The only thing of relevance here is the end where the Mormon cult's leaders claim that their pedophile wasn't any special leader and was the same as any other follower. This is _exactly_ what followers of the Scientology cult are told about Mary Sue Hubbard and the other GO/OSA cult leaders who went to prison for Hubbard.

It's never the cult's leader's fault.

-=- http://dallasnews.com/latestnews/113747_molestation.html Mormon high priest convicted of indecency 07/18/2000 By Holly Becka / The Dallas Morning News A Dallas County jury found a Mormon high priest guilty Tuesday of indecency with a child for molesting a 10-year-old girl.

Gene A. Guinn, 68, was being tried on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child in connection with the August 1994 incident in her Cedar Hill home, but jurors convicted him on the lesser indecency charge. The deliberations took nearly six hours over two days.

Mr. Guinn's defense attorney argued that the victim, now 16, gave varying accounts of the incident and that Mr. Guinn never went as far as the girl most recently alleged.

Mr. Guinn still faces up to life in prison because he has a 1975 conviction for involuntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors immediately began presenting punishment-phase testimony from four other women who said Mr. Guinn had fondled or assaulted them when they were children. All had met Mr. Guinn through church, including a young woman whose baptism had been organized by the defendant. Two testified that he fondled them in a church building on Kiest Boulevard.

Testimony outside the jury's presence showed that the trial was delayed for nearly two years while prosecutors and attorneys for local and national branches of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints battled over subpoenaed records and testimony.

The church excommunicated Mr. Guinn after he admitted the molestation to at least two church officials and during a church disciplinary hearing, according to testimony the jury heard. The judge ordered various church records turned over to prosecutors.

Also at issue was whether Mr. Guinn was a church official. Prosecutors contend he was a leader in the church through his position as a high priest and through his active role in various church deeds. The now 16-year-old victim and her family testified that they looked up to Mr. Guinn and considered him a leader in the church.

However, attorneys for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints say that Mr. Guinn was simply a regular church member. They say that all older male members of the Mormon church can become high priests and that the title doesn't connote clergy duties or mean he was a leader.

--- * Origin: Gerard Finneran Fan Club (1:393/9005.13) --- "de omnibus dubitandum" All is to be doubted --- Descartes 24-hour file archive access: (626) 335-9601 (FidoNet 1:218/890.0) SP4 The Skeptic Tank: http://www.skeptictank.org/ http://www.nots.org/ "I offered him an OT3/Xenu flyer. It was somewhat like offering garlic to a vampire..." - Keith Henson (http://www.xenu.net/)

Go Back