Utah trustee moves to prevent sale of B.C. land in polygamist community
 
By Terri Theodore
Canadian Press
 
VANCOUVER (CP) - Concerns that part of the polygamist community in Bountiful, B.C., may "cash out" and move to another colony - or start another one somewhere else in Canada - have forced a Utah-controlled trust fund to ask the courts to intervene.

A lawyer for the United Effort Plan Trust, which oversees the assets of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, said the lawsuit will prevent some of the more extreme followers from liquidating properties and moving.

"We've just heard rumours that they may be going to another province. I've heard Manitoba and Saskatchewan mentioned," said Zachary Shields, a lawyer representing Bruce Wisan, the court appointed accountant running the church trust in Utah.

About 400 of 1,000 people in the southeastern B.C. community are followers of Warren Jeffs. The others are followers of another leader, Winston Blackmore.

The division is causing a rift in the community.

Jeffs is wanted on criminal charges in Arizona and Utah, and has been hiding from the FBI for two years.

He is accused of arranging marriages between underage girls and older men.

Utah's attorney general moved to take over the church trust last year when Jeffs' followers began liquidating assets and moving to communes in other states.

On the phone Wednesday from Salt Lake City, Shields said the cult-like followers were escaping from lawsuits, including one from dozens of teenaged boys who were kicked out of the commune because of the group's belief that the quickest way to salvation is for men to marry multiple women, meaning there aren't enough women to go around.

As well, Jeffs supporters don't want to live next to Blackmore's supporters, people they consider "non-believers."

The trust was set up decades ago to hold collective property and all FLDS followers donated to build homes and businesses.

The focus of the B.C. lawsuit is the Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School Society and four of its directors.

The society owns six parcels of property, worth up to $3 million, including two schools, a meeting house, timber land and some homes.

"Our concern is the land may be sold and the money taken. In essence they're dissolving (the school society,)" said Shields.

The B.C. Supreme Court lawsuit, filed this week in Vancouver, claims the Utah-based trust is the beneficiary of the school society, and if the society's assets are dissolved they should be transferred to the trust.

Shields said the trustees don't want to underestimate Jeffs' power in Bountiful.

In Utah, "we get stories that people get called up in the middle of the night, 'you're to come to Texas,' and they consider that an honour and privilege."

That could happen in Canada, he said.

"Their numbers are small enough that all 400 could leave and begin a different colony elsewhere."

Shields said it would be "intolerable" for a Jeffs supporter to live in Bountiful, where most people follow Blackmore.

Blackmore is supportive of the court action.

"It's to their benefit the trust keep its assets, and not have them disappear."

Blackmore is reported to have several wives and dozens of children.

"Winston's been very co-operative, and helpful and open," Shields said. "I'm sure he has his own agenda, but he's not in this group that we're talking about."
 
canada.com
Originally published Wednesday, April 26, 2006
 
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