Source: LDS Church faces lawsuit claiming convicted pedophile was permitted access to children Channel: ABC4 Utah Published: October 8, 2025 | Archived: May 24, 2026

Video: LDS Church faces lawsuit claiming convicted pedophile was permitted access to children
Channel: ABC4 Utah
Published: October 8, 2025
Duration: 3:32
Views: 3,839
Category: News & Politics
Video ID: E7PehGMtvhs

Description

A lawsuit has been filed against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claiming the Church knowingly permitted a convicted pedophile to have unfettered access to children resulting in the sexual exploitation and abuse of four boys, according to Dolman Law Group and Anapol Weiss.

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Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is facing a packed lawsuit claiming the church knowingly allowed a convicted pedophile to have access to children they claim ultimately resulting in sexual abuse. ABC4’s Bay Wang has been digging into this lawsuit for us. Joins us live in the newsroom. Byan, let’s start with who this convicted sex offender was. Sir, good to be with you. His name was David Herget and he was a high priest at the Mount Lake Ward outside of Seattle when some of the alleged sexual abuse occurred. After his arrest in 2005, he allegedly took his own life while in a Washington jail. And now his alleged victims are going after the church.

0:40 What the church did in this situation, um, we believe that they should be held civily liable for this. The allegations in this 20page lawsuit are disturbing. There was rape. There was sexual assault. Um there was molestation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints named as the defendant in this case. Four victims alleged they were sexually abused when they were children by this man, David Herget, a high priest at the Mount Lake Ward in Washington.

1:08 The allegation is uh that this church um allowed a known predator to have unfettered access to innocent children um in the ward where they lived. The sexual abuse allegedly happened between 2001 and 2005. The suit says this is after Herit was already convicted of raping one of his underage family members. His sentence in that case was 7 years, but it was cut short. The suit alleges members of the church wrote letters to the judge pleading for leniency.

1:41 As a result, he ended up serving only 18 months um in jail and shortly after he was released from state supervision. He was allowed back on church property. The suit claims Herget was allowed to eventually participate in church services again. And within a year, he was rebaptized, admitted to his prior crime, and served a role within the church that allowed him to engage with children in the early 2000s when the alleged sexual abuse occurred. The church would restore Herget to high priest in 2004. According to the suit, they let a known child sexual predator have access to kids. They gave him a position of power within the ward and he used that power which they should have known was a huge danger. He used that power to go after kids including my clients and cause them horrible lifelong trauma.

2:43 Trauma the four victims hope their lawsuit helps prevent for others within the church. What really drove our clients to come forward was to to force the church to make a change, to force the church to take the steps that need to be taken so that this doesn’t happen to any more innocent kids. Now, we reached out to a church spokesperson for comment yesterday. They haven’t gotten back to us yet. The attorney who filed the lawsuit says if the church hasn’t been served with the suit quite yet, they should within the next few days. Live in the newsroom, I’m Bayon Wang, ABC4 News.

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