The accused is Brian Pickett (I am told the brother of Bruce Pickett, Bonneville County Prosecuting Attorney). Child abuse with Ties to East Idaho! Disgusting!
http://urbanhonolulu.hawaiinewsnow.com/news/business/295433-utah-boys-allegedly-victimized-maui-land-and-pineapple-camp-1980s
This is directly from the article:
WAILUKU, MAUI – Honolulu attorneys Charles McKay and
Randall Rosenberg of Rosenberg & McKay filed a complaint in Second
Circuit Court on Maui yesterday afternoon against The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), Maui Land & Pineapple Company,
Inc. (ML&P), Youth Development Enterprises, Inc. (YDE) and Brian R.
Pickett, who currently resides in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The Plaintiffs
are two Utah men, Kyle Spray (42) and Jake Huggard (41), who now live in
the Salt Lake City, Utah area. Also consulting on the case are Idaho
and Seattle Attorneys Craig Vernon and Leander James of James, Vernon
and Weeks, P.A., and Mark Leemon of Leemon + Royer.
The lawsuit
alleges the LDS (Mormon) Church and ML&P recruited boys in the 1970s
and 80s from Mormon communities in Utah and Southeastern Idaho to pick
pineapples at camps in Maui, where the Plaintiffs were sexually
molested. The camps closed in the early 1990s.
"There were
hundreds of boys over more than a decade cycled through these camps,"
explained attorney Randall Rosenberg, Esq., of Rosenberg & McKay.
"Hundreds were exposed to the alleged sexual predator in our case. We
do not know how many others may have been molested, but our experience
is that child sexual predators with access to kids have multiple
victims."
"We are asking for anyone with knowledge about sexual
abuse at these camps to come forward," added attorney Charles McKay,
Esq., of Rosenberg & McKay.
LDS men in their twenties, who
qualified for supervisory positions after completing their two-year
missions from the LDS Church, ran the camps. When recruiting boys, the
suit alleges the LDS Church represented to parents that the camps were a
safe training ground for boys to become Mormon missionaries.
According
to the suit, Defendant Brian R. Pickett, a Camp Coordinator, molested
the Plaintiffs as boys while overseeing up to 200 boys at one camp from
1986 to 1988. ML&P promoted Picket in 1988 to Vice President of
Operations over both camps, exposing him to more than 400 boys employed
at the camps. The alleged sexual abuse took place at the ML&P
barracks while Picket was Camp Coordinator. Abuse of one boy allegedly
continued at Pickett’s Maui upcountry home. In addition to being the
boys’ boss, Pickett was their spiritual leader. Pickett was the Branch
President, similar to a Mormon Bishop, who presided over the boys'
religious training. According to the suit, Pickett baptized one
15-year-old victim who had been recruited as a non-Mormon, then sexually
molested the boy.
“We believe Brian R. Pickett used his
position over our clients as their supervisor and religious leader to
gain access to the boys and manipulate them," said attorney Craig
Vernon, Esq., of James, Vernon and Weeks. "The [Mormon] Church marketed
this as a safe, wholesome and exciting adventure; fly to Hawai'i and
pick pineapples. That was extremely attractive to Mormon boys in Utah
and Idaho in the 70s and 80s."
“Thanks to a new Hawai'i law, abuse
survivors as far away as Utah and Idaho now have access to justice for
harm they suffered as boys in Hawai'i," explained attorney Mark Leemon,
Esq., of Leemon + Royer. "We share our clients' concern that other
boys who may have been abused at these camps in the 70s and 80s only
have until April of this year under the new law to file their claims."
The
two-year window statute in Hawaii allows child sexual abuse survivors
to come forward and file suit until April 2014, regardless of when the
abuse took place.
Equitable relief
Like
similar suits Rosenberg and McKay filed against the Catholic Church,
they and their team seek more than money for their clients. "Our
clients seek equitable relief for the protection of children, in
addition to acknowledgement and restitution for the harm to them,"
explains Rosenberg. "We ask the LDS Church to take concrete steps to
prevent future abuse and for the healing of victims." The relief sought
demands the Church:
- Change its corporate policies regarding
reporting of suspected child sexual abuse. According to the suit,
current policies instruct members and leaders to contact the Church
instead of police or child protective services when they suspect child
sexual abuse.
- Reject current policies that state Church leaders
should avoid testifying in civil or criminal cases involving abuse
(Handbook 1, State Presidents and Bishops 2010, Section 17.3.2.)
- Institute regulations that:
- All alleged sex abusers will be immediately removed from exposure to children.
- Members and leaders must report suspected abuse to the police and child protective services.
- Leaders and members shall cooperate with civil and criminal authorities in cases involving sexual abuse, including testifying.
- Publicly
list abusers names on the LDS homepage of all its web sites to alert
people of danger, including on the list Brian R. Pickett as a credibly
accused pedophile with his last known address.
- Identify all leaders and members who have been credibly accused of sexual molestation of a child in Hawaii.
- Never support any laws that would shield child sexual abusers.
- Establish
age appropriate sex abuse training and educations for children ages 3 –
18 years old. This will include a “safe haven” for children to report
abuse to any of three people in each Ward (a collection of individual
churches).
- Adopt a whistleblower policy so those reporting abuse will not have any retaliatory action taken against them.
- Publish
through its President an annual written statement that there exists no
undisclosed knowledge that any leader has sexually abused any person in
Hawaii.
- Send a letter of apology to Plaintiffs.
“Equitable
relief ensures there is concrete action for the prevention of future
abuse and for the healing of victims,” explained McKay. “Given the
number of young boys under Pickett’s supervision in the 1980s, there
could be many more boys who experienced this abuse in Hawaii and now
live in shame and silence in Idaho and Utah.”
