Worth your time: Adoption scrutiny

A former Utah prosecutor is at the center of a media investigation into his controversial adoption of an Indigenous child over the objections from her home tribe, relatives and birth father.

Driving the news: In interviews with Reveal, legal experts and members of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana say former Utah County Attorney David Leavitt adopted the girl in violation of federal laws created to prevent the removal of children from Indigenous communities.

Catch up quick: For about 150 years, Indigenous children were forcibly sent to boarding schools, foster care and adoptive families.

• By the 1970s, 25%–35% of all Indigenous American children were living outside their birth homes. That led to the Indian Child Welfare Act, which gives the child's tribe authority over adoptions, prioritizing relatives.

Zoom in: Leavitt is not Native American — but his wife's parents housed Cheyenne children through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' "Indian Placement Program," which for decades moved children from Indigenous communities to live with families in the faith.

• One of those children was the grandmother of the child the Leavitts adopted six years ago. That, Leavitt argues, makes his wife the child's great-aunt.
• The Northern Cheyenne president at the time submitted a letter in agreement, prompting a Utah judge to allow the adoption — even though the child's birth relatives opposed it.

The other side: The girl's birth mother told Reveal she supports the adoption, saying life with the Leavitts is what she wants for her daughter.

• Leavitt told Reveal the adoption "followed every paragraph and subparagraph of ICWA."

The intrigue: Reveal obtained a recording of a conversation between Leavitt and the child's birth uncle, in which Leavitt promised to keep the girl in contact with the tribe.

• Instead, the family says "the Leavitts don't let them see her at all," Reveal reports.