Driggs man arrested for child pornography once accused of abusing Boy Scouts
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IDAHO FALLS — The recent arrest of a 67-year-old man in Driggs, accused of possessing explicit images of children, was one of the men accused in a high-profile lawsuit against The Boy Scouts of America and The Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints.
Dennis Empey was charged on Aug. 20 with felony possession and distribution of child pornography, two felony charges of child sexual battery through solicitation and two misdemeanors for disseminating materials to minors.
Lawsuits against the Boy Scouts
The lawsuits against the Scouts began in 2005, when the two brothers reported their abuse at the hands of a Scout camp counselor when they were little in 1997.
EastIdahoNews.com spoke with Dean Miller, a former editor of the Idaho Falls Post Register, about the story’s breaking at the paper in 2005.
“These two kids, the Steed brothers, went to the authorities and pushed and pushed and pushed until something happened, and they paid a huge price,” Miller said.
How the story came to be, Miller credited the work of former reporter Peter Zuckerman, the paper’s editorial staff and his wife, for combing through court documents to uncover the truth of three men who worked with the Scouts who had allegations of being pedophiles working in eastern Idaho.
According to the Spokesman Review via the Associated Press, Adam and Benjamin Steed filed their lawsuit against the Grand Teton Council of the Boy Scouts of America and against its leadership, alleging that it should be held liable for the actions of Brad Stowell, the counselor who molested the brothers.
The lawsuit was settled in 2007, but through the actions of the Steed brothers, Idaho law was changed regarding the statute of limitations on reporting sexual abuse of children.
According to The Spokesman-Review, via the Associated Press, a bill was signed on March 13 by then-Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, who lauded Bird and others for telling their stories.
This opened the doors for adults who were abused as children to seek prosecution against their abusers, whereas previously, the state required them to report before turning the age of 23. Many of the lawsuits against the Scouts involved adults who were past the age of 23 and had to seek financial compensation for their abuse.
“The problem with that is that children don’t have the words to describe what happened, and they’ve have been terrified by their victimizer,” Miller said. “That was a significant change, because there were people who would have brought charges once they grew up, went through enough therapy to understand what had happened to them… That was a really big, important change, as far as getting justice for victims.”
Empey’s involvement
According to The Spokesman-Review, one of the men involved in the effort to change Idaho law was former Scout Jeff Bird.
In 2005, Bird had issued a statement in support of the Steed brothers’ lawsuit in which he alleges that Empey had mutilated animals, showed him a firearm and raped him at an Island Park Scout Camp in 1983, according to the Daily Herald via the Associated Press.
The story reported that Empey was arrested in Utah in 1991 on two counts of forcible sodomy on a child and one felony count of sexual abuse of a child. He was sentenced to probation on Oct. 8, 1991, and he moved back to eastern Idaho two years later.
Miller told EastIdahoNews.com that during the initial investigation into Stowell and the Boy Scouts, while searching through documents, Empey’s name was discovered, and Bird had come to the Post Register to report about Empey.
“We had another victim come forward, survivor come forward and say, ‘they were supposed to have fixed this,'” Miller said.
According to the Daily Herald, Bird had told the Post Register that he reported Empey’s alleged abuse twice to then-Island Park Scout Camp Director Kim Hansen and later to LDS church officials.
It wasn’t till later, Miller said, that Empey was found on the Grand Teton Council’s website doing web design for them. According to the Daily Herald, Hansen wrote the paper stating that Empey had donated graphic designs electronically or through the mail, but that he had never been to the council’s office or volunteered.
“(It) came up as kind of an echo case to the Stoll case and an earlier version of the same problem,” Miller said. “Then we had survivors of Empey’s abuse coming to us, and we built the story around that.”
According to the Idaho State Journal, more victims, later came forward in 2013, in which a separate lawsuit was filed by four John Does alleging the Boy Scouts of America and LDS officials of failing to inform parents that pedophiles were serving within the Scouting program — now known as Scouting America. Back then, the LDS Church used the Boy Scouts as its youth program for young men.
Empey was one of four men accused in the lawsuits by one of the John Does, who alleged that he had sexually abused one of the four victims during the summer of 1981 at Camp Morrison in McCall.
The victims in this case differed from the victims in the 2005 case.
According to Courthouse News Service, the complaint filed in 2013 details the Scouts had “Red Flag” files known as IV Files dating back to the 1920s of cases involving child molestation.
Federal court documents state that John Doe III, who accused Empey of the assault, eventually dismissed his complaint against the Boy Scouts and the LDS church.
Empey’s recent arrest
Looking back, while he is proud of the work done by his team of reporters and other editors, he said he’s not sure if they ever did enough for the survivors of the abuse. While the Post Register received accolades for its work, there was a lot of backlash from the community over the investigation.
“You’ve got to follow the story and that’s what we did,” Miller said. “It was hard and scary, but we did it. I’m proud of that we persevered.”
However, he said that Empey’s recent arrest is upsetting, as it means he will resurface in the news once again. This is due to his criminal past and the allegations against him.
Looking at the victims of Empey’s, Miller is worried for them as they’re in the community and are re-offending. “We all ought to think hard about the victims and what we owe to them when we catch somebody the first time,” Miller said.
With Empey’s arrest, Miller said it affirms the belief that individuals charged in these types of crimes are untreatable.
“I think you have to just say they should never be involved with kids in any way, shape or form. It’s just not worth the risk,” Miller said.