UTAH
Fox 13
JANUARY 5, 2017, BY BEN WINSLOW
SALT LAKE CITY — Lawyers for a group of people suing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over accusations of sex abuse have renewed a deposition subpoena for President Thomas S. Monson.
They want the 89-year-old leader of the LDS Church to sit for a deposition and answer what — if anything — he knows about accusations of sexual abuse dating back to the 1960s and ’70s in a church-run program on the Navajo reservation.
“We believe we have a right to question President Monson about how he was briefed, what he learned about child sex abuse and what was done to protect kids in the future,” Craig Vernon, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told FOX 13 on Thursday.
Four people have filed lawsuits against the LDS Church, accusing it of not doing enough to stop the abuse they allege they suffered while in the church-run “Lamanite Placement Program” or “Indian Placement Program.” As children, the plaintiffs (who are only identified by initials in court documents) claim they were taken from their homes on the Navajo reservation, baptized into the Mormon faith and placed in host homes in Utah where the alleged abuse occurred.
“He is the only apostle that is currently alive back then,” Vernon said.
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