SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
FOX13
April 4, 2018
By Ben Winslow
The woman who has accused a former leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Missionary Training Center of sexual assault has filed a lawsuit and made her name public.
McKenna Denson filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court late Wednesday, naming ex-Provo MTC President Joseph Bishop and the LDS Church as defendants. They were being sued for sexual assault and emotional distress as well as fraud. FOX 13 previously reported she was threatening a civil lawsuit over the alleged sexual assault that occurred at the MTC in 1984.
The lawsuit accuses Bishop of sexual improprieties while serving the church in Florida, as well as improper behavior toward women during his time as Weber State University’s president in the 1970s. The lawsuit alleges that Bishop had also previously confessed to inappropriate behavior around women, but was instead given a “spiritual blessing” and no other corrective action was taken by the LDS Church.
“In an epic institutional betrayal of trust, just the opposite occurred; Bishop was called to be the President of the MTC in Provo, Utah. There, instead of having access to hundreds of young missionaries, the Church elevated him to a position of power over thousands of young women who were training to be missionaries,” Denson’s attorney, Craig Vernon, wrote in the lawsuit.
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