Utah County prosecutors to meet Tuesday to discuss bigamy case involving Lehi TV family
 
By Jennifer Stagg
Deseret News
 
LEHI — The TLC reality show "Sister Wives" aired its season finale Sunday night. And while the series season is over, the fallout keeps coming.

Prosecutors with the Utah County Attorney's Office are scheduled to meet with Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff Tuesday to discuss potential bigamy charges against the Lehi family.

Before "Sister Wives" hit the airwaves, the show's producers called Shurtleff's office and inquired how often polygamy cases are prosecuted in the state. Spokesman Paul Murphy said he told them polygamy is against the law, but that the attorney general's office doesn't have the resources to prosecute every case. It focuses on polygamists who are also committing other crimes.

"I think everybody involved with that show knew the risk going in, and we'll soon find out how big that risk is," Murphy said Monday. "There could be as many as 30,000 polygamists in the state of Utah, and so to investigate a polygamy case takes as much time as it does to investigate a child abuse case. And so for simple resources, we've decided to go after the most serious crimes and that's child abuse, incest, fraud and domestic violence."

Each of Brown's wives were over the age of 18 when they married Cody Brown. But just because Shurtleff won't likely prosecute a case like the Brown's, doesn't mean other agencies won't. Lehi police conducted a bigamy investigation into the Brown family and has turned over its findings to the Utah County Attorney's Office for possible prosecution.

"Right now we're looking at the bigamy aspect of it. As the investigation goes on, we'll see where it goes from there," said Lehi Police Lt. Darren Paul.

Whether prosecutors will consider evidence of bigamy from the TV show itself is unknown. But Brown has publicly admitted he is married to four women.

And in addition to legal woes brought on by the family's now public lifestyle, first wife Meri Brown announced last week on Oprah Winfrey's TV show that she had lost her job since the show began airing.

Before the show debuted, Janelle Brown said the family weighed the possibilities.

"Everybody still decided that the benefits of what we could do far outweighed any of the risks," Janelle Brown said.

e-mail: jstagg@desnews.com
 
DeseretNews.com
Originally published Monday, Oct. 18, 2010
 
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