Mistrial declared in southern Utah kidnap trial
 
By Ben Winslow
Deseret Morning News
 
A judge declared a mistrial today in the case of a polygamist man accused of kidnapping one of his former wives.

Thomas V. Barlow, 47, was charged in St. George's 5th District Court with attempted kidnapping, a third-degree felony; assault, a class A misdemeanor; and domestic violence in the presence of a child.

Barlow claims he was "rescuing" his family from Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs, but prosecutors allege he tried to abduct one of his wives and her child, forcing them into his semi-truck in Hildale, Utah, back in August 2004.

"My belief is that Mr. Barlow realized that Warren Jeffs in his mind became a fallen prophet and he felt he had a duty to rescue his family that he loved and cared for deeply," Barlow's lawyer Travis Christiansen told the Deseret Morning News. "Whatever it is under the technical rules of the law ... he was acting to rescue his family from a madman."

He said Barlow was excommunicated from the FLDS Church in 2003 by Warren Jeffs, who reassigned the man's two wives to Barlow's brother.

Christiansen told the Deseret Morning News that a medical report from paramedics at the scene was not given to either prosecutors or the defense until the day of the trial, after a jury had been impaneled. Because the potential evidence was excluded from discovery, the judge declared a mistrial.

Calls to the Washington County Attorney's Office have so far not been returned.

Jeffs, 50, is the leader of the FLDS Church based in the border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. He is currently jailed on charges of rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony. Jeffs is accused of forcing a teenage girl into a polygamous marriage with an older man.

Jeffs is also facing criminal charges across the border in Mohave County, Ariz., accusing him of performing child-bride marriages.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published Friday, September 29, 2006
 
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