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SALT LAKE CITY — A group that promises anonymity to those who leak internal LDS Church documents has hired an attorney who has threatened the church with rarely successful legal action.

Two weeks ago, the manager of the intellectual property office of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a notice on March 1 that MormonLeaks had posted copyrighted church material from a presentation made to members of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other leaders. The church sent the notice to MormonLeaks and, apparently, to the owners of docdroid.net, which removed the material.

On Tuesday, MormonLeaks re-posted the copyrighted church presentation and Las Vegas-based attorney Marc J. Randazza sent the church a letter saying that he now represents MormonLeaks, which he termed a “journalistic resource.”

Randazza is nationally known for regular appearances on national networks as a First Amendment attorney, for his colorful legal writing and for representing pornographers. In 2015, an arbitrator handed down a $600,000 interim arbitration award against him for violating fiduciary responsibilities he owed to his employer. Randazza filed for bankruptcy.

The arbitrator also found that Randazza secretly negotiated a $75,000 bribe from a company he was suing for his employer.

In his two-page letter to the LDS Church, Randazza said he would not pursue legal action if the church dropped its effort to have MormonLeaks take down the copyrighted material.

To read the full article on Deseret News, click here.