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Source: MyStateLine.com

The Utah Supreme Court has decided polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs will get a new trial.

The state’s highest court ruled prosecutors had failed to prove Jeffs knew or intended for a rape to occur after he presided over the marriage of a 14-year-old girl in 2001.

Jeffs was convicted in 2007 on two counts of being an accomplice to rape.

The effects of the historic raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado that began on April 3, 2008, still echo on the second anniversary, and some of those echoes reverberate in the financial structures of the polygamist church.

They are felt especially in the United Effort Plan Trust, a massive holding of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ real and personal property with an assessed value of between $110 million and $130 million.

The government took control of the trust in 2005 after allegations that its assets were being mishandled, and Bruce Wisan, a Salt Lake City certified public accountant, is the trust’s court-appointed fiduciary.

Before the 2008 raid, Wisan said last week, residents of the YFZ Ranch were contributing some payments to the cost of operating the trust, but after April 2008, it was a different story.

“Before the Texas rescue, before that incursion, I had sent letters to members of the community requesting that they sign occupancy agreements and pay an occupancy fee of $100 per household to cover the costs of the trust,” Wisan said. “We were getting about 65 percent compliances.

“After the Texas incursion, the mantra seemed to be, ‘They took our kids. We got our kids back. They took our land. We’ll get our land back.’ The compliance dropped to zero.”

Wisan said the trust was taken over after two default judgments against it put more than 750 homes at risk, so the FLDS attorney asked the judge to put someone in charge of the trust.

The trust, begun in 1942, was originally run by FLDS members for active FLDS members, so that those who left the FLDS church were no longer deemed beneficiaries by “the shadow elite,” as Wisan’s attorneys describe the FLDS members in charge. Wisan has wanted to change that.

“My goal in the trust early on was to distribute funds to the beneficiaries,” Wisan said.

The trust owes $2.5 million, and Wisan has paid out about $2.5 million to beneficiaries. However, he said he has also put in about $9 million in value, raising the net value of the trust by $4 million.

Wisan believes the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado has had another effect on the trust, becoming a center for the misappropriation of the trust’s funds.

“There is money laundering, tax issues, all kinds of things,” Wisan said.

Wisan said he subpoenaed a company called Twin City Water Works after receiving complaints that the company wasn’t doing its job at the FLDS stronghold city of Hildale, Utah.

Wisan said they found $4.3 million worth of disbursement during a time when construction was said to be frozen in the twin border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where many of the sect members live.

Wisan suspects that 50 percent of the funds were misappropriated and that some may have been used to do work at the YFZ Ranch.

In a memo sent to a judge from Wisan’s attorneys, a letter is quoted from the water company’s treasurer asking the former FLDS leader and prophet Warren Jeffs if the company’s money should continue to be used to pay off home expenses.

Representatives from Twin City Water Works could not be reached for this story.

Wisan believes other FLDS companies have also misused trust resources to build the complex at the YFZ Ranch.

Rod Parker, an attorney representing the FLDS in cases regarding the trust, said the trust takeover is not viewed favorably by most of the FLDS community.

“They don’t like it,” Parker said. “They believe that Bruce Wisan is actively out there working against them and not in their best interest, that he is working with the anti-FLDS community and to line his own pocket.”

Parker said there are several lawsuits pending against the trust takeover and against Wisan. Complaints in the lawsuits include allegations that the trust was reformed so that the property wouldn’t revert to church leaders if the trust failed, that the takeover itself was unjustified, and an allegation of fraud against Wisan claiming that he didn’t properly pay property taxes.

Parker said the church maintaining control over the trust is crucial to FLDS religious life.

“The FLDS believe in a doctrine called the united order. It’s basically a communal lifestyle, based on the apostles, who used all things in common,” Parker said.

Parker said that the bishop was the one who decided who would stay where and that since the government is in control of the property, the land has been secularized.

“The state has taken over the function of the religion, which I think is unconstitutional,” Parker said.

Wisan said that the trust takeover is in no way meant to attack the FLDS way of communal living.

“I think that’s false,” Wisan said about allegations of secularizing usurpation. “Somebody needs to defend and manage this trust. Warren and his trustees abandoned the trust.”

Source/Full Story via: Abilene Reporter News

If Winston Blackmore and his fundamentalist Mormon congregation in Bountiful don’t get equal standing with the attorneys-general of B.C. and Canada as well as funding, they will boycott the reference case that will determine whether the anti-polygamy law is constitutional.

Blackmore’s application, heard Friday by Chief Justice Robert Bauman of the B.C. Supreme Court, was pointedly and colloquially summarized by three different lawyers.

Blackmore is a narcissist, who believes the constitutional case is all about him. And he is attempting to hold the province and country hostage, according to the lawyers for B.C. and Canada.

Blackmore is broke and distrustful of authority because he’s been persecuted, yet eager to ensure that justice is served and his rights protected. That’s from his lawyer, Joe Arvay.

What Blackmore is asking for is unprecedented.

Of course, the whole case is unprecedented. It’s the first time a Canadian constitutional reference case has been heard by a trial court.

Source/Full Story via: vancouversun.com

Another shocker…

A Tom Green County jury Wednesday found Merril Leroy Jessop, 35, guilty of sexual assault of a child in connection with allegations he illegally married an underage girl.

The sentencing phase of his trial continues today, beginning at 9 a.m.

Jessop is a member of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

He maintained a pleasant expression while 51st District Judge Barbara Walther read the jury statement early Wednesday afternoon and pronounced the word “guilty.”

…

Because the jury found that an enhancement to the laws on sexual assault of a child applies, the penalty was elevated from a second-degree to a first-degree felony. The punishment Jessop faces ranges from five years with the recommendation of probation to 99 years or life in prison with a fine of up to $10,000.

…

The state called in former FLDS member Carolyn Jessop, who was married to Merril Leroy Jessop’s father as his fourth wife when Merril Leroy Jessop was under 15.

She said girls were taught that their eternal salvation depended on complete obedience to the “priesthood head” — their father and later husband — and the prophet. An essential part of their being obedient included having children.

Source/Full Story:   Abilene Reporter News

I haven’t written about or even heard much about the FLDS in quite some time now, and have been considering just putting this particular blog on standby, as I haven’t had time to do much with it.  We’ve spent the last few months relcating to a more remote location and I’ve not had time sufficient to pay much attention. 

However, last night I was listening to a lecture from the Witherspoon School of Law & Public Policy 2008, entitled “The State of Parental Rights in Light of the Texas Polygamy Case” (highly recommended), and wondering about the real motivations behind the raid on the FLDS in Eldorado.   It is quite obvious to anyone with half a brain that the health, safety and welfare of those children were NOT the main concern of CPS.  What was, exactly? 

This morning I read at  Occidental Dissent the following:

National Geographic has written a relatively balanced and comprehensive article on the FLDS (Fundamentalist Mormon) communities throughout the American Southwest. They’re explicitly racial, have one of the highest fertility rates in the world, are completely self-sufficient, and leverage media and technology in defense of tradition and family rather than against it. The government and the media are becoming increasingly concerned about and focused on Latter-Day Saint movement for good reason: it poses the last credible threat to their hegemony in the West.

Interesting.  We have with the FLDS a basic tribal structure (RESILIENT COMMUNITY ?), which is ideologically opposed to and operating independently of (to the best of their abilities I’ll assume) the dominant corporate state system, whose religion is secular humanism.  Thus, the FLDS are understandably persecuted by that system.  You may wonder how I say that this is understandable.  I did not say it is right, simply understandable.  I’ll quote Rushdoony here, from his introduction to The Institutes of Biblical Law Vol. I.

Fifth, there can be no tolerance in a law-system for another religion.  Toleration is a device used to introduce a new law-system as a prelude to a new tolerance.  Legal positivism, a humanistic faith, has been savage in it’s hostility to the Biblical law-system and has claimed to be an “open” system.  But Cohen, by no means a Christian, has aptly described the logical positivists as “nihilists” and their faith as “nihilistic absolutism.”  Every law-system must maintain it’s existence by hostility to every other law-system and to alien religious foundations, or else it commits suicide.

I guess I return to the same conclusions I had reached before, but feel as though it is incomplete.  Regardless, the idea of persecution by the state is something for those of us who are rebuilding the tribes from the ground up to strongly consider.  Contingency plans are needed.

However you look at it, all of those FLDS children who were kidnapped by the State of Texas will most probably be scarred for life by the State’s actions, and have most certainly lost their innocence for good.  Even though I do not share their theological perspectives, I still pray for healing, in their hearts and in their homes. 

The British Columbia Supreme Court is expected to consider in 2010 whether laws prohibiting polygamy are in conflict with Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, The Globe and Mail reported Monday. The case will likely affect religious and immigrant groups across Canada that accept polygamy as a way of life, the newspaper said.

Source/Full Story: breitbart.com

The leader of a northern Arizona-based polygamous sect who has been convicted in Utah and is charged in Texas is expected to stand trial in Kingman some time next year.

Sexual conduct occurring through arrangements of unions involving underage girls and male adults is the common theme premise in each of the tri-state prosecutions of Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).

Hearings in the Arizona case against Jeffs, 53, have occurred months apart in the near two-year period he’s been awaiting trial in the Mohave County jail. That doesn’t mean attorneys aren’t working the case.

“I wouldn’t look at it that way,” said Mohave County attorney Matt Smyth. “I think that the defense in this case is being paid an extraordinary amount of money to turn over every rock and to look at every possible angle in the case, and we’ve actually done more witness interviews in this matter than in any other case I’ve ever been involved in.”

Jeffs does not qualify for indigent representation, and Smith said church donations are financing his defense team that includes Richard Wright of Las Vegas and Mike Piccarreta of Tucson.

Piccarreta agrees that pretrial preparation has been exhaustive. Piccarreta, however, is building a defense that big money flowing from a former FLDS member who is trying to take down the church is possibly fueling the prosecution of Jeffs and civil litigation against the FLDS.

Source/Full Story: Standard-Times

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office says liquidating a property trust set up by a polygamous community may be the best way to save it.

The United Effort Plan Trust owns most of the property in the twin communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., as well as Bountiful, British Columbia, in Canada. The trust was created in 1942 by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon group.

In a motion filed with Judge Denise Lindberg in Utah, Arizona officials asked her to start a six-month investigation by the attorney general’s offices of both states. In court papers, officials suggested liquidation might be the best way to safeguard the UEP’s remaining assets.

Utah moved for a takeover four years ago, saying that would protect residents of Hildale, Colorado City and Bountiful from losing their homes because of lawsuits against the FLDS. But there is now new litigation involving the court-appointed trustee and his actions.

Source/Full Story: UPI.com

Winston Blackmore of Bountiful, B.C. has made “one prediction” for the coming year for “responsible persons that deliberately break up families”: “This year will be the beginning of your end.”

Blackmore won a court victory in September when B.C. Supreme Court Judge Sunni Stromberg-Stein threw out a charge of criminal polygamy against him and Jim Oler.

Source/Full Story: The Hook

A jury in Schleicher County, Texas, said polygamist Allan Eugene Keate will spend 33 years in prison for sexually assaulting a child.

The San Angelo (Texas) Standard-Times said the jury’s sentence on Thursday came after the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member was convicted of assaulting a 15-year-old girl he claimed as his bride.

State prosecutor Angela Goodwin said during Keate’s trial that Keate, 57, and his teenage victim appeared before FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs and the victim was told to remain close with Keate.

“She offered up just a little bit of resistance, and that was squashed,” Goodwin said of the victim, whose identity was not released. Keate also fathered a child with the teenage girl.

The Standard-Times said defense attorney Randy Wilson attempted to portray his client’s actions as those of a man whose religious beliefs allowed him to have multiple wives in service of God.

“Does this sound like a pedophile, or does it sound like a man devoted to God,” Wilson asked the jury during the trial.

Source/Full Story: UPI.com

…
Jeffs’ attorney, Mike Piccarreta, argued to have Superior Court Judge Steven Conn order Sam Brower and Dr. Dan Fischer for another deposition. Brower and Fischer were previously interviewed by Piccarreta but refused to answer certain questions. Brower is a private investigator who has worked with the Mohave County Attorney’s Office. Fischer is a dentist and former member of the FLDS, who Piccarreta says funds an anti-polygamist campaign against his client.

Piccarreta is asking for Brower and Fischer to answer more questions related to conversations between the men and Jeffs’ accusers, Elissa Wall and Suzie Barlow. The defense attorney said Fischer and Diversity Foundation have poured millions of dollars into a campaign against the FLDS church.

The defense is entitled to communication between Wall and Barlow and Hoole & King, a Salt Lake City law firm, through Fischer. Piccarreta also said Brower was an informant for the FBI and would also not talk about conversations with law enforcement in previous interviews.
…
“I smell a rat,” Piccarreta said. “Elissa Wall has received so much money. I want to show that she’s biased against my client.”

Source/Full Story: Mohave Daily News

The attorneys for Warren Steed Jeffs is asking a Mohave County Superior Court judge to set another court hearing to argue whether the prosecutor’s witnesses are experts in religious practices.

Jeffs’ attorney, Mike Piccarreta, is asking Judge Steven Conn to set a hearing to argue whether Carolyn Jessop, Richard Holm and Rebecca Musser are experts on the religious practices of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeffs is considered a prophet by the polygamist church in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.

Jessop and Holm are former members of the FLDS church. Musser was married to Jeffs’ late father, Rulon Jeffs.

“It appears that all of the state’s so-called experts on the practices and beliefs of the FLDS share one common trait, an intense dislike for the FLDS after having left the church,” Piccarreta stated in his motion.

Source/Full Story: Mohave Daily News

Yep, Michigan law calls this polygamy and not bigamy as one might expect.  The sentence is surprisingly lite…I wonder how a male defendant would have fared.  Anyway, here’s another interesting tidbit from the Michigan penal Code for those of you living there:

750.441 Teaching, soliciting and advocating polygamy; felony.
Sec. 441.
Teaching, soliciting and advocating the practice of polygamy—Any person who shall solicit to a polygamous life, or teach polygamy as a correct form of family life, for the purpose of inducing men and women to enter into the practice of polygamy or advocate the doctrine and practice of polygamy, or attempt to persuade any person by private or public discourse to adopt a polygamous life, shall be guilty of a felony.

I moved out of Michigan back in 1991. 

A Bay City woman who pleaded guilty to polygamy will stay in jail for another 16 days.

Macomb County Circuit Judge Peter J. Maceroni on Monday sentenced Martha A. Flemming to 90 days in jail, with credit for 74 days.

Flemming, 43, was still married to Charles Nellett in January when she married Albert Flemming Jr. at a St. Clair Shores church.

Nellett and Flemming wed in 1995.

Martha Flemming returned to Bay County after disappearing in April from the Detroit home she shared with Albert Flemming.

Also missing were Albert Flemming’s car and an $8,000 inheritance check he received from an uncle, St. Clair Shores police have said.

Police arrested Martha Flemming in September in Bay City. She pleaded guilty in October.

Source/Full Story: Bay City News

U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes sentenced self-proclaimed world prophet Tony Alamo to 175 years in a federal prison Friday morning for child sex abuse crimes spanning more than a decade.

“The court believes you should be incarcerated in a federal prison for the rest of your natural life,” Barnes said. “One day you will face a judge with more authority than me. May he have mercy on your soul.” Barnes also ordered a fine of $250,000.

Before pronouncing sentence the court heard from three of the five Jane Does who testified at Alamo’s criminal trial in July that they’d been taken as brides as children and taken across state lines so Alamo could have sex with them if he chose. Alamo, 75, will remain in a jail in downtown Texarkana until a restitution hearing set for January that will determine what Alamo must pay his victims as recompense for the physical and psychological damages they’ve suffered.

Alamo has already hired lawyers to appeal his conviction and sentence. See tomorrow’s edition of the Texarkana Gazette for more on the sentencing hearing and what the future holds for Alamo and his ministry.

Source/Full Story: texarkanagazette.com
Technorati Tags: Tony Alamo

After deliberating for more than five hours, a jury decided Tuesday that a member of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will serve 10 years in prison and will also pay an $8,000 fine for child sex assault. Raymond Jessop, 38, was convicted last week of child sex assault for fathering a child with a 16-year-old girl who was a polygamous wife.

Jessop said after the verdict that he was at peace with the decision. Jessop is the first of 12 FLDS members to face criminal charges coming out of last year’s raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

Source/Full Story: KSTU
Technorati Tags: FLDS, Raymond Jessop