An award-winning film producer who co-founded the Sundance Film Festival pleaded guilty Tuesday to child sex abuse.
The case came to light after Van Wagenen admitted in a secretly taped interview released in February by the Truth and Transparency Foundation of assaulting in 1993 a 13-year-old boy who was at a sleepover with Van Wagenen's son.
In the recording, taped in 2018 by the now-adult victim, Wagenen admitted to the abuse and said he had informed police and leaders of the Mormon Church -- or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- of his actions but was never criminally charged. The case for which he has pleaded guilty was uncovered after The Truth and Transparency Foundation, a watchdog of the Mormon Church, released the tape.
Van Wagenen subsequently resigned from his part-time teaching position at the University of Utah's Film and Media Arts Department. Van Wagenen co-founded a Utah film festival in 1978 that later became known as the Sundance Film Festival with Robert Redford -- who was once married to Van Wagenen's cousin -- at the helm.
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