Kevin Garn was the House Majority Leader in the Utah legislature. In 1985, when he was 28, he took a fifteen-year-old girl who worked for him, his business partner’s daughter, to Salt Lake City and took her hot-tubbing. He got in the tub naked. He claims that is all that happened, but she said there was more to it and characterized it as sexual abuse and a long-term adult-child relationship.
When he ran for the legislature in 2002, he paid her $150,000 in restitution, a likely election campaign finance violation as it was also to keep her quiet. He claims he also hoped it would help her with therapy as she said that the experience has haunted her and led her to mental health issues and drug addiction. The Deseret News learned of this before the 2002 primary but decided not to publish the story as it was close to an election (!) and that it happened years earlier.
In 2008, she wrote a letter to the LDS church telling them what her former Sunday school teacher had done to her and its effect on her life.
In 2010, she came forward again. This time he denied it happened and his staff maligned her. In the end, though, he confessed that she had been telling the truth about him getting in the hot tub nude, though he denied there was any touching. She said he lied about that and claimed they had a relationship that lasted several months, one that sent her on a downward spiral. He resigned two days after his confession.
This led to offensive opinion articles like the one from Signpost down below, excusing his actions and attacking her.
Sadly, she was murdered by her boyfriend’s son in a murder-suicide as she was preparing to write a book about her struggle with mental illness, addiction, and the trauma of sexual abuse.
- KSL.com: Garn confession: I made a mistake that has come back to haunt me
- Deseret News: Cheryl Maher says Kevin Garn lied about hot tub contact
- Bishop Accountability: LDS Church says local leaders handled claims against Kevin Garn
- The Concord Monitor: Cheryl Maher, in victim’s life, grit and grief
Logan Herald Journal
Apr 17, 2010, Page 3 Logan, Utah, US
The Signpost
Ogden, Utah · Monday, March 22, 2010