Agreement would give Colorado City property control to FLDS
 
By JIM SECKLER
Mohave Daily News
 
KINGMAN - A proposed agreement with the Utah Attorney General's Office and a polygamist church in Colorado City could force non-church members out of their homes.

The settlement proposed by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the United Effort Plan Trust would create a housing panel consisting of five to seven members. Two of the members would be appointed by the FLDS church, two members by the UEP, and one to three would be independent members.

The panel would make decisions on the distribution of residential property in Colorado City and Hildale. The panel would consider length of possession of the property, payment of property taxes, improvements to the property and current possession.

Those entitled to claim residential property would be adults who have occupied a residence on UEP property since 2002, and all adults who submitted claims to a fiduciary board and who have occupied a home or done work on an unfinished home on UEP property since 1998. The agreement also includes other properties, including Canadian property.

Flora Jessop, a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the agreement would allow the FLDS essentially to build a fence around Colorado City and Hildale and create a compound similar to the FLDS compound in Eldorado, Texas. She said Shurtleff is legally responsible to protect all UEP beneficiaries and, with the agreement, would deny protection to half the beneficiaries who are no longer faithful to the FLDS.

"Everyone who has had the courage to fight for a home in Colorado City, Hildale and Canada who are not faithful FLDS will be tossed out again," she said.

Jessop said, but could not confirm, that Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard refused to agree to the settlement. A call to the Arizona Attorney General's Office was not returned in time.

"It would be a travesty to allow the UEP and the FLDS to gain control of the property in Colorado City," Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith said Thursday.

Smith is prosecuting a criminal case against Warren Jeffs, the convicted leader of the FLDS. Jeffs is charged in Mohave County with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor in two 2007 cases involving two underage girls, which allegedly took place in 2002 and 2003.

Jeffs also is charged with felony sexual assault of a child under 17 and aggravated sexual assault in Schleicher County, Texas. He was convicted in 2007 in Utah on two counts of rape as an accomplice and was sentenced in November 2007 to 10 years in a Utah prison.
 
MohaveDailyNews.com
Originally published Monday, May 25, 2009
 
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