune The supermoon rises as it simultaneously is eclipsed over the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015.

Ten months later, however, Smartt was dismissed as mission president and booted from the church for unspecified misconduct with multiple young female missionaries.

The victims, all older than 18, “chose not to pursue criminal charges,” LDS Church spokesman Eric Hawkins said in a statement in response to Salt Lake Tribune questions about the episode, and the Utah-based faith provided “ecclesiastical and emotional counseling” to the sister missionaries “who had been deceived and victimized.”

Hawkins noted Wednesday that “no police report was requested by the victims,” but added that “without question, these actions were reprehensible, immoral and against the laws of God and the standards of the church.”

This episode comes to light during the #MeToo movement, when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as other religious institutions are facing increased scrutiny for their response to reports of clergy misdeeds.

Smartt, a wealthy Alabama lawyer-developer, assigned several female pairs to isolated islands, far from other missionaries or the mission home in the capital of San Juan. He bought clothes and jewelry for some of the women. He flew them from place to place in his private plane, which he arranged to be sent to the mission within a few months of his arrival.

Smartt’s treatment of the female proselytizers in his care was exposed when one sister missionary took the unusual step of phoning her stake president on the U.S. mainland. (Mormon missionaries generally call home only on Christmas and Mother’s Day and only to their families.) She reported what was going on, and that regional lay leader alerted officials in the faith’s Salt Lake City headquarters.

“Any missionary who informs church leaders, family members and/or legal authorities about abuse should be commended, and may use any available means to do so,” Hawkins said. “This is what occurred in this case, and it prompted immediate action by the church.”

Within days, general authority Craig Zwick, then a member of the faith’s Seventy, was dispatched to Puerto Rico to take over the mission.

“This is a tragic and heartbreaking case of deception and betrayal that has impacted the lives of a number of people,” Hawkins said. “When church leaders learned of what had occurred, the mission president was immediately and dishonorably released from his position, sent home and excommunicated.”

Smartt did not respond to repeated phone and email messages for this story.