A Florida podcaster and the “small but vigorous group” of supporters he inspired have been making life hell for a Utah couple caught up in a lingering investigation into claims of satanic ritual sex abuse.
Joe and Lee Bennion were among more than 140 people whose names appeared in 2012 in unverified witness statements that described ritualistic sex abuse, murder and cannibalism in allegations that dated back decades. The statements were part of a case that was closed without any convictions, but the document was recirculated publicly in 2022 when Utah County investigators began to reexamine it.
So far, prosecutors have charged just two people — a former therapist and his then-wife — who were accused of abusing a neighborhood girl. The ex-therapist also was charged with abusing a patient who recently came forward.
The Bennions and others were clearly “falsely accused” in the statements, their attorney, Caleb Proulx, argues. Yet they have endured harassment, death threats and vandalism, Proulx said, as Florida podcaster Jamin Daniel Darcy has called for the extra-judicial slaying of those he believes conducted satanistic crimes, including saying the Bennions are “facing annihilation.”
Now, in a letter Proulx sent Monday to the Utah Attorney General’s Office, the Bennions are asking the state to clear their names and hoping that will remove them, once and for all, from their purgatory.
In January, a 4th District judge ordered a permanent stalking injunction against Darcy, who also writes about his investigations on the subscription-based, self-publishing platform Substack using the name Goel or Go El, meaning “redeemer” in Hebrew.
The judge found Darcy “invites and incites” people to join in his stalking of the Bennions.
Darcy has said he is an independent investigator and researcher who circulates his findings on social media, according to the injunction. He did not reply to The Salt Lake Tribune’s request for comment Monday.
‘Little doubt of their falsity’
The couple’s pottery shop on Main Street in small Spring City has been repeatedly vandalized, Proulx wrote.
(Robert Stevens | Sanpete Messenger) Joe Bennion with pottery. The Main Street pottery shop owned by Joe and Lee Bennion in Spring City has been repeatedly vandalized, according to their attorney.
When a group gathered near the store to protest and to honor the alleged crime victims, one man “felt so emotionally compelled,” Proulx wrote, that he attempted to curse the Bennions by “dusting” his feet off on the stoop, a “condemnatory” ritual from the Bible.
That man is identified in court papers as Spring City Council member Ken Krogue, and a judge has approved a temporary stalking injunction against him at the Bennions’ request. Krogue’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment, but he has asked for an evidentiary hearing seeking the injunction’s dismissal.
Other people have led campaigns to remove Joe Bennion’s membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proulx wrote.
He is asking Utah Attorney General Derek Brown for a “declination letter,” which would declare prosecutors have declined to file charges against the Bennions. The allegations against them, he said, seem plainly false.
“A mere cursory review of the allegations and a resort to common sense leads to the inescapable conclusion that the allegations simply could not have happened without being discovered at the time,” Proulx said.
“The sheer frequency of the crimes alleged, the number of people allegedly involved, and the descriptions describing various criminal acts often happening in public view,” he continued, “leaves little doubt of their falsity.”
Proulx reasoned it is time for the office to release a declination letter in part because the reopened investigation has garnered charges against just two people: former therapist David Lee Hamblin and his ex-wife, Roselle Stevenson.
A judge has said he will dismiss the charges against Hamblin involving the alleged neighborhood victim, due to evidentiary issues. Stevenson’s charge related to that case remains pending. The case against Hamblin in Sanpete County involving the alleged abuse of a patient is still pending, as well. Neither has entered a plea in those cases.
The Tribune on Monday also requested comment from the Utah County Sheriff’s Office and the state attorney general’s office. Neither immediately replied. Spring City’s city attorney, Wes Mangum, declined to comment on Krogue’s pending stalking case or the other underlying issues and referred The Tribune to Krogue’s personal legal counsel.
“The stalking injunction is a private issue. The city does not have a comment on that. What they do in their private time is their own business,” Mangum said of council members, adding the “city is not involved in that in any way or any capacity.”
Decade-old allegations resurface
In 2022, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office made a startling announcement that it was investigating a “ritualistic” sex abuse ring.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith spoke during a news conference Wednesday, June 1, 2022, in Spanish Fork, saying he wouldn't resign. Then-Utah County Attorney David Leavitt had accused him of using his office for political gain earlier in the day, by connecting the prosecutor to a “ritualistic” sex ring investigation.
At the time, the office did not publicly name who it was investigating. But then-Utah County Attorney David Leavitt left little question what and who detectives were targeting when he denounced the investigation and accused Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith and others of dredging up years-old, unverified witness statements that accused Leavitt and others of “cannibalizing young children” and participating in a “ritualistic” sex ring. The Bennions were among the people also named in those documents.
Leavitt said at a news conference that he believed these allegations were only coming to light at that time because his detractors were trying to damage his chances for reelection. Leavitt, who was first elected in 2019, ultimately lost the race to fellow Republican Jeff Gray, who now runs the office, during the June primaries.
In the years since, Sheriff Smith and his office have “publicly vouched for the credibility of the investigation” multiple times, Proulx said. This month, Smith told the Utah County Republican Women’s organization that the case was “real” and deputies “will not stop pressing forward.”
This has put the Bennions in a prolonged “surreal state,” where they know that they are being falsely accused of heinous, nearly inconceivable crimes, but are also apparently “in peril of criminal charges” which no police officer has ever asked them about, Proulx wrote.
“For my in-laws and the others falsely accused of horrific acts of satanic worship, the damage has been incalculable … the wrong done cannot be fully undone,” Proulx said in the letter to the attorney general. “But your office can do the right thing and issue a declination letter regarding my in-laws and others against whom law enforcement knows no credible inculpatory evidence exists.”
Indeed, Proulx continued, doing so would be in the interest of “justice and public safety,” considering the “very concerning and dangerous extra-judicial campaign against my in-laws and others.”
