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West Jordan • A missing LDS Church bishop derailed a Tuesday preliminary hearing for a man charged with sexually abusing two female patients while posing as a marriage counselor.
Police say a Utah County bishop for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints initially referred two couples to Arturo Tenorio, of Kearns, for marriage counseling.
Defense attorney Kenneth Brown subpoenaed the bishop, Alejandro de Santiago, to testify at Tenorio's Tuesday preliminary hearing in 3rd District Court.
Brown wants to know what the bishop told Tenorio when he referred the couples for counseling. He also said the bishop can help establish a time line of events.
Dan McConkie, representing the LDS Church — which filed an objection to the subpoena, citing clergy-penitent privilege — said he instructed de Santiago not to appear in court Tuesday.
Brown claimed the clergy-penitent privilege — private conversations between the couples and the bishop — is waived if communications are shared with a third party, such as his client. But McConkie countered that the couples, not the bishop, have the privilege, and only they have the ability to waive it.
Judge Charlene Barlow set a March 23 in-chambers hearing to sort out the claims. The preliminary hearing will be heard later that same day.
Tenorio, 57, is charged with two counts of second-degree felony forcible sexual abuse for allegedly fondling the two patients in early November at his Midvale office during solo sessions.
He had claimed to be a marriage counselor, but does not have the proper licensing or schooling to be a counselor, according to Midvale police. Tenorio is the brother of Octaviano Tenorio, who is a member of the LDS Church's First Quorum of the Seventy.