POCATELLO — A 6th District judge rejected a plea agreement Monday for a Chubbuck church leader facing child sex abuse charges.
Judge Robert C. Naftz declined to accept guilty pleas from Virgil Dean Larson, 47, during what was expected to be a change-of-plea hearing at the Bannock County Courthouse in Pocatello Monday morning, ruling that Larson’s admissions did not establish the willfulness required under Idaho’s injury-to-child statute.
Bannock County Prosecutor Ian Johnson confirmed the specifics of the ruling to the Idaho State Journal but would not comment further, citing the ongoing nature of the case. Larson’s Pocatello attorney Stratton Laggis declined to comment when reached Monday evening.
According to Johnson, Naftz found that Larson’s statements during the hearing did not demonstrate he had willfully engaged in conduct that would satisfy the elements of injury to a child under Idaho law.
Ahead of Monday’s hearing, Bannock County prosecutors had filed an amended information sheet charging Larson with six felony counts of injury to a child as part of the March plea agreement’s structure.
Those charges alleged Larson initiated contact with the buttocks and other intimate areas of naked teenage boys, who were between the ages of 10 and 15 at the time, during massage and cupping therapy sessions at his Chubbuck home, according to court records.
With Naftz’s rejection of the plea agreement Monday, prosecutors will now reinstate the original lewd conduct charges Larson faced when he was first arrested in September 2024.
Larson was initially charged with six felony counts following a Chubbuck police investigation that began after the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare reported allegations against him, according to court records the Journal previously obtained. Larson served as the young men’s program leader at his Chubbuck-area Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation at the time of the alleged abuse.
Larson had accepted the plea agreement in March, under which he would have pleaded guilty to injury to a child in exchange for prosecutors dismissing the more serious charges — a deal that would not have required him to register as a sex offender and could have kept him out of prison. With that agreement no longer in effect, Larson’s case is now headed toward a jury trial scheduled for Jan. 12, 2027.
The now-rejected plea deal drew criticism from within Larson’s own congregation before Monday’s ruling.
In a June 26 letter to Naftz the Journal obtained Monday, Holly Taylor, who identified herself as a member of the same LDS congregation as Larson, urged the judge to reject the agreement.
“I have known Virgil for many years and am appalled and sickened by what he has done to the youth in my ward,” Taylor wrote, adding that she did not know which boys were involved but that “it happened to any of them is just awful.”
Taylor wrote that the boys “did exactly as they have always been taught” by reporting the allegations and testifying when asked, and said she did not understand how prosecutors had reached an agreement that would not have required Larson to register as a sex offender or serve any prison time.
“I feel that this is a slap in the face to these victims,” Taylor wrote. “... At this point you are the only one that can truly get justice for these victims and restore trust in how our justice system is supposed to really work.”
Larson is next expected in court ahead of the January jury trial for a pretrial conference hearing set for Dec. 21, 2026.
If convicted of any of the six counts of lewd conduct with a child charges, Larson faces up to life in prison and a fine of up to $50,000.