Documentary record Bound by Fear
← Explore all cases
Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Latter-day Saint movements Menifee, California, USA · 2013

LDS bishop Todd Michael Edwards: guilty plea for molesting teenage girls in his congregation

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

bishop, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Menifee, California ward

Organization

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Menifee, California ward

Spiritual nexus

Edwards held his victims' trust as their LDS bishop, the pastoral office responsible for spiritual counseling and discipline within the ward; his access to the second victim in particular arose from that office, held at the time of the offense.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2013-12-12 · guilty plea and sentence

    Riverside County Superior Court, California. Todd Michael Edwards was convicted via guilty plea to two felony counts of sexual battery and sexual penetration with a foreign object, for abusing two teenage girls in his congregation in 2006 and 2012. He was sentenced to two concurrent three-year prison terms and, at sentencing, classified by the court as a violent sexual predator.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • bishop's pastoral and disciplinary authority over ward members
  • one-on-one pastoral-counseling access to teenage congregants

Primary record

Sources

local news archived sentencing report John Asbury, 'Mormon Bishop Sentenced to Three Years for Sex Abuse', The Press-Enterprise (12 Dec. 2013), archived via bishop-accountability.org.

Reports the guilty plea, the two concurrent three-year sentences, and the classification of Edwards as a violent sexual predator at sentencing.

advocacy database case summary FLOODLIT, 'Todd Mitchell Edwards Mormon sex abuse case' (database entry).

Case-tracking entry corroborating Edwards's bishop role, the 2006 and 2012 offense dates, and the 2013 conviction and sentence.

Related record

Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts

← Explore all cases