The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has reached an out-of-court settlement in a lawsuit filed by a woman who accused church officials of failing to report to law-enforcement authorities that a man had molested her daughter.
Kent E. Turley, a Phoenix lawyer for the church, would not divulge the settlement terms Wednesday.The settlement was reached Tuesday, the day trial was scheduled to start after a July 1988 ruling by the Arizona Court of Appeals that compelled two LDS bishops and another church official to give testimony about conversations they had with a church member, Richard Kenneth Ray, who, according to court records, told them he was molesting children.
The appeals court ruled that Arizona's clergyman-penitent privilege of confidentiality did not apply, saying Ray had waived the privilege by disclosing the conversations to Mesa police after he was taken into custody.
Ray, 47, was sentenced in September 1984 to 61 years in prison for the molestation of five girls.