Flattered that an older man would pay attention to a girl still in her teens, it is perhaps not surprising that Cheryl Maher developed a crush on her boss.
Kevin Garn was an up-and-coming businessman and Richard Maher, a business partner of Garn's, got his 14-year-old daughter a job at his company's distribution center after she began struggling in school and experimenting with drugs and alcohol.
Maher had known Garn for years. They grew up in the same LDS ward and he had been her Sunday school teacher years earlier.
This time the relationship was different, according to Maher, as Garn began paying her compliments, taking her to lunch, buying her gifts. Then, in the winter of 1985, they drove in his BMW to a spot in Salt Lake City at a private hot-tub locale. Maher didn't have a bathing suit and neither did Garn, but they hot-tubbed nude together.
Maher says there was physical contact, but won't elaborate, and that he bought alcohol. She says they went back one other time. Garn has denied the activities went beyond sitting nude in the hot tub one time.
After being concealed a quarter century, the episode was thrust into public view last week after Maher contacted select legislators and The Tribune. Hours after Garn confirmed the incident and payment of $150,000 to Maher in a Tribune interview and was told a story was forthcoming, the House Majority leader delivered an emotional apology on the House floor and, two days later, resigned.
Maher, who describes dealing with a lifetime of emotional scars as a result of the encounter, says she finally feels "freedom."
"I just felt like a whole load of stuff came off my shoulders," she said.
After the hot-tub incident, Maher says, Garn moved on. She returned to drinking and drugs.
"She was a different person after that," said Linda Maher Brown, Cheryl's older sister, who also worked for Garn. "My family didn't know what happened. We didn't know she'd been sexualized. That's why her life is the way it is. ... It changed who she was."
On Easter 1986, Maher went drinking at Pineview Dam with friends and was involved in a head-on collision driving back down Ogden Canyon. Her friend, Lisa Sickinger, was killed and Maher was badly injured and had to have heart surgery to repair a damaged heart valve. Maher was charged with negligent homicide.
Heather Stringfellow, a former sex crimes detective with the Salt Lake Police Department who is now director of the Rape Crisis Center, said that while she doesn't know all the specifics of the Garn case, substance abuse and difficulty maintaining relationships is common among victims of sexual abuse.
"When a young person is a victim or is exploited, I think it does have ramifications on their life," she said.
Maher's family moved to New Hampshire in 1987, and she struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, attempted suicide and had a failed marriage.
It was about 2000, according to her sister, that a counselor suggested that Maher had been sexually abused and it was the root of some of her problems and she first reported the incident to LDS church officials.
A year later, with Garn seeking the Republican nomination for the 1st Congressional District, Brown says a glowing newspaper profile on Garn pushed Maher to contact the Deseret News reporter who wrote the story to tell her tale.
Garn and his wife were in contact within days and flew to New Hampshire to meet with Maher, her husband at the time, Eric Knight, and their bishop. Garn apologized for his behavior and, according to Knight, "seemed to be sincere and heartfelt on all sides."
"There were tears and hugs all around," Knight said in a statement. "Cheryl was appreciative and reassured Mr. Garn that her 'healing' was complete."
At some point, the issue of restitution was raised. Maher said Knight pushed the issue, but Knight said it was Maher and her sister who pressed it. Garn offered $20,000, and eventually ended up paying $150,000 and Maher agreed to sign a confidentiality agreement in 2003.
Maher remained in occasional contact with Garn, even as her marriage to Knight crumbled. She has been excommunicated from the church and is in a bitter battle with her ex-husband over custody of her four children.
Recently, Maher said she became convinced the best way to deal with the issue was to go public with the episode with Garn.
"It has been a long and painful road as I have put the broken pieces of my life back together," she said. "At the end of the healing, I knew what had to be done."
Last week, she sent an e-mail containing her allegations, triggering Garn's public confession.
"I am sorry for this incident and I am sorry I ever responded to the financial demands," Garn said on the last night of the legislative session. "I also wish to publicly apologize to this young lady for this incident and I apologize to you, my colleagues, for any shame this brings to the Utah State Legislature."
Brown is proud of her sister for coming forward.
"I just wish my sister would've done this eight years ago when she should have, but she was just so afraid," said Brown. "Although it's hurt Kevin, she had to do it. ... He couldn't stop her this time and I'm really proud of her."
But Knight questions his ex-wife's motives, saying she had been considering writing a book about coping with trauma and suspects she might be looking for publicity.
"Over time, as she has suffered the consequences of her decisions and her life has not been what she had hoped, she has increasingly looked for scapegoats to blame, including the LDS church officials, myself and Mr. Garn," Knight said. "In my opinion, Mr. Garn has paid for his wrongdoing many times over, and over the last 25 years has been nothing but generous and supportive of Cheryl."
However, Stringfellow said it is important not to get sidetracked on what Maher's motivation was to come forward now.
"To me, it all rests on him and the choices he made. He was the adult. He was the person in power," Stringfellow said. "Whether he paid her money not to talk about it and she's broken that agreement doesn't erase the fact of the matter that he has admitted to being naked in a hot tub and is that appropriate behavior for adults or for legislators?"
