Mickelson Case: GA coverup cont.,

[_Mary]

Doc. Are you reading the documents? He didn’t find out about the specifics of the abuse until his daughter told him, when she was 12? And he immediately acted on it.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Doc. Are you reading the documents? He didn’t find out about the specifics of the abuse until his daughter told him, when she was 12? And he immediately acted on it.

I thought he said his wife confessed over the phone when the kid was 6, or was it when Mickelsen said the girl was being promiscuous with him at age 6? There's too much to pour over and too much to keep track of, frankly.

It might be helpful if there was a timeline?

- Doc

[_Mary]

Doc. Are you reading the documents? He didn’t find out about the specifics of the abuse until his daughter told him, when she was 12? And he immediately acted on it.

I thought he said his wife confessed over the phone when the kid was 6, or was it when Mickelsen said the girl was being promiscuous with him at age 6? There's too much to pour over and too much to keep track of, frankly.

It might be helpful if there was a timeline?

- Doc

Yeah, agreed there is a lot to take in.

The only thing that rang alarm bells for Ron was a phonecall from the mil to his wife stating that his daughter was being promiscuous with grandpa. That's strange, but other than ask the 6 year old leading questions, there's not much to go to the police with.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Plus I keep seeing stuff like this on the Internet:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1770837

I just don't have the inclination to wade through what's been posted, and then to Internet sleuth each person named (or defamed by Ron) in order to determine if their character is more trustworthy than Ron's character. Thus far, Ron has done an outstanding job of shooting himself in the foot.

That said, from the link RPackham said this:

My information added to the manure pile is that once while I lived in Arizona, I went to an all-day Conference for those working with neglected or abused children, and one of the speakers was the District Attorney for Maricopa County (Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert). I had a chance to talk to him in the hallway for some time after his talk cause I wanted to tap his experience to see what he thought about the involvement of Mormon men were in regards to the abuse statistics (sexual abuse). He was Mormon himself. He let out a little whoop, and shook his head as he told me that it was SO bad that the joke in the precincts when another man was being brought through the doors for questioning was to ask "I wonder what ward HE goes to!" This was 25 years ago. I doubt very seriously that anything has changed! And, I know for a fact that the Mormons always "rode to the rescue", stuffing the judge's mailbox with testimony about "what a good man he really was", etc., and showing up in droves to testify about how he shouldn't be taken away from his family,etc. I knew people who did it. One more thing --, it was egregious cases in AZ wherein pedophiles moved from ward to ward, or from out of state (where the new bishops was never warned about serious past offenses) that caused the legislature to finally pass mandatory reporting laws in that highly Mormon state!

So, clearly there has been a historical issue within Mormonism where pedophilia not only was occurring, but there were no measures in place in order to protect people from predators. One thing we can all agree vis a vis Ron's activism is that this hopefully raises awareness within the rank and file and will spur further change to ensure children and adults alike are protected from sexual predators.

- Doc

[_AmyJo]

It's really a no brainer that the arousal was simply Mickelson getting a hard-on from his little granddaughter sitting on his lap.

And what she described years later as touching grampy's 'weenie.' I mean if he allowed or encouraged her touching him there who the hell is to blame but himself?

The guy is the one who needs a shrink. Ron says in his latest release that finding an unbiased therapist who is non-LDS in Utah is next to finding a needle in a haystack.

That's got to be tough but still wouldn't he want to keep trying to find a competent therapist to help him and his children? I know I would given the same circumstances. I know there are scores of therapists throughout Utah just from doing an insurance check of participating providers of my health insurance. They are everywhere.

Surely they aren't all LDS, or are they?

I know how biased the LDS are in the Morridor toward adult LDS in their community. They do turn a blind eye and ear to child abusers. Except when it serves their interests such as in taking children from families to give to LDS couples to adopt through the foster system - often times on trumped up charges.

Idaho and Utah are two of the worst states to attack the sanctity of the family unit in favor of wrestling children from their biological families.

Some states go to great lengths to help families who are stressed or have generational problems to overcome. Not so with Utah or Idaho. They're foster welfare states.

[_Res Ipsa]

I read it all. Here's the piece that jumped out at me:

Ron has been telling us for weeks now about how his wife filing for divorce was a complete surprise to him. From that, he wants us to believe that she didn't really want to divorce him and that the divorce was orchestrated by Mickelsen as part of a cover up of child abuse. He has portrayed himself as a victim.

It's BS.

At some point, Ron started taping conversations between him and his wife. He says it was because she kept changing stories about things. It sounds suspiciously like gaslighting. A year before his wife filed for divorce, the wife tried to force the eldest son, McKay, to drink some lemon water before a recital. He was injured as a result. What the wife did was wrong. She fully admits that she was wrong and that she injured him. Ron sat the three of them down and tape recorded the call. After describing the incident, here is what is on the transcript:

Ron: Mom, is this crossing the line?
Jean: Way, way across the line.
Ron: So this is way across the line?
Jean: Yes.
Ron: So you have gone to the Bishop and to a professional and blamed me and wanted to go to your father about getting a divorce because I crossed the line in anger?
Right? Because I crossed the line? Have I crossed the line to that extent? McKay,
do you feel I have crossed the line to that extent?

A year before his wife filed for divorce, Ron did something that led his wife to go to the bishop and some kind of professional, apparently claiming he did something that was "over the line." She also went to her father about getting a divorce.

So, the divorce wasn't a "surprise." He knew she was contemplating divorce a year before. There were perfectly good reasons for his ex-wife to divorce him that had nothing to do with covering up pedophilia. With this additional information, there is nothing mysterious about the divorce that requires belief in some kind of conspiracy.

Now, I'm not saying this means Ron is a fraud or is consciously lying. But it does show that Ron's story cannot be taken at face value.

There are lots and lots of similar examples in the materials Ron has produced. They tell a different story than Ron wants them to tell. All it takes is approaching his story with an appropriate level of skepticism and reading all his stuff with the intention of trying to figure out what is going on.

The other thing that jumped out at me was that shortly after Ron and McKay finally complied with the court's order and McKay was returned to live with his mother, something happened that resulted in the mother calling the police and McKay being arrested. I think that may give us some clue as to why the mother may have ultimately agreed to the children living with Ron. (I'm still waiting to see what the divorce decree actually says.) I think it's very unlikely that, after whatever that incident was, that a judge would decide it was in the best interest of McKay to have him live with his mother.

[_Res Ipsa]

Okay, my take is that the psychologist acted unethically by her not being upfront about her LDS membership, and by her communications with the wife's lawyer.

Given that she should be aware of children's tendency to play down child abuse and to under report, she seems to have filed a report with the CPS and had a response that the abuse was unsubstantiated, and her view appears to be that it couldn't be classified as sexual abuse since having an erection whilst a girl was sitting on your lap is normal.

I'd say it was terribly handled by this mental health worker.

I'm not persuaded that she wasn't "up front" about her LDS membership. Ron acknowledges that he approached the matter in an indirect manner:

The screening process for finding a non-LDS professional (over the phone) was arduous. I couldn’t come right out and ask, “Are you LDS?”

If he didn't act directly, it is entirely possible that she came away from that phone call thinking that his concern was not whether she was LDS, but that his concern was whether she could be professional in a situation that may involve sexual abuse by a GA. That's what her telephone notes reflect. In addition, she told him she was LDS at their first meeting. I'll also note, Ron wrote a letter to her after that meeting, disagreeing with a few things she said. He never says anything about being surprised at learning she was LDS or her having originally told him she wasn't LDS. It wasn't until after she issued a report that didn't say what he wanted her to say that he accused her of lying.

The report says that the daughter didn't bring up the sexual abuse at their first meeting. She then met with Karren, who asked her if Kylee had told her about it. At her next meeting, she prompted the daughter to tell her about it. She made a CPS referral. The referral came back "unsubstantiated." When the daughter said that the authorities hadn't believed her, she explained that it wasn't that they didn't believe her -- that it only meant they didn't consider what happened to be sexual abuse. I don't see the therapist taking a position on the issue -- just trying to explain what happened in a way that supported the girl's recollection, her right to not like the conduct, and her right not to have it done to her. The therapist's job isn't to enforce laws -- it is to help the patient. It looks to me like that's what she was doing.

Here's what the therapist had to say about Ron's reaction:

Serious concerns exist regarding the possibility of ongoing influence of the children toward their mother and her family by Mr. Karren. It is impossible to know the time frame when many of the adult-like comments coming from McKay and Quinn originated. Mr. Karren demonstrated very poor judgment regarding [daughter's] abuse report when he told both of his sons prior to any investigation. When I brought up my concerns about this inappropriateness to him, he made a comment about me being "really being concerned with fairness." Prior to the investigation taking place, he had also pushed Mrs. Karren to talk to her daughter about the details "so she would know the truth." In my clinical judgment, he appeared more concerned about when he could get the details regarding the abuse than about Kylee's welfare. He seemed disappointed to hear that it was customary with a CPS investigation to just get a report of "substantiated" or "unsubstantiated." Since then, I have stressed my concerns with him about his continued comments via email about [daughter] being sexually abused by her grandfather in spite of the detectives conclusions the allegations were "unsubstantiated." His continuing to describing [sic] grandfather's behavior as sexual abuse has not been helpful for [daughter]. I have informed Mr. Karren if it becomes clear he is currently influencing the children's opinions regarding his estranged wife or her family, I will recommend only supervised contact with his children. It should be noted any past attempts to influence can easily continue to affect a child's view of relationships.

Her number one recommendation is therapy for all three children through the divorce and beyond. I think that's a no brainer. Did Ron do it? No, he declared the entire profession corrupt and failed to get his children help that they badly needed.

[_I have a question]

The 'slow reveal' technique that Ron is using, coupled with his penchant for more words than substance, has caused me to lose interest. I'll check back in a month or two to see where this has got to.

[_Res Ipsa]

The 'slow reveal' technique that Ron is using, coupled with his penchant for more words than substance, has caused me to lose interest. I'll check back in a month or two to see where this has got to.

He said at one point he plans to keep this up for months.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

The 'slow reveal' technique that Ron is using, coupled with his penchant for more words than substance, has caused me to lose interest. I'll check back in a month or two to see where this has got to.

Agreed. I'm out!

- Doc