Source: Deseret News

A judge will decide if the Fundamentalist LDS Church’s real-estate holdings arm should be on the hook in a former child bride’s multi-million dollar lawsuit.

During a hearing Friday in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court, lawyers representing the court-controlled United Effort Plan Trust asked to be dropped from Elissa Wall’s lawsuit against the trust, the FLDS Church and its leader, Warren Jeffs.

They argued that the conduct of Jeffs in performing a 2001 marriage between Wall and her 19-year-old cousin is not the conduct of the UEP Trust, which was recently reformed by the courts.

“The fact that it happened doesn’t make it doctrine,” attorney Jeffrey L. Shields argued. “It doesn’t mean the beneficiary class should be liable for the conduct of its trustees.”

Shields argued that those who would ultimately lose are women and children who live in trust-controlled homes in the FLDS communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

Full Story

Technorati Tags: United Effort Plan Trust

Related Items

• Arrests could put FLDS ’stand down’ in question
  The ongoing feud over land in the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., has now led to the arrests of two members of ...