Jenny Hatch is organising a protest at the American Fork Courthouse in advance of the Hamblin status hearing on Thursday, May 30th, at 7:30 a.m. I urge readers to bring signs, to make their presence known, and to demand justice. Call the Attorney General’s Office as well at (801) 366-0260 to demand they enter an appearance before Judge Griffin and take over the prosecution of David Lee Hamblin.
Without public pressure, the awful reality of our situation is as follows:
Emily Sheets will never see her case adjudicated on the merits, and the eyewitnesses to her abuse, Rachel and Eliza Hamblin, will never testify against their father about the sexual abuse he committed against them and against Emily Sheets.
Tobias Schroeder will likely never see his case adjudicated on the merits, and David Lee Hamblin will go free for allegedly abusing him as a five year old boy.
This is despite the fact that Hamblin lost his clinical psychologist’s license for having sex with his patients and attempting to convince them that it was part of their therapy. Hamblin admitted this. It is not in dispute.
In 2003, the court in Hamblin’s custody hearing found by clear and convincing evidence that he had sexually abused his eldest daughters Rachel and Eliza. Hamblin admitted to administering peyote to all of his children, even though peyote is a controlled substance and no interpretation of religious liberty would cover the administration of a controlled substance to a child. His youngest daughter Miriam would have been under five years of age at the time he administered peyote to her.
In his 2012 to 2014 case, Hamblin was recorded by the police apologizing to his daughter for raping her. Despite this, the 18 criminal counts against him for sexual abuse were dismissed by the Utah County Attorneys Office due to purported discovery issues.
In the current cases, Juab County Attorney Ryan Peters was deputized as a special prosecutor by the State Attorney General’s Office. Governor Spencer Cox, who is friends on Facebook with Hamblin’s alleged Church of Satan co-members Kevin and Khaliel Kelly, as well as Joe Bennion, then nominated Peters to a judgeship. In October 2023, Peters filed to transfer the case back to Utah County, where alleged Church of Satan member, child rapist and child murderer David Leavitt was no longer the county attorney, thereby eliminating the conflict of interest.1
Judge Griffin rejected the motion, and Utah County spent nearly six months wrangling with Judge Griffin over his denial of the motion to transfer the case. The case had no prosecutor during that time. This culminated in Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray filing an interlocutory appeal to the Utah Court of Appeals, which was denied on May 9th. Last week, during the status hearing, there was no counsel present for the prosecution.
Hamblin’s attorney Leah Aston filed a motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute, which Judge Griffin indicated he would grant in 30 days time if there was no prosecutor on the case. Judge Griffin then ordered a second hearing at 12:30 p.m., during which Deputy Attorney Perkins from the UCAO stated that it was the UCAO’s position that the case had reverted back to the Utah State Attorney General’s Office after the denial of the interlocutory appeal. Notice has been given to the Attorney General’s Office, and that office will either file a notice of appearance before Judge Griffin; ignore the notice and send no attorney to represent the State, thereby allowing the motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute to be granted; or the AG’s office will simply decline to prosecute the case further.
Whatever happens, IRA will continue investigating the Hamblin case with the goal of exposing the truth and building criminal cases that can be successfully brought against the alleged perpetrators. Hamblin’s group crossed state lines, making their crime interstate and therefore federal in scope.
In the immediate timeframe, we need as many people as possible at the courthouse in American Fork this Thursday, ready to exert pressure on Judge Griffin, the State Attorney General’s Office, and Governor Cox. David Lee Hamblin is a sexual predator who has inexplicably evaded criminal culpability for abusing countless individuals over the past forty years. He belongs in prison. His victims deserve closure. That will not happen without public outrage and public pressure.
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The short-lived divorce of David and Chelom Leavitt was also assigned to Judge Griffin before it was dismissed at the request of the Leavitts.
When I called the AG office this morning, they said a prosecutor had been assigned for the hearing Thursday