Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Latter-day Saint movements Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, USA · 2013

United States: LDS church leader guilty of molesting a boy over five years, using church roles to access the family

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Executive secretary to two bishops, teacher, and ward mission leader, LDS congregation

Organization

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Cuyahoga County, Ohio

Spiritual nexus

Lewis held a series of LDS church positions — executive secretary under two bishops, teacher, ward mission leader — which the prosecution argued at sentencing he used deliberately to 'gain trust and access to the victim's family, and then used that trust to get to the victim'; the victim's father stated Lewis 'used the church to build a relation of trust with us.'

Pastoral or clerical authority
Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

Date in cited record · trial

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, Ohio. Mark Lewis pleaded guilty to sexually abusing the victim from age 12 to 17. At sentencing, two earlier victims (brothers) also testified to decades-old abuse by Lewis. Sentenced to 25 years.
2013-10-17 · appellate

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eighth Appellate District. Sentence affirmed; the court held the trial court properly considered the uncharged prior-victim testimony at sentencing.

Appellate history

2013-10-17

Ohio Eighth Appellate District (Cuyahoga County) affirmed the sentence.

Documented coercion mechanisms

successive positions of church trust (executive secretary, teacher, ward mission leader) used deliberately to gain access to the victim's family and, through the family, to the victim

Primary record

Sources

court opinion appellate opinion State v. Lewis, 2013-Ohio-4593 (Ohio Ct. App., 8th Dist., Oct. 17, 2013).: Full appellate opinion describing Lewis's successive LDS church leadership roles used to gain access to the victim's family, his guilty plea, and the affirmance of his 25-year sentence.

Related record

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