Source: I Sued Mormon Church to Get My Tithing Back - James Huntsman | Ep. 1997 Channel: Mormon Stories Podcast Published: February 27, 2025 | Archived: May 24, 2026

Video: I Sued Mormon Church to Get My Tithing Back - James Huntsman | Ep. 1997
Channel: Mormon Stories Podcast
Published: February 27, 2025
Duration: 3:14:31
Views: 71,474
Category: People & Blogs
Video ID: Fkx9Qag3awY

Description

James Huntsman, a successful businessman and member of the Huntsman family, joins John Dehlin and fraud attorney Mark Pugsley to discuss his high-profile fraud lawsuit against the LDS Church—how he lost his LDS faith, why he pursued a fraud lawsuit to get a tithing refund, what he learned, and why he has no regrets.

Show Notes: https://www.mormonstories.org/i-sued-the-mormon-church-to-get-my-tithing-back/

00:00:00 Beginning 00:00:49 Brief overview of James Huntsman’s lawsuit 00:07:27 Family background info 00:18:50 Served a mission at 18 00:22:21 Kidnapped 00:36:27 Ensign Peak & church investments 00:49:58 Cracks in James’ faith 01:03:03 Deciding to file the suit 01:09:35 The downsides of him suing 01:17:00 Comparing family business to disorganization of the church 01:28:55 What sparked his desire to sue the church 01:37:00 It was a very personal battle for me 01:48:40 Statute of limitations for fraud 01:54:00 Floodgates of awareness opened re: the church’s bad financial dealings 02:07:00 No intention of damaging the church 02:14:15 The church today does not need members tithing 02:26:00 How did they feel after they filed? 02:44:20 Are churches protected from committing fraud? 02:58:00 Feels relieved that it is all over, and they can talk about it now 03:11:29 Final thoughts & Conclusion ___________________

At Mormon Stories we explore, celebrate, and challenge Mormon culture through in-depth stories told by members and former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as scholars, authors, LDS apologists, and other professionals.

Our overall mission is to:

1. Facilitate informed consent amongst LDS Church members, investigators, and non-members regarding Mormon history, doctrine, and theology
2. Support Mormons (and members of other high-demand religions) who are experiencing a religious faith crisis
3. Promote healing, growth and community for those who choose to leave the LDS Church or other high demand religions

Want to create live streams like this? Check out StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/4530951114981376

🤝Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today One-time or recurring donations: https://donorbox.org/mormon-stories?default_interval=m Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mormonstories Venmo: https://account.venmo.com/u/mormonstories Paypal: https://paypal.me/mormonstories

Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx6OgmoqJbOVRq-Lv1P7SzA/join

Our Platforms: 🌐Mormon Stories Blog: https://www.mormonstories.org/episodes 🎙️Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mormonstories ✳️Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sDzk7dRjODTSEqzZKZJzk?si=148b0efc1ccc4404&nd=1 🍎Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mormon-stories-lds/id312094772 🖼️Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mormstories 📱TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mormonstoriespodcast 🎮Discord: https://discord.com/invite/kuX5p6yyjF

Contact us: 📧 MormonStories@gmail.com 📬PO Box 171085, Salt Lake City, UT 84117

#MormonStories #Mormon #lds

ex-mormon,mormon,lds,lds church,church of jesus christ of latter-day saints,ensign peak,mormon church wealth,lds church finances,lds church fraud,how rich is the mormon church,how wealthy is the mormon church,can I sue the mormon church for tithing,can i get my tithing back,john dehlin,james huntsman,lds fraud,mormon fraud,huntsman chemical company,huntsman chemical,jon huntsman jr,fair mormon,lds fraud lawsuit,mormon church fraud lawsuit

Tags

ex-mormon mormon lds ensign peak mormon church wealth how wealthy is the mormon church can I sue the mormon church for tithing can i get my tithing back john dehlin james huntsman

Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast I’m your host John delin it’s February 27th 2025 and today we are here to interview uh the man who uh sued the Mormon church for I I would say fraud uh and asked for his tithing back he is none other than James Huntsman hey James good morning this is not your morm your first Mormon stories episode do you realize that do you remember the first one we did there was some movie we reviewed back in my old office once and you appeared I don’t know if you remember you’re right I do so this is actually your second technically Mormon story’s appearance that I can go anyway I appreciate that James uh for several years uh We’ve covered on Mormon stories podcast James’s um attempt to sue the Mormon church to get a refund on $5 million worth of tithing that he paid feeling like uh the church represented what it was doing with its tithing and it seems

1:00 as though those legal proceedings are kind of either wrapping up or are wrapped up and so James and I have always you know anticipated potentially one day maybe having him tell a little bit about this story so that’s kind of what today is going to be about but if I have any influence in today’s interview what I’m most interested uh hearing is kind of James’s Mormon story uh to the extent that it um played into uh this um ultimate decision he made to sue the church uh it it’s it’s worth mentioning that that the Huntsman family is very well known for the half of you who have never been Mormon the the Huntsman family is is very well known in Utah and within the church James’s dad um John Huntsman senior was uh not only um a very successful businessman and philanthropist um he also was an area Authority for the church from I think 2000 to 2005 same time Hans Matson was an area Authority um and uh his his J James’s older brother John Huntsman Jr was governor of Utah and um and ran for president back

2:17 in the day when Mitt Romney was also running for president there are also a few um family or close connections with Apostles Mormon church leaders uh em Russell Ballard David beate um rasband you all know aposto rasband who would have worked for Huntsman chemical but putting all that aside James was a very successful businessman and is a very successful businessman he worked for Huntsman chemical for a long time as an Executive Vice President if I remember when I knew you first and then also he runs a uh Film Production Company now called is it still called Blue Fox Blue Fox Entertainment yeah distribution and sales yes so he’s done a lot in Hollywood so there’s so many cool interesting things about James what I want to know is kind of what was his early Mormon story how did it lead to what what led him to feel differently about the church that would then lead him to feel like he felt betrayed by the church such that he would then uh sue

3:21 the church to get tithing back especially given the context of his background so that’s and but we’re also going to just talk about his experiences uing the church and those decisions that he made and how things ended up and how he feels about it and where he is now that’s my intro um James would there be anything you would edit add or take away from what I said no that was great uh uh and and in keeping with Oscar speeches uh should we do a list of thanks yes no really thank you John for obviously the amount of of support you’ve given me personally and and to this case it it really means a lot um and it was a little bit of a scary proposition to head into it because we didn’t know how people would respond so I appreciate your support you’ve always been a great friend a great Ally very much appreciated um off camera is Maryann uh my wonderful partner life friend wife um and so she’s here thank

4:19 you for your support as well you may refer to her as scary when you’re just talking naturally about her because that’s did I drop scary or did I say Maryanne no I’m just saying I want to just say anticipate that sometimes when you’re in the flow you may say scary I’m like what scary is her nickname it’s probably one of the coolest nicknames out there I think yeah um and then of course Mark good friend Pugsley’s in the house hey Mark sorry I I don’t want to steal the intro Thunder but just obviously thank you for being here and providing additional context and and he’s been on the show a number of times done a great job I love his perspective very smart articulate and uh so appreciate you being here as well thank you very much happy to be here I’m I’m honored actually I James asked me to come join him to and uh just to be clear I I just want to say so everyone’s understands I did not I am a lawyer but I did not do this case I am familiar with it I’ve followed it very closely and I’ve read some of the opinions but

5:16 I’m here to support James who’s a friend um and also to uh give some color commentary on the legal stuff but this is James’s story to tell and remind us your background just super quickly Mark um I’m a I’m a litigator here in Salt Lake City uh I’ve been trying cases and primarily Securities cases for about 30 years now so I’ve been around the block a few times and um am a former Mormon I guess you focus on fraud and whistleblowers is that right yeah I represent whistleblowers currently um and specialize in Securities fraud investment fraud primarily okay beautiful all right um James sometimes we start with an intention of why someone would want to even come on Mormon stories and tell their story do you want to start with an intention or should we just dive in um May maybe the intention uh if we could put a little bit of a a boundary around it I don’t know that we’ll keep within that sandbox but we’ll try I

6:22 really I don’t know that we need to go into the weeds of sort of the the technical legal Journey that this case has been on for the last couple of years I think what might be more interesting is just maybe the origin story of where it all began and why um I think that’s really important for me to that people understand that about this case because um we’ve read a lot about the motives behind this case what I was thinking and and what might or might not work and we’ve really have not made any public comments on it up until now so I I and most of what we read as far as the motivations behind this case what our strategies were Etc maybe weren’t totally accurate so perhaps setting the record straight and giving people a perspective of a case that we never expected to be this broadly known we thought it might be helpful to give people a little insight as to where it all began beautiful well if it’s all right uh maybe I’ll just ask a few background

7:27 questions so sure can you talk about uh your parents if if your grandparents come into this at all and kind of just a little bit about the Huntsman family and growing up a huntsman for you and then we’ll connect it to the church so sure um what because half our audience has never been Mormon and doesn’t even really the Huntsman name may not mean a lot to right right and and so and I’ll speak pretty openly about my particular points of view or beliefs or perspectives I will leave obviously my parents grandparents and siblings all of their opinions and and perspectives beliefs out of the discussion um I will say that our family is very close we always have been very close and and I think all of my siblings we stand behind each other in every Endeavor possible this case didn’t ever change that it it didn’t separate us it didn’t bring us closer we were already we always have been we are and always will be a very close knit family

8:33 um and we’re very protective of each other and I would think we are very protective of what we believe is is right or wrong so when any of us venture out into the world of shall we say being a crusader um intended or not that um I would say the support of of my family has been second to none so very happy with that and it it it means a lot okay beautiful um were are your parents from Utah where are your parents like where did they grow up or where were they raised so my mom was born in San Diego California and my dad was born in Blackfoot Idaho okay and and they were they both raised in those respective places uh off and on um I think my mom’s upbringing in the church was was probably a little more traditional I think my dad’s upbringing was um less traditionally Mormon um and and that led to an interesting Dynamic growing up in a in a household that that tried to balance sort of the Practical

9:45 realities of of one’s life and faith journey and beliefs with sort of the as some might say the strict Orthodox confines of what Mormonism of what Mormonism is to a lot of people is it your mom that’s related to David be correct former former Apostle Y how how are they related so uh uh David be is my grandfather is my mom’s father and uh I believe in tell uh president Nelson that he was the oldest living Apostle since the origin of the church in 1830 um by age until Nelson took the crown from him so so that was his claim to fame okay so you grew up with a grandfather who is a member of the LDS Church’s Corum of the 12 apostles okay correct and okay do you have F were you able to even hang out with him and spend time with him I’ve heard really good things about all great memories I don’t recall any instance of of awkwardness as it relates to the church or teachings or doctrines um nothing in that regard got it y all all good memories as it relates

11:03 to to him and and his wife Ruby yeah okay do you know do you remember where your parents met like oh man now you’re that’s like asking when my or do you even know uh I believe it would have been paloo California okay yeah maybe just talk a tiny bit about your dad starting his businesses just to get a sense for what he became if that’s worth mening um yeah briefly I think my dad was a Was a Serial entrepreneur um he he um at a very early stage um followed his passion followed his dream and and was involved with started or in some small way invested in a number of different Financial opportunities um and I I can it pretty much every single one of them went Bust or failed in some way shape or form with the exception of one which uh was a which was a packaging company and that packaging company basically then since it was the uh sort of only horse standing at the time that got the his attention to sort of get

12:22 into that particular um industry and packaging ultimately led into the raw materials that go into packaging which is chemical manufacturing and so um the original name so Huntsman today is a publicly traded um Global manufacturer of many different usable products around the world the original name was Huntsman container and because of the packaging side of things so that ultimately became what today is is Huntsman Corporation which is where my family’s generated well my father and his team and family generated his wealth which then has now gone on to support and be the basis for the Huntsman Cancer Institute and the Huntsman Mental Health Institute and and many other um charitable and uh Endeavors is this may be annoying what what I think of with your dad is like McDonald’s Big Mac clamshell sort of containers is that is is that even anywhere near the truth of one of the things that your your dad first kind of yes really so that particular product is a uh uh was a was

13:35 a product that was available in the market meat trays and it had various packaging applications at the time McDonald’s used um gez either some type of of wax paper or cardboard box to house their Big Mac this would have been probably gez in the 70s um and he was able to get them to substitute that for a clamshell container and so McDonald’s became one of his first Baseline customers so to be clear he didn’t invent my dad’s not an inventor he just came up with an application and found a customer in the market that didn’t exist using an already existing product and it was a great play it worked fantastically and really helped set things off on a good way in the early days did your dad serve a mission I I don’t even know enough to know missionary no as a mission president yes he was in the Washington DC mission in 1980 to 83 today the it’s actually the mission split in two I think it’s the Washington

14:39 DC North and South back then it was one mission in fact it might be one Mission today I don’t know so how many siblings did your parents end up having how many s children did your parents have how many siblings did you so they’re nine of us total um and I’m lucky number seven seven of nine yep okay and what was the what was the culture like in the family uh particularly related to the church was it a traditional Mormon family or would that be impossible for Huntsman family of nine to be a traditional Mormon family or somewhere in the middle well I guess it probably depends on what your definition of traditional is I I think Mormonism was always part of the upbringing Mormonism was always part of the family Dynamics um I don’t know that we held family home evening on a regular basis that as an example or or got up at 6:00 in the morning to read scriptures maybe my older siblings did by the time I came along I think that those were not part of the normal narrative but at that

15:43 particular time my dad would have been a state president and and so in Salt Lake right yes Monument Park Monument Park 15th W right yeah H and so growing up I you know other than the normal teenage angst I never really had any issues with you know the the the integration of Mormonism and Mormon teachings and Mormon culture into family life it was just kind of one and the same it all seemed to work for us and no real major issues it was great place to grow up parents provided a great loving home and uh yeah so um I if you’re dad State president that means a a pretty Orthodox faithful Mormon family or would you say it was not Orthodox in some ways like you know no swearing no our movies no no coffee no tea no tobacco no alcohol all the normal Mormon things was it pretty standard that way or that’s quite a list I would say some yes some no okay but it would have been [Laughter] pretty I don’t I think that my parents struck a good balance where if you were to come into our home and you were a non-member you would not feel like

16:58 you’re walking into desert book and conversely if you were a member of the church walking into the home you wouldn’t feel like boy this family is not really Towing the line I think we tried to make an environment that was welcoming to everyone that’s nice okay so in terms of your faith progression from from childhood into adolescence you know were you reading the scriptures praying were you developing Orthodox beliefs attending seminar those types of normal faith-based you know activities that a Mormon kid goes through in Salt Lake City in the what 70s I’d say it was mixed um I mean as a teenager you kind of explore different ideas and and and beliefs I’d say before my my teen years yes because that’s kind of what everyone did in the neighborhood so there’s really not a lot of incentive to severe from that um is this the Avenues in Salt Lake Bally no above sing no like above what would you say what’s the legal technical definition area basically okay okay so

18:13 up right south of of the univer of the University yes okay Hogle Zoo in between so right right at the mouth of Immigration Canyon and we’re talking Highland High School kind of boundaries back then correct Highland and East we were sort of right at the boundaries of those two high schools okay okay so in your teen years you’re saying exploring would you say by the time you’re 18 you’re a faithful Orthodox believing devout Mormon or not uh maybe late 18 uh right I went on a mission right when I turned 19 and I I think that the sort of my personality the the lights are either on or off and let’s just say for a period of 16 17 18 the lights are off as it relates to the church with me they’re very much on I had a terrific High School experience um and the the um uh the opportunity and the the mindset required well the opportunity and the mindset required to serve a mission meant that I had to sort of make a switch in relation to my relationship with Mormonism which I did relatively

19:27 quickly it I just felt it was time high school days were over and I you know wasn’t sure about University and and my all of my older brothers had served missions my dad was a Miss former Mission president it was an easy decision to make to go on a mission in in the 1990s was it kind of in ex 1990s yeah so I went from 1990 to 92 okay um so uh are you saying kind of for you the mission wasn’t this born out of deep faith and testimony sort of thing it was more sort of what was expected and then maybe faith and conviction came later I don’t know that I would use the term expected for me it I just saw it as an opportunity that I felt was right for me at that particular time I would say I’m an opportunist in in in nature in my personality and so when something comes along that and look I always that mission was always lingering out there in the in in in the sort of in in the background but yeah there were periods prior to that where I in my mind I’m like I’m not going to serve a mission there’s I just I just don’t I’m not

20:43 committed to the cause so there’s really no point um but when that I made that sort of mental and emotional change and really look serving mission in the 90s is different than today in some measures some ways it was a lot easier to get maybe get through the system to to go um this there really wasn’t a screening process uh it was just hey and and I given my father’s position and our family’s position in the church I figured that my mission would be a good one so to speak maybe they’re less less good missions areas that people don’t want to serve but I ended up going to Central Germany what a great mission in the 19 90s right when the the end of the Cold War and the Berlin Wall came down and I I love history and military history and I get sent to Germany and my mission president was my father’s my dad’s former first counselor in the state presidency like what a great opportunity why would I skip that so I nothing else to do and my mission was a great experience for me

21:55 but I but again just to be maybe clear with what it might not be everyone’s experience and I get it there wasn’t this underlying pressure of you need to go or else it was really framed for me and I saw it as more of an opportunity okay I checked with uh with Maryann before I asked this and she said I can ask and you can decide if you want to respond but one piece of to some trivia to you would be very personal thing that um if someone has learned about your family and all they’d know is that there was I guess there was a kidnapping at some point um that you were involved with is that something you would want to talk about or not and I did ask before I got permission to ask at least so and I don’t mean to joke about something that might have been serious I actually don’t know anything about it well well it was quite serious but um no to answer your question yes that is an actual event that took place

22:55 and you were how old I was 17 oh so it was right a year or two before your mission yes okay yeah is there anything you would want to share about that or would you prefer not to talk about that well I don’t mind talking about it um okay uh it’s a whole story in and of itself um I don’t know that we have time to get into it because we need to Sure uh keep looking at you no it’s it’s a funny coincidence is that my little brother Nate I think was student body president of Highland High when that happened oh really yeah yeah so you were in high school and you were there Mark I was graduated I’m older but but my little brother was sted by president at Highland High and I I think that was the same year I’m not 100% sure I’ll get corrected but I remember it vividly because I live I grew up in in the same neighborhood basically that that the Huntsman did December 1987 actually December John this is a

23:52 great date December 7th 1987 so the other events happen on December 7th which are also quite historical which is Pearl Pearl Harbor and the Armenian earthquake which our family played a role in not the earthquake but in some of their recovery efforts um interesting side note as it relates to that kidnapping um in terms of the maybe the origin story of that of of some of those behaviors and and motivations from the people involved um for most of my upbringing in junior high and high school my father was very private and the family was very private and we preferred to keep it that way we didn’t being in the Limelight was something that was never a goal and I think as we get into the case and the motivations behind this case I very much fell into that same U pattern um my father actually gave a a gift back in the in the late 80s actually I guess it would have been 87 to the University of Utah it’s a $5

25:02 million donation today that seems like very small amounts to get even a chair named after you at a University cost millions of dollars but back then $5 million was a large amount that’s when the the University of Utah was kind enough to to change the name of the basketball arena from the special events center to the John M Huntsman Center and uh part of the reason the University of Utah did that was for that to be a catalyst to encourage other people to give basically saying the huntsman’s have given this amount you can give something else interestingly enough that was also the motivation for those involved in the kidnapping gave them the idea from what we were told later on of oh well the Huntsman must have a lot of money and therein led to the let’s come up with that scheme to kidnap and hold for ransom so that’s kind of how that whole thing transpired and fortunately we made it out safely and there was a there was an FBI agent who was uh unfortunately stabbed ended up

26:15 recovering just fine and and all the participants involved thankfully are are living and and uh and moving on with their lives and you know it’s been several decades since that event but yeah how long were you in captivity I guess uh about 12 hours okay so less than a less than a full day yeah oh good and did I’m just because this is Mormon stories did your faith did prayer or your perceptions of divine intervention have any role in either what happened or how you processed it afterwards did you feel like God saved you or it was a miracle or did you pray to be saved during the Captivity you know was Mormonism I don’t I don’t believe so I mean I I would have been um so it was December so I would have been 16 at the time um I I don’t know that I would have leaned into my faith in that particular instance I think where it probably came more to play was on my mission um when I sort of which I

27:24 actually think is a is sort of a a good exercise to go through and that is the whole notion of of forgiveness and and and moving on and and you know reconciling when possible sometimes it’s not always possible but reconciling when possible with with yourself and with those around you that were involved um and how Mormonism fed into that and the whole Christian narrative that would have had a a significant impact as a as a missionary far more than it had an impact during the actual event okay so in terms of like struggling to gain a testimony did that happen on your mission you you you mentioned that you’re kind of an All or Nothing guy you’re either Allin or kind of all out when and how did you become Allin in terms of your Mormon belief was that on your mission after your mission right before your mission was it a process but that’s a really good question I I there’s no doubt that a a mission my mission specifically for me would have reinforced that narrative

28:40 um in the in in the 90s I I I think the church was a lot more um a a lot more so word I’m looking for maybe bold in the proclamations of the one and only and and of being the religion and Allin and we have it all and it’s hinkly saying it’s either all true or or or it isn’t that was really a narrative for me in in the early 90s and my personality was such that I leaned into that completely and and and being on a mission just reinforced that so I like many that go on missions I would have come home my mission as a very disciplined obedient Soldier to the cause and was was any of that like prayer based where you’re praying for a testimony and then you get the witness kind of like the Moroni Book of Mormon promise you ask and it shall be given unto you or was it more just in the lived experience of being a missionary or some combination Pro probably the latter I mean I would love to have had some type of Angelic visitation or the heavens

30:00 parted I think a lot of people would like something like that frankly because that’s kind of The Narrative of what you tell people they might get um a divine intervention or a or Divine confirmation I think in a lot of people’s minds including my own is something that is really Indescribable and and quite fascinating in a number of ways I I think for me it was probably like like a lot of um religious people out there that have some type of conversion where it was simply just putting in the work and effort and as a result you gained to love and support the organization that you serve and that’s just was just kind of the end result yeah so no I unfortunately I don’t have anything to sort of say that there was some extra I won’t say terrestrial or is some event that would be atypical from what I really believe that most people probably experience as it relates to their religious conversions but is it safe to say by the end of your mission you’re an

31:16 all-in fully believing Orthodox Mormon 100% fully committed to the church and the traditional Mormon Milestones I think that we all yeah with out question okay yeah so you served what year span did you 1990 to 1992 okay and I’m I’m rting on my my history so I I Googled who is profit when and it looks like hinley didn’t become Prophet until 95 so it sounds like Ezra Benson and then Howard W Hunter would have kind of been the early prophets for you and that hinley would have been very influential but he would have become the president just right after your mission ended is that sound right uh yes and and not to sort of um uh uh trigger controversy for listeners Spencer W Kimble was also a key figure in in my family’s relationship with with Mormonism when my father was a mission president at Washington DC Spencer Del Kimmel actually came to uh visit the mission um and and there were some other experiences with him that sort of

32:34 growing up it was like Spencer W Kimbell you know and and I don’t know that that got replicated with or duplicated I mean Howard Hunter was very very his tenure was very brief a year or less he was actually in our Ward growing up so we were very close to him my dad was very close to him um and then of course as Benson was largely ill during much of his I was going to say Reign presidency um and then you get to a what many Mormons perceived and loved about Gordon be Hinkley you know able to you know walk into a room and handle interviews and do television interviews and do publicity and all these great things which the prior leadership really shied away from for many many decades and now we have a situation here with him that was quite refreshing for a lot of members of the church yeah and this plays into the lawsuit later but because Gordon be hinley was willing to go on 60 Minutes willing to go on Larry King live willing to be interviewed by Time

33:48 Magazine his we paid attention tell tell me if I’m wrong but we paid attention to his public statements like either the church is all true or it’s all false or you know like when City Creek is announced am am I is that is that we we paid attention to what gorley said yeah and I I think prior to that the presidents of the church rarely spoke on the record and I think since Gordon be hinley there there had there there hasn’t been an equal to him as far as people going on the record it just happened to be during the this time where it was It was kind of the right people at the right time and I think today with the internet the way it is and access to information I don’t think Hinkley could could be as prolific today as he was say in the mid 90s I I just think there was just a kind of a golden age yes it was a very unique period of time and he was the right guy for that message and resonated

34:53 with a lot of people I remember being on you know vacation Maryann and the kids and we would you know we at one point schedule make sure we’re back in the hotel room to watch was it the 60 Minutes interview you know it was like it was a big deal when he would do something we would you know you accommodate it and you you kind of are there and support it he’s also the one that decided to build the mall yeah you know so it all dovetails it all kind of comes together um he was very instrumental in kind of reshaping downtown Salt Lake City he had a vision he at the time Salt Lake City where I was working at the time was deteriorating there was the The Crossroads Mall was was kind of a piece of junk the zcmi was almost empty at one point if you remember and he’s the one that said this is our this is our place we need to fix up the downtown and that was his vision he was he was instrumental in so many I I have very

35:51 fond memories same as James of my childhood watching him and and now now that we’ve talked talked about the mall I’m thinking about the fact that I was going to mention that in some ways whistleblower David neelson is kind of like an angel sitting on all their shoulders because he’s been a friend to you James correct and to you mark yeah and to me and and I don’t think we’d necessarily all be here talking right now if in part it weren’t for whistleblower David neelen but as I’m thinking about insin Peak wasn’t it Gordon be hinley that was instrumental in much of the formation to IGN Peak and and the church Investments and what it became I know iring was also part of that but like wasn’t hinley an important part of the formation and growth of inside Peak I mean some of that I I don’t know the exact history but some of that may have been as much a product of what was happening to the portfolio and at some point someone in the church said

36:46 this is we this is getting to be a lot of money what are we going to do we can’t just keep this in the church anymore we need to do something productive with the money and uh you know obviously I don’t know the decision process in in that but they did decide to set up enzy peak in those at that point and and move the money into a separate entity which was a fateful decision in a lot of ways because had they just kept it in the church itself in the church’s bank account it wouldn’t have made the kind of money that it made I think that once they put it in the market so and and it was growing exponentially you know they were they were netting several billion dollars a year uh that they didn’t need and then what are we going to do with that so that set up enan Peak right yeah imagine having a portfolio that you can establish in the early 90s with significant amounts of cash no taxes no donations going out and that

37:45 Capital can just yeah compound interest on itself no wonder the growth was miraculous and it was at the beginning of one of the great yes markets in history and they wrote it all the way up with substantial money going in and it’s all you know it compounds in the stock market so the church had fantastic timing and luckily they had good good cash flow yeah and we’re talking about Hinkley because he becomes an important piece of your story later is that I mean of the lawsuit correct correct okay okay so you come off your mission from Germany you’re fully in with the church talk about uh you know college marriage early family to what extent did you just hop on the Mormon train as I like to refer to it and just uh check off all the Milestones as you as you went along yeah great way of saying it got on the Mormon train uh came home off off of my mission met Maryanne amazing amazing situation there where’d yall meet uh

38:48 University of Utah so you went to the U University of Utah were you a Greek were you were you uh no I wasn’t okay Maran was but Ian was yeah I didn’t I didn’t get in I was your brother was yeah see I I’ve always been fighting from the outside I never are you an introvert is that fair to say no I just by I look I came off my mission the last thing you want to do for a lot of people is to go to the frat house right yeah before my mission that might have been a different situation but look I I got off my mission and the objective was to get through school as quickly as possible and hopefully find someone to board that train together with me and uh at this time much like I guess enzy Peak Huntsman Corporation was growing as a company my dad was having a lot of success the family was having a lot of success and it really was an opportunity to go into the family business and work with um several of my siblings uh what a great opportunity and

39:52 so that those opportunities were outside of the state of Utah and so there was some level of immediacy not pressure but just the Practical realities of trying to find you know a a life partner a spouse a wife and within the church doing that in the Salt Lake Valley would have been significantly easier as opposed to being out somewhere else so I got was very very fortunate what are three things you loved about maryan well I can start getting emotional if you ask those types of that’s not terrible on Mormon this is Mormon stories three things well smart um strong sexy that’s awesome those are great I find her to be very kind and I’m sure the list would be very long it’s quite a long list that’s why I paused to say you know it’s it’s a tough answer we do and you know and again we were very fortunate from the standpoint that we found each other we connected on many many levels and I I don’t think we even had a strenuous

41:22 disagreement for a decade like it it was just and again it wasn’t the church I thought maybe might have been the church that the relationship was so great but after you know obviously we after we exited Mormonism the relationship was still there and it was still great and it was built on mutual love and respect for each other and just a a level of connection that I think we would both individually say that we were very fortunate in that regard because that’s not always the case were you all Temple married oh come on man that yes Salt Lake Salt Lake City yes or DC which Temple Salt Lake City okay our our vacations were where’s the nearest Temple so we can go do a session oh we were that couple so when y’all got married it was like we’re doing the Mormon thing all the way to the end sort of thing yes yeah okay and I would say jointly right like it was both wasn’t I think it was really equal in our desire to do that I don’t I don’t get the sense that I was ever pulling her nor her me

42:26 um it was very much of a mutual let’s let’s do the Mormon theme because that is what we want to do because it is the right thing to do yeah so she came to the marriage fully Orthodox believing and committed to the church too yes yeah okay okay beautiful okay so did did you both finish at the you where did where did life take you how did kids come along how did come did you go to grad school here’s how that happened um no I went to the University of Utah and and just got my undergrad in history history yep was there a part of History you were interested in specifically military history oh wow yeah like World War II y so Germany again that was like oh the perfect mission for me so World War I and two yeah did you know the Germans were involved in World War I I’m kidding I’m kidding I’m like really uh so but uh and then thereafter it was immediately into into Huntsman Corporation and and into the family business okay did you do grad

43:36 school did you okay you didn’t go to okay I I’d say I got it at work yeah oh yeah yeah okay so um how many kids if you want to share and like what was it like juggling work and family and Church in those in those years and what did the church mean to you and your family with Maryann and your kids it’s a lot but you know I I don’t know that our that our objectives would have been any different than so I I’ll just use the words a a traditional Orthodoxy family we you know attending church was yeah I’m looking over at Maryann in case I’m missing something but attending church was always not a question you go to the three-hour block you go to your meetings um you you know with a young family it’s hard to read the scriptures because that’s could be one of the boringest books in the world for young children but you know you read the family scriptures you try to incorporate some element of Mormonism into the daily

44:47 routine you know blessing on the food and when you’re driving by a temple it’s you know tap the brakes in the car and have all the kids look at the temple out the bill out out the window any opportunity to um introduce and reinforce Mormonism in in our upbringing was just just anorm I I I don’t feel like we’re trying to force it it was just look we loved Mormonism growing up and we were proud to be members of of of the church and so to have children that we could share that experience with was it was no obligation on our side it was an opportunity and it was a it was a pleasure to do so so family prayer family script study and home evening when possible all the callings for both of you young kids that whole thing yep callings yep right across the board y okay okay um and was most of this in Texas then and because I remember that’s where I first learned about you was when you were in uh Woodlands which is near my hometown but like was was most of your

45:52 time with Huntsman chemical in Texas or yes most of it was in Texas there were um there was a a period where we lived abroad um and but the line share of it was 23 years with Huntsman Corporation and most of that was 15 or plus was in Texas did y’all like Houston area I’m a mountain guy uh it’s hot and flat and humid right I didn’t mind the heat and humidity I I just found the the the sort of of geography a little bit One Tone um but look to you know there are these communities these planned communities in Texas obviously in all other states as well it’s a great place to raise a family I mean it’s safe and you have your local school and schools are close and the church is close your friends are close and and it was a great place to work work was you know th those are great times uh for in in our in our marriage and and raising family and of course you have the church there too and because there are they planned communities that that are relatively new

47:11 there’s not a there’s not a history of Mormon families that are already there like you have in Utah they’re all people that move in and I often I would just sort of shake my head a little bit when you would go to church and people would talk about how much the church is growing it’s like well no we’re not grow people are just moving here that means that somewhere else the church is is declining in their growth or their membership while we’re bet it’s a net the same number yeah um and what that meant is you had a lot of great families coming in there from Utah and other areas that really made the church and a lot of these communities a pretty solid stable base of people so the types of callings you and MaryAnn would have had had in those years leading up to before you started having questions or doubts just give us a sampling of the types of callings you and MaryAnn would have fulfilled well Maryann you were Relief

48:13 Society stake oh yeah sorry that doesn’t exist anymore stake Relief Society uh I don’t remember that that’s a tough one uh uh but look a lot normal callings but a look a lot of the callings that we had I mean obviously when I get a calling it takes time out from from us uh you know it’s The Usual Suspects gospel Essentials gospel Doctrine teacher which I did for off and on for eight years went through the standard Works twice um High Council stake Mission president see like you know you were always kind of moving around in in in doing something never never in the bishop brick thankfully I think that’s that would have been really tough frankly don’t know how we would have responded to that one back in the day early on yes but later in in the marriage I think just the Practical time commitments that that calling sometimes can require I I I don’t know that that would have worked for us so but it never came along so never had to deal with that

49:25 one um I so I’ll remember well I first remember I was living in Logan at the time I think we’ve established it was 200 what 13 2014 when you first reached out to me is that right around that time what do we establish something like that it’s tough to dispute email dates stamped dates I think said mid mid 2014 2014 yeah so what what let’s just go and jump to the you know what what were the events that would have led to you listening to Mormon stories as a totally committed devout in it to win it 100% Mormon what would have led you to start listening to Mormon stories and then reaching out to me when did the cracks first start developing in your faith um boy that’s that’s sort of a that whole relationship between Mormonism me me and me would have evolved and changed significantly over a period of years it wasn’t for some people I know it’s kind of overnight or very compressed period of time but Mormonism when I when it worked for

50:43 me was something that was this all-in um organization that kind of did everything right and makes no apologies makes no mist mistakes you know the Doctrine and Covenants talk about that the religion is perfect the members aren’t but the the church is I mean all this narrative that fed into Mormonism being very appealing to me um I think probably year six or year seven into gospel or maybe year eight gospel Doctrine we church history and how church history was articulated for me became an issue because I would just be a stickler for information and I started to see gaps in in that and gaps in the sort of wait a second 1 plus one doesn’t equal two in this particular area and then you know there were just a number of areas where the the the narrative that I was told and that I was frankly in tears bearing testimony of in in in another language to somebody I didn’t know several several years later being told

52:00 actually that’s not what had happened it was something else but don’t worry about it because we made a reference reference to that particular issue in the friend in 1972 like that for me was a copout and and when that started happening more and more and more this sort of Allin religion didn’t work for me again it can work for others and again I no disrespect respect to anyone’s relationship with Mormonism and how they frame it how they do it that’s that’s their totally their business but for me it was an all-in situation so when those cracks started to appear that was significant for me because Mormonism for me doesn’t have cracks and when it started to have those cracks and and I couldn’t repair them and they became more and more and more um and having those discussions with some of my siblings and friends in you know people at church that we were friendly with one of them mentioned Mormon

53:08 stories and that’s when I went on and listened and that’s when I then reached out to you and said hey you know this is great and you know it’s it’s been a great relationship ever since it’s been a great ride but that was the you know it was somebody pointing me in the direction of Mormon stories to say hey look here’s and I believe at the time John you were still in you were trying to walk that line of of I felt Mormon stories was tailored to me hey James you have cracks let’s figure out a way to heal those cracks I I don’t know for looking back that that was even possible for me that was not possible so just to make sure we give a sampling what I’m hearing is maybe Joseph Smith’s first vision and how that story changed it sounds like I heard the translation of the Book of Mormon the stone in the Hat and the gold plates not being in the room versus the Yum thumb are there other other examples of the types of historical discrepancies

54:10 that were really meaningful to you besides First Vision wi of Mormon translation others they stick out as big ones I would maybe look at it from a from a different context and say for me it became I is there a historical narrative or a doctrinal narrative that actually hasn’t changed and hasn’t been altered in my mind they all have and so therefore for me it was just one pillar being knocked out after another and when I put the sort of the logic test or the historical test test or for me what I was told to teach I really couldn’t find anything that hadn’t been through some type of alteration in order to to tailor make it for a Mormon today somebody like me and I it just it just wouldn’t oh wow it just wouldn’t work everything priesthood Temple I I don’t know that and for some others I’m I’m sure that again may not see it that way I can totally appreciate that I actually don’t see a single instance where that’s not the case and that’s why it became problematic for me and it went

55:30 all in to in essence all out and I I I just couldn’t juggle all that I I just couldn’t make it work um and uh because we’re live streaming I want to make sure everyone feels comfortable if anyone needs to take a break just wave at me hop up and do it and then I’ll carry the conversation with the other person that’s remaining I don’t know if that’s if you want to take advantage of that now uh James and Mark and I talk for a second is that all right we’ll do that you want to do that one sure all right okay so Mark really quickly while James um yeah yeah yeah Mark real quickly do you do you um do you want to share any memories of the Huntsman family because I think it’s kind of fun oh I think it’s kind of fun that you grew up in the same kind of neighborhood and and you and you and your I guess family would have also had memories and thoughts sure anything you want to share so far just as someone who has been sort of a friend and or an observer for quite some time yeah well I

56:30 I mean I think that it’s interesting to hear the story about the kidnapping from the opposite perspective because I remember at that time becoming um friends with uh the Huntsman family we all went to high school together there were several uh his cousin was my age at Highland and I remember we went to a big party up at the Huntsman Family Estate the brothers had houses next door to each other right up at the top of the of the Hill kind of at the the base by the hrock if people are in Utah you’ll know they lived up kind of in the hrock area and which Brothers uh well no I was so his cousin uh is his father and his brother Liv next door to each other and James I I hope I’m getting this right because he’s not here but but uh uh they had these beautiful houses that were right next door and so the it was like a the Huntsman compound and so they were all the cousins were there and they were all very close and everybody kind of hung

57:31 out and they were very well regarded I don’t think I had a an understanding in those days that the Hunts you know about this significance of their financial situation I just didn’t I was kind of clueless about those kind of things but I do remember when the Huntsman Center got renamed and then it kind of was on my radar screen um that that oh this is these are the Huntsman that I know um so anyway it’s just thinking back in those days that was a long long time ago um I’m a few years older than James but but I did was definitely aware of it and the Huntsman family has been I I just I you know we’re going to talk about this in a minute but I just want to say if if you understand the prominence of the Huntsman family and their name and given the fact that his brother was the governor in Utah and ran for president you know you you have to take that into perspective about what James did here because he filed a lawsuit and put his name on the top of it and that takes a lot of Bravery I often have

58:35 clients who want to sue somebody and I have to say now you know your name this could get picked up in the paper your name is going to be on top of this case and that they going to be there’s going to be Fallout from that you know you have to be aware that when you put your name on a lawsuit people pay attention and if it’s a significant lawsuit then um the news will pick it up and in this case um what James did has to really be seen in the context of of he has a very prominent family a grandfather who was a general Authority and he had The Bravery to to really do this is important I think it’s an important part of the story uh from the outside seeing it I remember how significant that is yeah I was I don’t have my timelines totally right so I checked and John hensman Jr was governor from 2005 to 2009 okay and then it says that he resigned as Governor to become ambassador of China under Barack Obama in 2009 right but I’m

59:33 guessing he would have run for president during kind of he ran against Mitt Romney that’s my Rec in the primaries and then Mitt Romney won that primary yeah but it was I remember that was kind of this moment for Mormonism um and also for the Huntsman name you know all of a sudden the Huntsman name which had been quite prominent in Utah became prominent nationally and people I think the the name in those in the late UHS or whatever that is um that the Huntsman name became a nationally known name as not just a locally known name and that’s important that to see this story in that context yeah and that’s something I I you know because I grew up in uh I grew up in Texas away from all of this and then I went to BYU but then almost immediately left and you know did my career thing this is all a kind of cultural context that I wouldn’t have really had um and John uh and and James now that you’re back um what I don’t think necessarily you had any intention of coming on and talking about kind of

1:00:42 your backstory two reasons why I think it’s really important is to establish what I think was often challenged in the lawsuit which which was your sincerity that you really felt like you were betrayed or def Ed and I for me it’s essential to establish that you were an all-in fully Orthodox 100% true blue believer who believed in the full truthfulness and Divinity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and you took when you considered Gordon be Hinkley to be a prophet when you raised your arm to the square to sustain him you you believed he spoke with God true exactly yeah yes and then also what Mark said you don’t pay tithing if you don’t believe in the church let me just I don’t think I mean when my tithing start when my testimony started to crack first thing I did is stop writing those checks I think that writing significant checks to the church is is a really a sign of of belief and and faith that this will that that heavenly father is commanded

1:01:46 it and you’re following his Commandments I I anyway yeah and the second thing in addition to sincere devout faithfulness something that Mark mentioned while you were out for a second James is the the pressure and the stress and the intensity of bearing the Huntsman name and just deciding that in spite of all the connections families who are you know Apostles family members friends in-laws uh a dad who is in area Authority a mom who is devout um the business name all the connections and ties and relationships with the church and probably with a lot of love for the church it’s no small thing to say I carry this name and I I feel strongly enough about this that in spite of the ways that this might carry a lot of pressure and even disappointment for others I’m still I feel I still feel strongly enough about this that I’m gonna I’m gonna actually file a lawsuit so can you talk about going from uh losing your faith to deciding

1:02:57 that you wanted to file a lawsuit take us through that and anything else you want to add while you’re man that’s a that’s that’s a tall order I’m glad I took a breather uh so you’re you we left with you kind of doubting all the aspects of the church but you still have to make decisions what what will Mom and Dad think what will my siblings think what will happen if people find out I lost my faith take us from that point well I again I think it goes back to the the um the the strength of the relationship that Maryann and I had and I think we were in lock step together so you weren’t worried about how she would take your loss of Faith no because I I think our journey was was uh we had we were walking a similar path there might have for us the sort of being on the Mormon train and exiting the Mormon train and doing it the way that we did over a period of time was um I mean we were on the same page there

1:04:07 was never I don’t there was never really any issue of why are you doing this or you’re not believing that or not going to church for three hours and and you know dur and during this transition of as I’ll use the phrase that you started with the Mormon train and leading up to the the lawsuit which was always designed to be private and non-public we had two boys on missions during this period of time and and trying to manage that and juggle that as well recognizing what that means is somebody who’s been on a mission and re you know what what that might look like coming back to a home that is different than when you left so those those were all pieces that we were sort of juggling with this and always the intention was was you know let’s not break glass let’s let’s create an environment where where people in and out of the church feel welcome in our home much like my parents did much like with with Maryann and her family and her great

1:05:09 parents like we wanted to continue in that Trend and the sort the the impetus for the the lawsuit I I I can’t ignore the fact that there was some piece of motivation behind that that I wanted to give the bouncer a bloody nose exiting the bar where I had a bad experience and I just felt like I had given so much to this organization and at some point I felt they couldn’t give two shits about me at some point and and it was like fine to can play that game I I I I then I’m done but as part of that exit out you know like there there was something I felt I wanted back from the organization that I felt didn’t treat me the way that I treated that organization and that was a different experience for me because you look at the key relationships in my life at that time and historically my siblings my parents Maryanne my friends business colleagues I never really had something whereby I was putting so much in and and I realized I was getting very

1:06:33 little out and and when I sort of came to terms of that I wasn’t happy and so that again there were other elements we can get into but that was in terms of the personality that drove that home it had nothing to do with being a huntsman or a crusador or you know being public or it was just like hey I this is not how this is not how you’re supposed to treat others so so there so the Decades of your faithfulness up until your loss of Faith were you enjoying the Mormon train were you enjoying being a Mormon raising your kids Mormon living the Mormon lifestyle or were you not like I I think that I I feel like I loved my time as a Mormon were you loving it up until you learned that things were different than you had been taught or something less than loving it no loving it okay for sure loving it for sure and even even on the even in the transitional period I would say that you know that wasn’t a a massively uncomfortable time

1:07:46 for Maryann and me you know we had we still had two kids on missions we were attending a warden in in Texas look the name was pretty high-profile I was gospel Doctrine teacher I could kind of say in do things maybe that others couldn’t and and so if I had a different relationship with Mormonism there was really no downside for me because you know Marian and I were generally on the same page I had very supportive siblings some of them some of who shared those same views with me and and those same questions and about the you know the structure of the church and how they were maybe less than competent at the top in terms of their leadership that was a very hard thing for me to digest as well um so so yes to answer your question loved my time within Mormonism I had a great Mission terrific Mission all good memories there um wouldn’t trade it for for for anything and our time in the in the church and serving and do like I

1:08:54 just I have really really very little to look back on and say man that really gets underneath my SK gets underneath my skin up until this period of time where I felt man you mistreated yeah I’ll give you a little bit of leeway but come on now this is this is over and above and you know then The Whistleblower documents come out like I just thought man I wasn’t happy and that was my way to express my dissatisfaction hey John can I can I push back a little bit on that because I I just have a question James said I can push back on him if I but but I I mean he yes you’re in a unique position yes you you are able to do this but to say that there wasn’t a downside isn’t true I mean there is a big downside and there’s a social cost that you I’m sure paid um any of us who leave the church that have somewhat prominent families in this town we pay a social cost and it you lose friends you lose you have it impacts your family

1:09:54 relationships it impacts your friendships um and I I mean how is it really true that you didn’t think there was any downside to you well if if we go back to the the the sort of the Genesis of the litigation which was a demand letter the demand letter by Design was non-public I didn’t even tell my siblings so really it was Maryann and me coming to terms with that of what that meant and I mean we mentioned it to our our children like hey here’s kind of what’s Happening we just didn’t expect there to be I I hear what you’re saying in the social cost of EX Mormonism yes that’s a that’s a real thing I mean I that let’s just say it’s a real thing and I’m not dismissing that I’m just saying in this case the motivation behind it and when it became public the way that it did was a little bit of a surprise because that was never Our intention I see and so we got into it with hey Maran are we good with this because we’re probably the only ones

1:10:57 that ever going to hear about this so before we jump into the litigation and and the things that really upset you when you were really when you and MaryAnn were both really struggling with the ends of your faith were you able to talk to your dad about your doubts and questions were you able to talk about Grandpa hate were you able to talk to brother you know Elder rasband he probably wasn’t an apostle back then but like could you take your doubts and questions with access to the highest levels of the church right I’m sure your dad could have gotten you an audience with whoever was prophet or president in 2014 I guess that was Monson by 2014 were you able to take your doubts and questions to Apostles prophets high level church leaders and at least try to have some sort of discussion to help you to help save your faith basically I don’t think I was looking for my faith to be saved no no why why wouldn’t why wouldn’t you use every I mean this isn’t I’m not doubting you but

1:12:08 like I’m thinking about me right if I could have talked to an apostle which I did I talked to Elder Holland twice like I did like I’m curious why you wouldn’t want to turn over every stone John are you talking about the time frame when he’s losing his faith or the time frame when he’s threatening the lawsuit the first the first okay as because I think at some point you got upset you loved the church for a couple decades you found out that there were things that weren’t true then you’re in this point of like the Dark Night of the Soul MaryAnn’s on board I’m just I’m wondering whether you had any opportunities or interest in trying to get those issues resolved before then you you know the the the tithing stuff occurred to you right yeah or had you already just figured it all out and didn’t well maybe I can answer that question with the question okay I I would say that the reason I wasn’t looking for a resolution from them is because I think I knew what the

1:13:05 outcome would have been and and any time publicly or in a recorded message or any time Church leadership attempted to resolve any of these issues it never works and they they either don’t have the tools to answer the questions of their members or the answers aren’t there or they don’t listen like all just the Classic telltale signs of leadership not being able to deal with a particular issue and when I looked at the leadership of the church at a local Regional and National level and Global and Global but largely It’s s i mean all the leadership here is they’re kind all beat to the same drum they probably they give you all the same answers their their experience with Mormonism is largely similar I wasn’t under any illusion that they had some silver bullet that I was we started out this podcast with we have I was fortunate enough growing up and having a number of relationship connections with the

1:14:18 hierarchy of the Mormon church I I knew they didn’t have the answers to my questions and and so going down that path and you know there were audiences that others facilitated on our behalf where Marian and I went to talk to people I went to those but they weren’t driven by me because I knew that they weren’t prepared to address these issues but in in my opinion and I think that looking back I I don’t think my opinion on that has changed wow so even while you were going through your faith crisis you you had had enough exposure to the highest levels of church leadership where you were pretty confident that trying to resolve those issues with them would not have really borne any positive fruit that’s what I’m hearing did I get that right honestly I would have probably felt sorry if a bishop or State president came in and tried to resolve my issues because it they would have left probably worse than when they came

1:15:19 in that’s just kind of how I so I’m like why do it so yes answer your question I didn’t have any confidence that they could resolve those issues as an organization they’ve tried with the essays how many I think they’re 15 essays now or whatever you read through those essays and really like to me it just wasn’t it just I didn’t think they had the ability to deal with those issues and again keep in mind I’m coming out of a out of corporate America okay I’d been there for two decades within Huntsman Corporation and my brother was CEO before then my father was the CEO and I would say that I had a lot of respect for their ability to run a company to organize leadership and to put processes and and a strategy in a business plan in place that wasn’t perfect but was seconded like it was very very good and I grew up in that environment of when there’s an issue when there is a problem if like that this is how you fix something this is how how you deal with a a a a union who isn’t happy with you know their work

1:16:30 environment for two decades I public Scandal that comes out yes or you you have an issue with the SEC or with OSHA or regulatory agent that’s part of running a large company in Corporate America and there’s a way to do that correctly do you want to share just a couple points because we would contrast that with how the church handles these types of things well my my point in mentioning that is that I was in that environment and and as I would sort of laugh at Maryann and say okay I don’t think Jesus runs Huntsman Corporation but he claims to run be the CEO of the Mormon Church Mormon Inc or the corporation of the president of the church Jesus Christ letter stands how is it that when I compare the two organizations that one of these organizations appears to be very well-run organized and structured and the other one is just like barely barely above average on a good day and that and that would be in my in my opinion that would be Mormonism and so that John is

1:17:32 part of my I don’t mean to diminish local leadership or Regional leadership or Global Leadership but I could just I had been in both organizations for decades and seen them at all levels I knew what I was dealing with which again goes back to why I thought I had so much confidence sending a demand letter in because I thought any sane competent well-run organization that knows my family and knows me well enough would want to get us out of the way as soon as possible that frankly was part of my logic which is why again I didn’t mentioned to my siblings I thought it would be something that would be done in dusted and I can handle with the church very privately and confidentially so really quickly to just put a fine point on this when you paid your tithing what did you think it was going for right during those two decades leading up to the lawsuit just to establish that what I think it was going for is what was referred to in the manuals and general conference and and everything else

1:18:37 missionary fund you know fast offerings to those in need you know you have the tithing slip and all the all the different buckets excuse me for living I just thought that those buckets meant that that’s where the money was going I so build buildings build temples missionary work feeding the poor yes and this narrative that I was this Savvy businessman that I should have figured out that if the church said money was going to bucket a and in fact it was going to bucket B without telling me I I don’t know how I’m at fault for that but I guess I wasn’t that SV when did they add the language to the bottom of the tithing slip John do you know the timing of that uh I think it would have been when I was living in Logan so sometime between 2004 and 2015 yeah probably was that pre whistle blower ohing SL alteration I think so that’s my memory I think so and tell us what that change was Mark well they they put some kind of small print

1:19:33 on the bottom of the tithing donation to say that you know we can use the money however we want you can put it in your bucket all you want but we’re not going to pay any attention to that and we can just use the money and I because I remember as a as a kid when my parents fasted when our family fasted we would literally try to figure out okay how much money do we put into our fast offering bucket this this month because it was supposed to be the T the money that we saved on food I guess was going to be our fast offerings and we thought that that was a separate bucket right we thought fast offerings were going directly to the needy uh the the or to the bishop storehouse and that tithing was going to the operations of the church that’s what I always thought and and it wasn’t until much later that I think anyone realized that that none of that was it was all a fiction you know the money’s all cingle there’s a word

1:20:21 that we’re going to talk about when we get to the lawsuit and it’s kingle and comingled means it’s all in one account we don’t you know and I don’t we don’t know all the details of what the different accounts were but at the time uh I think the church realized well we’re really not Le using this in the way that we’re telling people that we are and so we better put this special legal some lawyer wrote this language for the bottom of the tithing slip to say we’re going to use your money however we want basically would you have remember so I’m looking I’m seeing that the City Creek Mall which factors into this was announced in the October 2004 General Conference by Gordon be hinley would you have remembered the announcement about the mall and would you remember how you would have felt about the mall and how what you would have felt uh how you would have felt as a businessman the mall would have likely been funded does that make sense

1:21:18 yeah I would have approached that situation exactly as it was articulated to me which is tithing is going here to the things we just discussed yes um gospel principles the gospel Doctrine the ti like any any church printed material under the word tithing it has has there’s like four or five buckets and they’re the same ones that have been that way for for 10 15 20 years they might have altered them recently I’m not up speed but at least when I was growing up where’s Tian going oh it’s going here here here here and here my attorneys would say how do you know that and I said’ well that’s what they told me like it’s in this book it’s in this talk like I don’t there’s never the word investment account ever appeared but the I would say but the church has businesses you know back then it was radio stations and TV stations and a little bit of land and maybe they’re making some money here Insurance beneficial life those would be entities that would be funding yet another

1:22:20 business and if that’s how they choose to spend then terrific you know no issues with that although in my opinion that’s in according to the documentation that we’ve seen that actually is not what they did at all even remotely close to it so back in the day yes uh I would have thought here’s you know here’s yet another example of the big wonderful true wealthy Mormon church even though we have to clean our own chapels because we can’t afford a janitor and and do our own gardening out in the chapel you got to ruin your Saturdays to go out there and do it they have all this money but they’re going to use it to beautify the city and and and and and build them all and it’s if that’s all coming from business ventures so be it I just took it for the face value that it was given to me so was it your understanding when heckley made that announcement that he said no tithing funds will be used for the mall is that what you would have understood I think he said that later my recol just

1:23:23 looking at the loss the timeline I I think that he announced the temple I’m not sure did he it was it 2004 that he actually said that because there was push I don’t know it was later is my recollection and I I I can be corrected but that he announced them allall in 2004 but the mall didn’t really happen for a number of years it was like 2011 2012 it took time for them to put together all the real estate and get the plans done and at the time I think people did start pushing back and there was a reason and he got up in conference and said um let me reassure yeah let me reassure you because there was push back and people were like well why is a church building a mall that seems weird that’s not really what churches do people outside of the church thought it was very weird you’re building a mall not a church so I think that push back was why he got up and and made that announcement that no tithing money is being used to build the mall and I but but you know my timeline may be a little

1:24:21 bit off I’ve got some some of it in here that sounds directionally accurate okay and and it was that second quote that really became in my case the sort of key piece of evidence that really was the basis for three years of arguments yeah was that quote and we we we’ll get into it but most of my case was just sitting and waiting and and so and I was appeal throughout all that time and yeah let me correct because I I was wrong uh in 2003 president hinley in the April 2003 General Conference said this is the quote we feel we have a compelling responsibility to protect the environment of the Salt Lake Temple meaning the area around the temple but I wish to give the entire church the assurance that tithing funds have not and will not be used to acquire this property nor will they be used in developing it for commercial purposes and then he talks about where the money will come from from Real Estate development arm uh so so I was wrong it

1:25:34 was right off the bat that he said we’re gonna build them all but don’t worry we’re not using tithing to do it and if hinley had said hey hey Mormons you thank you for all your tithing we’re gonna build a multi-billion dollar commercial shopping mall with your tithing do you imagine how you might have felt about that and about paying tithing you just you just laughed Mark well I mean it’s like what what are churches doing building malls why are churches building uh owning most of the real estate in Florida I mean it makes no sense but they have so much money and they don’t know what to do with it so anyway James what if if if he had fictitiously said that would that have been a you imagine that would have been a problem for you I think that would have I think that would have been an issue not only for me but for a lot of members because I I don’t think my perception of how the money flowed Within within the Mormon church was was

1:26:26 any different than than the vast majority of members because I think the vast majority of members tithing was going to where the church said it was going and the you said in that quote that Mark just read funds will come from investment properties and other businesses which we now know that actually didn’t happen either so it’s it’s it would have been a significant public relations issue I think if they were to say something like that because and for a good reason it would have impacted a lot of people that why are we you know you have all of these talks of if you’re gonna pay tithing or pay your rent or food electricity whatever pay tithing and now that’s all going they had to keep tithing as a sacred and unique definition spiritual definition not a Rolex you not putting a Rolex store build Kingdom that’s what we always thought it was for buying churches and building the kingdom and missionary work and temp work what does

1:27:30 a m have to do with that yeah and look I I might differ from from Mark a little bit from the standpoint of what was the church doing buying malls or land I actually don’t even care like any organization that has the funds to to commence in a transaction in the United States or any other country so be it that that that’s their right and ability where where I have an issue is how they did it and how they they said something and did something else and you know the one of the more consistent rebuttal to what I’ve done that I hear from people not directly but I don’t go online much and and read much on either side about the case but when when I have from time to time it’s you know I don’t care what the church does with their money like why why should you James and pardon me I can sympathize with that like I yeah I don’t really care what they do with their money so long as it abides with with the law and you might not care about a lot of things an

1:28:35 organization does legal or illegal um but if it’s against the law and it affects somebody in a negative way then they have the right to take action which is what I did so uh your faith crisis happens I imagine you and MaryAnn and your kids would have just ridden off into kind of the postmormon sunset was was it David neelon as a whistleblower and the public Revelations about IGN Peak that that became the big trigger for you to start thinking a potential lawsuit or or was it something else or was it some combination take us to that because I remember when you called me and you’re like John have you ever are you aware of anyone ever suing the church to try to get their tithing back I remember that I remember that phone call and I’m like I don’t know man I don’t know like maybe but what what led up to that phone call was was it NE was it yeah I think I was I was um I call reached out to you it’s

1:29:31 correct I reached out to what made you reach out to me I guess I’m wondering like was it nin Peak David neelon whistleblower Revelation or something else uh because you would have had to learn at some point that the money tithing money went to the mall how would you have learned that yeah I mean the the The Whistleblower document was certainly key in in in having the basis for a legal argument I think prior to that time when I sort of noodle on the idea of you know I just wasn’t familiar with how the law Works how you actually what constitutes fraud uh in federal court you know what boxes have to be ticked in order for that definition to be made and and Wan need to take action against the church because of what they say over the pulpit or because of hey you know making disingenuine State disingenuous statements that’s not the basis for for litigation there there has actually has to be something more and I

1:30:35 I think when the when the Whistleblower documents came out that then helped to put a nice bow around a legal argument that I could I feel I could I could make again this point I’m not thinking of litigation it’s all a demand letter and but in that demand letter I wanted to put something and signal to the church that like you you got to read between the lines here the these whistleblower documents do not shine a favorable light on what you’ve done you know we we know the church I know the church very well like let’s you know I don’t mean any disrespect anyone the doctrine like my initial demand letters which I think both of them are were made public I I don’t remember remembers Maran I think they both were made public what was the date of those do you know that that would have been 20 last half of the cornado pre so yeah I’m I’m seeing that David nielson’s story broke in November of 2019 so I’m guessing what occurs to me

1:31:43 is maybe 2020 yeah I think maybe it was uh I the reason I’m guessing the year I think it was December January so it was right in the the crossover of a year but it it was either three months or 12 months from that from that period of time so either early either early 2020 or early 2021 yeah okay is when you would have come up with the idea of a demand letter yeah and and tell us what the demand letter whatever you want to share about what it basically said I think it’s available online so basically it’s geez I haven’t read the church would have released the demand letter no I think I think we I think we did as as sort of a way to sort of because look you’re in a legal fight and the church is trying to defend their actions while minimizing mine like that’s the legal strategy we were doing the same thing I didn’t take offense at it I didn’t particularly agree with it because I think they were making false representations but so be it that’s the that’s the world of of uh corporate

1:32:47 litigation I guess um it was really to sort of set the record straight because I think The Narrative of the church was you know former member you know they the James and Marian had resigned again which is confidential uh membership information that we hadn’t even told our extended family so we had family members find out that we had resigned thanks of the church using that as a tool to sort of say this isn’t legitimate because they’ve resigned from the church and they just want to damage the name of the church and James wants to do this wants none of that was true so the demand let releasing the demand letter was to sort of establish hey look to everyone out there we have no ill will to Mormons to the doc we never mentioned the doctrine um it was just hey you said you’re going to do a with tithing and in fact there is significant evidence that you did be you know and I contributed to that you weren’t upfront with me you can keep the interest you’ve made over the last 15 years just pay me my principal back

1:33:53 it was as simple as that and are you are you I I don’t remember seeing that demand letter so I don’t know if I missed it are you comfortable seeing what what the amount was that you were asking for in that original demand letter do you know do you remember so the the the the total amount of of tithing paid I had to go back and have it pulled from my my account and over over a period of time so it’s tithing fast it’s all donations right and and to your P point mark when we went into so I was to osed by the church and we went through depositions we had to go through and and basically prove to the church every payment no matter what box was ticked on that tithing slip it all went to the same bank account and I didn’t realize that sitting in my deposition thinking wait a second I thought so missionary donations or fast offering it immediately is co-mingled on the first second and I believe according to the Whistleblower documents it goes into a treasury account before it goes into the

1:34:51 investment account and from that treasury I think from treasury went to the mall I we have to have somebody more familiar with the churches accounting but it gets very complicated and if you don’t understand sort of money flow in large corporations you can sort of Miss what the church was actually doing which is I would argue foot loose and fancy free which is the whole basis of the SEC document and perhaps other penalties that might be coming to the church in the future so um you were saying you tallied up how much tithing you paid yeah I was trying to remember the question Yeah by not answering it okay so the number okay should okay so the the the number over a period of time was 2.3 million that’s how much you paid that’s how much I paid now we actually we actually said okay we will only count the portion post hinkley’s quote so that number of what’ I say 2.3 2.4 that number was reduced because I had paid before the hinley quote and there really wasn’t any basis for me to say that they

1:35:55 made false representations although I believe they still did but there was nothing on the record for me to take to a court so that number was actually reduced the $5 million number that appeared reduced to a million something in the demand yes so it was reduced to less so really the demand letter amount none of this would ever have happened had the church ponied up 1 point something million I have to believe they’ve spent significantly more that just defending this case and now they have half a dozen class action cases they have a reputation hit that I think is quite significant and I would think in my mind that there are hundreds maybe thousands of people that have altered their tithing payments as a result of this public litigation so you look at the cost the the the cost that they have borne opposite the settlement with me which by the way you guys would never have heard of it so you fully intended with your demand letter to receive the one point whatever million and then

1:37:03 quietly go off into the night you weren’t planning on like then publishing it embarrassing the church telling other people hey you can get your money from the church no intention of that it was a very personal battle for me that’s why Maran MaryAnn’s name and no other names appear on any documents it was something between the church and me that was it and and getting resolution for a relationship that I felt was less than up honest with me that was my way to resolve it and uh couple quick questions so it’s some would say did you need the million was it really about the money like how would you answer that like a million bucks what’s a million bucks did you need it was it symbolic did it represent something bigger is there anything you want to say about that I mean yeah a million dollars is a lot of money uh is symbolic yes I mean I it’s not like I had a uh a debit I had to cash out like [ __ ] I got to come up with a million dollars before next

1:38:06 Thursday or something’s gonna happen uh it look the the demand letter was it required no apology it required no public statement it it simply was in my mind to get square with your organization that H that historically and at that period of time and today has a functioning goodw workking relationship with my family and specifically our foundation the the the the Church of Jesus Christ has been a great partner the Cancer Institute and mental health all of these things are separate from this litigation which again if you look at the money behind all of this in the grand scheme of what the Huntsman family and many other great families in the state are doing and the church it’s insignificant which is why I I was maybe and I’m somewhat of an optimist by Nature I just thought gez if I’m on the receiving it and I get this letter I make a phone call and it’s done in 30 minutes but based on some things you

1:39:15 said about half an hour ago I think what I think I heard or experienced was also you personally felt like the church had done you dirty that you had given a lot and sacrificed a lot to and for the church they had misled you not just with the truth claims but also with how they were spending the money you gave them and I think if I had to project what I think was possibly going on also in your mind is it’s like hey let’s make this right I’m just gonna say give me a million you give it to me and then I’ll feel like things at least have been semi restored you are acknowledging that you misled me you are acknowledging that that I’ve been hurt and since we have such a long relationship together since we’ve you know since we’ve we are on some level family friends even that would be a sign of respected acknowledgement that I’d been deceived and misled by you is that fair at all is that even close I think that’s a that’s a pretty good articulation of of where my mind was at the time and and and drafting these there were actually two

1:40:25 demand Letters by by two different attorneys um of what Maryann and I how we felt at the time me specifically I don’t want to drag her in unnecessarily but yeah that it was really never never really intended to go to go public when ultimately we did go public I just thought that would be Catalyst first of all I didn’t think it would be much news um and and I thought it’d be page six of the Tribune or like I just wasn’t a big deal to me because I just thought you can make this go away so quickly it’s really not that big a deal and frankly I thought I was one of many going in and saying hey look how about a little how about a little refund like you know Disney they have great customer service you have a claim issue with Disney they fix it and I just thought well not the church is Disney but you know it’s respect it’s restitution it’s a former it’s a former customer client member of many many years and this is

1:41:29 some way to make them happy going out like I just don’t think it was that big of an issue for them to it’s a good deal I’m giving you a good deal yes right can I can I comment on that because I I think uh there’s a couple things that I can add to this uh just as background one is um the lawyer that you used and I as a question is James M gby James is a good friend of mine he’s also kind of known as one of the most aggressive lawyers in Utah and I think you probably knew that so if that was true why did you hire James to be your lawyer because he’s a he’s a guy that fights and were you not gearing up for a fight at that point I I think again I think the expectation my naivity was though that you know the the attorney who responded to the demand letter had worked worked with my father and two of my siblings like it’s a we’re a known entity at what’s the address Church sou Temple I just I can’t I don’t know what they were

1:42:37 thinking when they received the demand letter they’re probably a little surprised and maybe like who who’s this like we know this Brothers like James who is this guy they’re probably were a little surprised but to that point I thought that it would be again I I just thought they would have dealt with it like any other organization assessing risk and you compare what they could have done many years ago to where we are today and I you it’s it’s been a catastrophic error for them even though they won the onbon hearing I think we’ll talk about things that actually um on that recent Hearing in San Francisco those or oral arguments and the rulings that came out I I don’t think bod well for the church in in future cases but we can get into that but as it relates to to Jim I got to know him because we did a documentary on uh church and state which was the I think it was Amendment Three um and uh the the sort of the same section marriage initiative he was the one arguing for the for the

1:43:42 plaintiffs against the state and and largely the the church I would think and I got to know him through that and I thought oh wow and I called him up again and and you know hey it’s been a while since the documentary and that’s how I I got to know him I didn’t do like a Google phone book search he was just somebody that we’ worked with in the past on a documentary and a a very good choice by the way I I don’t uh uh so let me put my church hat on for one second and push back John against what you said and why this isn’t just a customer service question from the church’s perspective and that is first of all the church is run has a lawyer group that is very powerful and they have lawyers in the quum of the 12 and they are they have a huge Law Firm the largest law firm in Utah Curt mcon is their law their kind of captive law firm and they lawyer everything and from a lawyer’s perspective you get a demand like this and instead of looking at it as well let’s just keep these customers happy

1:44:38 they look at it as a setting a precedent I promise you that the conversation that happened in the church is we don’t want to be seen as writing checks to everybody who left the church and wants their tithing back because that sets a very bad precedent in if word gets out sure James might promise that he’s not going to say it but that doesn’t always work and as John John you know you’ve had people who have sign non-disclosure agreements who’ve nevertheless broken those and come on your your your your program right I mean I people don’t always follow they can sign non-disclosure agreements or ndas but they don’t always follow them and so the church’s perspective is this is one guy yes but if we set this precedent it could be will be flooded with people asking for them their tithing back and we don’t want to go down that road I’m sure that’s what the conversation was okay and I was so but let me ask a question and response the Mormon Church

1:45:31 settles multiple sexual harassment lawsuits every day like every day I’m I’m understood there are multiple sexual harassment or sexual abuse settlements by by Kurt of makoni so they do it all the time and they do multi-million dollar settlements of sexual to keep them out of the press to keep them out of the public you know and so you know why would why would this be any different it it is very different and I I hear what you’re saying and I know that’s true the church first of all in these sexual harassment cases is is dead in the water legally that’s why they settle these cases they don’t want the people coming in and saying because they don’t do background checks they’ve got real problems about you know who they’re putting into youth leadership because they don’t do background checks and unfortunately uh inspiration doesn’t really work so the in those cases I think they want to keep it out of the press yes but they also realize that they would get killed and they have gotten killed on those

1:46:34 cases that have gone to trial James’s case on the other hand goes to some real Central issues about the freedom of churches to make their own decisions about how they use their money this is First Amendment to its core the the decision uh that we’ll get into in a minute that on the onon ninth circuit case uh the main decision didn’t really get into it but some of the concurrent uh decisions did and I’m sure the lawyer said look this is not sex harassment this is do can we have someone in a lawsuit tell us what to do with our money the answer is no he’s gonna get laughed out of court let’s fight it different analysis so I’m hearing two things I’m hearing from you Mark that it was a smart risk assessment determination smart I’m not saying that I’m just saying that’s how lawyers think they say can we beat this and is it going to set a bad precedent then let’s fight it but otherwise they don’t fight

1:47:30 it well the risk assessment that I’m hearing you say Mark is that they’re thinking if if we give this guy a million bucks it’s there’s a good probability that it’ll leak out and then as soon as the I mean honestly there’s at least 10 million x Mormons in the world easy right because the church claims 17 million and there’s no way there’s more than to every one of them wants their money back every single one and I think the church is saying we don’t want a m 10 million ex Mormons all asking for their money back yeah and it starts with one so there’s just no way we’re goingon to allow the one the floodgates will open that actually seems like a smart risk assessment I’m not trying to disagree with you James but can you see why that someone would argue that’s actually smart risk assessment no I would say that’s not a not a smart assessment is that with a smile that’s like nice I mean nice guy um why not so

1:48:28 so for for a number of reasons uh F first of all the the church probably would have recognized that statute of limitations on any fraud claims is only three years so so there’s a window in which that settlement opportunity is defined um second for somebody to actually go through the process of finding an attorney and having the attorney board the case paying the money to have the documents sent to the church and and going through that process having having paid enough tithing to begin with to even to even recognize the hiring of attorney are you either paying them by the hour or they’re going to get a piece of the action when you start doing the math on that for the vast majority of members I just don’t think there’s a financial case for them a and I would be arguing in the church let them let these cases come in okay so maybe the Huntsman case leaks maybe it becomes a rumor we’re not going to comment realistically

1:49:30 how many how many demand letters are we going to get in the next 12 months is it 10 is it 12 is it 500 is it a thousand is it a million I would argue that that number actually would be very very limited and a lot of people that I’ve spoken to about this particular issue I think maybe maybe why they like what I’ve done is because they recognize for whatever reason they couldn’t do it themselves and nor would they and I I I just think the floodgates of of a confidential settlement with me I just don’t maybe I’m wrong I just don’t believe the floodgates would have opened to the to to the to the amount that the alternative argument that they should have had is if this case goes forward and and if the Huntsman case goes far enough the what is the risk of class action because then you’re talking billions of dollars then you’re saying TV ads of have you or a member of your family ever paid money to the Mormon Church call Smith

1:50:35 lawyers that’s class action that is worth hundreds of millions if not billions in legal fees and expenses to the church that’s the alternative that’s the analysis I would have thought that the church would have done in-house with their attorneys but of course the attorneys make the decisions are also the ones billing so that’s a conflict of interest but be that as it may look where we are yeah and and I I I still would argue that the church made a cataclysmic decision for whatever reason and I I don’t know what you what the opinion of you all is has the church ever refunded anyone’s tithing I think the answer is yes I don’t know for sure but I believe the answer is yes and if they chose not to with me of anyone in the of anyone in the room it was just a wrong decision how many of these other tithing claims would have gone as far as mine you think about this case Mark you had this I don’t know how many pages there it’s hundreds of hundreds and hundreds and thousands of pages of documents

1:51:43 millions of dollars spent attorneys all over press Mormon stores my case hinged on hinkley’s quote and I got all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court if I’m the Mormon church I would be scared to death I couldn’t use any of the SEC information or any other relevant Financial documentation that cases behind me can use and the the the consistent thread throughout these so there have been one three judgments 15 judges the consistent decision with all of them I think to a t correct me if I’m wrong Mark is that the church in this case does not is not afforded first amendment protection I wasn’t able to prove my fraud case to a level that met their threshold all I had was a quote and I got pretty damn close I couldn’t use the SEC filing I couldn’t use other financial documents I couldn’t even do discovery on the church and look how far I got for other cases coming in that can use Financial documentation knowing that it is

1:52:58 unlikely that the that these courts are going to reverse that decision on freedom of religion my case is C like my case is done right that’s why I’m here chatting but to to think that anything behind me could have been avoided for one point something million three years ago like I I think that is to me the bigger the bigger question and it’s a strategic question that the church when I spoke to individuals in my legal Circle that were familiar with the law and corporate law and government law and strategy they were all just like oh the church will settle like with your name and this case and your resources they they they should settle this instantly because the downside although it might be a small percentage the downside is so significant for them it’s 1 million versus if one of these class action cases gets through you’re talking billions I would think and I would say to the church’s reputation tens of thousands of people have loot

1:54:08 once you see Huntsman Sue Church fraud you know uh I would say that’s impacted tens of thousands of members their commitment to the church their desire to pay any money to the church it’s like this huge funnel of awareness to the ins sign Peak Scandal which then leads both to an awareness of the the the fact that the church everyone now knows that the church has 150 250 billion with a B dollars worth of stocks and bonds and real estate uh the whole um the whole widows might website right that’s an amazing research now there’s a documentary that’s about to come out about the money and the wealth in the mor Church like it’s it’s almost like their decision to say no to that settlement letter opened up this Floodgate Of missionary work against you know for awareness around the church’s bad financial dealings and future lawsuits so I’m now switching sides and saying I think there is a good argument to be made they made a catastrophic mistake sure yeah and you

1:55:19 have to add Dave’s Dave Nelson’s re ation to that the lawsuit plus what they learned about their money when you put those two together I mean it’s a double whammy for the church and it’s going to continue the Fallout continues every day and I I you know I don’t know specifically the the answer to this question as it relates to to to Dave and his his legal team and and all of those individuals involved in that strategy as well as the regulatory agencies that are looking into to the whistle blower claims which are are currently ongoing I have to assume if they weren’t we would know Church would have announced that but they’re they’re ongoing I have to assume that maybe this case being in the public light makes it easier for for some of those items as it relates to the Whistleblower case to go public including the SEC uh settlement which to me was a low number was 4 million for and zign 1 million for the church correct that but of what the

1:56:22 church actually put on paper and signed that to me was the real was the real issue of that settlement you couldn’t put a price tag on that I wish I could have used that in my case but because I’m on appeal as you know you can’t introduce any new evidence every day people tell me they left the church over either inside Peak or the SEC you know settlement combination of the two or or your or your case like literally every day so tens of thousands of people people left the church over this I think if not more if not hundreds yeah that’s yeah maybe I was a bit naive but honestly just hearing us chat maybe now you can understand when I sent that letter I say we sent it but put MaryAnn’s name on it so she could have some semblance of exit if this thing got nasty I thought that hey have we heard back they should call back here in a couple days and just you know we’ll be very polite and and appropriate and

1:57:20 respectful and shake hands and hey it didn’t work out the way we all wanted to but let bygones be bygones let’s focus on the future and cancer and mental health and these other areas where we come I I that’s where I thought this whole thing was headed and I remember when you told me the settlement was rejected you were genuinely shocked I would say maybe hurt I think you felt shocked that it was stupid and maybe disrespectful I don’t know is that fair I was yeah I was pretty surprised and look I when we filed the case in in District federal or federal district federal district federal district court in Los Angeles and we we were assigned judge Wilson when we filed that and had the you know the The Washington Post did a piece on it and and and then it was picked up on on on Drudge Report I somebody text me at just falling off to going off to bed 11 o’clock hey you’re on Drudge Report what I I was so floored and I was a little nervous I’m like where is this thing going it really this is not this

1:58:30 isn’t been designed for that it was always a very personal intimate 1 point something million dollar spat between two well they’re wealthy but look you know it was over some money from wealthy institutions and individuals trying to get square with each other nothing wrong with that we really weren prepared for the for the the public interest in in in the case and again that was never never the intention but when you all heard about it I’d be curious were you just thinking but what is this you know I thought I thought it was massive yeah I yeah but from a legal perspective oh um and then yes i’ love love your take too yeah well I I I don’t I mean I knew there would be first amendment issues every every lawyer that would hear about this would say well what what control do you have over a church you know that’s different and in especially in America where we rever our our institutions you look at Joel ostein and how many

1:59:34 hundreds of millions of dollars does he get on his church and he just lives this extravagant lifestyle no no uh no one’s ever sued that guy to say why are you using this to fund your lifestyle and not to further the church so you any lawyer would I think immediately say well this has First Amendment challenges we’ll see where it goes but I do want to say from a strategic perspective if if you had wanted to make a splash if you had wanted to do this for PR you would not have sent a demand letter right you you would or two two yeah you would have just filed the case and knowing that and you would have sent a copy to the Tribune and the Washington Post and saying look at what I did and I think it’s important for people to realize what your motivations were here it was not to become the post boy that was never your goal and um the unfortunately that’s the result but you know whether you like it or not that’s what happens

2:00:30 was there a meaningful difference between the second demand letter and the first was there a bigger sum and you were G to say how you got to five million did you want to address either of those questions um the second demand letter was uh and and as a reminder I’ll go back and check to see if that’s something that was public I I just it’s been many years and many documents in the Public Public on this one I’ll go back and check uh and if we can release those then i’ happy to send those your way the second one was a little bit uh pricker um we had we had a um the the firm in in Hollywood one of the biggest litigators La singer very respected firm in in in Los Angeles and I was introduced to them gave them all the information on this case and that basically their response was uh we get it this is really this is a very unusual case for us you have a high-profile client you have a high-profile religion

2:01:26 you’re going after their early response was this won’t last long there’ll be a settlement here quickly like that was their and they do this all the time and so the second one was a little more uh aggressive shall we say um because more money right no no more money no no the money was the same it was a little bit in responding to some of the elements of the first letter which was like okay come on guys like you’re I’m not going to buy into this The Narrative of of how you’re trying to fish out of the situation I think we all see her for what it is anyone with a you know second level of accounting understanding can kind and you compare that to these quotes publicly that nine out of 10 people on the street are going to say you’re guilty let’s not go there um the 5 million was basically the the original amount plus the interest because remember I was giving decades ago interest and penalties and fees and everything so so that was kind of the number that we set with whether the court ultimately would have accepted

2:02:36 that ultimately a settlement is an agreement between the two parties so that becomes but we felt like we just wanted to have a number that we could sort of be consistent with throughout the process that would you know know include all of the elements of cost because initially it was just the principle we church you can keep the interest and everything else we can calculate what that is based on you know Financial performances you know you can kind of track that and come up with some type of number we wer even chasing that it was just some recognition of the BET betrayal to get out of it that that’s not so unusual by the way let me just say that in when you’re sending a demand letter which we do most of the time before we file lawsuit um you will ask for a number that you think is a reasonable number that they would bite at right um and then when you file the lawsuit then you throw everything in so if somebody is run wondering why he didn’t initially ask for the full amount it’s because you’re trying to negotiate

2:03:39 a resolution and you want to show good faith that you’re being reasonable then when you file the lawsuit then you throw in the Sun the moon stars you know like you did the interest the penalties all that kind of stuff but initially that it was a reasonable request and that’s exactly how I would have done it for what it’s worth and did you say you felt like they did some dirty things with those two demand letters behind the scenes to make your life unpleasant you know like disclosing confidential information or other sort of he resigned that was not public information they they’re the ones right that released that right you preferred that to stay private yeah that’s that’s shady I think right that’s no one’s business not not only that I had resigned but that Maryann had too like the the the fact that we were both lumped in there together again the case was about me um and that became that she she’s shaking their

2:04:42 [Laughter] head to mention okay the fact that I had resigned I think the implication was that she had to yeah okay okay got it yeah that because think anyone that knows Marian and me knows that we kind of do things together hop on the same Lily Pad at the same time so violating your confidentiality maybe as a way to manipulate or coer or punish you no you know I don’t look at it as punishment I look at it as that was their legal strategy it it be it became a PR strategy at one point and I’ve tried to find oh to say you’re a Mal content yes yes and that I think there was one and we’ve tried to go back and find it um where they actually said that they had no record of me pain tithing therefore there was no claim because I never paid and I’m just a disgruntled member they you know they thought I at this time I was on the board of equality Utah they thought it was part of the sort of the the gay movement and the gay initiative

2:05:44 e everything they could use to sort of highlight um some level of discredit was used publicly and there were times when it was like okay you you want to get in the trenches and start throwing mud who can play that game right we that that was part of my sort of naivity in thinking they’re going to settle because like I’ve we know you guys really really well some of you have worked for our company some like come on guys really you you want to start sling in mud I hope you have a face mask on but I never went there and the statements that we made I I believe to this point are all accurate um some people might not like them or they might have a different perspective but I think we tried to always be consistent with how we portrayed this case and always came back to the fraud element without mentioning other elements of the church’s history or there be that just wasn’t part of our strategy and it was not Our intention

2:06:53 and we have have too many family members and friends that are in the Mormon church and have a great experience I just even to this day I’m not interested in going there you would probably have quote dirt on the insides of the church that you could share if you really wanted to be mean-spirited and vicious that that you just don’t you I would say maybe you are too classy to want to go there is that is there truth to that let’s just say I’m a Class Act yeah okay did was your father alive when you filed the lawsuit or had he passed away he had passed he had passed do you think this is something he would have liked didn’t wouldn’t have liked was his passing something that made it made you feel like you could sue the church was and as a secondary thing what was the familial response SL pressure to the extent that you’re wanting to share uh sorry with your dad so with my father uh I think he would have been

2:08:03 proud of it I he I think he would have liked it um that’s not to say he didn’t love the church no no no no no but like I look he’s he had a he uh his ancestors had saloons in Filmore Utah um that were also Mormon like he he he walked that line and and and tried to create space for everyone and when there were issues or disagreements he loved to facilitate a solution and believe me he facilitated a lot of solutions with many senior people in the church that no one ever heard about and that’s great and and people don’t need to hear about those but I think as it relates to my father I think he would have liked it I think he would have thought she’s go get him boy and he had he been around he would have made a phone call to try to facilitate it going away I I think he would have tried to live in both worlds of you go ahead and do this demand letter and then let me go over there and tell these guys they’ve got to figure out a way to do this because this isn’t this is not in the

2:09:09 best interest of the Huntsman brand and it’s not in the best interest of the Mormon brand to be fighting over a million dollars this is ridiculous guys get your act together and if Hinkley was around would have happened in 30 minutes Monson maybe less so I think after Monson you know my dad was old enough in his relationship with some of the leader senior leadership was not what it was with prior people shall we say um but I think he still would have tried to get involved in some way shape or form there’s a just a quick aside that we’re not talking about this today but you know the reality is that there are um lots of business business dealings in this town with high level church members and always have been and those guys are businessmen and they have deals that go bad and they have issues that come up and if one of these days those stories will be told I have been in the legal Community for a long time so I’m aware of a lot of these things and you know um

2:10:12 that those are out there and the church does not want that out they do not want to they want to make it seem like they’re all just working for nothing and and they’re serving the lord and the reality is they’re businessmen and they make mistakes too which is why I it’s also unusual why they wouldn’t have seen this as a business settlement right let’s make a business decision that’s how you are coming at it let’s make a business decision to get this resolved and get it off get it off of our shoulders so we can focus on the work and they didn’t they didn’t do that so for what it’s worth and look this is the the corporation is clearly a a business if you look at the ecclesiastical welfare side of the activities of the organization and compare that to the corporate Financial wealth management side I come on it’s not it’s not even close it’s like you know running a small church chapel with 15 people and saying you’re a religious organization but you

2:11:10 know on the side you’re managing a hundred million dollar of of cash and you’re saying you well you’re really a church well are you like again there’s just some practical EV valuations that you can do look love the church or hate them or wherever you are like remove all that just look at the data and I think for me in the case I just said the data is this the analysis is that the solution is a settlement we’re done I hear you say at it by 2020 the Mormon church is exponentially more a business than it is a church and so by I say by 2020 no no no I’m just saying these are my words this is around the time you’re sending the letter what I’m hearing you say is by that point the church was so incredibly wealthy that it’s way more business than church at that point and you would have expected it to act as such as a business un L as a rinky dig church maybe did I hear that yeah I think it happened proba

2:12:11 in my personal opinion I think it happened long before then yeah I mean yeah pick any Parish or Baptist ministry or or or or what have you most of them probably have access to Capital or to an endowment or to some type of funds or assets that they’re managing that are a small percentage of the the size and footprint of the ecclesiastical organization Mormon church is the exact opposite to such a large scale it’s probably unprecedented I mean the Catholic church maybe but the Catholic church is a m massive massive organization much bigger than the Mormon church and their assets are you know sometime the Catholic church is going bankrupt you know they have all these they’re asset I again I don’t know but Catholic Church my sense is that they’re asset Rich cash poor yes and they have a very large membership the Mormon church is asset Rich cash rich and they have a very small membership of active participating members it’s probably low singled digigit Millions would would be my guess

2:13:19 so again I just they they there’s another piece to this which is the going back to the mall the mall was built and they didn’t have tenants and Gateway had just been built kind of right before the Olympics in the church people in the business committee will tell you that the church was very aggressive in getting tenants out of Gateway which was owned by another prominent Utah family at the time um and pulling those those tenants that they promised they wouldn’t do I mean the church is very aggressive when it comes to business dealings very aggressive people don’t realize that they are they’re very they are a business and they’ve got enough money now that they don’t need to TI take the tithing that’s why I don’t understand why they’re fighting over this tithing is meaningless they’ve got a portfolio that can fund the church forever yeah the Mormon Church in 2025 does not need its members tithing even to run its current operating budget off the interest of its

2:14:21 investments in nin Peak and I’ll just add like if you think about organizations that are often compared to the Mormon church it’s like Jehovah’s Witnesses scientologists I remember when the inside Peak information came out and the $ 150 billion dollar got swatted around I remember looking up what the Church of Scientology was worth and it was like two billion compared to 150 you know what I mean yeah it’s and that’s not it’s probably I think we know it’s worth over 250 billion right now not just 150 billion so it is the the wealth of the Mormon church is staggering staggering and the real estate I don’t know if you’re including real estate in your numbers but real estate could be bigger than the portfolio in the stock market yeah I think so yeah 100% and uh yeah and so um it’s it’s just massive Corporation i i i i Tred to put it in like the Fortune 500 and I’m pretty sure it falls in the top 80 corporations in the world for for wealth I think it’s up there it would be in the Fortune 100 the total

2:15:24 worth of the church would be in the top 100 corporations in the world is that right yeah I think that’s right and and if you look at the compare it to the Harvard endowment which is intended to fund Harvard it’s it dwarfs it you know and it’s got oh you add up all the ivy league endowments and it it’s it’s way beyond that top 50 yeah maybe I mean they’re C the cash their cash position is what I think sets them apart you have a lot of companies that have assets plant property equipment real estate Etc that can be significant and that’s how they that in conjunction with their stock price is how they raise capital and it’s how they fund their operations but to just be sitting on tens of billions or hundreds of billions in cash that is that’s where I think they get they’re they’re set apart there there’s another comparison you may have made John I don’t remember why I heard this but that if you compare the percentage of charitable giving of the Mormon

2:16:22 Church Visa its its wealth it’s it’s just a minute and and if you look at the the Presbyterian church or any of these other mainstream Christian churches they’re giving 10 20 30% of their of their money away every year and the church doesn’t even touch that and now now the church has stepped up its giving yes but it’s literally thanks to David neelsen and the inside Peak whistleblower Revelations where you can see after the and your case you can see the donations like hockey stick as a result so one of the things you and David and others should be proud of is this billion dollar number which is dubious each year that the Mormon Church claims to give to charity now look at when that happened it certainly wasn’t before you and David neelson started speaking out publicly I mean one of the sorry jents really quick the point I want to make is that one of the things I think we want to talk about people wonder about is how do you get the church to change what can you do to get the church to change and we can have

2:17:25 that discussion in a minute but but shame Works shame is one of the things that apparently works and PR bad PR is something they are very concerned about and that’s what I think they’ve been shamed into giving away more money assuming those numbers are even accurate yeah okay so now let’s jump to the what do yall want to say about the story of the lawsuit and how it how it went once you literally filed the laws suit well I’ll maybe correct an earlier statement you made I don’t I don’t believe the church gives billions a year out I I don’t think I think it tries to claim a now maybe a billion a year maybe now it tries toal yeah total yeah so most again I most 501c3 if you’re if you’re a tax exempt organization the reason in most cases your tax exempt is because you’re providing that service Services can be defined many different ways you’re providing that service to the community in lie of paying taxes so the government is saying well we’re getting the benefit of this organization

2:18:41 even though they’re not paying taxes to the federal treasury they are doing a and C which is helping the Improvement and in the lives of the citizens right that that is the basis and in exchange for tax exempt status organizations are required to give away 5% of the corporate every year every year on a one-time deal uh to that to that purpose so if you put that in the context of the church’s wealth um I I again if they’re skirting around that 5% number they must have some very good accountants or tax people but most most 501c3 Charities uh if they are tax exempt unless I’m mistaken um you you pay the you need to pay something out in some way shape or form either in taxes or in donations I I I’m just not aware of a situation where in the United States you get a free ride and you can keep all of your money and don’t have to do anything with it in the eyes of the government so John if they are giving a billion a year um I I would just be shocked if they are they’re still below

2:19:51 their threshold that’s not 5% uh and the second thing which is I think that the Whistleblower case and this this lawsuit have done has certainly shined a light their their filings their regulatory adherence um the SEC Security and Exchange Commission compliance from their investment house which is a investment arm have significantly improved since 2019 and the reason they have improved since 2019 is they were skirting out outside of the the confines of the law which is what the SEC document did the other thing they’ve done as it relates to my case is I believe in the general conference immediately following the folling of my case there were specific references made to charitable donations here’s what we’re doing it could have been a coincidence or it could have been a way for them to publicly respond to hey wait a second and why aren’t you doing more in re in relation to the betterment of our people around the world yeah I just

2:20:59 pulled up the numbers at around 2016 I believe the church announced that it had paid like $1.2 billion do over the previous 30 years down per year it’s like 40 it’s like 40 million a year for a good 30 years that’s by 2016 there are charities in Utah that do better than that I mean come on and then all of a sudden 2021 they claim 98 million again what what they break it down as to where that’s going no no no even that even that I think it’s been established as a dubious number where they’re like claiming people’s fast offerings or they’re claiming people’s do you know they’re monit they’re putting a number to people’s volunteer service to the church it’s not actual money that the church gave to Charities but you just see all of a sudden 96 million in 2021 one 1.02 billion in 2022 and in 2023 1.36 billion again those numbers are are likely dubious but they didn’t even try to claim that amount of charitable donations or anywhere close before

2:22:08 before you and David neelson in the story broke if I had an organization that was giving out a billion dollar every year to charity there would be a press release every single month highlighting 150 here 200 there 80 there look the church may be good at a lot of things but their financial recordkeeping and accountability and responsibility is in my opinion less than Stellar like where is the again most organizations when they give out money you can go to their websites here’s where the money went and if you’re giving out a billion dollars I like annually where I I don’t know that I’ve seen any I mean there’s a little bit here and there again they’re a great partner with our family Foundation but according to that we’re just a drop in the bucket and we had headlines all over the place when we would partner with the church so the bilon year is is very suspect but let’s not also forget that

2:23:09 40 million over you know a year for the 30 years prior to these complaints being filed given how much we now know the church had is a abysmal embarrassing number am I wrong but but but it’s not just money John we have lots of good volunteers throughout the world who are doing good work so you’re discount you’re you’re not taking that into account okay thank you but sorry that when you have a when you have a 5% of the value of the entity obligation obligation to give out I don’t care if you have 10,000 volunteers it’s still 5% can’t say well we’re going to give 2% we have a lot of volunteers again I I’m as an action I’m going to go back and see if I can round up I doubt these donations were made confidentially that’s just not the church’s style you know when they send people into these disaster areas and they’re Welling wearing the yellow shirts you know Church Jesus Christ L Saints I have no issue with the publicity some organizations do it some don’t

2:24:15 whatever if they dropped a half a billion dollars on Habitat for Humanity I would just be surprised that they didn’t issue a press release and the fact that if you can find any press releases on Church’s donation they did give money to the NAACP okay that was that hold on that was five million over three years or something like it was and it was like they were buying improved PR because of their racist past you know what I mean like it was kind of a little cringey I I just feel like if the church really wanted to make a difference in the world it could it could it has the finances to to literally Wipe Out World Hunger I don’t I’m not even there’s a number people have put a number on what that is and it’s doable and it would be peanuts for the church but they’re not doing that and what what would Jesus do if he was here you know this is the thing that I just keep coming back if if if Jesus had a hundred

2:25:10 million dollar Port billion dollar portfolio he wouldn’t be just sitting on it you know there’s so much good in the world especially with what’s going on politically in our country cutting setting off Aid to you know millions and millions of people throughout the world why doesn’t the church step up and say yeah all that good work that usaid is doing will take over or something I mean there’s just so many opportunities that they have not stepped up to to to take yeah okay so what do you’all want to say about the the the lifespan of the actual litigation do you want to tell a brief sort of highlight of how that went you filed what do you want to say about how that went for you personally and the legal outcome as well I mean it it really is probably the least exciting element of this whole of this whole discussion um again to reiterate it was never Our intention to file we didn’t want to file we figured at the point at which we did file that it would just bring some type

2:26:14 of discussion there were never any settlement discussions there were never any negoti there was never any willingness by the other side to even meet in the middle zero absolutely nothing so we said well you know we’ll file it in sorry I asked you federal district or District federal federal district cour federal district for and we got assigned judge Steven Wilson judge Steven Wilson was if you can believe it was appointed by Ronald Reagan r that’s around that’s how long he’s been on the bench and uh his background was accounting and fraud so so I thought this is perfect and we went into this the first oral argument there and pretty low key event I think the Salt Lake Tribune sent a photographer or somebody to cover and other than that it was just a handful of people and I recall the judge asking you know okay what are we what are we here you know what are we doing and both sides give their you know brief explanation and uh judge uh Wilson asked the

2:27:19 church’s attorney um okay after after hearing both sides give very highlevel positions each of the each of the positions um asked the church’s attorney can you well this is this is easy can you if you can prove that no tithing went to the mall then I will move for summary judgment that’s what he said right out of the shoots which basically meant Case Closed M yeah just show show the money Y and the he said can you show that no money went to the mall and I remember looking over at the church’s attorney because I recognized at that point if that documentation exists existed we would have walked away and I looked over at him and it felt like to Me Maybe not to him it felt like to me that it was the longest pause in the world and he was thinking how do I answer this question if I say yes and we can’t prove the documentation exists that no tithing went to the mall we’re dead in the water and I can’t say no because that’s the whole basis of our case is that no tithing went to the mall so of course he

2:28:30 said yes we can show that and the judge said well send me that documentation and we basically we’ll be done so that really is where it all started the documentation went in I was actually deposed for eight hours actually they only deposed me for about six and a half um and went through all of my donations year by year and tithing donations and as answer all asked or answered all their questions um do do people know what a deposition is is that common knowledge oh let’s tell tell us Mark just just I’ll just tell you really quick that is so once you move past the initial part of the filing and the answer and initial motions then you get into What’s called the discovery stage I don’t think you guys got into Discovery where you were able to ask them for documents because we wish they would yeah that’s the thing the church fears the most is if you get the financial documents from them but how how is it that your deposition was taken even at

2:29:25 that early stage in the case because that’s unusual exactly and I I was fine to do it because there really wasn’t anything on my side to hide I again I think that I I don’t know but I the church maybe was trying to look for something or to weed me out or to find a way for me to sort of capitulate but we did the deposition and we provided all of answers to all their questions and provided them the documentation we thought it was a bit unusual but that was the judge saying hey if you can show no tithing went to the mall that’s great by the way you’re allowed to depose Huntsman we thought that was a little unusual and then at that point that’s when Stephen Wilson had that line of no reason basically ruled in favor of the church even though motions for summary judgment are based on the plaintive and the defendant having a an agreement of the facts and maybe a disagreement on the penalty or the law in this case we were saying there actually is not an agreement of the facts one is saying tithing went to the mall and one is

2:30:37 saying tithing didn’t the other is saying tithing did not go to the mall so we actually that’s why we were confident in our appeal and that it didn’t constitute that so the church gave Financial documentation to the judge no no no I mean I don’t think so I don’t think that happened they they provided statements if finan they were basically brokerage statements that were largely redacted but okay nothing that showed unless you’re a financial wizard again I I don’t know what value the because we saw the documents as well and I’m like well this just reinforces our case because there’s nothing here that says tithing didn’t go to the mall other than they had a statement from their accountant who said tithing didn’t go to the mall an affidavit so so in this probably the judge wanted to do some preliminary discovery on Li on a limited scope and he did had James sit for a deposition that is not a court proceeding that’s a private proceeding

2:31:42 that happens in a conference room where the lawyers for the other side will ask him questions for six to eight hours and he’ll answer them it is under oath and there is a court reporter there taking the transcript but it’s not a court proceeding per se and so he he they did that I I I assume to establish some basic facts about how much you paid and what your situation was or whatever else they asked um and then that was limited because really in a lot of the lawsuits that the church gets involved in the one thing they concerned about the most that I’ve from lawyers I know who have told me is that they don’t want to be able have to answer questions about their finances because that’s still very highly confidential and in fact they put everything under seal here right wasn’t there a yes all the documents here are sealed you can’t get into the court docket and pull up the documents they produced even though the judge saw them he put a seal on everything at the

2:32:37 church’s request because they’re very paranoid about that and it’s worth saying there are plenty of churches that are public in their finances yeah they choose to be right oh yeah well and and I I was tell people hey look if you had an investment let’s just say there was a company that wanted your investment money and you said to them uh okay where’s the money going and they refuse to tell you how they’re going to use your money I’m pretty sure most people would not give their money to that organization they’re like no I want transparency about where my money is going I think that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to ask in an investment context and it also should be in a charitable contribution Charities also are required to give um state about where their money is how much they have how much they give out they have actual rules about charities in the United States have to give away 5% of the money that they have the Gates Foundation gives away 5% or more than that every

2:33:32 year so there are rules the problem is that because of the First Amendment the courts have given churches a much broader uh um leeway they don’t have to give all the transparency but churches could they absolutely could and the church of Jesus Christ of L Day Saints clearly does not want to but other churches do and and I think anyone who gives money to an organization whether it’s a church a charity or an investment should require full transparency about where their money goes what’s also been weird to me is I run a nonprofit I publish a 990 every year it’s made public my comp my salary as the CEO is made public and we have to categorize how we spend our money into like 20 or 30 different categories and donors can look at that it’s weird Mak uncomfortable right a little bit sometimes maybe at first unom but also accountable right accountable right 100% like people can see where the money goes

2:34:29 and how much I’m getting paid and I it’s it’s uncomfortable but I think it’s probably healthy it’s probably healthy at the end the end of the day because people are donating yeah you know anyway um okay so so the judge dismissed the case on what grounds First Amendment grounds right F uh no actually First Amendment he ruled in uh uh he did not rule in favor of the church on that they were not but it basically he was saying that there was no fraud that was committed based on the documents he had looked at based on the fact that we were only writing on the Hinkley quote at the time that that was a piece of information that’s where we circled that and said basically said this is when the fraud started and took place because that’s what you know when you go in in federal court in state of California you’re you’re fraud has to tick a number of boxes so legally strategically that’s what we had to go with as backup information was the blower documentation Etc but it was

2:35:31 really just the Hinkley quote of saying Ty let me reassure you tithing didn’t go to the mall that was the correct of the argument did it or did it not he ruled in favor of the church case was thrown out and then we appealed really quickly were Cur makoni gnarly in that deposition to you or were they super professional and no the the deposition was handled by uh an attorney in California California based attorney and do you have anything to say about your experience being deposed by by a church- hired lawyer basically uh yeah it’s a pretty intense situation to anyone that’s been through a deposition because as Marcus you said you are under oath you are being recorded anything you say can and will be held against you and you know when you’re talking about 20 years of History and you’re being asked very specific questions and you’re being asked a question now that they’re really looking for an answer in seven questions later like it it can be a little it can

2:36:33 be a little daunting um you know I think I was probably I was not I was well prepared I I think um I chatted with a number of people who had been through this before I had a great legal team I had a great attorney um and I think there were a number of instances where the church’s attorney was quite frustrated with the questioning and so you do you don’t have a lot of tools to use when you’re being deposed but you do have some and I was able to use those as often as possible maybe even too much but within about 40 minutes of the six and a half hours I actually felt like I was in control if that Mak sense and I just thought I think I know more about where this is going I know more about church finances I know more about church history just this whole sit I know more than he does so when he would start his line of questioning I knew where the seventh question was going and it made it I had a cheat sheet just because of my time and experience in the church so it actually turned out to be

2:37:45 quite a pleasant experience of a defin of a deposition can be described as that sure um but no it was not Curt mongi and and let me add one other little thing about that he was in California so Curt mcuny probably has some lawyers that could have been involved in the case um but the church hired a law firm um and the the main lawyer who argued this before the ninth circuit and I’m I’m not sure if he was on the lower course uh case was a guy named Paul Clement CL m n t and if you look at this guy he was only ninth circuit he was only ninth circuit he was not uh The District Court no okay but he is one of the top pellet lawyers in the world I mean this is a guy who probably bills out at $1,500 an hour this is not they did not mess around they clearly if if they wanted you know the the B team they would have had G mcy there but they they got the a team and they I’m sure they spent a ton of money on this Law Firm so this guy came in at the at the district level case was

2:38:53 thrown out we appealed it was the same again just to remind everyone when you appeal you’re basically giving the same argument to a different Jud group of a judge or group of Judges you cannot introduce new evidence even if the church was found guilty of s major SEC violations I cannot enter that into evidence so really it was just giving the same arguments again to the ninth app pellet court that we gave in the district court it was a three-judge panel and they ruled two of we got two of the three to rule in our favor so you got it reinstated basically yes and even the three of them though were unanimous in with the judge stepen Wilson that there is no first amendment protection again that’s the through line that I think for fraud that they can’t say hey we’re religion therefore leave us alone yeah right and so uh that is critical because that is an argument that has been one of the key Arguments for the church

2:39:54 throughout this process is hey at the end of the day court with all due respect we’re a religious organization we have protection under the First Amendment so we basically can do with tithing whatever we want and frankly a lot of members are okay with that that’s fine it’s up to the courts to decide how far that goes and when that veers into fraud or not um at that point mark when they lost their appeal um two things happened that actually three things happened that I think were significant in this case before we wrap up I think we have to wrap up in 30 seconds I’m just kidding um number one it was actually case law so it was published so that decision meant it goes into those you not maybe you could walk through what that means that that’s a significant ruling in our favor number two was the whole notion of of that the appeal was in our favor and the freedom of religion thing was was knocked out and the judges determined that there could could have been fraud let’s let a jury determine it right that

2:40:57 was their decision and the third thing that happened is when they lost that appeal that’s when they brought in Paul clemont okay okay interesting the LA case law issue is interesting because typically a district court which is the Bas the first Court where you there’s the trial court where the trial would take place right they will render opinions and those opinions typically are not published in the sense that they’re not published as um stard cisis is a legal term but as basically uh binding on future decisions so when you’re in court you look at prior decisions to uh the judges do in order to e educate them about okay I’m gonna try to be consistent this other judge did this this and this so I’m GNA be consistent with that so when you get into a ninth circuit which is an appell at court that opinion is going to be published and the three when he won that opinion was published and that’s going to be a big deal for the church they don’t like that opinion so they did

2:41:56 something that’s actually quite remarkable is they asked for an onbon uh rehearing of the case and we well that’s when Clement came on because all of a sudden the stakes got super high we just lost in pellet Court we better Church yeah the church is is like oh [ __ ] we better bring in the big guns at that point but the the interesting thing about the inbank decision that we can talk about is that they vacated the lower opinion or the prior opinion of the three judges they basically ER erased it in a way it’s still going to be findable but it’s going to be not usable by Future courts because it was thrown out by them and they’re saying you guys got it wrong we’re gonna this the 11 of us I think there’s 11 judges on on Bon meaning all of the appet Court judges together very rare by the way this is very rare most if you don’t like what the ninth circuit does and you say we want it on Bon people ask all the time they rarely ever

2:42:53 get it but this one they got it and so that’s very interesting to me they clearly either the church felt strongly but also the judges apparently felt strongly enough that that was not done right that they wanted a do over and that’s what the church got is a do over on that interestingly we can talk more about this one of the judges um that was on the on Bon panel but was not in the first panel is Judge Smith who is LDS and he went to BYU law school I believe um he was not involved in the decision initially but then when they went to all the judges he was on and may have had some some influence yep and that and that on onbon ruling was you know you tried to read through what the judges were doing there obviously a lot of factors at play that drive that drive that decision but they basically if I can sort of compartmentalize their legal decision they basically said sorry James no fraud was committed sorry Mormon church no first amendment protection and it was done because the

2:44:02 no fraud was committed so that again for us the fraud side was lost but I think for the church that first amendment protection I think which is what they crave so badly you know for future cases ially the right commit fraud is what they wanted I think that even came up in the onon hearing like is our churches protected um from the committee fraud right actually you know where it came up it may have come up in the unbun hearing I haven’t I didn’t listen to it but it did come up just recently in the Utah class action case so judge Shelby but judge Shelby had an oral argument on the motions and all of these attorneys were there for the class actions and one of the questions judge Shelby asked was well surely just because you’re a church that doesn’t mean you can commit fraud and so this this issue of can a church commit fraud is important um in this case they really kind of said I I mean different people can read this in

2:45:06 different ways but the way I interpret this decision was you know churches uh shouldn’t commit fraud and can’t commit fraud but that’s not what we have here because they’re they point to a a quote from hinley years prior in like 1991 president hinley said oh by the way we have this Reserve fund with the excess tithing and that’s where we invest the money we take care of that very prudently and so they took that as even though it was separate by a number of years from the disclosure that you relied on they pointed to this prior statement by hinley is hey we told everyone what that we have this slush fund of the tithing and so that’s not that’s not fraud because people should have known and when he spoke in conference in the 2000s about the mall people should have known that oh back in 1991 he told you that they have this slush fund right this this investment fund which is pretty ridiculous well it’s a little ridiculous I would as someone who was a faithful Mormon at that point yeah who would have known

2:46:07 that it’s kind of like what you were saying earlier when they there was a friend article years ago about Joseph Smith looking in hat oh therefore we gave it to you I mean it’s kind of a catcha a gotcha moment I think but the the the opinion is complicated and this is a little hard to explain but there was a uh there are several opinions within the opinion and the ruling of the of the main group said they didn’t say the church doesn’t have first amend protection exactly what they said is we don’t need to decide that we don’t need to get there because we’re deciding that there was no fraud there was this prior statement hey James you should have paid attention to this talk in whenever was when hinley said that they have the the reserves and you should have known that and therefore you weren’t defrauded so we’re not going to go into the First Amendment but there is another opinion the second the second opinion which is a con what’s called a concurrence it does get into the First Amendment issue quite

2:47:06 in quite a bit of detail and basically says the court never should have gotten to the fraud piece because this is just uh uh this is clearly a First Amendment case and we should just say that first churches should be we don’t want to go there we’re not going to get into the issue of the question of second guessing what a church can say to its members what disclosures they should make what they should do with their money those are so Central to Church’s operations that as courts we shouldn’t go there that’s not in none of our business basically and that there’s a lot of questions that raises I mean if you think about it that’s you can think of a lot of hypotheticals where a church was committing fraud like outright and and in fact during the argument um there was a point where the um Paul Clement I think was asked what if the judge what if the church committed fraud and what if he said so what if you said to the church hey we’re going to help hurricane

2:48:01 victims in Florida right and then we actually and so people give a bunch of money and instead we use that money and divert it to our own purposes with and and he said interesting the church’s lawyer said oh if that happened that’s different and and that’s that’s fraud and and that would be would be a problem but but we didn’t do that here and I I actually kind of disagree I think that’s actually very similar I think you’re telling church members that you’re going to use their money for building the kingdom and you’re not you’re just putting it in the stock market people should be told that yeah he they should have said we’re building a mall we’ve got a slush fund and we’ve got a bunch of your tithing and it all gets co-mingled with business Investments and we’re going to be building this mall from a combination of your tithing profits from the business and this slush fund yeah and it all is in this big pool

2:48:54 and that’s what we’re using to build the mall from and bail out beneficial life from would that have been an honest statement heck hell of a lot better than they did historically but I I think to your point I I totally agree when when they asked that question in in the onbon hearing in San Francisco about give us an example of what would constitute fraud what he described Paul clemont with with the hurricane example I believe is exactly similar to what what I have an issue with and that church said a and did B and and again my particular legal Journey has come to an end um you know again it was never intended to to be this long and to and to be this public and and being in that courtroom in in San Francisco was was you know Maryann was there one of our boys was there it’s really an non inspiring moment you know it is the you know the Bedrock of the legal system in this great country and you have 11 federal judges coming in there they they are they are reasonably familiar with

2:50:02 the issue and they get they cut right to the chase with their with their questions what dawned on me in in that moment is that you have an attorney arguing for Huntsman who’s not a Mormon you have Paul clemont arguing for the church who’s not a Mormon you have 10 judges and then a chief justice she was I forget which presiding judge presiding so you have 10 and then so if it’s five to five she’s the deciding vote and they’re all arguing about this issue that was so personal to me and and at that moment on that particular issue I felt I was the smartest one in the room and I couldn’t speak and and it it I became sort of decoupled from the whole because they don’t know Mormonism right they were talking around the issues of is Hinkley the only person sorry sorry about the sound Hinkley is the only person authorized to speak nobody like all these nuances that I’m like wait a second here’s actually how it works here’s how you answer that question here is culturally how that all fits together

2:51:08 I you can’t expect people in the room to understand that if they’re not steeped within Mormonism Decades of experience with it which is what I had and I just thought I became emotionally detached and less interested in the case because I just thought it it became a legal argument of winning and losing and it became less about right and wrong and squaring the religion with me and so when we got word that that the onbon ruled in in favor of the church you know I had I had a few hey sorry to hear about the news you two gentlemen were nice enough to respond thank you for that but part of me was like and you know Maryann was there on that day within a few 30 minutes like I’m kind of ready I’ve been ready to move on for a period of time I think I’ve done my duty here and although I didn’t get the settlement I still believe I bloodied the bouncer as I exited the club if I can use that analogy it’s a great analogy and and my my work is done and now you have other cases now that

2:52:19 class action cases and Dave Nelson and and basically the attorney for the church saying in this scenario it would constitute fraud that’s I believe what and if somebody can produce those documents and is willing to go to task you know maybe it’s the third or fourth case that goes before the church I I think at some point there’s going to be a reckoning here you know on a very separate note the sort of sexual abuse cases and Scandals I don’t know how many of those for how many years were shot down and they just never made it through the courts either didn’t believe it or there wasn’t enough money to support the C but when they broke through it was a it was a a damn of reconciliation and doing the right thing and and and supporting the victims and and trying to make restitution I believe in in the church’s Financial dealings that day is coming it wasn’t with me unfortunately but I I think the day is coming and and I think if there’s a little bit of maybe on a on a closing

2:53:25 note I don’t know John if you have other questions but we can take more questions I had uh a dinner with a friend of mine here a few months ago he’s of a different faith and he lives back in the east coast and he said you know because of your case we went to our local I think it was a parish or congregation and they basically run that congregation with donations from the local community and they said they we they went to him and basically said you need to be transparent with where this money goes and the head religious individual said I have nothing to hide like is there something wrong is there no no we just want transparency and sure enough the the head of that particular group came forth here here’s where the money’s going flowers paint salaries and he and he said it’s all because of your case and I just thought wow that’s pretty damn cool like if that’s all that comes from this of somebody that I’ve I don’t know his religious affiliation or his involvement

2:54:33 in any way shape or form but the relationship between him and his religion and the transparency around finances where it’s always tricky there there’s there that that particular issue was improved because of the case that we’ve done and it I believe there’s been much more benefit that has come out of what we’ve done but when he explained that story to me I thought wow I I was very flattered I was very flattered by that um so again that the drive the motivation the impetus for all this is nothing nefarious nothing against the Mormon Church nothing against Mormons or religions in general it’s all about accountability transparency and and especially when you’re dealing with massive numbers I I just think that that that the Mormon church and many other organizations could and should be doing better as someone who just concluded uh a long expensive super painful lawsuit uh I have a I have a very clear sense of how painful and expensive these

2:55:45 things are um and uh what I’m hearing you say is that in spite of the expense and the difficulty and the pain and the stress and the time invested and whatever extented influenced or impacted reputations and relationships it sounds like you’re saying you don’t regret it you wouldn’t take it back and you’re even in spite of not winning in some technical ways sounds like you still feel happy that you did it yeah I I think that’s a I think that’s a fair assessment and I I think the support from family from friends and the community at large was significantly higher than we anticipate anticipated fact maryan we’re having conversations with our kids when this was fil like hey be prepared for X like can we didn’t think it would be big news and if it did become big news we didn’t think that there would be the outpouring of support that we Reed so I think for us the experience has been quite quite uh positive and look the class actions are

2:56:51 are still are still in play um and for anyone out there myself included if one of these does get certified you know to join the class that’s always an option too for for anyone who feels that on their own they wouldn’t be able to do this but that’s the purpose of a class action is to get people together that have a similar experience in terms of fraud uh you know there there is potentially hope for them not this moment but maybe in the future and knowing a tiny bit about your family you had a brother that ran this s Tribune for a while you had a brother who served as a mission president I’m sure you have at least some faithful family members if not many what I was happy to understand is that this did not divide your family specifically your siblings this was not something that divided no from the unified loyal committed family that extended family that you talked about the very beginning right most of us enjoy talking about it yeah yeah yeah

2:57:54 I’m H I’m very happy to hear that oh thank you you’ve got to feel relieved that it’s over is that true I I think so yeah I do I do and and being able to talk about it I think for a long time we wanted to discuss and I think when I would you know we did a piece with the Washington Post and a couple with the Salt Lake Tribune I was very I had to be very careful on the phraseology and you’re your middle litigation you say something wrong and it can come back to to be a big problem um and I think just getting for those that are interested in this case and we again we were very surprised by the amount of interest in it of being able to give a little bit of the origin story and the backstory and the motivation um for us to do this and where it all started we thought it was interesting to have that on the record so thank you for creating this record of sacred writings and speeches that we can enjoy for future

2:58:52 Generations we’re gonna get Dave Nelson on here one of these days uh I I’m talk about his inside yeah yeah I mean I would love to hear Dave’s story just like James when you hear the backstory of these I think it’s fascinating but also important to know what people’s motivations were James was not trying to get rich and neither was Dave um and and people have I think the church works hard to demonize people like James who dare dare to speak up and try to have a principled stance on these issues uh members of the church I’m sure would think he’s you know as bad as John delin you know that’s pretty bad right oh come on oh forbid that’s what I’m saying is this this people need to hear these stories because the reality is these are just good people who are trying to do the right thing in in and the church doesn’t have the same level of transparency but also Integrity I think James has integrity and I wish the church had the level of Integrity that he and Maran have because it’s super

2:59:58 impressive I hope people see that it’s it’s fantastic what he did and even though yeah let me say quickly about the class actions because people are I’m sure I’m not looking at the chat but I’m sure people are asking well what about the class actions are they dead too um and the answer is we don’t know yet they’re in a different stage they’re in a different State uh James’s case was filed under California uh statute the fraud Statute in California is pretty limited the class actions have different causes of action different claims that they’ve asserted uh there are different lawyers and they’re with in front of a different judge a judge who I believe has a background in Mormonism actually judge Shelby I think has at least connections to Mormonism I’m not sure what they do yeah so so that’s there’s a different venue um and it’s a different claims and people don’t need to join the class action for those who are wondering you if the class is certified meaning

3:00:57 the judge decides that yes you can all be a class together um then they everyone who paid tithing was is automatically a member of that church of that CL of that lawsuit you don’t need to do anything you just need to hang tight um one of the big questions is going to be whether current Mormons will also be part of that um that lawsuit so they’re going to have to work that out in terms of who’s in the class and who isn’t um whether people who have resigned are in the class and or not or you have to still be act uh have your name on the records all of these questions are going to need to be worked out if that case is permitted to go forward um and and I I I’m hesitant to do this because James just gave such a good wrapup but I just want to kind of help people understand how the court got to where they are is that okay I go there yeah I was going to ask whether you as an attorney consider this a

3:01:51 miscarriage of Justice was it what you expected up and up I know it’s probably hard these may be judges you appear in front of someday so I don’t know no I mean I uh I think I would be well let me let me just give a summary of the logic that they why they denied his case and it’s pretty simple and I’ve been thinking about this I’m trying to think of a way that I can describe this that is that everyone can relate to and so I’ve here’s an analogy you have a bank account and you’ve put money into that bank account for years and the bank account gets bigger and bigger and it’s got an interest component so that bank account is earning interest every year it’s getting a fair amount of Interest added onto it the interest everyone knows this right the interest doesn’t go in a separate account the interest goes into the account where the principle that you put in there is right you is that that make

3:02:48 sense so you put the money into the bank account interest is added on so it’s getting bigger but it’s not like the interest is going one place and the main account is a different place no it’s all co-mingled this is to me what the court missed because what the court is saying is that they they really relied on this this number that they had an accountant get up and say that La that year um the the the church had money that made I think 1.4 billion in or or or in made that much money in the stock market so therefore they used the the what the court said is they had enough interest to say that the interest was used to to pay for the allall not the not the principal and that just makes no sense because they’re all in one account you can’t say that if if you bought a car out of your that bank account that you’ve been holding you can’t say I only used interest to buy the car that doesn’t make sense because the money is all there in one place it’s all

3:03:50 comingled and yet that is really what the court came down to is that the church used interest on the tithing to F to fund them all not the tithing itself which is preposterous because we all know the money is all together in one and in fact uh James’s lawyers got an uh an affidavit or Declaration from Dave Nelson who actually said this that there is no um there’s no setting aside of Interest on the account or the or anything else it’s all comingled it’s all in one therefore it was tithing money that was used to fund them all and you can’t say that this dollar is interest and this dollar is the principal it doesn’t work that way it’s all together it’s all mixed up and and yet that is what the court relied on to say that the church didn’t lie because they actually had enough money that year that they made in the stock market to fund them all therefore they didn’t use tithing and that’s essentially what they why they said this is not fraud and they don’t want to go into the First Amendment issues so that’s that’s how

3:04:55 they got to where they got and I think I disagree 100% with that approach because I think it misunderstands I’m a financial fraud lawyer I deal with with financial cases all the time I have for 30 years and guess what the money if you take a bunch of investor money and dump it into an account that’s all investor money and you can’t say that I used Mrs Jones money here and Mr Smith’s money over here it doesn’t work that way it’s all in one account so this is just a fiction that the court relied on to come to the conclusion that they did however you know it is what it is and the church didn’t get from them a clear ruling that says that the church is immune because the first amendment that’s what they wanted and they did not get that they got it in a a concurrence but they didn’t get it in the main opinion and that really deprived them of some important ammunition that they would have absolutely used in the class

3:05:52 action case so that’s a win that is a win um even though I think the church the the court got it wrong you know uh it is what it is and you didn’t decide to take it to the Supreme Court which probably wouldn’t have been a good uh a good form for that anyway because they’re very favorable to religion as well so these are the decisions that you make as a litigant you have to decide what’s the cost benefit analysis not just Financial cost but also emotional cost of continuing on with this lawsuit and James made a decision that he he’d had enough he’d done enough and and and and he said I’m done and that’s fine and that’s his prerogative and more power to him um other people the the other class sections might lose at the district court and be done we don’t know um but if you really wantan to the reality of Justice in this country is that you need money and it’s very expensive very very expensive

3:06:49 well said very well said actually thank you for that well um there’s so many comments pouring in uh James and MaryAnn thanking and and Mark thanking you all um both for today but also um specifically for James and Maryanne for the incredible sacrifices personal sacrifices you would have made financially time stress um and in relationships and reputation to um be willing to put your necks and your names in the public Arena as private people uh who love our community and love people in and out of the church to to make those sacrifices uh as people with Integrity to just try and um help the church be accountable and help it treat people better um so many people are saying thank you so Colby says uh thank you for the interview crotchy writes James Huntsman helped in the and I say marann Huntsman helped in the fight against Utah’s gay marriage ban is involved with cancer research and more uh she talks

3:08:05 about shedding happy tears Mariana Taylor says James and his wife Maryann are the finest kind of people uh genuine real empathetic and kind their life as a family is commendable no important heirs about them they have made their own way um so many other people have said thank you um Timothy says I appreciate what Huntsman did here the huntsman’s the number one way to change Behavior has got to be changing the laws that’s why polygamy changed we need more people in government that will hold the institution accountable um good luck with that yeah um Dave says I’ve always wanted to know what was behind James’s motivation uh this is a great podcast to shed light on his motivation um uh crotchy writes I wouldn’t know anything of these stories about the Mormon church if it weren’t for uh you know James and David and this YouTube channel and all the news stories about it uh the news stories and the blogs and the articles are out there um but they don’t get a lot of World Wide press so they’re glad you did this interview

3:09:20 today Brett Hutchin says please tell James and MaryAnn thank you for pursuing and also that we’re playing basketball tonight at nine o’clock at the local stti Chapel anyway uh as somebody just on a personal note is somebody who lives in the public Arena and has faced a lot of darts uh and has been through a lawsuit or two um it can feel very lonely because the number of people people that even see the problems with the church is is relatively small and then of those who are willing to actually talk about it even amongst friends and family that number’s way smaller but the number of people that are willing to put their names and their reputations in the public Arena and face media scrutiny is almost non-existent like I can you know Dave neelen like you guys you know a couple podcasters and bloggers and YouTubers Mark there’s very very few people in a high demand religion context and especially in the Mormon context that would ever be willing to put their

3:10:31 name and their reputations on the line and then when you add to that the Huntsman name I don’t think any of us could ever thank you and MaryAnn enough for what you’ve done and I know you all tend to downplay uh uh compliments and uh maybe thanks but personally y’all have moved the needle I think I have a good sense for the needle y’all have moved the needle in gigantic ways and you’ve paid a price for it and I just want to thank you both for being willing to do that very kind of you and you’re welcome and you’re welcome and now you can sail off into anonymity is that what’s going to happen probably right back where it was before before this started um there’s still Blue Fox Entertainment right yeah but nobody sees me there it’s the brand okay all right any uh any final words you want to share James final words before we end no just uh thank you for arranging this um and Mar thanks for coming giving the spin the legal legal take I couldn’t have done all that and

3:11:40 so that’s and and and so I appreciate you doing that and also your perspective you know just what most families and like ours too I mean we live in our family Bubbles and I don’t I don’t know what it looks like to be an outsider looking into a huntsman and Pugsley Delan or anyone else because we’re in that so I so it’s it’s we’re always curious to get other people’s perspectives and and and their opinions on things because it’s it’s nice to have a a a broad spectrum of views and opinions because that’s generally you get the good information and and and the good paths forward is is having a a few different voices in the room so I appreciate you doing this appreciate you having set up and and for those out listening thanks so much for for giving us some of your time and I I I would say until next time but don’t know say you know there you’re open to telling your story someday so get in here

3:12:44 scary thank you appreciate it anyway Mark any final words nope thank you okay glad we could do it well thanks to everyone who joined us today thanks to our staff that made today possible thanks to our donors we couldn’t do this without you um and uh I shout out to Dave neelsen for his courage and what he’s done we’re we’re all uh serving to some degree on the back of him yeah and any other people that have helped contribute check out the widows might it’s a great website to learn more about the LDS Church’s finances they do a fantastic job and uh you know to all those who are involved in the class action lawsuits Etc we’ll see we’ll see what the future holds we’ll see but thanks again James pleasure have a good one thanks markone thanks John and thanks for joining us to Mormon stories uh email us at Mormon stories atgmailcom if you have feedback we always love your comments here if you want to give send

3:13:41 James and MaryAnn Your Love uh gratitude you can post them in the comments here in the chat or on the YouTube feed and we’ll make sure they get them you can email forward any compliments you you have I’ll for them on to James and MaryAnn if you’ve got something super nice to say I’m sure they would love to feel your love or maybe they don’t need it or want it I don’t know but uh we always love your feedback and um so please share it please subscribe and like the channel we’re on Tik Tok Instagram Facebook YouTube and we always appreciate that you’ll subscribe and like and comment there because uh we need that for the algorithms anyway you guys take care be good to each other be kind to each other we’ll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon stories podcast take care