Alternatives Offered In Polygamist Trust Battle
 
The Associated Press
KUTV Channel 2
 
SALT LAKE CITY More than a year after Utah’s courts seized control of a polygamist church trust, attorneys have proposed reforms that will allow church members – not the trust – to own the homes they’ve built.

"To own their homes is something that they’ve never had before and that’s significant," said Greg Hoole, an attorney who represents beneficiaries of the United Effort Plan Trust.

The charitable arm of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the $100 million trust holds most of the property and homes in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where most church’s estimated 10,000 members live. Church leaders have controlled trust assets for decades, using homes and property as punishment or reward for members deemed faithful or fallen.

On Monday, 3rd District Judge Denise P. Lindberg gave tentative approval to reforms that will forever strip church leaders of that control, and give both active and former church members a chance to control their own lives.

The proposal was drafted by attorneys for Bruce Wisan, the certified public accountant Lindberg put in control of the trust in June 2005, after state attorneys said church leaders were using it for personal benefit, including keeping fugitive church leader Warren Jeffs in hiding.

Jeffs, 50, is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, charged in Utah and Arizona with rape and sexual misconduct counts stemming from plural marriages he arranged between teenage girls and older men. He’s not been seen publicly in nearly two years, but continues to exercise control over church members, including ordering members not to cooperate with Wisan.

Trust reforms call for a court-appointed board of trustees and set up multiple options for property ownership, including awarding deeds outright and the creation of family "sub-trusts" that remove UEP trustees from daily control but limit what a family could do.

"If you just deed it out and Warren says give it back, they’d just deed it back," Wisan’s attorney Jeff Shields said. "We want them to have use of it, but not the control so that they could hurt themselves."

Lindberg called the work thorough, but expressed concerns that faithful FLDS members were not active participants in the revision process.

"I just wish there was some way to reach that community," said Lindberg, who asked attorneys to make a handful of changes before she grants final approval of reforms.

Reaching the active FLDS can’t be done through letters or news reports – church members shun outsiders and are forbidden from using mainstream media and the Internet – but advisory board members said news that homes are being deeded to individuals will spread.

"That message will ripple through town," board member John Nielsen said. "They want to have control over what they built."

Already dozens of disenfranchised church members have asked Wisan how they can secure deeds to homes they were forced out of or get undeveloped land to build homes.

Jethro Barlow, an accountant and former FLDS leader who was kicked out of the church and has been working as adviser to Wisan, said the trust reforms will bring economic development that will revitalize the community.

And whispers from inside the community indicate that some faithful FLDS are paying close attention to the reforms proposed, said attorney Roger Hoole, who with his brother represents several church dissidents suing the trust.

"We’re hearing lots of feedback that people inside are interested in this," he said. "They’re looking at their options."
 
KUTV.com
Originally published August 14, 2006
 
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