'No Crime in Sin': Utah woman confronts father about sex abuse in documentary film
Kristy Johnson recently settled a civil lawsuit she filed against her father. She says he abused her for years, starting when she was six years old. Now, she’s taken her newfound power a step further — confronting her father about the abuse in a documentary film that premieres in Salt Lake City next week. (Photo: Cristina Flores / KUTV)
(KUTV) — Kristy Johnson recently settled a civil lawsuit she filed against her father. She says he abused her for years, starting when she was six years old.
Now, she’s taken her newfound power a step further — confronting her father about the abuse in a documentary film that premieres in Salt Lake City next week.
“No Crime in Sin” premieres on June 20 at the Rose Wagner Theatre in Salt Lake City.
The screening starts at 7 p.m. and admission is $8.
“I really took my power back that day,” said Johnson who is featured in the film with her sister Kathy, who also said she was abused.
Kathy died recently from cancer and did not see the final version of the film.
Johnson’s brother Kim, who was not abused, accompanied his sisters as they confronted their father about the abuse at this Utah County home.
Surprisingly, Johnson’s father, now in his 80s, allowed them in with the film crew.
Johnson said her father held positions as an LDS seminary teacher and worked at BYU when the family lived in Utah decades ago.
The abuse, she said, occurred on and off church properties.
Johnson said many years ago, her mother tried to report the abuse to church leaders but they encouraged her to not tell police.
The abuse got worse.
In the mid-80s, after she served an LDS mission and after her family moved to Southern California, Johnson went to police there — but the abuse continued.
Her father was never questioned by police or arrested.
Many years later, long after the siblings broke ties with their father and he moved on to another marriage, Johnson decided she had to do something.
“If he wasn’t going to end up on the sex offender list, people needed to know,” she said of her father.
Johnson said her father apologized, but the film is not about him. She doesn’t believe he really understands how much she and her siblings suffered.
“No Crime in Sin” is about encouraging other survivors and victims of abuse, to report it. So it’s not covered up, she said.
“To empower people that no matter how many years it’s been, to make a police report,” she said.
In Utah, law requires mandatory reporting of child abuse, and a recently-passed law allows victims of child sex abuse to retroactively sue their perpetrators in civil court as many as 30 years after the abuse occurred.
