Depositions in polygamy probe are postponed
 
By Jennifer Dobner
The Associated Press
The Arizona Republic
 
SALT LAKE CITY - Depositions planned for July to sort out whether a Utah farming operation has ties to a polygamist church trust will be postponed, a trust attorney said.

"They've hired counsel and he needs some time, so we'll be delayed," said Jeff Shields, the attorney for Bruce Wisan, the court-appointed accountant for the United Effort Plan Trust.

Shields said Harker Farms had hired a Nevada lawyer, Gregory A. Miles, as its attorney. Miles was not available for comment because he was out of the country this week, an office assistant said.

Subpoenas were served two weeks ago on at least three members of the Harker family and their Beryl, Utah, farming businesses, including Harker Farms, Harker & Sons Inc., and JHD Potatoes.

Shields wants to know if the businesses are - or should be considered - part of the UEP Trust, the charitable arm of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a religious sect that practices polygamy.

The trust holds most of the property and homes in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., an estimated $100 million in assets donated by church members. The Harker family has long been prominent in the FLDS church. Their Beryl farms are about 100 miles northwest of Hildale.

Last year a Utah judge said church leaders had mismanaged trust assets and placed the accounts in the control of Wisan, a Salt Lake City accountant.

Since then, Wisan's been working to catalog all trust assets, including any businesses that may have funneled profits to the church and its exiled leader, Warren Jeffs.

Jeffs, 50, is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list and is wanted on felony charges in Utah and Arizona, accused of arranging underage marriages between teenage girls and older men who already have legal wives. Investigators believe he has used millions of dollars from trust, which by law are the shared assets of current and former church members, for his own benefit.

Depositions had been scheduled for July 5-7 in Cedar City. Shields said new dates are still being worked out. Shields had been seeking information from 10 individuals or entities associated with Harker Farms.

Mary Harker, who had accepted subpoenas for herself, her husband Stephen Harker and three family businesses said Thursday she didn't know about the delay. She also could not confirm the name of her attorney and said she had turned the matter over to someone else to handle.

Also on the subpoena list is Joseph Harker, one of Stephen Harker's brothers, who runs the family's Atlanta Farms. It's unclear if Joseph Harker had yet been served and a telephone message left for him Friday by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.

The eldest of the five Harker brothers, Sterling Harker, who is no longer a senior manager in the family businesses, also said he'd not been notified of any change. He has not hired an attorney and said he won't hesitate to tell Shields anything he knows.

"I'm not going to hold back on anything," Sterling Harker said.

Sterling Harker said his father, Parley Harker, a former FLDS church elder who died in January 1998, had long told his family that the farm should be part of the UEP trust. He said he believes it's possible some farm profits may have been given to the trust because bank balances in recent years show significant losses on once profitable entities.

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On the Net:

www.ueptrust.com
 
azcentral.com
Originally published June 30, 2006
 
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