UTAH
Daily Herald
BRADY McCOMBS
Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY — LDS Church attorneys argued Monday that a lawsuit accusing religious officials of not doing enough to protect four Navajo children from sexual abuse in a now defunct church-run foster program belongs in federal court because the alleged incidents occurred off tribal land.
U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby heard nearly three hours of arguments Monday about whether to keep the case in tribal court. Shelby said he’ll issue a ruling at a later date.
The alleged victims say they were sexually abused between the 1960s and early 1980s in the Indian Student Placement Program, which placed thousands of Navajo children in Mormon foster homes in Utah, Idaho and New Mexico.
Craig Vernon, an attorney for the victims, conceded that the alleged abuse didn’t happen on tribal lands, but he said decisions about where to place children and the inaction after the kids reported the abuse occurred on the Navajo Nation.
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