Patheos blog
July 24, 2019
By Hemant Mehta
When Benjamin Alyk was in his early teens, he came across a website that trafficked in illicit photos of children. People on that website uploaded and traded pictures that were criminal in nature. When the website’s security ramped up, Alyk discovered he could only get access to pictures if he shared some of his own… so he secretly recorded two kids, ages 4 and 6, as they used the bathroom in his home. Later on, he used a remote camera to record kids at his mother’s in-home daycare changing in and out of their swimsuits.
Alyk says he stopped looking at (and trading) child pornography when he was 17. When he was 18, he embarked on a two-year Mormon mission trip in the Dominican Republic and, perhaps full of guilt, confessed everything to the man overseeing the mission.
Alyk was sent back home to Utah, where he confessed once again to a Mormon disciplinary council consisting of local church leaders — likely 15 men that included the Stake President, two counselors, and “12 members of the local High Council.”
Despite all those confessions, nothing happened. He wasn’t punished. Law enforcement didn’t come after him. More importantly, he was free to be around children without any consequences.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.