Posted on 11/26/2013 4:48:42 AM PST by Colofornian
A former Mormon bishop in Riverside County is expected to serve three years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenage girls who attended a Menifee church, prosecutors said.
Todd Mitchell Edwards, 49, pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts related to the assault of the teens, ages 16 and 18, as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney's office. The counts were sexual battery and sexual penetration with a foreign object. In addition to the prison time, Edwards will also have to register as a lifetime sex offender as part of the arrangement, prosecutors said.
Edwards, who has been free on $65,000 bond, is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
The assaults happened in November 2006, according to the criminal complaint. He was initially charged with a third count, related to an attempt to dissuade one of the victims from reporting the crime to authorities, but that charge will be dismissed as part of the agreement, prosecutors said.
Edwards held the rank of bishop in the Menifee ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
For more on how these types of cases keep involving a segment of the population that is less than 2%, see post #2 from a post earlier this month:
Lawsuit filed against church for coverup of sex abuse [Lds church accused of cover-up]
/sarc>
CC
I used to be in the news business and I still remember a story about a rabbi and another about a couple who were ordained in the liberal Protestant United Church of Christ accused of sexually abusing children.
CC
This thread will bash any religion that gets in the way of it bashing any religion.
Pray for the Mormon victims involved in this abuse.
I believe you are on to something there, but it does go on involving other kinds of clergy. The most recent story I saw involved a conservative Protestant pastor in western Pennsylvania.
The issue isn't which church leaders in what sect are immune to this...
...there aren't such sects...
The issue is which sects...
(a) have a much higher concentration "ratio'd" vs. their slim #s... [see link in post #1]
(b) and which sects are covering up when it happens [see link to article in post #1]
A third aspect is that most sects claim to be mortal beings.
A few -- like Scientologists & Mormons -- claim to be alien beings who pre-existed on other planets & claimed to be sent here.
Mormons then also go further & their leaders say they are "gods in embryos" ...
So "gods" are a much higher-level "entity" -- and shouldn't be subject to all of these petty crimes.
IoW, these incidents show that Mormons aren't so "goddy" after all.
I would say that wrongdoing or sin is a universal issue.
To obsess on some groups and to be worried about other people with all my energy doesn’t help me to be closer to my God.
It’s my experience that all this energy could be best directed in the direction of myself and reducing my pride and increasing my humility.
(Funny how comments like this NEVER seem to wind up on "Knock-out game" threads; homeowner/store clerk shoots burglar or home invasion or robber threads; or rape and/or murder threads...why is that your inconsistency shows in failing to make such comments on those criminal threads???)
To obsess on some groups and to be worried about other people with all my energy doesn’t help me to be closer to my God.
Likewise...I've noticed some FR posters who've thru the years have put up a LOT of...
...Muslim terrorist threads...
...or educator sexually abuses student threads...
...or one the above-mentioned topical threads...
...or anti-Obama threads...
...or ObamaCare threads...
...or they've just commented a lot on Kennedy-related threads...
Pray tell, where are your reminders on ANY of those threads that they don't "help me to be closer to my God"???
And...do you go around accusing ANY of those FREEPERs of "obsessing"/worrying "with all...energy" over Obama or JFK? If not, why not?
Why do you assume it's "ALL my energy" as if even more than a few hrs are spent focusing on this matter on the average week? Or you assume that people somehow can't multi-task in their opposition to certain things? (For example, not long after I posted this thread, I posted an ObamaCare thread)
It’s my experience that all this energy could be best directed in the direction of myself and reducing my pride and increasing my humility.
Please give me just one link on ANY FREEPER thread -- for example on ANY of the above-named topics -- where you've made a similar comment....
(Tapping my foot...not actually expecting you being able to do that)
And how is it that your "energy" concentrated on the Jim Jones cult on a Nov. 12 post: "The “Reverend” Jim Jones proclaimed his People’s Temple Marxist when the Kool Aid mass suicide and murder occurred in Guyana back in the 1970’s."
Post #3
How does that cult-comment help your own humility?
Are only some cults worth comments? (But others aren't?)
Will you be able to answer ANY of these questions with ANY kind of religious consistency?
Is Edwards a “former Mormon” or a “former bishop”?
Former bishop for certain; it’s possible/likely the church also ex-communicated him...but haven’t heard on that count...and the article doesn’t address it...
no money involved, the archdiocese of Chicago has a lot more money than a local protestant congregation....
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