BYU professor Stephen Henry McKean received three years probation after pleading guilty to distributing harmful material to a minor and enticing a minor. His sentence of 364 days in jail was suspended, so as long as McKean doesn’t send any more pictures of his genitalia to minors or undercover officers posing as minors, he won’t do a day in jail for trying to have sex with a 17 year old girl.
“You’re going to make me like you better than my wife.”
-BYU Professor Stephen Henry McKean
In addition to being a BYU professor, McKean was a Sunday School teacher for rhe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. BYU suspended McKean, but it is unclear if McKean’s employment was terminated.
McKean is in good company: his colleague, geography professor Michael James Clay of Springville, Utah, was charged with two counts of forcible sexual abuse in June 2020. Clay was allowed to plead to three misdemeanor counts of sexual battery in May 2023. He received no jail time, 24 months of probation, and 50 hours of community service. Clay was originally charged with two counts of forcible sexual abuse against two students; those charges were later amended with five additional counts of sexual abuse after two additional students came forward. From the Daily Universe’s coverage:
Before the original incidents with the student in early 2020, Clay allegedly met with a student 2-3 times a week between Jan. 2017 and March 2020. According to court documents, the student considered seeing a therapist but Clay told the student she could do that “or she could continue meeting with him because he actually understood and cared for her.”
Clay would have the victim, identified in the court documents as victim 2, straddle him while sitting face to face, the court documents said. The student expressed she was uncomfortable but told investigators Clay would remind her that her progress in her field of study was up to his discretion.
According to court documents, Clay would also give her priesthood blessings and “use religion to manipulate her into feeling a certain way.”
Sue Bergin, 28 year BYU professor, was fired in 2022, and she attributed her termination to her support of LGBTQ rights. A headline on NAICU’s website breathlessly asked if more BYU faculty were at risk, but between the sexual abuse and the clear departure from BYU’s core principles as a religious university, the question ought to be whether BYU students are at risk.
Over at BYU-Idaho, adjunct professor Ruthie Robertson was fired after she refused to take down a Facebook post supporting LGBT Pride month which declared that sex and gender were not binary, but instead on a spectrum. Choices usually are. Robertson also criticized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for refusing to allow children of gay couples to be baptized.
Back in 2006, BYU professor Robert Bentley Jackson resigned after his arrest on charges of voyeurism and exploitation of a minor. He as eventually sentenced to two years in prison, which is highly unusual for a Utahn committing sexual crimes. A broken clock is right twice a day, they say. 2006 was a busy year for BYU professors, as Steven Jones was forced to leave after declaring that 9/11 was orchestrated by the United States.
In 2002, BYU professor Richard Thwaits was fired amid allegations that he illegally dispensed prescription medication to his students, and had inappropriate relationships with his female students. Despite the fact that he pleaded no contest to a third degree felony charge of practicing medicine without a license, Thwaits sued BYU for wrongful termination. He entered a plea in abeyance, which was dismissed after 18 months. Unsurprisingly, a jury found that BYU was justified in firing Thwaits.
BYU adjunct professor Burke Clarke Powers was arrested in July 2026 after it was revealed that he had used AI to create child rape material, including pictures where he had interposed his face and the faces of adults and children he knew. The pictures made it appear that Powers was having sex with the adults and the children in the pictures.
In 2025, BYU-Idaho adjunct professor Collin James Hawkins was arrested and charged with 20 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor when police found out that Hawkins used Kik to send child rape material. Police found additional child rape material on Hawkins’s phones, containing material depicting boys as young as three years of age. Police said that the 20 counts “generously underestimated” the full extent of Hawkins’s child rape material collection.
BYU dean of the College of Computational, Mathematical, and Physical Sciences Grant Jensen wrote a letter in support of bail for a man, Richard Kirkland Mallard, charged with 41 felonies for possessing child rape materials. Mallard received bond. He had served as a Boy Scout leader alongside Jensen, who described him as “a deeply religious man” and “a tremendous volunteer.”
According to the probable cause statement, Mallard allegedly uploaded multiple videos containing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to the Kik messenger app.
Describing one video, the affidavit stated that “Orem Detectives turned off the audio for the remainder of the video due to it being so egregious and unbearable to listen to.”
The audio was unbearable, but the video footage was not.
In most religious denominations, deeply religious men tend to spend time contemplating God, in prayerful and reverential effort. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, deeply religious men exchange child rape material depicting “prepubescent children” between camping stints with the Boy Scouts where they do tremendous volunteer work. They also give their students prescription drugs, force them to straddle them in meetings, and tell 17 year old girls that they’re going to like them more than they like their wives.
Grant Jensen spent 20 years coaching youth soccer according to his LinkedIn. Mallard was released on $10,000 cash bond.
“He’s also a deeply religious man — we are both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…As far as I could tell he followed all the teachings of the Church, avoiding all alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, smoking, drugs, etc. I have no reason to believe he was not completely faithful to his wife… In our interactions he was always honest, kind, and trustworthy. I was completely shocked by his arrest.”
-Grant Jensen on Richard Kirkland Mallard
By God, Richard Kirkland Mallard didn’t drink alcohol, use tobacco, or consume coffee or tea or drugs, and he was faithful to his wife excepting that little indiscretion involving child rape material. That’s what a BYU department dean wrote in support of a man facing 41 criminal counts involving child rape material with audio so unbearable that the police had to mute the video, material involving “prepubescent or very young children.”
This article could be much longer, but readers likely get the point. BYU and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Satanists do not get the point, which is why they write letters in support of bail for a man like Richard Kirkland Mallard, who did not drink coffee or tea. He didn’t smoke cigarettes, either. What a guy, a deeply religious guy and a tremendous volunteer!
Utah remains a sanctuary state for rapists and perverts, run by a church whose members comprise 90% of the state legislature, with many of those members educated at BYU, where their professors send naked pictures to 17 year old girls and illegally provide prescription drugs to their female students who they allegedly wrestle in hot tubs with.