The Sins of Brother Curtis

A Story of Betrayal, Conviction, and the Mormon Church

Lisa Davis

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781451612851
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

This brilliantly reported, unforgettable true story reveals how one of the most monstrous sexual criminals in the history of the Mormon church preyed on his victims even as he was protected by the church elders who knew of his behavior. When Seattle attorney Tim Kosnoff agreed to listen to an eighteen-year-old man who claimed to have been molested by his Mormon Sunday school teacher, he had no idea he was embarking on a quest for justice on behalf of multiple victims or that the battle would consume years of his life and pit him against the vast, powerful, and unrepentant Mormon church itself. As Kosnoff began to investigate the case, he discovered that the Sunday school teacher, a mysterious figure named Frank Curtis, possessed a long and violent prison record before he was welcomed into the church, where he became a respected elder entrusted with the care of prepubescent Mormon boys. Through Lisa Davis's deft storytelling, two astonishing narratives unfold. The first shows how Brother Curtis ingratiated himself into the lives of young boys from working-class Mormon families where money was tight, and was accepted by mothers and fathers who saw in him a kindly uncle or grandfather figure who enjoyed the blessing of the church. Having gained the families' trust, Curtis became fiendishly helpful, offering to supervise trips or overnights out of the sight of parents, when he could manipulate his victims or ply them with alcohol. The other narrative is a real-life legal thriller. As Davis shows, Kosnoff and his partners tirelessly assembled the case against the church, sifting through records, tracking down victims, and convincing them to testify about Brother Curtis's acts. What began as a case of one plaintiff turned into a complex web stretching across multiple states. Joined by what would become a team of attorneys and investigators, Kosnoff found himself up against one of the most insular institutions in the United States: the secretive and powerful Mormon church. The amazing legal case at the heart of The Sins of Brother Curtis shows how the church's elite, well-funded team of attorneys claimed the church was protected under the Constitution from revealing that Curtis had molested a number of Mormon boys. Yet Kosnoff and his devoted legal team (which included a female investigator adept at getting parents of victims to talk to her) succeeded in forcing the church to reveal that it knew about Curtis and ultimately achieved a successful settlement. Emotionally powerful page by page, The Sins of Brother Curtis delivers a redemptive reading experience in which the truth, no matter how painful and hidden, is told at last and justice is hard won. This is a remarkable story, all true.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

1997

4

In nearly two decades of practicing criminal law, Timothy David Kosnoff had come across all manner of characters. It was fair to say he was well versed in the undesirable traits of the human species. Nonetheless, Kosnoff remained a believer that most people possessed some measure of decency and was still surprised when occasionally confronted with evil deeds that exceeded the spectrum of bad decision making.

Some years back Kosnoff had moved to Seattle from the urban grit of Chicago. He’d begun his legal career the traditional way: working in the public defender’s office, representing indigent people who’d been accused of crimes. Much of the time, that included drug-addled citizens who’d turned violent or stolen to support their habits. Kosnoff used to describe other of his clients as African-American men who’d been arrested in a park for the crime of being there. The justice system in Chicago was broken into numerous small, specialized courts—drug court, gambling court, traffic court, and the like. Kosnoff had found himself spending more time on the road than in the courtroom. He’d long had the wanderlust to head west, lured by the promise of something new. California was too complicated. He’d been to Washington and liked it. He liked to hike and fish. Shortly after getting married, he’d talked his way into the only job he could find, as a prosecutor in the town of Friday Harbor, in the San Juan Islands of northeast Washington, accessible only by boat or plane. Mostly, the job consisted of prosecuting drunken citizens for disorderly conduct, but Kosnoff did it zealously. In time, however, he missed a more active law career. Eventually, Kosnoff landed in Seattle and hung out his own shingle, which brought with it the freedom to decide which cases he’d take and how he’d run them, but also plenty of financial headaches and long hours. Certainly, Kosnoff now represented people with money, many of whom were engaged in various aspects of the illegal drug business. But he returned to the pool of lawyers assigned by the court system to defend the indigent, for which he was paid by the state. He’d always seen himself as a kind of equalizer. Working on behalf of thieves, killers, and the like made the system fair; he balanced the scales of justice, in theory, anyway, by representing the accused. This fervent belief had fueled him through the tough cases. And in the spring of 1997, he needed to find it, to tap into it, once again.

A light rain fell as Kosnoff stared at the paperwork piled on his wooden desk, though the weather was not responsible for his dismal spirits. He was defending a man named Shawn Swenson, who, at twenty-five, was facing life in prison for murdering the owner of a small recording studio in north Seattle. Swenson and another man had posed as would-be recording artists in order to get into the studio to steal digital recording equipment. But things had gone horribly wrong. The recording studio owner, who was gagged with duct tape, died of suffocation. Kosnoff presented the argument that Swenson had been interested only in making off with the recording equipment and had been in the car during the owner’s murder. In the criminal justice system, defendants were better off as dim-witted than cold-blooded killers. Given the circumstances, it was also the only available option.

The case was, in all aspects, awful. Every court appearance had been colored by a crowd of heartrending survivors mourning the loss of a father, son, husband, or friend and yearning for justice. They were unlikely to ever make sense of what happened, but their attendance served as an outlet for their rage and pain. Tim Kosnoff was their enemy. He’d taken to referring to his entrances into court as “walking the grief gauntlet.” And though he remained a dedicated advocate for his client, in private moments, he had to admit that the job was wearing.

The criminal defense business in general was getting to be a lot less rewarding than it used to be. Back in 1993, Washington had led the nation in passing the first three-strikes law, an initiative financed heavily by the National Rifle Association. The law prescribed mandatory sentences for most crimes and stripped much of the creative strategy out of defense work. And even without the constraints of mandatory sentencing, Kosnoff was slowly losing his zeal for defending criminals. It takes a certain unwavering enthusiasm for and earnest belief in humanity to stay in the defense game, particularly with clients who are rarely innocent and occasionally evil, but almost always the victim of their own idiotic decisions. Everyone comes in the door stewing in despair, with his future, maybe even his life, resting on a lawyer’s ability to fight as if his own life depended on it. Not surprisingly, the profession is beset by burnout.

Distraction was, therefore, a welcome visitor. It arrived on this particular morning when the secretary whom Kosnoff shared with his office mate put through a call from a young man in need of a lawyer. Even during busy times, Kosnoff took calls. His clients included the transient, incarcerated, or otherwise hard to reach; he’d learned to seize the moment when people phoned him. Kosnoff shuffled papers and doodled notes while the kid on the phone laid out his situation in formal, awkward speech. He’d apparently been impressed by a small, square advertisement Kosnoff had placed in the phone book so long ago he’d forgotten about it. The kid introduced himself as Jeremiah Scott. He also revealed that he’d contacted a few other lawyers, all of whom had, it seemed, declined the job. This didn’t bode well, but Kosnoff was willing to play along awhile longer. It was clear that Jeremiah possessed little knowledge of the legal system beyond what he’d likely gleaned from watching television, but he seemed determined.

Jeremiah indicated that he’d recently celebrated his eighteenth birthday by deciding that he wanted to sue the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in which he had been raised. This was a problem for Kosnoff, of course; he made his living representing people accused of committing crimes, not victims. What Jeremiah was proposing sounded like a civil—not a criminal—lawsuit, in which one person makes a complaint against another, usually for money, through the court system. Kosnoff had never represented anyone in a civil suit.

And yet he kept on with the conversation. Jeremiah Scott, whoever he was, had an interesting story. He said that back in 1991, about the time he turned twelve years old, he’d been molested by a Sunday school teacher, but not at church. Kosnoff wasn’t immediately clear on how this all came about, but he saw that the church was somehow involved. Jeremiah also mentioned that he’d accumulated a criminal record as a minor. Kosnoff, all of whose clients had criminal records, was unfazed by this bit of information. But he figured it was a likely reason the kid hadn’t gotten very far with other lawyers he’d contacted.

There was something earnest about this Jeremiah. So for no good reason, Kosnoff invited Jeremiah and his mother, who seemed also to be involved in this legal pursuit, to come to his office and discuss the matter more seriously. He issued his usual instructions: Jeremiah was to write down whatever details he and his parents could recall about what had happened, and make a list of people who could vouch for his story. At the least, Kosnoff thought, he’d find the kid a lawyer. What the heck? Kosnoff knew plenty of people who might take the case. In fact, he shared an office with a solo-practice attorney who handled civil litigation.

Their office in Bellevue, Washington, was really on the east side of Seattle, separated from downtown by Lake Washington. A bedroom community at the time, the location offered cheaper office space than Seattle proper. Plus it was an easy commute from home, ten or so miles east on yet another lake, in another Seattle suburb.

Over the years, Kosnoff had gotten into the habit of working from home a fair amount of the time, coming into the office mainly to meet with clients and other attorneys. He lived with his wife, Mary Ann, and their ten-year-old son, Nathan, to whom he was devoted. Everything about Mary Ann was far from the world of Kosnoff’s criminal law career. She was a concert pianist and could rightfully be described as both perky and elegant, which she pulled off effortlessly. She regularly practiced yoga and believed that thinking about horrible things polluted the mind. It went without saying that the details of most of Kosnoff’s cases didn’t make their dinner conversation.

Like many solo players in the law, Kosnoff shared office space—meaning lobby, receptionist, and conference room—with another attorney. Joel Salmi, Kosnoff’s office mate, practiced civil law, mostly defending people and corporations from lawsuits filed against them by other people and corporations. It was a lucrative business for a one-man operation. Kosnoff thought Jeremiah Scott’s claim might be a case for Salmi.

In the days that followed, the lawyers began to kick around another idea: Maybe they could work on the case together. Salmi was busy with his own caseload and would appreciate the help. But there was something more. Kosnoff was intrigued by the idea of representing a victim. This was not an entirely impulsive or fanciful idea. Another criminal lawyer in town, a man he respected, had started handling cases on the civil side of the law. The move had made Kosnoff ponder such a change during what was becoming a regular review of potential career options. If anything came of this case, and he wasn’t at all sure anything would, it might be a way for him to try out civil law. Kosnoff and Salmi had engaged in hypothetical musings about working on a case together for some time. They shared a casual style with a deep reserve of professional seriousness that could be tapped whenever the occasion called for it. Ties and hard-soled shoes were rarely seen in either office, unless one of them had to appear in court. Still, both were unquestionably in the legal game to win.

Salmi had no taste for defending criminals, which he’d considered too much of a commitment for too little compensation. He’d always liked Kosnoff, though, and really liked his spirit. The man got hold of a case and gave it his all; he possessed unbelievable energy and enthusiasm for a midcareer lawyer. So Salmi easily agreed to sit in on the meeting and offer an opinion at least.

The week of Jeremiah’s appointment brought near-constant rain, not unusual in Seattle, a city washed by a slow, steady drizzle at least half the year. But spring had offered no relief to a particularly cold, wet winter, and even veterans of the gray were losing patience with the sun’s late appearance, the kind of weather that makes the Pacific Northwest famous for suicides and depression.

Jeremiah arrived at the law office late in the day, to accommodate his schedule at Bellevue Community College. Sandy Scott, his mother, came along with him. She was attractive without being remarkable, a pleasant-looking woman with dark hair. She also looked on the young side to have an eighteen-year-old son.

Kosnoff was running late when he appeared in the small waiting room. At forty-three, he had already acquired a noticeable amount of gray hair that was invading inward from his temples, creating a striking contrast to his often tanned face. Kosnoff was an avid tennis player and sometimes rode mountain bikes with his son. He ushered the Scotts into a conference room and introduced Salmi, saying that he had experience handling cases like this one. The lawyers—neither particularly large but both exuberant—shook hands with overly friendly greetings, shared appropriate disdain for the weather, and praised Jeremiah and his mother for successfully navigating their way to the office, as if they could have missed a large building next to the largest mall in the middle of the not-very-large city in which they lived.

Everyone took a seat at the rectangular wooden table facing a wall lined with legal books. After a few more minutes of small talk, Jeremiah began methodically describing the series of events that had led him to want to file a lawsuit, this time in more detail. He read from a typed white sheet of paper he had prepared, as instructed, for the occasion. Kosnoff and Salmi took notes.

When he was about twelve, Jeremiah said, he’d been repeatedly sexually abused by a member of his church, a man who had taught Sunday school and been active in Jeremiah’s Boy Scout troop. The man was elderly and without relatives, and he had come to live with Jeremiah’s family. He’d required the boy to accompany him on doctor visits and other errands around town. And then he’d molested him in his bed at night. Kosnoff wrote the words “Frank Curtis” and “Sunday school” on his yellow pad.

Kosnoff and Salmi both noticed that Jeremiah was oddly emotionless when he described the events that had led him into this legal pursuit. He spoke matter-of-factly, offering nothing more than what was asked. He seemed almost dead inside.

Jeremiah’s mother was none of those things, however. Sandy Scott was visibly nervous throughout the meeting. She fidgeted and spoke in overly controlled statements, as if the wrong phrase might set off an explosion inside her. She was obviously uncomfortable while Jeremiah recounted what had happened to him. Every so often, Sandy interrupted her son’s narrative to add details or clarification.

Jeremiah continued, telling the lawyers that he had first revealed that he’d been molested about two years after the incidents occurred. The information had come out when Jeremiah himself was investigated by the police for molesting a boy whom his mother babysat. Kosnoff knew the scenario well from the criminal courts. Nearly all molesters had themselves been victims. Sandy added that her church leader had apologized after she’d told him that Jeremiah had been molested. She said that he’d told her that he’d known the man had abused a boy in the past, but the man had promised not to do it again.

After Jeremiah finished his story, Sandy asked what would be involved in filing a lawsuit—how it would work, what would happen, how long it would take, and so forth. She wanted to know what would be required of Jeremiah. Salmi sketched out an outline of how a lawsuit might proceed and offered a quick education on the workings of the legal system. And then everyone arranged to meet again.

It was dark outside by the time Jeremiah and his mother left the lawyers’ office. Kosnoff and Salmi rehashed the meeting only briefly before going home. Salmi was much more interested in the case now that he’d heard the Scotts’ story. He’d once defended a handful of Protestant churches that had been sued for the bad deeds of employees. But Salmi had never been involved in a case in which a church had known that someone was an abuser before an incident had occurred, as Sandy Scott had described. In the legal world, that fact was huge. It meant that the church might have liability for what happened to Jeremiah.

Kosnoff and Salmi agreed to keep working on the case together and, in the days that followed, began tossing about ideas. Eventually, they worked out a plan—Salmi would handle most of the legal arguments and Kosnoff would take care of developing the facts of the case. Kosnoff would be doing much of what’s considered the grunt work, but it was a way to see if civil law suited him. Salmi was more familiar with the legal arguments, having used them in defending previous cases. The two lawyers would split any award. Since Jeremiah had no money to pay up front, they’d have to accept the case on a contingency basis, meaning that they would fund the work from their own pockets and then take a percentage of any money awarded at the end. But given the nature of the case—it was a liability claim with only one victim—they reasoned they could easily handle it.

Salmi was not a risk taker, which had paid dividends in keeping his stress level low. He was a gentleman lawyer who represented insurance companies and other corporations. He knew that complicated contingency cases could take over a lawyer’s life and send a small firm careening into bankruptcy if they dragged on and got expensive.

A very small percentage of lawsuits in the United States actually go to trial, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Trials are expensive for everyone involved, including the government. The legal system is designed to encourage opposing parties to work out their differences and settle claims among themselves before entering a courtroom. It’s a long process, one in which there are many opportunities for argument and resolution.

Based on his past cases, many of which involved liability matters, Salmi thought Jeremiah’s claim seemed pretty straightforward. He told Kosnoff that if even half of what Jeremiah said was true, the lawsuit was probably worth a couple hundred thousand dollars and would take about a year. They’d each get paid a decent amount for the work done and Kosnoff would get a chance to try out a bit of civil law. The men left the office thinking the project could be, professionally speaking, fun.

5

Tim Kosnoff embraced his new pursuit enthusiastically. He spent much of the time that he wasn’t working on Shawn Swenson’s defense researching information for his new civil lawsuit. He and Salmi met a few more times with the Scotts and then put the preliminary parts of Jeremiah’s case in motion. The first order of business was to find out more about the man named Frank Curtis who had molested Jeremiah. Because Sandy Scott had recalled that her Mormon bishop told her that the man had promised not to molest again, it was a good bet that he’d abused someone else before he moved into the Scotts’ house. So the lawyers hired a private investigator in Oregon named Bill Anton, whom Salmi had worked with before, to look into Frank Curtis’s background.

Meanwhile, Kosnoff did some of his own digging. By the time he met with Sandy and Jeremiah Scott a couple of weeks later, he was able to confirm a fact that everyone involved had suspected but no one really knew: Frank Curtis was dead. On May 15, 1995, about two years earlier, at age ninety-two, he’d succumbed to heart disease, officially categorized as “natural causes.” He’d been interred at the Portland Memorial Funeral Home and Mausoleum, three miles from the house where he’d lived with Jeremiah and his family.

Kosnoff presented this information as a huge relief for everyone. The police had investigated the crimes involving Jeremiah, and Frank Curtis had eventually pleaded guilty to molesting the boy. But because of his age, he was never incarcerated. The death was great information for the lawyers. In some ways, it was better to present the record of the confession than it was to have the man himself. Jeremiah wouldn’t have to face Frank Curtis, and a jury would not see an “elderly gentleman” who might seem sympathetic. Still, Jeremiah seemed surprised to learn that his abuser was dead, even given the man’s advanced age. In private, Sandy told Kosnoff that Jeremiah went through periods where he seemed withdrawn. At other times, he was, by all outward signs, utterly unaffected by revisiting what had happened to him. Sandy worried constantly about her son.

Salmi, meanwhile, had drawn up a legal complaint outlining all the ways the Scotts had been harmed, part of the paperwork that would be filed in court if the case continued. It is standard procedure in a civil lawsuit to send a copy of a complaint to the intended defendants in hopes that a settlement might be worked out that will save everyone the time and money of a protracted courtroom battle. After several edits, Salmi and Kosnoff sent their best draft to the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. The compl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Flap
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Author’s Note
• Primary Characters
• Prologue: Phoenix, Arizona 1999
• Portland, Oregon 1976
• Seattle, Washington 1997
• Portland 2001
• Photo Insert
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Back Flap
• Back Cover