From: gclapp@javelin.sim.es.com (Glenn Clapp)
Subject: SLCM1192-2/5
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Corp.
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 23:50:25 GMT


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.

A DANGEROUS GAMBLE

        In holding back the McLellin collection from
investigators, the Mormon Church was taking a real risk. As we
stressed earlier, Richard Turley admitted that the collection
included "a key item" which convinced church leaders "Hofmann was
a fraud." Moreover, Turley acknowledged that this "key item" was
"relevant to the case." This raises a very important question:
what if the suppression of the McLellin collection by church
leaders made it impossible for prosecutors to get Hofmann bound
over for trial? If prosecutors had failed to make a strong enough
case we could have had a cold-blooded murderer walking the
streets of Salt Lake City today. Although there is no way of
knowing for certain, it is reasonable to believe that Hofmann
might murder again.

        If church leaders were convinced that Hofmann was a fraud
after learning about the McLellin collection, why was Judge Grant
not allowed to see this highly significant part of the evidence?

        Richard Turley explains that the church hoped that the
prosecutors had sufficient evidence without the church revealing
the discovery of the McLellin collection: "If the prosecution's
evidence was as strong as some sources had hinted, the
preliminary hearing would almost certainly result in Hofmann's
being bound over for trial." (_Victims_, page 251) Turley,
however, tries to show that the church did not have an inside
track on what was going on in the Salt Lake County Attorney's
Office: "The cautious distance being kept between church
headquarters and investigators meant church officials remained
largely unaware of the direction the investigation was taking,
except to the extent they could piece together clues from media
reports, subpoenas, and other sources." (Ibid.)

        Turley reports that on February 6, 1986, Apostle Dallin
Oaks expressed doubts regarding the prosecution's ability to
prevail: "Dallin Oaks, who viewed the case with his extensive
legal background, began to wonder about the adequacy of the
murder case against Hofmann and about whether, even at this late
date, the prosecution had filed its charges prematurely. 'I hope
the prosecution has more evidence on the murder charges than the
newspaper speculation has hinted,' he confided in his journal."
(Ibid., page 243)

        It is certainly deplorable that church leaders would take
such a gamble with regard to a person charged with two murders
just so they could protect the church's image. On page 251,
Turley tries to justify this by making this strange statement:
"Because a preliminary hearing was not a trial to determine
ultimate guilt or innocence, state law would allow prosecutors to
try again if they failed during the first hearing to prove
probable cause." Turley seems to be hinting that if the
prosecutors did not succeed the first time around the Mormon
Church could bring forth the McLellin collection and a second
preliminary hearing could be conducted.

        Does Mr. Turley realize the implications of what he is
suggesting? The preliminary hearing extended over five weeks
causing great pain to the relatives of the victims. In addition,
it cost a great deal of money. It seems hard to believe that if
prosecutors were unsuccessful in their first attempt to bind
Hofmann over for trial, that church leaders would have stepped
forward with the McLellin collection. The church was already very
upset with the bad publicity it had received. In the _Messenger_
for September 1987, p. 8, we quoted Apostle Dallin Oaks as
saying: "In the course of this episode, we have seen some of the
most sustained and intense LDS Church-bashing since the turn of
the century.... the Church and its leaders have been easy marks
for assertions and innuendo ranging from charges of complicity in
murder to repeated recitals that the Church routinely acquires
and suppresses church history documents in order to deceive its
members and the public."

        If church leaders had come forth with the McLellin
collection after an unsuccessful preliminary hearing, it would
have caused a far greater outcry than they encountered during the
early investigation of the bombings. The church would have been
accused of covering up and protecting a murderer to save face
with the public. A second preliminary hearing would have probably
taken a good deal of time to schedule and complete. In the
meantime a murderer would have been running loose. Furthermore,
investigators and prosecutors would have been incensed at church
leaders who had hidden a "key item" from them. Many of them were
already upset with the church's lack of cooperation. Fortunately,
Judge Grant did find there was enough evidence to warrant a
trial.

        Richard Turley makes this peculiar statement regarding
the period after the hearing: "When the curtain closed on the
preliminary hearing, church officials... anticipated a long
intermission before the next acts began in the legal drama. While
waiting for the curtain to rise again, they continued to
cooperate with investigators and prosecutors gathering evidence
in the case." (_Victims_, page 307) How Turley can convince
himself that the church was cooperating when they were
withholding one of the most important pieces of evidence is very
difficult to understand. That church leaders would continue to
hide this vital information from investigators is almost beyond
belief.

THE PLEA BARGAIN

        The new information about the suppression of the McLellin
collection also raises questions regarding the plea bargain which
finally ended the Hofmann case without a trial. It seems obvious
that church leaders did not want the case to go to trial and were
hoping that some kind of agreement could be reached. Although
President Hinckley managed to maneuver his way out of testifying
at the preliminary hearing, he probably would have been called as
a witness at the trial. Hinckley would have been very
uncomfortable testifying concerning the McLellin collection when
he knew that it was being suppressed in the First Presidency's
vault. Furthermore, Glenn Rowe knew about the rediscovery and it
seems likely that he would be called as a witness.

        If prosecutors had an airtight case they probably would
have sought the death penalty and would not have agreed to
the type of plea bargain they entered into. Although we may
never know for certain, the fact that the church refused to
provide important evidence it had in its possession may have
made the prosecutors more willing to accept the agreement
and cancel the trial.
-- 
=============================================================================
= Glenn Clapp                          |  gclapp@thunder.sim.es.com         =
= Evans and Sutherland Computer Corp.  |  My opinions are my own, but then  =
= Salt Lake City, Utah  (801) 582-5847 |  that's my opinion.                =