LDS bishop ordered to stand trial for witness tampering, failure to report abuse charges

DUCHESNE — A judge has ordered an LDS Church bishop to stand trial on charges of witness tampering and failure to report abuse.

But the defense attorney for Bishop Gordon Moon called the judge's order "a far cry from a ringing endorsement of the prosecution's case." 

"I think anyone who reads the bindover order can see that," attorney David Leavitt said Wednesday. "From our perspective, the bindover was something we expected because the burden of proof is so low."

Moon, 43, is accused of failing to notify police about a 17-year-old girl's disclosure that she had been sexually abused by a teenage relative. The bishop also told the girl not to seek a protective order against the teenage boy and the boy's mother when the girl came to him for counsel, according to Duchesne County prosecutors.

Moon appeared in 8th District Court on Dec. 22 for a preliminary hearing. Judge Lyle Anderson took the case under advisement and issued a decision last week.

In his nine-page order, Anderson wrote that his duty at this point in the case was not to determine whether Moon violated the law, but to decide whether there was probable cause to believe he committed the offenses of witness tampering, a third-degree felony, and failure to report abuse, a class B misdemeanor.

"The court finds that there is probable cause to believe the defendant committed the offense(s)," Anderson wrote.

In reaching his decision, Anderson relied largely on transcripts from a videotaped interview a Duchesne County sheriff's investigator conducted with the teen girl, and a separate recorded interview with the girl's father.

The father, a member of Moon's congregation, told the investigator he asked Moon to meet with his daughter in his ecclesiastical role because she had disclosed an incident of sexual abuse, court records state. The disclosure was causing conflict between family members, the man told investigators.

Leavitt, during the preliminary hearing, argued that the girl never clearly told Moon she had been sexually abused. She only told the bishop that "something had happened" between herself and the boy, Leavitt said.

He also pointed out that his client was at least the sixth person to know about the abuse before police were contacted, but is the only person charged with a crime.

Prosecutor Grant Charles said Moon is charged because he's "the only one who did something to try to prevent" the girl from going to the authorities.