Mormon columnist who preached "traditional values" busted for alleged child exploitation

For 25 years, Joseph Brent Walker wrote about upholding old-fashioned values. Police say he used a Braveheart alias to do the opposite.

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For roughly 25 years, Joseph Brent Walker wrote an independent column called ValueSpeak, syndicated in over two dozen newspapers, in which he talked about the importance of “traditional values.”

Like the time he said “faith is not for wimps” because it took “courage” to deal with life’s “apparent inequities.” For example, his children had grown up with relatively good health and safety, but that obviously wasn’t true for everyone. Why not? Where were the “guardian angels” for those other children?

So if guardian angels are in any way responsible for the safety and well-being of my family, I’m thankful. Truly, I am. But I don't understand the seeming capriciousness of the system. Why is it that my children seem to have been so conscientiously protected, while other children face the same situations they faced — including the simple daily act of going to school — with disastrous consequences? What happened to those guardian angels? Were they busy? Distracted? Not paying attention? Or just not very good at their jobs?

God only knows.

He also wrote about how he believed most of us were generally good, but there was something about the anonymity of the internet that unleashed something awful in certain people:

And then … I don’t know … something happens to some people. They start doing things and going places and saying stuff they would never do, go or say in the real world. One of my friends blames it on what he calls the “anonymous intimacy” of the Internet. If no one can see you and no one knows your real name, his reasoning goes, then you can say or do anything you want and not really be accountable for it.

And without accountability, he says, things can get ugly.

There was also the Mother’s Day column in which he talked about what attracted him to the woman he later married:

OK, I’ll admit it: I was first attracted to Anita because she was … well … hot.

…

But let’s be real here. Her … you know … hotness — especially those big, beautiful, bewitching eyes — played a significant role in the process that led me to ask for her hand in marriage. Come on, I was 22 years old at the time. It’s not like I was going to fall in love with someone simply because I thought she’d probably be a good mother to our children.

And yet, nine months almost to the day after we were married, that’s exactly what Anita was: the mother of our first child, confidently cradling in her arms a beautiful little girl who, everyone said, had her mother’s eyes.

She was hot, but she was also a good mother, and isn’t that even hotter? Okay. Some columns should just remain drafts, but there you go.

The point is: Walker is a guy who knew right from wrong, and his faith and family always kept him on the right track. It’s why, in 2011, he began working (for the second time) for Utah-based Deseret News as editor for the outlet’s faith section. He was a natural fit given that he previously worked in the Public Affairs Department of the Mormon Church and knew plenty about the LDS community. He stayed in that position for two years and more recently worked as a communications director for the Utah Department of Transportation.

Anyway, you know where this is going, don’t you?

Walker, now 70, was recently hit with multiple felony charges for allegedly chatting with an underage child (who was actually a cop) and sending that person illicit material.

During the operation, the decoy was contacted by an individual with a screen name of “William Wallace,” later identified by police as Walker, who reportedly started engaging in sexually explicit online conversations with the purported juvenile, court records detailed.

The suspect's intent, the detective noted, was “to seduce, lure, and entice” the minor into engaging in various sexual acts. The detective posing as a decoy made it “abundantly clear” she was claiming to be a 14-year-old girl.

Throughout the message threads, Walker allegedly stated he did not care if the girl was a minor, rather it was her age that made him aroused, police noted in the report. Walker then reportedly sent inappropriate images to the detective that he believed to be an underaged girl on at least two occasions.

(This is unrelated, but “William Wallace,” the character from Braveheart, is also the screenname Pastor Mark Driscoll used a while back to spread misogynistic and bigoted comments on a forum where he thought he was anonymous.)

Walker supposedly told the other person to keep their chats secret and laid out “elaborate fantasies about what he would do with said children if given the opportunity,” according to investigators.

“Defendant presents a substantial danger to the community, specifically to children,” [Layton Police Det. Travis] Rapp alleged in the document.

When he was contacted by a Deseret News reporter the day of his eventual arrest, Walker said, “I’m not aware of these charges… So I don’t have anything to say.”

So he finally learned to keep his thoughts to himself.

But then, upon learning he was on the verge of getting arrested, he tried to flee:

… there was evidence to suggest Walker attempted to flee the court’s jurisdiction before turning himself in, the prosecutor alleged. [Prosecutor Jacob] Gallegos told the judge when the warrant was first issued and before any charges were filed, prosecutors learned that a news outlet reportedly reached out to Walker and disclosed information on the case.

At that point, Gallegos said, Walker left work early and “was essentially on the run to some degree.” Officers were unable to locate Walker for several days until he hired a defense attorney who "essentially told him to turn himself in, Gallegos added.

He now faces up to five years in jail for each of the three charges.

Joseph Brent Walker during a hearing (screenshot via YouTube)

Floodlit.org, a website that tracks sexual abuse by members of the LDS Church, notes that Walker was a former Mormon bishop in the “early 1990s” and stake presidency counselor in 1993. After he was arrested, the court received letters of support from people who know him and insist he’s not really a threat to children. One supporter even said Walker “is a flawed man, but he is not a predator nor a threat to any community he is involved in.” Another insisted “Joe has always been a deeply religious person.” Another came from a Utah Valley University professor who said it was impossible for him to “reconcile the man I know and the person described in that article” (about Walker’s arrest), however he still asked “that [Walker] be released on bail pending trial.”

Walker was initially held in jail without bail, but he has since been released “to home confinement with an electronic ankle monitor.” He’s also forbidden from accessing the internet or having any contact with minors.

If you’re keeping score, Walker spent decades lecturing the public about morality and faith, using his columns to lament a world where “anonymous intimacy” could lead people astray. Yet when he was anonymous himself—or at least thought he was—he preyed upon the sort of victim he once claimed to protect. The same guy who questioned where the guardian angels were when children suffered was, by his own alleged actions, the very danger those angels should have been guarding against.

His writings preached accountability. His actual behavior mocked it.

This is the kind of hypocrisy we’re used to seeing from those who shout their religious values from rooftops. The louder they preach, the more likely it’s all an act. Walker presented himself as a man of faith, a steward of morality, and a former bishop who could shape communities with his righteous words. Behind the curtain, however, he was creating a very different story. That’s not just a personal failure. It’s an indictment of a culture that elevates men for their proclamations of virtue without scrutinizing what they do behind closed doors and open laptops.

Ultimately, his columns weren’t guides to a better life. They were ways to keep people off the scent.

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