A tragic drama unfolds
Justice must play the starring role in saga of polygamist cult
 
Opinions
The Arizona Republic
 
The characters are right out of a central casting: The reclusive leader of a cult with a $100 million trust fund. Child brides forced into polygamous marriages. Lost boys run out of town so they can't compete for wives. Prosecutors whose efforts may seem slow, but whose tenacity is essential.

The setting is Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, twin towns where secrets like domestic violence, incest, child abuse and the sodomizing of little boys are only revealed in the hesitant voices of those who escape, and the cold phrases of civil lawsuits filed against a cult called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The plot includes hideaways in Texas, Canada, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada and Mexico, where the now-missing FLDS leader Warren Jeffs may be holed up. It includes soothing promises from a Texas sheriff that he will not storm the cult's Texas compound in response to an Arizona criminal warrant issued against Jeffs earlier this month. That's because this thriller of sex, violence and greed in the name of God also includes the potential to explode into another Waco.

At least that's the fear.

Fear has long protected a group built on polygamy and cult strategies of mind control. For five decades, law enforcement officials feared the consequences of moving against a cult leader whose followers allow him to control every aspect of their lives.

That has been changing. Prosecutors have been moving, slowly and surely, over the past few years to build cases.

Earlier this month, a Mohave County grand jury indicted Jeffs on charges involving the "celestial" marriage of a 16-year-old girl to a married man. Mohave County Attorney Matthew Smith has said 10 to 15 additional cases are pending.

Smith is part of a task force that includes Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. Thanks to Goddard and Shurtleff's efforts, a Utah court is being asked today to permanently freeze Jeffs' access to the cult's multimillion-dollar trust.

A law passed earlier this year will enable Goddard to move against the cult-controlled Colorado City Unified School District, where Jeffs' puppets bought an airplane, yet bounced teacher paychecks.

In addition, there are several civil lawsuits against Jeffs, one alleging he repeatedly raped his young nephew.

Frustrated Arizonans may wonder what took so long. But a more effective question now is: What more will it take?

The pressure is on to crack a cult. It must continue.

The prosecutors who are moving against the excesses of this cult need the continued support of their communities. In addition, those communities have to be willing to help women, children and men who may emerge from a cult where they are kept uneducated and suspicious of the outside world.

The end of this drama is a long way off, but justice can prevail.

It must prevail because it is the lives, rights and dignity of real people - not characters from central casting - that are at stake.
 
azcentral.com
Originally published June 22, 2005
 
Back