At 76, a former Mormon bishop was arrested on charges of molesting children in Livermore

LIVERMORE — A 76-year-old former bishop has been arrested on 18 felony charges, all involving allegations that he sexually violated children under his care while serving in a position of trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Prosecutors announced the case against Michael Delar Morris on Thursday, a week after he was arrested in Washington, Utah and set to be extradited to the Bay Area. They say Morris remains behind bars with bail set at $920,000.

The allegations are decades old, but involve a 10-year span, from 1991 to 2001, and four alleged victims. While most felonies fall under a three-year statute of limitations, California law allows longer time periods for crimes involving the sexual abuse of children.

District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson released a statement calling the alleged crimes “deeply troubling.”

“Our office remains committed to pursuing justice for survivors of sexual abuse, regardless of how much time has passed, whenever the law permits prosecution,” she said in the written statement, issued through a news release by her office.

A spokesman for the LDS church didn’t immediately return a request for comment. Prosecutors in Alameda County say that Morris is charged with “non-forcible” sexual assaults, stemming from when he “served as a bishop in Livermore and supervised a church-affiliated boys’ youth group.”

In 2024, a San Jose-based law firm filed 91 lawsuits against the LDS church, including four based in Alameda County, as part of a coordinated effort over allegations of child sexual abuse that went back several decades.

The suits, many of which were settled out of court, accused church officials of allowing bishops to molest children and siphoning reports of sexual abuse to a church hotline, rather than notifying police. Often, the suits named “John Does” as defendants rather than names of alleged perpetrators or officials involved in cover-ups.