At custody trial in Utah, experts say they believe kids' reports of abuse. Verdict delayed a month

What was expected as a weeklong trial in a closely watched Utah custody battle will now stretch on for at least another month to accommodate two key witnesses.

The delay comes as details of the father’s financial and living situation emerged in court; a second ex-wife alleged he abused her and her two young daughters; and experts cast doubt on whether the mother of the children in the case coached them to make false abuse claims, as Brett Larson has alleged.

Larson, the father, is one of the two witnesses and will continue his testimony in late January. The second is Michelle Jones, a social worker appointed by the court in 2021 to reunify Larson and his children.

On Dec. 15, the pediatrician of Larson’s 12-year-old daughter, Brynlee, testified about her multiple disclosures of sexual abuse to him.

The Arizona Republic generally does not name victims of abuse, but the siblings asked to be named to raise awareness about their case and advocate for other minors facing similar situations. Their mother supported that decision.

Dr. Benjamin Lauritzen said Brynlee told him her father sexually abused her repeatedly over a period of time.

In 2018, state child welfare officials investigated the case and found Brynlee’s allegations of sexual abuse were supported.

Larson denies abusing his children.

Under cross-examination, Larson’s attorney Ron Wilkinson asked Lauritzen if the claims of abuse had come from the children’s mother and Larson's ex-wife, Jessica Zahrt.

“So are you trying to ask me if her opinion has built what her children say?” Lauritzen responded.

“I’m asking if the mother reported to you things that she claims the children disclosed to her,” Wilkinson said.

“No,” Lauritzen responded.

Sharlene Christensen, a clinical mental health counselor to whom Brynlee also disclosed her account of abuse, was asked if she believed the child’s disclosures were influenced by someone else.

“Did Brynlee’s statements to you seem coached?” Steve Christensen, the attorney representing Zahrt, asked Christensen.

“No,” she responded.

“Did she ever tell you someone was telling her things about abuse?”

“No. I asked her at one point if her mom had told her to say these things and she said 'no.'”

Expert who backed father objects to appearing in court

Since May of 2018, shortly after his children began disclosing abuse, Larson has argued to the court that Zahrt influenced the children to falsely make claims against him as part of a campaign of “parental alienation.” That’s an unsupported psychological theory in which one parent brainwashes a child against the other parent.

But multiple professionals who worked with the mother and the children since the abuse disclosures began have testified that there is no basis for Larson's claims.

Jones, the court-appointed reunification therapist and a staunch defender of parental alienation, is one of the few professionals involved with the case who advised the court that Zahrt may have engaged in alienating her children from Larson.

In an interview with ProPublica earlier this year, Jones described Ty and Brynlee’s allegations of abuse as a “false narrative” and wrote in a report to the court that she suspected Zahrt was the source of the “false narrative,” rather than the children's “actual experience.”

Jones also advised the court require the minors to attend Turning Points for Families, a so-called reunification camp that claims to remediate victims of parental alienation. While the judge initially adopted this recommendation, he paused the order in January until he learned more about the program.

Though she was subpoenaed to appear, Jones did not show up at the trial the week of Dec. 11. Earlier this month, she objected to the court subpoena, citing media coverage of the case that she claims resulted in “harassment including death threats.” The court reissued a subpoena for her to testify in January.

Neither Jones nor her attorney, who filed an emergency motion for a protection order for her client last week, responded to a request for comment.

Father is unemployed, lives in parents' basement

A ruling in the case also was postponed because Larson abruptly left the courtroom on the trial’s last day due to what his attorney said was a kidney stone. Larson testified on the first day of trial that he intended to prove to his children the “truth of my innocence.”

Larson has pushed for custody of his children since May 2018, when he filed a petition with the court accusing Zahrt of launching the “alienation” campaign against him and “inducing” the children to make false allegations of abuse against him.

But Larson’s testimony about his current living arrangement raised questions about how he would support his children, if he were granted custody.

During the last two days of trial, Larson, 41, testified that he is unemployed and has not applied for a job in the past three years.

He testified that he lives in his parents’ basement, where he has resided for the past six years, and that his parents pay for all his living expenses, including food, utilities and transportation. In 2023, he did not pay any child support or medical expenses for his children, according to his testimony.

Zahrt’s lawyer, Steve Christensen also questioned Larson about an incident from July 2018, when he met a woman working as an escort in Las Vegas and invited her to live in the house he owned at the time, according to a police report.

When asked about the situation under cross examination, Larson testified that he “met her while attending a business meeting in Las Vegas” while he was trying to look for work. When he found her “soliciting sex and drugs” in his previous residence, he kicked her out immediately, he said.

Additional abuse claims from Larson’s second ex-wife, Cassandra Bradley, were also lodged against him in the final days of the trial.

Bradley testified about emotional abuse she said she and her young daughters endured from him during her marriage; the two separated in 2018. Child welfare caseworkers opened a case in 2015 to determine if Bradley’s two young daughters were sexually abused by Larson; the case was closed with unsupported findings.

“The kids and I were living, honestly, in a constant state of fear,” Bradley said, becoming emotional during her testimony. "It was a really hostile type of home environment — all of us were just always trying to be really careful not to set off his anger and avoid being subject of ... his ridicule.”

She described him as “merciless with shaming and embarrassing” the children, “especially Ty,” Larson's 16-year-old son.

“His father would laugh at him if he cried a lot of times and mock him ‘cuz he’s a boy," she said.

She said Larson would make derogatory comments about her in front of her young daughters, including accusing her of being unfaithful to him. She recalled he had made similar accusations about his first ex-wife, Zahrt.

“It really started putting question marks in my mind of like, if he can do this to me so easily and with no reasoning, it made me question the accuracy and the details of what he told me about his first wife.”

No direct communication with children for 2 years

Larson did not respond directly to Bradley’s claims. He did defend his decision not to have direct communication with his children over the past two years, saying he did not know if the text messages he received from them were from his children or “one of Jessica’s minions.”

“I just figured it's better not to risk puttin’ myself out there. It's far more better for me to concentrate my efforts on getting this courtroom to move forward with this process. And unfortunately, here we are six years later on something that should have taken a couple months,” Larson said, referring to the petition he filed in May 2018 for the court to award him full custody of the children.

“When you start to build your relationship with your children, where do you think the starting place is?” Christensen asked Larson.

“Every time we’ve rebuilt the relationship … it’s always just started out with a very basic understanding of how are things going in your life? I truly want to know ... I’m a dad, I want to know the basics.”

Hannah Dreyfus is an investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic. You can reach her at hannah.dreyfus@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Utah siblings custody trial delayed 1 month; experts say kids honest