From: press2@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (barry.o.olson)
Subject: McLellin Collection Suppressed PT 5 of 10
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 03:26:25 GMT
Keywords: Tanner Nov. Newsletter/Hoffman bombings/suppresion



This is the fifth article broken down into 10 parts from Gerald
and Sandra Tanner's November "Salt Lake City Messanger" newsletter.
For those who need this info and couldn't obtain by hard-copy.
This is an FYI only production. Critique as you like.



SALT LAKE CITY MESSENGER          (Issue #83 - November 1992)
Utah Lighthouse Ministry
Po Box 1884,
Salt Lake City, Utah 84110


        Mormon Leaders Suppress "Key" Item in Murder Case
  The True McLellin Documents Found in First Presidency's Vault!

A VERY BAD EXAMPLE

        Church leaders obviously broke their pledge to "bring to
light any facts" that would help investigators. Richard Turley
tried to justify the church's suppression of the records by
saying: "The discovered documents did not fall within any of the
subpoenas issued to the church, and thus officials were not
legally obligated to mention them to anyone." (page 250) This is
certainly a very poor excuse. It seems analogous to a person
finding a pistol used to commit a murder and then maintaining
there was no obligation to turn the gun over to police because it
had not been subpoenaed.

        Investigators certainly would have subpoenaed the
McLellin collection if they had any idea that the church had it.
On October 19, 1985, the Mormon Church issued a news release
which stressed that the McLellin collection had never been
purchased by the church: "'So far as we have been able to
determine, no Church officials or personnel have ever seen the
"McLellin Collection," nor has it been purchased by the Church,
directly or indirectly.'" (_Victims_, page 178) On October 23,
1985, the church held a press conference. According to Richard
Turley, President Gordon B. Hinckley said: "'I had never heard of
the McLellin collection,' Hinckley said, and he asked Hofmann
what was in it... 'I have never seen any such collection,'
Hinckley continued, 'and know nothing about it beyond that.'"
(Ibid pages 191-92) Turley quotes Apostle Dallin Oaks as saying
the following at the same press conference: "'Moreover,' Oaks
explained, 'to have the church involved in the acquisition of a
collection at this time would simply fuel the then current
speculation reported by the press that the church already had
something called the McLellin collection or was trying to acquire
it in order to suppress it.'" (page 193)

        Since Mormon leaders had emphatically stressed that they
had never seen the McLellin collection and that the church had
not obtained it, law enforcement officers had no reason to think
otherwise. When the collection came to light, Mormon officials
should have immediately reported the discovery. Instead, however,
they took advantage of the fact that investigators were in the
dark concerning the matter.

        That there was, in fact, a conspiracy of silence is
evident from the following: Hugh Pinnock, the General Authority
who arranged the loan of $185,000 for Mark Hofmann, was called
upon to testify at Hofmann's preliminary hearing. The following
is taken from an official tape recording of the hearing:

                ROBERT STOTT--To your knowledge, did any
        authority in the LDS Church ever obtain or possess the
        McLellin collection?
                HUGH PINNOCK--No.

        This would have been a very good time for Mr. Pinnock to
have said, "Yes, the McLellin collection has been in our vault
since 1908." Richard Turley tries to explain away this testimony
by saying: "He [Pinnock] had not been told about the McLellin
materials discovered the previous month." (_Victims_, page 274)
It may be true that Hugh Pinnock was not told about the
discovery, but if this is the case, it raises a very important
question: why would the other church leaders keep him in the dark
about such an important issue. The answer, of course, must be
that they were doing their best to hide the information from
investigators and feared that if Pinnock knew about the
collection he might have to tell prosecutors about it.

HINCKLEY NOT CALLED

        Even if Hugh Pinnock did not know about the discovery,
President Gordon B. Hinckley, who many believe is really running
the church because of President Ezra Taft Benson's age, knew all
about the matter. He was subpoenaed to testify at the preliminary
hearing about two weeks after he learned that the church had the
McLellin collection in its vault.

        Richard Turley gives this interesting information about a
meeting Hinckley had with the prosecutors:

                "Before the preliminary hearing, Hinckley
        received a visit from prosecutors Bob Stott and David
        Biggs. Church counsel Wilford Kirton also attended the
        meeting....

                "Biggs recalled that they told Hinckley why they
        were there and then Kirton began to do most of the
        talking. Eventually however, the prosecutors explained
        that they needed to talk to Hinckley so they could find
        out what his relationship had been with Hofmann. Hofmann
        had claimed a close relationship with the church leader,
        telling people that he had Hinckley's private numbers and
        could get hold of him day or night, in the country or
        out. Prosecutors wanted to know when, where, and how many
        times Hinckley had met with Hofmann and with Christensen.

                "Hinckley said he had met about half a dozen
        times with Hofmann, but he could not recall any
        information about those meetings beyond what he had told
        investigators earlier. His answers frustrated both Stott
        and Biggs. 'President Hinckley was very little help,
        extremely little help,' Stott later said. 'His memory of
        the occasions was very poor.'... Though he kept a
        journal, Hinckley had been forced to turn to Francis
        Gibbons when trying to reconstruct for investigators the
        meetings he had with Hofmann." (_Victims_, pages 253-255)

        Although we may never know what President Hinckley told
the prosecutors concerning the McLellin collection at that time,
one thing is certain: he did not reveal that the church had the
collection in its vault.

        All accounts seem to agree that Mr. Hinckley did not want
to testify at the preliminary hearing. Although there were
probably a number of reasons why he did not want to be questioned
under oath, he must have been very concerned that he would be
asked questions which might lead to the disclosure of the
rediscovery of the McLellin collection. Richard Turley gives this
information:


Richard Turley gives this information:

                "Because Hinckley was so busy, [church counsel
        Wilford] Kirton suggested to the prosecutors that they
        postpone calling him as a witness until the trial itself
        rather than using him at the preliminary hearing.
        Hinckley added that he would prefer not to testify.
        Kirton's suggestion riled Stott, who thought the attorney
        was being paternalistic. 'How old is he?' Stott later
        asked, recalling the incident. 'Anyway, the old
        experienced lawyer going to tell the young lawyer how to
        handle the case. I became very incensed at that... he's
        saying, "Why don't we do it this way? Why don't we save
        President Hinckley for the trial and don't use him at the
        prelim.?" I got a little upset at that, him trying to
        tell me how to run my case. And so I just told him, "I'm
        in charge. I need President Hinckley. And he'll
        testify."...

                "'Kirton let it be known explicitly, "Is there
        some way we could get along without President Hinckley?"'
        Stott recalled. '"Is there some way that he could have a
        deposition or whatever it takes?"'

                "Stott told Kirton the only way the prosecution
        would consent to have Hinckley not testify at the
        preliminary hearing would be for the defense to agree to
        stipulate to what the prosecution wanted Hinckley to
        testify about if he were present: that he bought the
        Stowell letter from Hofmann on a certain date for a given
        price. Kirton and Hinckley asked Stott if he would broach
        the subject with the defense, and he agreed to do so."
        (_Victims_, pages 255-56)

        President Hinckley finally got his way and did not have
to testify at the preliminary hearing. Robert Lindsey wrote the
following regarding Hinckley's escape from testifying at the
hearing:

                "To most members of the prosecution team, it was
        plain that Mark Hofmann had blackmailed the church. It
        was equally clear that leaders of the church were
        terrified that Gordon B. Hinckley would be required to
        testify against him and would be forced to testify, under
        oath, about his dealings with Hofmann.

                "From the first weeks of the investigation,
        lawyers for the church sought to head off this
        possibility....

                "Shortly before the preliminary hearing was
        scheduled to begin, David Biggs and Bob Stott met with
        Hinckley...

                "Hinckley said it was not in the best interests
        of the church that he be subpoenaed to testify at the
        preliminary hearing... He had far more important things
        to do as a member of the First Presidency's Office than
        to appear in court; Hofmann's hearing was insignificant
        compared with the important challenges that he faced in
        his job...

                "Gordon Hinckley was not summoned as a witness
        after all. "Judge Grant, a devout Mormon, later
        attributed his absence to the trial attorneys' concern
        for Hinckley's health. But church spokesmen said Hinckley
        was not ill, and in fact the reasons were more complex
        than that. Ron Yengich, Hofmann's lawyer, was no more
        eager to have the leader of the church that dominated the
        community raise the specter of his having been
        blackmailed by his client than the church wanted a man
        close to its Prophet to appear to have been blackmailed.

                "Yengich agreed to accept a statement--a
        stipulation..." (_A Gathering of Saints_, pages 31 1,
        318)

        The stipulation itself proves to be embarrassing to the
church now that it is known that President Hinckley knew about
the rediscovery of the McLellin collection before the stipulation
was entered into. According to Richard Turley, the "stipulation,
which Biggs noted was 'prepared and signed by Mr. Yengich and Mr.
Stott,' identified Gordon Hinckley and stated that he met with
Hofmann sometime between January 11 and 14, 1983... Finally, it
stated that Hinckley 'has never seen nor possessed nor has any
knowledge of the whereabouts of a document or a group of
documents known as the McLellin Collection.' " (_Victims_, page
303)

        It is clear, then, that notwithstanding the fact that
President Hinckley was fully aware of the rediscovery of the
McLellin collection, both the prosecution and the defence
understood him to say he never knew anything about any "group of
documents known as the McLellin Collection." Richard Turley tries
to minimize the importance of this by saying that the
stipulation was "read into the [court] record without Hinckley
ever seeing it. Had he reviewed it, Hinckley could have revised
the stipulation to reflect the church's discovery of McLellin
materials in its possession." (Ibid.) The reader will notice that
while Turley says that Gordon B. Hinckley "could have revised the
stipulation," he does not go so far as to say that he "would"
have revised it. In any case, it is clear that President Hinckley
not only refused to provide the important information about the
McLellin collection to the prosecution, but his statements made
to those who took part in the stipulation led them to believe
that he had absolutely no knowledge of the location of any
McLellin material.