Aspiring and ambitious men, driven by ego and the delusion of being led by God,

working inside the structure of a religious organization,

have always represented a threat to those they profess to help.

This is most certainly true when such men misuse their authority to covertly obtain

the private information of a person perceived as a threat to their power

and then distort and weaponize the information to harm the individual.

So it proved in the case of U.S. v. Summers.

Understanding of the U.S. v. Summers case requires appreciating the context of the events, which formally began in October 1993.

Several religions were born on the North American continent, two of which are the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Adventists worship on Saturday and believe the papacy and the United States government are the two great beasts mentioned in the book of Revelation. Mormons have another testament called the Book of Mormon, which they hold to be equal to the Holy Bible.

Although the religious leaders who influenced those who brought the legal action against Mr. Summers were members of the SDA church, the Mormon faith factors prominently in the milieu. Consequently, one particular aspect of the Mormon religion must be understood, and that is that Mormons are taught their families can be together after this life under a teaching best summarized as the doctrine of eternal families. As a result, Mormons feel they must strengthen relationships with all family members whether they are closely related or distant, dead or alive.

Mormons are taught that the eternal joining of families is possible through sacred but secret sealing ceremonies that take place in temples. (At one time these ceremonies involved blood oaths.) A proxy may also perform these temple rites for distant relatives who have died – the dead then have the choice to accept or reject the services performed for them by their close or distant family member, based on the church’s teachings on celestial marriage.

These oaths allow the stake presidents or other church leaders to exert control over individuals within families who have participated in the rituals, while the leaders maintain plausible deniability of their involvement and of the system itself. While they may not be aware of the obligation, anyone who has participated in one of these oaths is bound to comply with any demand imposed by another member or by the LDS church, provided the request is righteous. This practice is said to be pervasive in the LDS church much like it is in Freemasonry.

The U.S. v. Summers case was driven in large measure by pressure exerted on prosecutors by mid-level leaders in the LDS church – pressure brought to bear via the doctrine of eternal families. One particular contact used the available network of church members (both active and inactive) within the federal government. This man—Steve Butter—a retired White House aide, could activate people and systems in the LDS church to compel members to fulfill his wishes. He coerced certain LDS church members who were bound by oaths taken in temple sealing ceremonies to participate in his scheme by representing his requests as being sanctioned by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a member with whom he had a close personal relationship. Butter also represented the request as being sanctioned by a powerful Mormon senator. His plan included utilizing church connections to influence the FBI in the prosecution of Samuel Summers – behavior never officially endorsed by church leaders.

Once leaders in the LDS church realized his misuse of priesthood authority, they blocked his ascension within the church. The damage to Samuel Summers had been done, however. Even after Summers’ conviction and incarceration, the threats against him continued as an FBI agent who had previously worked as a private contractor for the SDA church – and was in need of funding his retirement – reopened the investigation.

Disclosure: Bipolar WINTER is a work of historical fiction, and the names of those involved in the

U.S. v. Summers case have been changed for their protection.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Vernon Lee Armor (now legally known as Samuel David Summers) was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He is related to SDA prophetess Ellen White through both his mother and his father. He is also related to 27 of the 28 founders or pioneers of the SDA church through his father. His great-great-grandmother on his mother’s side was of Sephardi Jewish descent, but his great-grandmother converted to the SDA church, under which faith his grandmother and mother lived. He was groomed by his father (a former minister of the Fletcher and Hendersonville churches in North Carolina who later became a church administrator) and other retired SDA leaders to become an SDA church administrator who would use the massive medical ministry of the church as an evangelistic tool. During the 10-year period in which Armor’s family lived in North Carolina, Armor was tutored by Ms. Torrance, the sister of Robert Pierson, president of the SDA church. If Ellen White's prophecies were to begin unfolding, Armor’s role would be to help strengthen the faith of Adventists by offering deeper insights into her prophecies.

When he was in high school, Armor’s goal was to become a surgeon, but he was led from childhood to believe that he must follow in his father’s footsteps to become a church leader and administrator. His plans later changed when he decided he wanted to finish college at Andrews University in Michigan, complete a Ph.D. at Harvard, and then teach Old Testament systematic theology and church history at Andrews University.

However, his life was to take a completely different course.

In 1980, he began to trade index options on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where he was on the road to a successful career in options trading. In 1982, he traveled from Nashville, Tennessee to Fletcher, North Carolina to meet with a few doctors who had asked him to trade options for them.

While there, Armor’s former Andrews University professor, Joseph J. Barringer, Ph.D., who was the minister at the Fletcher church, contacted him and asked if Armor could teach him about financial markets and investing. Armor obliged and was asked to help Berringer create a foundation with the secret intention of changing the future course of the Seventh-day Adventist church.

The foundation, the Rebok Research Institute, was to be established gradually, a plan Berringer explained by drawing on a nautical analogy, saying that a warship requires 17 miles of ocean water to turn around, but that same ship can be turned around in minimal space with the help of tugboats. The foundation was to become a tugboat helping to turn the direction of the SDA church.

The foundation was also intended to help church members understand why the church moved from its anti-Trinitarian teachings and away from Ellen White’s 1844 prophecies (the 2520 doctrine) to prevent any major splits in the church. The SDA church abolished these teachings to help sanitize its history and move its teachings into the next century. Specifically, the SDA church would need to embrace shifts in acceptance of social issues. The foundation would explain to church members why certain teachings had been dropped and why future changes would occur. Publicly, the foundation was understood to be a charitable outlet that provided guidance on matters such as family and individual health and education. Privately, though, the foundation’s intent was to manage the church’s public relations and aid the church in avoiding government sanctions such as revoking its tax exempt status. The foundation was designed to protect the church against the coming tsunami of social changes and prepare church members for those changes (to which they were personally and theologically opposed). Although these social issues have become widely accepted as part of mainstream culture, they were not understood as such in the 1980’s.

Berringer created the foundation at the request of Alfred McClure, on behalf of those above him in SDA church leadership who had sanctioned the foundation’s creation. These men were members of the Shmita Advent Rite of Freemasons who did not seek or receive approval of the SDA church. McClure, working as the hidden hand of the foundation, believed his intentions to be noble. Berringer, thinking he had the support of the retired General Conference members, exposed the secret intentions of the foundation. A few of the retired General Conference members who were not members of the Advent Rite did not want to move away from Ellen White and her prophecies, however. These were the fault lines – Advent Rite members wanted to remove Ellen White and her controversial prophecies (especially the 2300 day prophecy) from the history of the SDA church; non-Advent Rite church leaders believed the federal government would force the SDA church to embrace social changes or impose punitive demands that would result in the closure of the church.

Berringer and his associates secretly created pamphlets that contained the official message of the foundation. At the same time, Berringer disclosed the contents of the pamphlets and the goal of the foundation to several retired General Conference leaders. Berringer’s intention was to leave the ministry – he knew Desmond Ford was correct in exposing the church’s false teachings, but he knew he could not openly acknowledge that fact. Berringer saw an opportunity to make money from the foundation that would provide him a way to leave the church. When the real intentions of the foundation came to light, SDA church leadership panicked and closed the foundation just as it was preparing to open.

Berringer, who was in the process of being initiated into the first level of SDA leadership, was allowed to retire as the minister of a Utah church when he agreed to be interrogated by FBI agent Stan Faulkner and in his partner. In the interview, Berringer stated he knew church leaders would perceive Vernon Armor as a potential threat to the very existence of the SDA church. The interview was memorialized in an FD-302, but the FBI to date refuses to disclose the contents. Berringer’s punishment from the SDA church for his participation with the foundation was mitigated by his disclosure that Armor had studied SDA church teachings from a Jewish perspective and had shared his knowledge with others in the church. SDA church leaders perceived Armor as a threat to the church and feared he was creating a doctrinal earthquake by exposing the church’s erroneous teachings on the Sabbath, the Trinity, and the nature of the Messiah; they believed the revelation would result in a mass exodus from the church, especially of those by Jewish decent. Berringer convinced the leaders that Armor presented a threat to the very existence of the church by virtue of his Jewish heritage and his knowledge of the truth of these erroneous teachings of the SDA church. Robert Frogberger, president of the SDA church, prophesied that Armor would be imprisoned, and working with others, he made false allegations against Armor. He and others in leadership were determined to present Armor as an example of what would happen to sons who left the church or denounced its teachings after their fathers had been brought into the inner sanctum of the church in order to usher in the end times prophecies and help facilitate the church’s secret projects with the governments of the United States and other nations.

In 1989, Armor decided he couldn’t support a Sabbath (Saturday)-keeping church that teaches its young people they could be forced into prison or even lose their lives for not worshipping on Sunday. According to Ellen White’s prophecies, the United States government will pass laws forbidding any Christian from worshiping on a Saturday. Armor couldn’t reconcile himself to the ridiculous and dangerous teaching of the Adventist church. This, along with other false teachings, prompted him to leave the Seventh-day Adventist church. It was then that the man formerly known as Vernon Lee Armor adopted the name of his mother’s Jewish family and legally changed his name to Samuel David Summers. He advised all of his personal and professional associates in a written letter of the reasons for changing his name.

This is when his problems began.

The SDA church, under President Robert S. Frogberger, began to attack him.

The General Conference's former treasurer, Kenneth Emmerson, told close confidants that he was working to move his son-in-law, Robert Frogberger, from Latin America to North Carolina to become president of the North and South Carolina Conference of the SDA church. In reality, Frogberger was being brought in to see Summers put in prison. He was also charged with damage control related to the foundation. Beginning in 1983 within the inner circles of the SDA church, specific leaders initiated a vindictive campaign to punish Summers—someone they had been grooming for leadership—for leaving the church.

Emmerson asserted that Summers would use his Jewish background and understanding of scripture to make SDA members question and possibly renounce their belief in the seventh-day Saturday Sabbath, the state of the dead, the investigative judgment, the coming of the U.S. government's attack of the saints, and the Trinity. Emmerson said that Summers was a member of the Synagogue of Satan (Adventists’ pejorative term for the Jewish faith) and that he (Emmerson) needed help to demonstrate exactly what happens to someone who leaves “the true remnant church”, returns to Judaism, and then attacks the church.

Initially, Frogberger appeared to be successful in his mission, and he prophesied that he would put Summers in prison. Beginning in 1986, Frogberger, in an effort to divert attention away from his illegal activities falsely accused Summers of crimes and publicly urged members of the SDA church to help him put Summers in prison. At this point, Frogberger and his associates contacted a soon to be retired and self-serving FBI agent – someone they knew could be compromised – to help clean up the legal mess they were creating.

Under increasing and relentless pressure, Summers and his girlfriend Denise moved to Utah in 1992 with a plan to get married, start a family, and raise their children as Mormons. He received the blessing of his father, a retired SDA church administrator, who encouraged Summers to remember that he had family in the LDS church. Summers is (as of 2022) related to all 17 Mormon prophets through his father and is related to almost 90% of all the Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In Utah, Summers was introduced to a relative, Stephen Mark Butter, who, at that time, was the President of the LDS Highland Utah East Stake. After hearing about Summers’ needs, Butter asked Summers and Denise to move to a nearby campground so they would be living within his stake boundaries. Butter claimed that by virtue of his priesthood authority as a church official, he could use his wisdom and resources to help them as residents of the stake over which he presided. After seeking Butter’s guidance regarding marrying and starting a family, Summers received Butter’s encouragement and blessing. At the time, Samuel and Denise were fearful about marrying and starting a family, knowing attacks from the SDA church could cause their family great harm. They received Butter’s promise of protection from any additional attacks by SDA church leaders, and Samuel and Denise were married at the Ponderosa Ranch near Carson City, NV in May 1992.

The Summers's were convinced that they should start a family after being assured by Butter that the White House had become involved and would protect them from additional attacks from leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist church. Butter told the Summers's that he had prayed and had received prompting from the Holy Ghost that they should start a family.

After the Summers's first child was born, President Butter's advice to start and grow a family was reinforced in their Patriarchal Blessings. In the blessings, the Summers's were directed to have more children, even though the patriarch to whom Samuel was related knew Samuel had been indicted and was preparing for a federal white-collar criminal trial.

In 1992, the Summers's were told that they could move to Salt Lake City, where Denise would work as a registered nurse; when they moved outside the boundaries of Butter’s stake, they were compelled to pay him to continue to help them in a professional capacity (a service they received at no charge when they resided in his stake). The Summers's entered into a signed agreement with Butter stating he would continue to provide them advice and protection. As a professional, Butter said he could use more aggressive measures in his endeavor to protect them and not run the risk of violating the LDS church's political positions. When he began to realize how much money and influence the SDA church was putting into Summers’ prosecution, Butter determined he would need to marshal more resources to help them. At the time, unbeknownst to the Summers's, Butter was a paid political operative who regularly attempted to do damage control on behalf of prominent individuals and organizations.

The Summers's rented a small home in Salt Lake City owned by a retired attorney who was a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy but was unaware that he was also Summers' relative. The Summers's met with his son Steve, a man in his mid 20’s, to sign the lease agreement. Steve, who had been back from his mission for several years told the Summers's he still hadn’t read the Book of Mormon. Knowing the Book of Mormon is the foundation of the Latter-day Saints’ doctrine, Summers questioned the sincerity of the young man’s adherence to the faith. An LDS church member who claims to be devout but hasn’t read the Book of Mormon is viewed as a rebel or someone who is self-serving and not to be trusted. Summers came to learn that Steve was a fraud who participated in LDS church services and rituals only to be perceived by those inside the church as devout so he could receive benefits that naturally accrue to members. He leaned on his father’s reputation, and the Summers's knew from this first meeting that Steve was a self-promoter who used the LDS church to advance his own personal aspirations.

Soon after the Summers's moved into the house, Butter advised them to speak with an attorney named Richard Knoll who lived in Provo and was a childhood friend of Butter from the Spanish Fork, Utah area. Knoll revealed he had been asked to teach a class on the Book of Mormon at Brigham Young University, but he had never read it. He confessed to Summers that he (Knoll) felt grateful because for the first time in his life he was forced to take the time to read and study the complete book. Knowing he was in no position to teach a course on the Book of Mormon, Knoll relied heavily on conversations with Summers about comparative religion to grow his knowledge of the Book of Mormon and Jewish teachings. By virtue of his prominence in the LDS community, Knoll was able to continue perpetrating the fraud.

Knoll sent the Summerses to meet with an attorney in Salt Lake City named Bob who advised them to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in federal bankruptcy court to discharge their debts. Summers’ debt was a result of options trading he did with four physicians and two dentists in Nashville and with whom Summers entered into a business partnership. Unbeknownst to Summers, the group of doctors and dentists entered into additional agreements outside their agreement with Summers and then misled their creditors regarding their cash flow. Although the debt they accumulated was in a business partnership not involving Summers, his name was found on company documents, and Summers was made party to the legal action. Eventually, Summers was exonerated.

After the Summerses’ debts were discharged, a special order was written by the federal bankruptcy judge ordering the attorney who worked for the Seventh-day Adventist Church (Ellen Dogers) to cease harassing Summers and his family.

The federal bankruptcy judge also learned of the $700 million dollar lawsuit Summers filed in Los Angeles against the leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1989. When Robert Frogberger prophesied that Summers would be imprisoned for his role in assisting Berringer in creating the Rebok Research Institute, Frogberger rallied leaders in the SDA church to help fulfill this prophecy. A friend of Summers disclosed that he had been contacted by Frogberger’s associates to participate in the fraud related to his prophecy. The allegations ran rampant through the Adventist community and effectively ruined Summers’ reputation. Summers responded to this attempted character assassination and the closure of his company by filing a suit against the church and the leaders who slandered him.

SDA church attorneys never challenged the merits of the case surrounding the $700 million suit – only its technicalities. The state court threw out the lawsuit, and Summers was advised not to refile based on the technicalities. The FBI also dropped its investigation of the Nashville company accused of fraud when the federal bankruptcy judge declared the case to be without merit. Summers later learned the head of the FBI investigation was a fifth cousin who was stake president in Eureka, CA. When he (William Miller/Bill Hiller) ascended in the FBI organization, his replacement at the FBI (someone who had worked under Bill Hiller) and he allowed Stan Faulkner to reopen the case. (Stan Faulkner) was later persuaded by the SDA church’s attorney (Ellen Dogers) to reopen the case in Scottsdale, AZ. Summers came to learn the FBI employs many individuals who are members of a machine that facilitates their lust for power, and the organization provides protection for individuals who have learned how to advance their own economic or political agendas.

Other attorneys also learned that Dogers had persuaded the court in L.A. to drop Summers’ suit against the SDA church, so they advised Summers’ attorney that she (Dogers) might act unethically in the future. In addition, the bankruptcy attorney advised Summers that if there were ever any indications that the SDA attorney was trying to become involved in his life again, whether directly or behind the scenes, he should re-file the $700 million dollar lawsuit as a fraud on the court case. Dogers enjoyed job security representing the SDA church, hospitals, and related entities, and she guaranteed her income doing Frogberger’s bidding – the knowledge she held over Frogberger and other SDA church leaders provided her protection from ever being fired. Summers’ attorney asked the federal bankruptcy judge to strengthen the language of the court order banning and enjoining any further harassment or stalking by the SDA attorney (Dogers). She and anyone associated with her were ordered to never be involved or associated with Summers or his family again from that point forward. As a result, the SDA church put resources into protecting her and replacing her with other attorneys to continue to harass Summers.

The investigation into Summers’ company, Megatrend, ended in 1990. Stan Faulkner opened an investigation into Summers’ company, Gift of Health, in 1992. Despite being ordered to drop the case and to cease all harassment of the Summerses, Ellen Dogers stayed involved with Stan Faulkner behind the scenes. When Faulkner reopened the case, he did it against Megatrend. By reopening the Megatrend case through a specious investigation of Gift of Heath in Arizona, he committed fraud, but he did it in order to walk the case through the court. A judge later admitted the defense attorney (1996-1998) that Faulkner filed the case improperly and it should have been thrown out, but he allowed it to continue.

Meanwhile, Butter promised to help Summers build The Orion Institute for an additional fee. The name of The Orion Institute comes from a reference to the Orion nebula made by Dr. C. W. Post (founder of the Post Cereal Company) in one of his lectures. While listening to the lecture, Ellen White heard a vision that Christ would return through the Orion nebula. White combined Post’s words with the message she received in her vision and presented them as a prophecy. According to White, at the return of Christ, humans begin “youthing” toward an optimum age.

From childhood, Summers learned of these prophecies in church and began what he called “the Orion file” in 1967. Over the years, this file grew to include multiple editions. Summers believed the Orion file would become part of his work as an SDA church administrator using its medical arm to become the world’s leader in life extension research.

In 1992, Summers founded the Orion Institute in Salt Lake City to help finance the building and administration of the first dry lab in California, the Thorn Project. The Thorn Project’s name comes from a rose with thorns that prick the skin and metaphorically penetrate the soul and kill the body. The Thorn Project advanced the idea that “youthing” is associated with the coming of the Messiah. The Orion Project also intended to use the emerging technology of medical infomatics and artificial intelligence (AI) to help humans reset their energy and intelligence fields to eliminate disease before it manifests in their bodies. The dry labs of the Thorn Project were designed to help heal humans from disease, including aging.

Also in 1992, Joseph Verner Reed, Jr., Undersecretary of the United Nations, invited Summers to the United Nations to introduce the Orion Institute. Butter knew Reed and facilitated the invitation.

Summers was still driven to accomplish the goals of life extension research outside the SDA church.

At the same time, Butter also told Summers that he wanted to use his background in politics to prepare Summers to run for senator at some point in the future as a way to help promote the Orion Institute's intentions and generate support for the institute from individuals in the political world. Summers was a supporter of the man then in office, Senator Orval Batcher, and knew, but kept private, that he was not only related to the senator, but also to Robert N. Batcher, whom Summers had hired to run the Orion Institute.

The following year (1993), Summers again met with Bob, the Salt Lake City attorney. At that meeting, Summers explained how Butter was encouraging him to start publicizing his interest in running for public office if and when one of the two Utah senators announced his retirement. Bob told Summers that the most influential church leaders, wealthiest businesspeople, and every politician in Utah would run him out of the state and get a federal court order keeping him out if they ever discovered he was even contemplating a run for public office. He was told those rich and influential people had spent too much time and money cultivating their men in office and working to ensure they would remain there.

Then, out of the blue, Richard Knoll asked Summers if he believed that polygamy would ever be practiced on this earth again.

Summers replied by saying polygamy isn’t mentioned in the Book of Mormon, and he wasn’t sure if the prophet Joseph Smith actually practiced the kind of Celestial Marriage that Brigham Young later practiced. Summers then told Bob that the answer to his question had to be ‘yes’ if one believed in what the LDS church apostle, Bruce R. McConkie, wrote concerning resuming the “holy practice.” Summers also mentioned that there were issues that needed to be better understood. He asked Bob if he had been sealed to his wife, and the attorney said he had. Summers then asked him what would happen if his wife were to die and he were to remarry and be sealed to his new wife. Summers asked Bob if being sealed to two righteous Mormon ladies for time and all eternity would mean that he would be involved in polygamy in the here and now as well as sealed into polygamy for all eternities (thus having a second eternally sealed polygamist wife).

Summers told Bob that polygamy was not something that was relegated to the past. He said that for many, it was in the present and would continue into eternity. He even told the attorney that he might see the day when top leaders of the Mormon faith would lose their first wife and then be sealed to a second polygamist wife. Summers also asked Bob how he would deal with children who were sealed to their father who later died, should their mother remarry and want to be sealed to her new husband. Could she also ask that her children be sealed to her second husband? Bob stated that a child cannot have two fathers throughout eternity.

After recounting the meeting with Knoll to Bob, Summers felt uncomfortable about the conversation with Knoll. He feared Knoll had asked him about a subject he (Knoll) didn’t understand enough about himself because he planned to use the conversation as a way to discredit, frame, or otherwise hurt Summers with LDS thought leaders.

Soon after the meeting with Bob, Summers met with an assistant to Butter (Tom Mercer) and Mercer told Summers he was concerned that the conversation he’d had with Knoll was designed to set him up, so Knoll or Butter could report Summers to what was called the Strengthening Church Members Committee and initiate an investigation. Summers was told that the committee was made up of many retired Mormon FBI and CIA agents who had a history of working behind the scenes to obtain the outcomes they were seeking.

Mercer also said that the issue of Summers’ potential run for public office could simply be a pretext used by Butter to initiate meetings with other politicians – maybe even Senator Orval Batcher himself – and inform them that he needed to protect them from Summers’ desire to seek public office, all in an effort to endear himself to the politicians.

From Mercer, Summers learned of Butter’s reputation for being a big dreamer and self-promoter who knew how to market himself to convince potential clients he could deliver on whatever he promised. Summers was cautioned to be careful because if Butter couldn’t accomplish what he pledged to do, and because he had a history of failing to deliver on what he had promised, Butter would want to distance himself from the payments he received – money given to him by Summers’ pathologist friend (Dr. Jerry Stable) as well as another relative living south of Salt Lake City, both of whom loved and supported Summers and his wife.

The Summerses believed there were two possible explanations for the discussion at the meeting with Knoll: either Butter was setting Summers up by having Knoll ask these questions as a way to ensure the LDS church’s continued support for Butter and his family, or Butter was concerned with his own political future and believed he needed to hold leverage over Summers to protect his interests. Summers was told he needed to pray and decide if he wanted to expose what was going on with the authorities or trust what Butter had been promising. Summers, once more, agreed to keep private the fact that Summers and Butter were related until he could discover the real intentions of Butter, who was becoming deeply involved in the world of Utah penny stock companies.

Soon after, Summers was invited to a state dinner at the Utah Capitol building, and LDS church president Gordon B. Hinckley, Summers’ relative, was sitting at the next table. Richard Knoll was seated on Hinckley’s left, and on his right was Butter. The head of the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Utah was sitting next to Summers. Butter had organized the dinner and the seating arrangements.

After the dinner, Summers’ wife told him he had just been given confirmation that either what Butter had promised was true or that they had been shown the commencement of a massive scheme – a plot meant to use Summers and what Butter had learned about Summers’ educational background, SDA heritage, and the preparations for his future, as a way for Butter to gain influence with the president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Butter wanted to be seen as a hero to leaders of the LDS church by orchestrating an arrangement with Adventists to facilitate Mormons’ going to Loma Linda to train to become doctors and dentists. Butter wanted to find the right contacts in the SDA church to create an open door policy for Mormons at Loma Linda. Butter believed facilitating an alliance between the LDS and SDA churches would seal his own power as an aide to Hinkley. In an effort to position himself as Hinkley’s right hand man, Butter also revealed to Hinkley secrets Summers had shared with him of Joseph Smith and the Mormon church’s history. One such revelation was the pre-SDA organization’s attempts to persuade Joseph Smith to adopt William Miller’s prophecies and teachings. Pre-SDA church Shmita Advent Rite Masons such as Miller were influencing the federal government and local lodges to make polygamy illegal and modify the teachings of the LDS church to make them acceptable to federal and state authorities. Butter understood that LDS prophets are consumed with protecting the LDS church’s image. Sharing this new information concerning how Joseph Smith was martyred provided Butter an opportunity to prove his bona fides as a leader of the LDS church, and by continuing to feed Hinkley little-known information, Butter sought to ascend the hierarchy of the LDS church. Additionally, Butter knew that as information regarding Summers’ case was revealed, he (Butter) would need protection, so he was creating layers of protection for himself by involving many other people.

When Summers arrived at the Orion Institute the following morning, the executive secretary, a paralegal, greeted him at the door and introduced him to an attorney she said was her former boss. The attorney, Richard Dailey, who was also a Mormon bishop and was related to Summers, told Summers not to trust Butter and to immediately report him to the state and federal authorities. Dailey then said that he had sued Butter for fraud just before Butter left Utah years earlier to work at the White House, and Butter had escaped the lawsuit only by negotiating a financial settlement agreement.

Summers suspected that if Butter was using the information for his own gain rather than to help Summers, then he (Summers) would soon be indicted for a fraudulent white collar crime based on claims made by the SDA church. For several years, the SDA church had been accusing Summers of fraud, and Summers believed it would continue and ultimately lead to an indictment.

Butter asked Summers if he wanted Butter to use the Presidential estoppels, which Butter had been paid to secure from the White House (Butter advocated on Summers’ behalf to secure the estoppel), or if Summers wanted him to allow the indictment process to continue so that one day the matter could be resolved through a federal court, the SDA church, and/or the media. Summers was told that the indictment process would allow the federal court to become involved and thus put an end to the ongoing attacks against his family by the president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (Robert Frogberger), and that an indictment might have more teeth than the Presidential estoppels, which he had been assured had been successfully secured.

Butter then told Summers that the son (Fred) of the LDS General Authority from whom he rented his house had just been in his office and reported that Summers didn't own the new 1993 Lexus LS 400 he was driving. Fred had seen the name of a medical doctor (Jerry Stable) on the new car's window sticker. Summers told Butter that he and his wife had only talked with Fred a few times and didn't care to know him or his wife, but that the Summerses had been given the car by a Stable, who was like a brother to him. Stable gave Summers the car as a way to pay the balance of an invoice he owed Summers. Summers asked Butter why Fred would be giving Butter this private information, but Butter gave him no answer. (Summers later learned that Fred was looking for dirt on Summers at the behest of Butter.)

A month later, Dr. Stable secured Summers' bail by offering the federal court a large amount of money and property, after Summers was arrested and transported to Northern California for trial. Later, Mercer told Summers that Butter wanted to misrepresent information to reflect poorly on the Summerses. At the same time, the authenticity of the Presidential estoppel Butter had obtained was being questioned.

Approximately 6 months prior to Summers’ indictment (in September of 1993), Butter told Summers that the judge (Jensen) in Northern California (whom Butter, while working at the White House, had helped gain appointment to the federal courts) might be taking his case. Summers asked Butter how this would be legal, but Butter gave him no answer. Jensen had been subjected to accusations regarding his involvement in illegal activity due to his role in the Inslaw Affair when the United States Congress tried to have him imprisoned, and thus he understood Summers’ plight. In addition, as a senior district judge, Jensen had the ability to hand pick the criminal cases he wished to adjudicate.

There is no indication that the majority of Mormon individuals mentioned knew that they were related to Samuel Summers. As active or inactive Mormons, they may or may not have been asked to use their influence or loyalty to the LDS church to facilitate the program which unlawfully walked Summers into and through the criminal justice system. However, DNA has now revealed that a large pool of Mormons who are related to each other and to Summers were in some way assembled and used for such a purpose.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

In late 1992, Summers slipped on ice hidden under new snow on the walkway leading into a Utah state office, where he was preparing to file corporate papers concerning the Orion Institute. He suffered a spiral break and was taken to the hospital where 14 breaks in his left leg were surgically repaired. He was on crutches for many months. He continued to build the Orion Institute and believed Butter would help him launch the project as he had promised.

In a meeting in early 1993, Summers casually talked to Butter about a technology that enables speech-to-text commands. Butter became interested in the technology and abandoned his promises to help Summers launch the Orion Institute. Butter soon met with an engineer from BYU to discuss the speech-to-text command technology. Butter became interested in using the technology and asked Summers to help raise money to launch the project. Summers had no intertest in launching this project, as his commitment was to the Orion Institute. This sudden shift was a red flag for Summers, who realized Butter was only interested in money. Butter knew that great wealth exists in the SDA church, and he wanted to tap into it through Summers. Butter never understood the significance of what Summers wanted to build with the Orion Institute and was never committed to the project’s cause.

In late 1992, Butter asked Summers if he would be willing to raise money for a new speech recognition software company called Fonix Corporation. Butter also told Summers that Africa was going to be the next continent where big money would be made, and they needed to invest in gold. Summers stated that he needed to stay focused on protecting his new family and not raising money for Butter or his company. (At this point, Summers was very concerned over having told Butter everything about the Rebok Research Foundation – something that the leaders of the SDA church were trying to keep covered up – and which motivated these leaders to work to have Summers put in prison.)

Following this conversation with Butter, Summers was visited by one of the 12 apostles of the LDS church (Nick Caldwell) to whom he was related – just a few days before he was to be arrested. In his late evening visit, Caldwell indicated the conversation was confidential – he wanted to learn more about Summers’ work with the Orion Institute and his SDA church background. Caldwell also said he knew Summers was supposedly being guided and helped by Butter. Caldwell encouraged Summers to be cautious. In hindsight, Summers believes Butter asked Caldwell to protect Butter if Butter alleged wrongdoing by Summers. Butter was planning to betray Summers and wanted to know if Caldwell would support him.

Summers believes Caldwell was seeking more information about the situation, and he believes Mercer was correct that Butter was a conman trying to secure support from LDS leadership to approve what he (Butter) was in the process of doing. Additionally, Butter wanted to protect Hinkley from becoming embroiled in a scandal, so he reached out to Caldwell instead, hoping to give Hinkley plausible deniability if he were ever questioned on the matter.

Every time Summers called Butter’s office in the days following Caldwell’s visit, the phone was answered by the husband of one of his relatives – the son-in-law of LDS president Gordon B. Hinckley – who repeatedly told Summers that Butter was no longer available. Summers realized Butter was severing the relationship and was going to betray Summers. A few days later, Summers was arrested.

After being arrested, Summers was taken before a Mormon federal magistrate in Salt Lake City, to whom who he was related. This magistrate began Summers's in-custody arraignment process.

A relative and close friend of Summers living south of Salt Lake City (Bethany) offered to pay his bail, but Summers declined.

After Summers was arrested, he heard from an attorney, who was also the stake president of what was then called the Monument Park North Stake in Salt Lake City; this man (Myron Poelman) had granted Summers his temple recommend. The Summerses lived in Poelman’s stake, and Poelman assured Summers, who was not aware that he was related to Poelman, that Summers wouldn't lose his temple recommend or priesthood ordinations because Summers had made Poelman aware prior to receiving his temple recommend (just weeks before his arrest) of all the details concerning how and why his family was being stalked and attacked by people associated with SDA church leadership. As he received his temple recommend, Summers had also let Poelman know that he and his wife had paid Butter to secure a Presidential estoppel. During the meeting in which Poelman granted Summers’ temple recommend, Poelman became very suspicious and asked Summers to see him sometime in the near future to tell him more about what Butter had done for the Summers family; Poelman was aware of Butter’s reputation for fraudulently claiming he could secure favors on others’ behalf. Poelman doubted the legitimacy of the estoppel Butter alleged to have secured for Summers. The follow-up meeting between Poelman and Summers never happened because Summers was arrested one week before their appointment. Poelman was arrested one week later.

Summers soon learned that Butter (with the help of Orval Batcher) was preparing to have Summers placed before the federal judge in California and walked through the system by the judge over whom they had leverage as the result of an investigation into the Inslaw Affair; Butter was also coordinating the filling of Summers’ LDS church file with lies meant to assassinate Summers’ character – and meant to provide cover for Butter if his illegal actions were ever exposed.

During the 2 1/2 years of the pretrial phase, Summers introduced the son of one of his best friends (Dr. Stable) to a lady the son soon thereafter married; this woman was a medical doctor from Romania with a specialty in radiology and fellowship training in neuroradiology. She and their baby later had to move away from her husband (Ken Stable) because he became so abusive to her. Summers’ friend Dr. Stable was a pathologist who had posted bail for him after Summers was flown from Utah to San Francisco. Stable had also been a member of the board of directors of the company from which Summers had been accused of misappropriating funds. His son Ken had received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and had earned a law degree from U.C. Berkeley. The federal judge in Summers' case had been trying to hire Ken to work as one of his clerks. The judge's head clerk was a red haired young lady who had gone to school with Ken and liked him very much. In the meantime, Summers went to visit Dr. Stable to ask him why he hadn’t wanted to testify in Summers’ defense. Dr. Stable admitted he hadn't wanted to run the risk of becoming implicated. When Ken Stable learned of the questions Summers asked his father, he emailed and called the lead clerk in Judge Jensen's office. She scolded him (because this contact was unethical and illegal) and said that if anyone ever learned that he’d asked her to initiate having Summers’ bail removed and having him ordered to prison, she would be removed from her job and possibly prosecuted. Additionally, the U.S. v Summers case would likely be dismissed. Ken Stable stated he would never call or email her again because he understood that the very fact that they had made contact would, if discovered, cause them great trouble. However, Ken Stable did communicate with the clerk again, prompting the judge to reconsider hiring him as a clerk.

The continued illegal contact between Ken Stable and the judge’s clerk should have been enough, in a fair world, to have had the case against Summers thrown out of court. Instead, Summers was ordered to Judge Jensen's courtroom, where his bail was removed, and he was ordered to report to prison two weeks later. At that hearing, Mr. Summers saw the red-headed clerk for the first time in the five years he had been in Judge Jensen's courtroom. She walked by him at the end of the hearing and glared, unaware that a close family friend of the abused neuroradiologist, who was hearing updates from friends of the new attorney, had been keeping Summers informed of the case’s details, including that the red-headed clerk would show up that day with a male colleague. Dr. Stable was grateful that Summers didn’t report his son and the judge's red-headed clerk and thus do to them what was being done to Mr. Summers.

At the hearing where Summers' bail was removed, the St. Helena branch president to whom Summers was related (Banderson) sat beside Summers as the judge talked to others in the room. Banderson ensured Summers' wife and children were cared for while he was incarcerated. Willis, the man who had given Summers a patriarchal blessing many months earlier, also sat next to Summers.

At Summers’ arraignment, his attorney asked the magistrate why he had not ordered Butter to appear. The attorney explained that Butter had been paid a great sum of money to secure a Presidential estoppel on Summers’ behalf and the case should (with the help of Orval Batcher) therefore not be moving forward. The magistrate simply said he didn’t need to hear from Butter, and the magistrate continued with the proceedings.

Summers was then placed in a county jail near Salt Lake City that was directed by a Mormon warden to whom he was related. Summers was in that jail for a week before being transferred to northern California.

Prior to his transfer to California, Summers received an in-jail phone call from a friend (Christenson) – the father of the missionary who baptized him and who had also introduced him to Butter – who had talked with Butter. Christenson told Summers that Butter wanted him to know that he (Butter) would be having Senator Orval Batcher over to his home for dinner a few weeks later. The Summerses assumed Butter wanted them to hear that news as a way of making them think Butter was working to help Summers clear his name and restore his freedom – or perhaps it was the exact opposite, and Butter was alerting Batcher of Summers’ plan to challenge Batcher for his Senate seat and ingratiate himself to Batcher.

Butter feared that Summers might disclose the details of what Butter had promised him if Butter didn't use additional tactics to ensure that Summers continued to trust him. Two months later, Summers was out on bail and living in Scottsdale, Arizona. Butter had Christenson call Summers again to tell him that Butter would soon be flying to Phoenix to meet Summers to give him an update. The visit from Butter, of course, never happened.

At the same time, Summers' father was told by an attorney working in the SDA General Conference World Headquarters that he’d received word a plan was being developed in Utah to make sure Summers would never have credibility within the Mormon priesthood and thus would never be asked to speak in an LDS meetinghouse or fireside evening meeting or hold an office within the church. This attorney was told it was a direct request from the SDA General Conference President (Robert Frogberger). Summers' father was also told that Summers should expect to have LDS home teachers visit with him on a regular basis until he went to trial, and after that, the plan was to stop spying on him because the narrative was designed to protect those who were behind the scheme to destroy Summers.

Meanwhile, Butter was orchestrating the doctoring of Summers’ official LDS file to create a written record that might serve to protect those working the plot if their actions were ever exposed.

Summers, who was afflicted with aviophobia, was next flown on Conair to San Francisco, where he was appointed a related Mormon pretrial officer in Mesa, Arizona. Summers lived in Scottsdale for two years preparing for trial.

The original prosecutor (to whom Summers later learned he and the judge were related) quit the federal white collar criminal case the same evening he read the first defense brief given to him (under seal) by Summers’ attorney. This document (the Butter brief) exposed Summers’ relationship with Butter and the then head of the LDS church (Hinkley) as well as the stalking of Summers being directed by Frogberger, president of the SDA church.

A public defender later stated that the replacement prosecutor was suggested by a Mormon prosecutor (the daughter of the trial judge) who was related to Summers. The appointment of the new prosecutor (to whom Summers was related) had to be approved by an official (who was also related to Summers) who worked in the Northern District of California. Most of these individuals had participated in secret sealing ceremonies in the LDS church and as such were bound to oaths of loyalty to each other and the church.

Summers' trial was officiated by a Mormon federal judge to whom Summers was related, and Summers was forced to sit with his back to the judge during the entire trial. The prosecution phase lasted more than three weeks, but the defense phase was completed in less than 9 hours. Every day, during lunch, Summers would listen to his defense attorneys visiting with other attorneys from the public defender's office. The public defense attorneys stated that if anyone ever read the trial manuscripts, the case would be overturned.

One of many examples of misconduct was the judge’s constant coaching of the prosecutor. The public defenders had never seen a case in which the trial judge (who started his career as a prosecutor and became a United States Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division and a United States Associate Attorney General) had so overtly prosecuted from the bench. Throughout the trial, the judge asked the prosecutor if he wanted to object. The dutiful prosecutor would jump up out of his slumber and object. The defense attorneys even said that the second prosecutor must have been offered an outside job in private practice because of the risk he was taking in allowing the judge to openly direct his every action. After the trial, the second prosecutor was indeed offered and accepted a job with a large, prestigious law firm.

The first federal court order issued by Summers' relative, Judge Jensen, declared Summers was not to travel into or through the state of Utah. That order was to remain in place for ten years. (The order remained in place until after Summers' pretrial, trial, appeals, incarceration, and three-year probation had been completed—from 1993 through 2003).

During the first year under this no-travel order, Summers learned that Dr. Berringer, along with his wife and family, had moved to Sandy, Utah. The SDA General Conference associate counsel told Summers' father that Berringer had already started meeting with certain people in Utah as a way to undermine Summers' credibility. They were using the same narrative the federal court had been influenced to use as they moved to take Summers to trial and convict him – the claim that Summers was a thief who defrauded investors.

Summers' attorney declined Summers’ request to ask Judge Jensen to recuse himself from the U.S. v. Summers criminal case, so Summers went to the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein to inquire as to how he could request a different judge, but she refused to meet him. However, one of her staff members told Summers that Senator Feinstein and her first husband were longtime friends of the judge, so Summers might be wise to remain with the conflicted judge rather than asking for a new one.

A different attorney in Utah, who was retained to help Summers receive damages from his slip and fall accident, called to tell Summers, just as his federal trial was to begin, that a most unusual thing had occurred: based on every case the personal injury attorney had ever seen, Summers should have been awarded at least $120,000 in damages, but the court only offered to pay his legal bills, plus approximately $4,000 in travel expenses. The attorney asked Summers if it was possible someone behind the scenes was trying to keep him from receiving fair compensation for his injury. He further stated he believed Summers was the victim of a scheme to deny him compensation to which he was entitled. This personal injury attorney was related to Summers, though at the time both men were unaware of the fact.

Many strange and statistically improbable things occurred during the trial. The first two were related jury selection. Approximately 500 people arrived on the first morning of the trial with their jury summons. These potential jurors – venirepersons – sat in the courtroom as the prosecution and defense conducted voir dire, the process during which attorneys select and reject jurors. (The defense has the ability to request that the court disqualify six members of the venire, the complete group, so the defense must be judicious in identifying only those who appear to be the most biased.) A woman disclosed during voir dire that she was the wife of a prosecutor who had been appointed to his position by Judge Jensen. Members of the defense team all agreed that they had to spend one of their six requests for disqualification on her. Someone made a call to the public defender's office and several attorneys arrived to ask more questions about what had just transpired. While the additional attorneys were present, another woman was questioned, and she also stated that she was the wife of a prosecutor whom Judge Jensen had appointed to office. Again, the defense team chose to spend one of its six disqualifications on her. At that point, even more attorneys arrived from the public defender's office. They perceived the judge was presiding over a charade of a trial. An hour later, as the head of the large public defender's office arrived, a third woman was being questioned, and she, too, stated that she was the wife of a prosecutor who had been appointed by Judge Jensen. At that point, everyone at the defense table and those who had come to observe knew that there was no way that out of millions potential jurors, three wives of prosecutors living in Alameda County would all be included in the same venire. This was an attempt to force the defense to spend half of its disqualifications on the wives of men Judge Jensen had come to know after working most of his life in the same county. Moreover, it was a warning to the leaders of the defense team that a kangaroo court was being orchestrated right before their eyes and they were powerless to do anything about it. The suggestion was also made that at least two of the women and their husbands were Mormon, although it wasn’t known at that point if Summers was related to any of the three disqualified women or their husbands.

At the very center of the venire was a young woman. After the sixth or seventh potential juror had been called for questioning, she appeared to stand and wave her arms, pointing to the prosecutors’ table and specifically to the FBI agent who was sitting next to the prosecutor. Summers avoided looking at her, knowing that her actions were extremely inappropriate, although he did ask the court appointed defense investigator why the judge was not doing anything about her. He was shocked to hear the investigator’s answer: the lady was most likely a plant trying to bias the potential jurors against the defense by showing disrespect for the FBI agent who was sitting next to the prosecutor (which was highly unusual in cases such as this). Summers’ attorney advised him to continue to avoid eye contact. Mr. Summers was also told that the woman would most likely still be sitting in her seat when the 12 jurors, along with the alternate jurors, had been chosen. By the time the selection process had finished, only 20 people were left in the venire, and she was one of them.

Summers’ wife was told that her testimony was going to be a vital part of her husband's court appointed attorney's defense and was asked to spend hours every evening preparing to be cross-examined.

During the trial, Summers was asked to sign an order preventing him from mentioning any information concerning Ellen Dogers (the one who in 1985 filed a civil judgment of approximately $1,088,000 against Summers before it was dismissed by a federal judge in Utah). The SDA church leaders, as well as Dogers, had been assured that their character assassination plot against Summers guaranteed he could never resurrect his 1989 $700 million lawsuit.

Three days before the trial ended, Summers' wife received a phone call telling her the prosecutor had just threatened to indict her in front of the jury if she took the stand the following day and testified for the defense.

At the end of the trial in 1996, Summers was ordered to pay a "criminal judgment" of approximately $1,088,000 and serve a 47-month prison sentence. Soon after, he received word that Robert Frogberger was praising the Lord that his prophecy had come true: Dogers had been able to resurrect Summers’ civil judgment (which years earlier had been thrown out of court by a federal judge) as a criminal judgment with the help of a long list of employees of the U.S. Department of Justice who were Mormons who had received temple recommends and were all related to each other and to Summers. Dogers had been saying for years that she was going to find a way to have the civil judgment turned into a criminal judgment and put Summers in prison and thus fulfill the prophecy of the president of the SDA church who died on Christmas Eve, 2015.

At that point, Summers' wife wrote a letter to their St. Helena, California, Mormon branch president, to whom Mr. Summers was related. She never received a reply, and two weeks later she learned the branch president had been elevated to the Napa stake presidency.

Lawrence, the former president of the Napa, California stake of the LDS church (to whom Summers was related) was released from his position as soon as the letter from Ms. Summers was received. Lawrence was the deputy sheriff in the Napa office who had investigated the 1989 break-in of the Summerses home and the killing of the Summerses’ pet dogs.

Summers appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. While working on his appeal, he received an inappropriate, hostile, and threatening email from FBI agent Stan Faulkner, who had been talking about his need to retire. A federal investigator told the Summerses that Faulkner had been raised in an American-grown religion (such as the SDA and LDS), but the federal investigator stated that he could not give Summers any more details on the matter. At this point, none of the parties realized the extent to which Mormons participated in the scheme to walk Summers through the federal courts. And while everyone could see the farce occurring in Summers’ trial, they did not realize Faulkner’s role in orchestrating the scheme.

During Summers' appeal, he was given a Mormon blessing by a man and his son – distant relatives – who were living in Napa Valley. During the blessing, the following words were used: "May it be that the workings behind the scene be veiled from the eyes of Mr. Summers until his eyes need to be opened."

In Summers’ appeal, the Ninth Circuit court wrote that they couldn’t issue a ruling on Summers' defense at trial because in reviewing the transcript of the 9-hour defense, they couldn’t find that any credible defense was presented – just many questions about whether the brother (Lowell Plubell, D.D.S.) of the director of the worldwide SDA Church's educational program (Dennis Plubell) was the father of twins. Dennis Plubell was also a close friend of Frogberger.

Polly Stone, the Gift of Health bookkeeper, was 5-months pregnant with twins when she testified in June of 1996. Stone doctored the books to indicate Fielding (Summers’ co-defendant) stole $70,000 from the company when, in fact, he had left the money (his finder’s fee) in the company to be used as needed by the company. The judge wouldn’t allow Summers' defense attorney to pursue discovery of what clearly appeared to be material perjury by both the dentist and the bookkeeper in cross-examination, although it was vital to the defense to find out if the dentist was the father of the bookkeeper’s unborn twins, as the dentist and bookkeeper had each sworn under oath that they had not had sex from December of 1993 until June of 1996. (Material perjury can change the outcome of a trial and subjects the perjurer to incarceration.)

Summers was told he was related to two of the three judges hearing his Ninth Circuit appeal. All three judges ruled against Summers, stating that they couldn’t say that his attorney hadn’t presented an appropriate defense when no defense at all could be found in the record, which was patently absurd.

Summers then appealed to the Supreme Court, and his case was put in front of Sandra Day O'Connor, whose parents had been sealed to each other, as well as to their children, in a Mormon temple. Summers was related to Sandra Day O'Connor through both her mother and father. She refused to hear Summers’ case.

In August 1998, U. S. Attorney General Janet Reno named Robert Mueller, a non-Mormon relative of Summers, as the new U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. Papers filed in Northern California made clear that Ms. Reno had received the blessings of the federal court from both U. S. District Judge Patel and Judge Jensen. Mueller went on to become the United States Deputy Attorney General and then the 6th Director of the FBI from September 4, 2001 – September 4, 2013. He was also appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. During Mueller’s tenure as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, he would witness firsthand how an innocent man could be walked through the federal court system in a case filled with discoverable fraudulent charges, false testimony, illegal warrants, and spurious allegations.

Summers was sent to a prison where the Mormon warden to whom he was related came from a family of well-known Federal Bureau of Prison administrators. Summers was also related to the prison camp administrator and his Mormon prison housing counselor.

During Summers’ imprisonment, a federal investigator came forward to acknowledge in a sworn affidavit that Summers was indeed threatened the morning of his 9-hour defense that his attorney would abandon him if he testified. Summers' defense attorney feared that false information advanced by the attorney who worked for the SDA church (Ellen Dogers) would be exposed if Summers was allowed to testify. Additionally, Dogers had defied a Utah federal judge’s court order by continuing to be involved behind the scenes. As a result, Summers did not receive a defense. Based on this information, Judge Jensen granted Summers a rare writ of habeas corpus, but because Summers was nearing the end of his sentence, he didn't pursue it. (The writ of habeas corpus secures a release from prison, but it would trigger another trial that Summers did not want his family to endure.).

Only after Summers was released from prison did the St. Helena, California branch president (Logan), who had received the letter from Summers' wife, request a private meeting with Summers to apologize for never responding to the letter. Once Logan was promoted to the stake presidency, he no longer responded to the Summers' requests for help. Meanwhile, the stake president (Lawrence) was relocated from California over his involvement in the investigation into Summers and his refusal to join all of the Mormons who participated in the scheme. Lawrence was replaced by the Napa County school superintendent (Browning) who was also related to Summers.

Logan wasn’t aware that he was related to Summers. He stated that he knew how his promotion in church leadership must appear to someone who had been raised in the heart of Seventh-day Adventist church administration and politics. He told Summers he had several things he wanted to share with him, in private, at some point, concerning the reasons he hadn't responded to his wife's letter. But before that could happen, Logan died of a ruptured brain aneurysm.

After serving his sentence, Summers was overseen by the probation department in Santa Rosa, California, run by a Mormon to whom he was related (Browning). The week he completed his 3-year probation sentence, a probation officer visited Summers’ home and told the Summers's that the head of the probation department, who had been observing his case since 1993, had been waiting until that week to retire. She mentioned that Browning attended the local Mormon chapel, although at the time, Summers did not know him or their familial relationship to each other.

Many other curious examples of Mormons conducting Summers’ entrance and journey through the criminal justice system exist, but they are too numerous to mention here.

Meanwhile, Summers learned that Polly Stone was blackmailing Dr. Plubell, insisting he pay her $5,000 per month, knowing they had both committed material perjury in claiming they had not had sex. For many months following the birth of the twin boys, the dentist had been visiting and paying the extortion payments Stone demanded. Even though the twins’ paternity remained in question, Plubell’s payments to Stone continued for many years until the dentist finally threatened the bookkeeper to stop her from demanding more money. For two reasons – their perjury regarding claims they did not have sex and Plubell’s knowledge of Stone’s manufacturing of single-entry ledger – Plubell continued to pay blackmail.

As a result of the bookkeeper’s actions, Summers was indicted on white collar charges of mail and wire fraud. He was tried in a case all about accountability but was not allowed access to the company’s accounting records with which he could defend himself.

In the meantime, Summers, after being released from probation, asked to speak to the stake president (Browning), so Summers could find out when he was going to be reissued the temple recommend Poelman assured Summers he would receive after he had served his time in prison. Browning told Summers he wouldn’t be receiving his old temple recommend as promised until after a year of observation, but Browning gave no further explanation. During the meeting, Browning indicated he would soon become the new executive director of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (an accrediting organization). Summers replied that he was very impressed and asked him if Browning would be willing to be the godfather of his children since his family was being denied sealing in the temple. Browning said he would be honored.

One other man also had his life destroyed by this false indictment, false arrest, false prosecution, false trial, false appeals, false imprisonment, and probation farce. His name is John Herman Fielding, a physical therapist who graduated from Loma Linda University, where he was president of his class. He raised five wonderful children and was always known as an honest and hardworking Seventh-day Adventist church member. He had mastered the trombone, trumpet, and pipe organ and spent years traveling with SDA choirs. He was the primary owner of Gift of Health, and Summers served as his agent and adviser. Fielding was asked to testify in return for leniency that Mr. Summers had committed crimes alleged by Stone and Plubell, but Fielding refused, saying he couldn’t and wouldn’t lie or sign a false statement. Like Summers, Fielding was sent to prison and to this day carries a felony conviction on his record. Every participant on every level in this plot has had plenty of time to reflect on what they said and to confess their complicity in what has left Fielding, Summers, and their families injured for life. To this day, both Summers’ and Fielding’s wages are garnished by the court system to pay restitution for the crimes of which he was falsely convicted.

The oral Torah declares that it is better to take the life of an innocent man than to destroy the man’s character, because a man whose character has been maligned will carry the weight of that shame and a cloud over his integrity for the rest of his life.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

After Summers was released from prison, his wife stopped going to church, knowing that her family was still being affected by a few corrupt men who had set in motion a plan to blackball her husband despite the church’s assistance to the family during his imprisonment.

The bishop in Petaluma told Summers that blackballing is not a word used by LDS church members. However, Brigham Young, Joseph Smith, and Mormons who belonged to the Masonic lodge at Nauvoo (built by Joseph Smith, the first Worshipful Master) were certainly involved in blackballing those whom they wanted to discredit and deny membership within the organization. Blackballing was a common practice at Masonic lodges, and those who have studied the pre-Mormon temple era of church history would know this.

Later, in January 2018, Summers discovered that the signature on his Mormon Melchizedek Priesthood certificate had been removed, but no one was able to tell him when, how, or why. When Summers asked his bishop to explain, he was referred to the stake clerk, who reported that he was not able to determine the answer.

A possible explanation for the removal of the signature on the certificate is that Summers' relative, the stake president who had signed Summers' Melchizedek Priesthood certificate in 1993, was arrested the week after Summers was arrested. Summers was told that because the signature of Mormon Monument Park North Stake President (Poelman) might have been considered unworthy, it was removed.

One attorney called the whole affair either an unbelievable miracle or an elaborate entrapment. In other words, there is no possible explanation for how so many relatives who were also Mormons who had been initiated in secret ceremonies using blood oaths could have been involved in the elaborate years-long process to convict, prosecute, and imprison Summers. Perhaps it was a cruel atrocity orchestrated by one very proud and self-serving stake president and his sycophants.

The Summers' children no longer want to go to the temple or be sealed to their parents. They believe that everything that happened to their father is evidence of corrupt men and a corrupt system protecting Stephen Butter and his cabal. The Summers' know that some priesthood holders don't really care about their family and don't want to be closely associated with anyone with a criminal record. Some of these men would welcome the opportunity work in service of SDA church leadership to compound the shame upon the Summers’ name as a way to help protect those who are hiding the crimes they have committed against the Summers'.

Frogberger and Butter used the wealth and power of Frogberger’s office to purchase a corrupt and secret Mormon force to conduct Samuel Summers through the federal criminal justice system. Butter will, when exposed and confronted with the truth of his actions, erupt in indignation. These religious restricted communities operate with a strong male arm covered in a velvet glove – this is common for those who want to preserve their reputation with fellow parishioners.

Summers' wife continues to believe that her husband is being harmed by a scheme set in motion by a few compromised men involved in running penny stock companies in Utah. These men planned to gain politically and financially and now hope to deflect or deny responsibility concerning what they set in motion. The entire SDA church apparatus has had to rescue Butter from his schemes. Butter has lost all credibility, but he continues to engage in penny stock ventures to maintain a living and some sense of relevance.

There was no magic involved or divine power at work. This was collusion, conspiracy, manipulation, control, and fraud. DNA evidence and family searches prove that the long list of Mormons who were related to Summers were directed by someone to advance the president of the SDA church's attempt to assassinate Summers’ character. However, to this day, Summers does not believe someone at a high level in the LDS organization authorized this plot (other than one member of the Quorum of the Apostles), although the stake president has kept the money he was paid and has never communicated with the Summers family – people he deceived, manipulated, framed, and then abandoned. Butter could have never imagined that 10 years after this plot began the internet could reveal the family connections through ancestry searches available to Summers – and this helped Summers expose the scope of the scheme.

Members of the LDS church believe that the eternal joining of families and relatives is possible through sacred sealing ceremonies that take place in their temples. In this case, Summers' extended Mormon family have realized they are not welcome in the church and that they have been used, with or without their knowledge, to keep the Summers's out of the temple and thus ensure they will never be sealed to each other or their children. The U.S. v. Summers case is not an attack of the U.S. government on Samuel Summers; it’s the work of Judge Jensen on behalf of Butter, Berringer, and the president of the SDA church – all of whom abused the system for their own purposes.

To compound the Summers' pain, on December 10, 1993, Mrs. Summers witnessed in disbelieving horror a distant Mormon relative of her husband participating in the "baptizing" and "endowment” ceremonies given to Adolf Hitler. Hitler was later "sealed" to his parents on March 12, 1994.

The secret baptizing and endowments of Adolf Hitler took place inside a Mormon temple located in London, England at the beginning of Summers’ thirteen-year ordeal of being paraded through the federal criminal justice system – directed or observed by over 40 Mormon relatives.

Whether Mr. Summers was a close or distant relative to the 40 plus Mormons who comprise Amalgamating DNA pool A and B is not the point. The SDA General Conference associate counsel told Mr. Summers' father that his relationship was what would ultimately expose how closely related the 40 plus Mormons were to each other, something illuminated during the unfolding of the conspiracy outlined above, to fulfill the intentions of the former President of the Seventh-day Adventist church (Frogberger) to orchestrate Samuel Summers’ incarceration.

Polly Stone was highly motivated to delay delivering the double-entry bookkeeping records to Summers and his defense.

She managed the books for Gift of Health, and she alone was responsible for overseeing the company’s financial accounting records.

In 1991, John Fielding, the physical therapist who became the primary owner of Gift of Health, raised $700,00 to expand the business beyond the state of Michigan. He paid himself a 10% finder’s fee and offered the same to anyone who procured new investors for the business.

Rather than take the $70,000 as income to which he was entitled, Fielding left it in the company to provide needed cash and advised the bookkeeper to contact him if she needed authorization to use the money.

Only the double-entry ledgers showed this, and Polly Stone alone maintained these ledgers.

The entire facade of Summers’ indictment, conviction, and incarceration was facilitated by a claim of fraud involving the $70,000.

The FBI agent at the heart of the investigation didn't know that the $70,000 was the earned income of John Fielding.

Polly Stone had created two sets of books: one showing the truth (and exposing the FBI agent’s fraudulent claims against Summers) and the other showing a single entry system that disappeared the double entry accounting reflecting proper payments made by Summers and Fielding. The single entry leger represented Summers’ and Fielding’s actions as illegal. Polly Stone and the FBI agent hid the proper books from the court even though the judge ruled Summers’ defense was entitled to them as part of evidentiary discovery. Using this manufactured ledger, Stone facilitated the tsunami of fraud perpetrated against Summers and Fielding. She and Plubell knew that Summers’ and Fielding’s convictions would result in their dismissal from Gift of Health, and in their vacancy, Plubell and Stone would assume ownership of Gift of Health. At the same time, Robert Frogberger convinced Dennis Plubell that evil spirits were at work in Samuel Summers, and both men used their positions as church authorities to persuade Lowell Plubell to conspire to destroy Summers. John Fielding was offered a reduced charge (from a felony to misdemeanor) for adopting FBI agent’s narrative; Fielding refused, and FBI agent persisted. Summers’ mother-in-law (Norma Black) coordinated the recruitment of others to join in an effort to help the FBI agent. Her FD-302s (the official FBI reports detailing agents’ conversations during investigations) were withheld from Summers’ defense. Dr. James Black’s role in the scheme: Leaders of the SDA church understood that the church’s members were prone to repeat, without any verification of claims, stories of Samuel Summers. These leaders weaponized this gossip to facilitate the assassination of Summers’ character. SDA church leaders could make the story believable regardless of its implausibility; they relied on their self-declared status as the remnant church proclaiming a true and final end of the world message. These leaders also understand that zealous religious organizations can persuade followers to adopt and feel joyous about the end of the world. Those who believe they can bring about the end of the world can manipulate people and ultimately be seen as heroes. The SDA church is doing this on a global level. What is fact and what is fiction? Within doomsday cults, stories grow until the truth is hard to determine. Look at the historical facts, and you will see confirmation of Summers’ words. Island of Monserrat