KEARNS, Utah — It was supposed to be Mrs. Utahn goes to Washington.
A small-town mayor visiting with the U.S. Department of Justice to advocate for victims of crime.
“I had a lady that actually was very seriously injured by her husband,” Kearns Mayor Kelly Bush recalled.
“When he left, he actually drained their account that they had,” Bush continued.
“They had two little kids. And she had no means to pay their rent.”
Bush found a way to help the mother and children. Bush gets calls direct to her asking for help for such victims of crime. She estimates Kearns has spent about $25,000 to help such victims in the last year.
It’s not necessarily supposed to be that way.
The U.S. Department of Justice has a crime victims compensation fund. Fines and penalties federal court defendants are ordered to pay go into the fund.
The Justice Department then distributes that money to the states on a per-capita basis. States then distribute that money to nonprofits that help victims of crime.
But the money going to the states has been declining. Bush wanted to know why.
BEING JUDGED
Jeff Black calls himself “one of the wonderful victims of the Warren Jeffs regime.”
Black was in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints until leaders there took away his wife and eight children. Such evictions from the FLDS are common. It’s often for trivial, vague offenses.
“I was told that the Lord had judged me,” Black says.
He eventually got his family back. Federal money awarded to a nonprofit, called Holding Out Help, paid for the Blacks to receive counseling.
“Without this victim funding that was available to us,” Black said, “I don't know where we would be.
“It was… We were in rough shape.”
The victim's funding that starts with the federal government can go to programs like rape crisis centers, children’s justice centers, domestic violence shelters; pay for funerals, housing or – like for the Blacks – therapy. Congress has passed laws sending more types of court fines and settlements into the fund.
It hasn’t been enough. The money going to crime victims has been dwindling since a peak in 2017.
That year, Utah received $17 million from the fund. In 2023, it was just $13.7. Most states have seen their victim funding decline by about 26%, according to figures from the Justice Department.
“But the model has always been unstable and unpredictable,” said Aswad Thomas, the vice president of the Alliance For Safety and Justice. It’s planning a crime victims march on Washington.
Thomas says the problem with compensating crime victims through prosecutions is no one can predict how many crimes will be prosecuted or how many defendants will have the ability to pay. Thomas and his organization support a bill in the U.S. Senate. It would bolster victims funding by diverting some money recovered in cases of fraud against the government. There’s been no action on the bill since June.
“We're seeing service providers having to close their doors,” Thomas said, “having to turn away victims.”
TO D.C.
Bush worries money is being left on the table – that the Justice Department, who is responsible for collecting the fines and penalties ordered by a federal judge, is not being aggressive enough in pursuing that money.
When FOX 13 spoke to Bush in July, she was planning a trip to Washington that included a meeting with Justice Department administrators.
“And so that is where I would go to actually get these questions answered,” she said.
But the mayor says no one at the Justice Department would confirm a meeting with her. When she arrived in the capitol, Justice Department staffers quit replying to her emails.
“They said,” Bush told FOX 13 when she returned from Washington, “after an internal meeting, that they, they didn't feel prepared to answer my questions.”
She instead spent her trip, Bush says, visiting with the U.S. Department of Transportation – she’s also trying to get road upgrades in Kearns – and speaking with Washington police about the challenges they encounter.
Would she say she was ghosted?
“Absolutely,” Bush replied. “One hundred percent.”
FOX 13 also asked the Justice Department branch responsible for the victims’ fund how much it’s been collecting from defendants. We never received an answer.
Elsewhere, the Justice Department has said it’s following the rules set by Congress.
“I'm not going to let it go,” Bush said.
“The question is very simple. Why are the collections not happening?”