PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Hoping to uncover what the Mormon church knew about a high priest convicted of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy, a Multnomah County judge ordered the church to release internal records of sex-abuse complaints and discipline actions.
The church has filed an emergency appeal with the Oregon Supreme Court.
The ruling stems from a 1998 lawsuit by Jeremiah Scott, now 21, who accused a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints high priest of sexually abusing him repeatedly in 1990 and 1991 in Portland, when he was 11.
The high priest, Franklin Richard Curtis, was 87 at the time of the abuse. He was convicted of the charges and has since died.
At issue is what the church knew about Curtis' past and when. Scott's lawsuit claims the church knew of Curtis' past sex abuse when Curtis moved in with Scott's family but didn't warn them.
Curtis had been excommunicated from a ward in Pennsylvania for sex abuse when he moved to Oregon. Court records show he was rebaptized in 1984.
The lawsuit claims that Curtis sexually abused at least five children in the Rocky Butte Ward in Portland, where he became a member. A bishop confronted Curtis and he admitted the molestations.
But according to the complaint, the bishop kept it quiet until parents began to complain, and then reported only to church superiors in Salt Lake City, not police.
Curtis joined another ward, where he told then-Bishop Gregory Lee Foster that he had abused in the past. Foster didn't report him because Curtis said he'd repented, the lawsuit states. Foster knew that Curtis also had abused his own stepchildren but still invited Curtis to teach Sunday school, the lawsuit states.
In 1989, Scott's mother, Sandra, invited Curtis to live with the family and informed her bishop, Foster.
Foster told Sandra Scott that "it was not a good idea" because of Curtis' advanced age but said nothing about Curtis' history of sex abuse, the woman said in a 1999 deposition in the case.
Sandra Scott invited Curtis to sleep in the same bed as her son.
"There was no other place, and I had no reason to believe that this man was a child molester, so he stayed with my son," Sandra Scott said in the deposition.
Curtis abused the boy almost daily for about six months, according to the suit.
Jeremiah Scott came forward after his family moved to Washington. Curtis was arrested and convicted of first-degree sex abuse and given probation in 1994. He died in 1995.
The current lawsuit names the bishop and the church. A summary judgment hearing is scheduled for next month, but the fight over the church's internal documents could set it back.
On Jan. 24, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Ellen F. Rosenblum ordered the church to produce not only all records of Curtis, but all records of reports of sex abuse made against anyone in the Portland or East Portland wards. The order includes third-person complaints, in which someone reported suspicions of abuse between two others.
The church has argued that the material is protected under the First Amendment and confidentiality laws between a church and a penitent. Rosenblum has suggested that only she be allowed to review the documents.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, a lawyer representing an unnamed woman who was abused in Portland as a girl joined the case.