Short Creek starts to move beyond its past as a fundamentalist fief

A small community straddling the Utah-Arizona border charts a new course

The Economist
December 7, 2019

Judging by its shops, Short Creek seems more like a trendy suburb of somewhere like Portland than a small town on the Utah-Arizona border with just shy of 8,000 people. There are two health-food stores, a bakery and a vape shop. The occasional sight of women in prairie dresses and the huge houses with thick walls are the only conspicuous evidence Short Creek was once home to an American theocracy.

When the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (lds), better known as the Mormon church, abandoned several controversial doctrines in 1890, there were dissenters. Some, seeking to preserve abandoned institutions such as “plural marriage” (polygamy) and communal ownership, formed communities practising “Old-Fashioned Mormonism”. By the early 1930s Short Creek was such a place.

The settlement was largely ignored by the outside world, apart from the occasional court case over polygamy and an ill-advised raid by the state of Arizona in 1953, when 263 children were taken from their parents and held for up to three years, inciting widespread sympathy for the town. Short Creek ultimately incorporated as two places: Hildale City, Utah in 1962 and Colorado City, Arizona in 1985. It was not until the turn of the century that outsiders started paying attention again.

Short Creek’s church, by then called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (flds), had long been headed by a “prophet”. The church’s most famous, Warren Jeffs, assumed the title in 2002. By excommunicating dissenters—which meant ostracisation by believers, even spouses and children—Mr Jeffs took control of the priesthood and therefore of the town’s resources and government, as most residents and city office-holders were church members. He began to exercise total authority over relationships, starting by marrying many of his stepmothers. He removed all flds children from public school and banned television, books other than approved scripture, toys and red clothing. Mr Jeffs was arrested in 2006 after a stint on the fbi’s most-wanted list for charges related to sexual abuse of a minor. He is serving a life sentence in Texas.

Mr Jeffs’s arrest did not end Short Creek’s legal troubles. The United States began court proceedings against Colorado City and Hildale City in 2012, alleging that city officials and local utility providers had acted in concert to “deny non-flds individuals housing, police protection, and access to public space and services”. The flds filled the local marshal’s office with loyal members who turned a blind eye to under-age marriages and food-stamp fraud. The marshal’s office trained and equipped a formal security force, called “Church Security”, with the primary purpose of helping church leaders evade the law. They held mock fbi raids to be ready for the real thing, and even helped burgle the business of an ex-flds member who had evidence that Mr Jeffs had raped a 12-year-old in the presence of other girls.

The two cities lost their case in 2016. Both then appealed, though Hildale City withdrew in 2018. The ruling was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in August of this year.

Over the course of the proceedings, Short Creek has changed dramatically. Many true believers have moved away, while the town has seen both the return of ex-flds members and an influx of newcomers. Though the government of Colorado City is still controlled by flds members, Hildale City elected non-flds councillors and an ex-flds mayor in 2017, causing a number of flds city employees to resign.

Most of the towns’ businesses opened recently. The Edge of the World Brewery served its first beer in March 2018. The Black Cloud vape shop opened three months later. Few flds-run businesses remain. And the children have returned to class. An old flds storehouse has since become Water Canyon High School.

With these changes has come a newfound democratic zeal. At a town-hall meeting on October 21st the citizens of Hildale City debated paving the town’s many dirt roads. Mr Jeffs’s name came up only one time, invoked by a man who had moved in relatively recently. There is a long road still to travel to escape Mr Jeffs’s legacy, but the community of Short Creek has set off in the right direction.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Theocracy in America"

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/12/07/short-creek-starts-to-move-beyond-its-past-as-a-fundamentalist-fief

Brothers get 2 years in prison for tax scheme linked to polygamous sect

Nate Carlisle

Salt Lake Tribune

September 24, 2019

A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced two brothers to two years in prison for filing false tax returns for members of a polygamous sect on the Utah-Arizona line.

Alma T. and Denver T. Barlow, formerly of Hildale, filed over 700 false tax returns for themselves and members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, according to prosecutors. The brothers had pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to file false claims.

Charges against a third brother, Trenton T. Barlow, were dismissed in 2018. His attorney, Rudy Bautista, said prosecutors determined they couldn’t prove he had a role in the fraud.

In a news release announcing the sentencing Tuesday, U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber said the defendants claimed over $9.7 million in false refunds for hundreds of clients who didn’t know Alma and Denver Barlow were not legitimate tax preparers. Neither Utah nor Arizona lists the defendants as being certified public accountants.

Neither the 2017 indictment nor Tuesday’s news release mentioned the FLDS or where the proceeds went. In 2017, one of the defendants’ half brothers, Ted Barlow, told The Salt Lake Tribune much of the money the brothers received likely went to the church leaders.

FLDS President Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence plus 20 years in a Texas prison on charges related to sexually assaulting girls he married as plural wives, requires members to provide any surplus money to the bishop.

“Alma basically told me one time, ‘We’re told to get money for the church no matter what,’ ” Ted Barlow told The Tribune.

The two defendants have agreed to pay restitution, according to court filings.

The 2017 grand jury indictment describes a simple scheme. When filing their own tax returns, the defendants falsified W-2 forms to show they had far more tax withholdings than they actually paid.

DENVER BARLOW ALLEGED FALSE CLAIMS (p. 4)

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Alma and Denver Barlow co-owned a clothing manufacturer in Hildale called Most Wanted Jeans. Prosecutors allege Denver Barlow falsified business expenses to receive a tax refund of $45,168 for 2012.

The indictment also alleges the defendants sought out people in Hildale and Colorado City and asked to file their taxes for them. Working from Most Wanted Jeans in a business park with other FLDS-affiliated businesses, the defendants, according to court documents, misreported the filers’ incomes, marital status and number of dependents to make the filers qualify for an earned income tax credit, which can reduce the taxes that low- or moderate-income people pay.

The defendants took 10 percent of the refunds received by the other filers, the indictment says.

In court documents, prosecutors asked that the defendants receive 46 months in prison. The prosecutors argued the false returns caused tax problems for people who thought they were receiving professional assistance. There also was no evidence anyone in the FLDS ordered Alma and Denver Barlow to execute the scheme, prosecutors wrote. Court records say the brothers were kicked out of the FLDS in 2012, yet the fraud stretched from 2009 to 2014.

In their arguments for a lighter sentence, defense attorneys wrote that federal Judge Ted Stewart should take into account the FLDS culture.

“Actions against federal authorities,” defense attorneys wrote, “and federal institutions which benefited the community were proper and just based on the doctrine of that community, even though those acts were criminal acts.”

ALLEGEDLY SOLICITED OTHERS (p. 6)

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https://www.sltrib.com/news/polygamy/2019/09/24/brothers-get-years/

Ninth Circuit Upholds Verdict Against Sect-Run Arizona Town

Courthouse News Service

August 26, 2019

AMANDA PAMPURO

 

(CN) – An Arizona town that let a Mormon sect run the government deprived non-church members of their constitutional rights, a Ninth Circuit panel held Monday, affirming a federal judge’s 2016 finding.

“We conclude that because of the overwhelming evidence that Colorado City deprived non-FLDS residents of their constitutional rights, it is more probable than not that the court would have reached the same verdict on the United States’ [Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act] claim,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith Jr., in a 21-page opinion.

The U.S. government sued the towns of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale City, Utah, in 2012, for letting overseers of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) appoint city leader and marshals.

Following a 44-day trial in 2016, U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland, a Ronald Reagan appointee, awarded a total of $2.2 million to apostates denied access to water utilities as well as a former city councilman wrongly arrested and charged with felony theft.

Hildale City withdrew from this appeal in 2018, leaving the 4,857-person Arizona town alone in its argument against the court’s use of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Smith noted the act was passed “address systematic patterns or practices of police misconduct.”

Colorado City argued the law didn’t apply since the town didn’t have an official policy on the books committing it to work on behalf of the church.

Nevertheless, the FLDS was handpicking city marshals to “ignore violations of the law – such as underage marriage, unlicensed drug distributions, and food stamp fraud – by FLDS members,” Smith wrote in a summary of the trial.

Law enforcement on the town payroll helped church leaders duck the FBI, kept tabs on unfamiliar license plates that rolled through, hid church leader Warren Jeffs from the FBI for more than a year and destroyed evidence against him.

Moreover, the marshal’s office “selectively enforce[ed] the law based upon religion,” arresting several non-FLDS members without probable cause.

The church also employed its own security detail nicknamed the God Squad.

Colorado City also argued that statements made by FLDS leaders should have been discounted by the court as mere heresy, but Smith said doing so would not have changed the case’s outcome.

But Smith, a George W. Bush appointee noted in his opinion that “the United States presented extensive evidence at trial that supported the existence of a conspiracy between the church and the towns,” including that “Jeffs excommunicated the towns’ leaders who did not follow his orders [and] FLDS leaders determined who would occupy the towns’ government positions such as mayor, City Council members, and police officers.”

Smith was joined in the opinion by two Bill Clinton appointees, U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Daly Hawkins and Chief U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn of the Northern District of Texas, sitting by designation.

Spanning the Arizona-Utah border, the Short Creek Community follows the teachings of Warren Jeffs, whom they consider a prophet. The FLDS should not be confused with the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which excommunicated many of the sect members.

Jeffs is imprisoned in Texas for life plus 20 years for the sexual abuse of two young girls he had taken as his “spiritual wives.”

https://www.courthousenews.com/ninth-circuit-upholds-verdict-against-sect-run-arizona-town/

Former child bride who testified against Warren Jeffs is running for Hildale's City Council

BEN WINSLOW
FOX 13 News
JUNE 11, 2019

HILDALE, Utah — The former child bride who became the star witness in Utah’s prosecution of Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs is now running for public office.

Elissa Wall confirmed she had filed to run for Hildale City Council.

“I look forward to representing the residents of Hildale as a future city council member,” she told FOX 13. “Alongside the mayor, council, and citizens, we will continue to work together to be resilient, rebuild, and create a vision for our future.”

Wall was key to Utah’s prosecution of Jeffs on a charge of rape as an accomplice. She testified that at age 14, the polygamist leader married her to her cousin. Jeffs’ conviction was later overturned by the Utah Supreme Court. He is currently serving life in a Texas prison after being convicted there of child sex assault related to underage marriages.

Wall recently won a multi-million dollar lawsuit she had filed against Jeffs and the FLDS Church and settled with its real-estate holdings arm, the United Effort Plan Trust. She relocated back to the community she fled as a child and has been involved in reform efforts.

For a small border town, Hildale and neighboring Colorado City, Ariz., have seen quite a bit of political turmoil and change. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the community, accusing it of discriminating against non-members of the FLDS Church. A jury sided with the feds and the community has been under federal court oversight ever since. Then, voters elected the community’s first ever woman and ex-FLDS mayor, Donia Jessop.

Wall is one of four candidates running for three spots on the city council. Lawrence Barlow, Stacy Seay and JVar Dutson are all seeking re-election. They represent a secular shift for the Hildale City Council (some members, who were FLDS, also quit saying they would not work with a woman mayor).

Community leaders have worked to shed Hildale’s image as a stronghold of the FLDS Church, focusing on luring tourists and business.

https://fox13now.com/2019/06/11/former-child-bride-who-testified-against-warren-jeffs-is-running-for-hildales-city-council/

For many people in this Utah polygamous community, shooting stray animals is part of life. An animal rescue group says that needs to change

Kelly Cannon

Salt Lake Tribune

June 8, 2018

A string of animals being shot in the Utah town of Hildale has left the community fighting over whether such behavior is abuse — or just part of how things have always been in the small, mostly polygamous community.

In the past few months, St. George’s RSQ Dogs has been called out to Hildale to rescue dogs and cats that have been shot by either guns or pellet guns. The nonprofit has set up a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator.

The first victim was found in September, a pitbull that had been shot with a .22. Hildale law enforcement, which had impounded the dog, called RSQ Dogs to come pick him up.

“We had two vets and had him up to the specialty vet in Las Vegas,” said Kelli Stokes, the director of RSQ Dogs. “We did everything we could for him, but he passed away.”

The second victim was a cat named Lucky who had been shot near the end of May. After being treated by a vet, it was determined the black cat had a bullet lodged near his spine. According to Linda Thomas, the medical director of RSQ, Lucky couldn’t move or even lift his head.

“The vet thought that he may be too far gone. They said he had lost 60 percent of his blood volume,” Thomas said. “He was in really bad shape.”

Lucky was taken to Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, where he received physical therapy for a few weeks. He is back with RSQ Dogs, continuing his therapy as he learns to walk again.

“Every day, he gets better,” Thomas said. “The bullet went into his neck and is lodged in his shoulder, really close to his spinal column. They don’t want to remove the bullet.”

A few days after Lucky was found, RSQ Dogs was called back to Hildale to pick up a German shepherd mix who had also been shot. Named Bullet, the dog had an entry and exit wound but was able to recover. The rescue also picked up a cat named Wilson who had an old gunshot wound that had healed.

After Bullet was picked up, RSQ Dogs posted on a Facebook community page for Hildale called Creekers Helping Creekers, saying there was a reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of whoever was committing the animal abuse. The now-deleted post exploded with community members arguing whether it was OK to shoot the animals.

“We got a lot of good comments saying this has been going on forever. People just shoot animals out here. They just do it for fun because they’re playing around with guns,” Thomas said. “And then there are people who are using very foul language, telling us to mind our own business.”


Stokes says she thinks the culprits are teenage boys who are shooting the animals for target practice. Since posting the reward, she has been contacted by several community members relating stories of their own animals being shot.

“That’s why we did the reward,” Stokes said. “If they understand that it’s a really big deal, maybe it will make people think a little bit more.”

Thomas hopes the reward and the awareness will change things in the community.

“It’s been going on for so long in that community because that community has kind of had its own laws. Nobody has really been following the laws of the land,” Thomas said. “I posted on there the actual Utah code against animal cruelty. And I got responses like, try and tell me what I can do on my own property.”

Hildale, a polygamous community on the Utah-Arizona border, recently hired a new police chief after a judge ordered Hildale and Colorado City to implement changes designed to create more equitable policing.

The $7,000 reward is funded by donations to RSQ Dogs, and a donation from the Humane Society of the United States. RSQ Dogs organizers say law enforcement is supportive of the award.

“We want to send a message to the community that’s it’s not OK,” Thomas said. “If it takes arresting someone to do it, so be it.”

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/06/08/for-many-people-in-this-utah-polygamous-community-shooting-stray-animals-is-part-of-life-an-animal-rescue-group-says-that-needs-to-change/#gallery-carousel-9432624

From Polygamy to Democracy: Inside a Fundamentalist Mormon Town

Ash Sanders
Rolling Stone
May 23, 2018

How does a community long run by a cult-like leader move away from a theocracy and into a new era?

On a sunny day in May, a very strange reunion is happening in the dusty desert town of Hildale, Utah. In an empty lot, tables and chairs stand in long rows, covered with plastic tablecloths that flap in the wind. At noon, the guests arrive. They come in Hondas and cargo shorts, Toyotas and tank tops, lining up at the buffet and fanning themselves with paper plates. On the other side of the table, women in pastel prairie dresses and braids dish out macaroni salad, molded Jell-O dishes and a local specialty called funeral potatoes. When the plates change hands, some smile and others shyly look down. People are nervous, and for good reason. Half of them are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – a polygamous sect commonly known as FLDS – and the other half are apostates, pariahs who have left the faith. They're also the women's brothers, sisters, cousins and aunts. And it's the first time they've interacted in years.

The luncheon is an attempt to rebuild a community riven with animosities. For over a decade, Hildale and its neighboring town of Colorado City, Arizona (collectively known as Short Creek) were controlled by FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs. Paranoid and punishing, Jeffs ran the community as a theocratic fiefdom, appointing cronies to government positions and dictating everything from what his followers could wear to who they could marry. As Jeffs consolidated power, he began to break up families, re-assigning husbands and wives and banishing hundreds from the community. According to Elissa Wall, one of the FLDS child brides who helped bring Jeffs to justice, Jeffs and his brother, Lyle, told their followers that these apostates were to be "left alone severely." The line comes from Nineteenth-century Mormon prophet Brigham Young, but the Jeffs took it and weaponized it. Apostates could lose their homes, their families, and their jobs. Once shunned, they could go for years without seeing their relatives – even if they lived on the same block.

Eventually, Jeffs' draconian measures caught up to him. In 2007, he was arrested outside Las Vegas with his favorite wife, Naomi, 16 cell phones, various wigs and disguises and $55,000 in cash. In 2011, he was convicted of sexually assaulting two underage girls – he claimed they were "spiritual wives" – and sentenced to life in prison. Jeffs continued to control Short Creek from his Texas jail cell, but in 2016, a federal jury dealt a crushing blow to his power when it found both Hildale and Colorado City guilty of housing discrimination and police misconduct, sending in an outside monitor to oversee sweeping reforms to the town government.

While Jeffs was in power, Short Creek was a town that many ran from. But as his stranglehold loosened, the once-banished are running toward it – and with ex-FLDS residents now in the majority, they're hoping to revive the community they once loved. Last year, Hildale staged the first elections in town history, electing Donia Jessop, an ex-FLDS woman, as mayor. RISE, a fair elections group Wall started in early 2017, is currently looking for candidates to to repeat the miracle in Colorado City this November. No one has formally declared yet, but Wall says several are busy collecting the signatures to do so.

In the process, they've ratcheted tensions between theocracy and democracy to a breaking point. In their ochre desert valley, the FLDS have taken cover, erecting tall fences and hanging wooden ZION signs above their doors. The idea is to protect themselves from the wicked – but the wicked, increasingly, are right next door. Some of the apostates have kept the signs, but flipped them over, reading NOIZ. It's a fitting image for a place that's been turned upside down.

Terrill Musser never expected to come back to Short Creek – much less to be leading a grassroots democratic movement. Born and raised in a polygamist FLDS family, Musser fled after refusing to kowtow to Jeffs when Jeffs took over following his father's death in 2002. For years, Musser lived in his car in nearby St. George, Utah, trying to survive in the "gentile" world. But when in 2014 he heard his dad's home was standing empty, he knew it was time to go back. Musser, who suffers from bone cancer, weighed only 90 pounds at the time; doctors said he'd be dead by spring. But he had to try.

When Musser returned, the once-thriving town of his childhood looked apocalyptic – houses empty, businesses shuttered, the town hall locked. But the faithful were still there, and they were still in charge. It took Musser three months to get his utilities turned on, and he worried daily that if his health suddenly deteriorated, the FLDS paramedics would refuse to send an ambulance.

Yet Musser wasn't intimidated. He launched the Short Creek Community Alliance from his sickbed, an online forum for the community to build a better town. The premise was simple, but daunting: persuading people who'd never made a political decision in their lives to sit down with rivals and hammer out a blueprint for democracy. Despite obstacles, the Alliance quickly racked up an impressive resume of firsts. They organized the first protest in the town's history, demanding the reformation of the largely Church-controlled police force. They hosted the first Fourth of July celebration since Jeffs had banned holidays, where they united exiled FLDS children with their mothers. And when the FLDS-controlled town council refused to work with them, they began to plan the first real elections in town history. For Musser, the elections were all about inclusion and accountability. "We the people created this problem," he says. "If we don't like it, we have to fix it. We want people to know that this town can be a community again."

Building an inclusive community might sound like a sentiment everyone could get behind, but in Short Creek, unifying messages are hard to come by. When ex-FLDS residents approached FLDS women about hosting the town luncheon, Norma Richter agreed, but only because Voices for Dignity, a local nonprofit she trusts, persuaded the middle-aged believer that it would be a good opportunity to build bridges and debut the craft pop-up that VFD had been working with FLDS women to create. But Richter doesn't share Musser's democratic sentiments. "People say they're just making the town great again, but to me it's not great," she says. "It's a completely different place. The spirit of it, the atmosphere. Some streets I don't even want to go down."

Richter is sitting in a chair apart from the lunch hubbub, wearing a long blue prairie dress, gray hair neatly tucked at the nape of her neck. She watches the customers handle jars of jam and handcrafted aprons as she answers my questions. When I ask her how she feels about the luncheon outside, she chooses her words carefully. "I'm glad we're doing it here," she says.

By 'here', Richter means FLDS land. It's a reference to a property battle that dates back to the 1940s, when Church leaders founded a housing trust to administer what they saw as God's land. The United Effort Plan trust held all property in common, with members consecrating their land, businesses and housing to what was essentially the Church. But when members left the faith, the Church kept their property, becoming land-rich at the expense of exiles. In 2005, the state of Utah stepped in, appointing an outside fiduciary to manage trust assets. To stay in their homes, the trust – managed since 2015 by a local board of largely ex-FLDS trustees – requires residents to pay their property taxes, sign an occupancy agreement and pay a nominal fee of $100 a month. But the FLDS have refused to cooperate, saying it violates their religious beliefs to work with apostates. In response, the trust began evictions – so far, of at least 175 homes – and FLDS began flocking out of the community.

The reformed Trust, which is now run by an ex-FLDS Executive Director named Jeff Barlow, says it simply wants to protect trust land for all beneficiaries. "Our goal is not to evict anybody," says Barlow, pointing to the many ways the trust accommodated the FLDS, from working with FLDS-approved third parties to waiving rental fees in cases of financial hardship. Barlow is willing to work with the FLDS, but he believes everyone has to compromise. "We've got to work together," Barlow says. "Whether we like it or not."

The idea makes sense if you believe that Short Creek is a democracy. But for Richter and her fellow believers, it's not. It's God's town, and anyone who defies His chosen leaders defies God. In Richter's opinion, the people coming back to town are thieves, trying to take back something they willingly gave to the Church. "Thou shalt not steal," Richter says, before explaining what she sees as a solution: The state should compensate the FLDS for taking their homes, and offer money to ex-members to move elsewhere. But ex-members argue that Jeffs used religious pretexts to bilk them out of property that was rightfully theirs. The disagreement seems intractable, an ideological chasm between freedom of religion and the rule of law. After all, what law could bridge heaven and earth?

Donia Jessop never intended to run for mayor. Like Musser, she grew up in Short Creek. Her family practiced polygamy, although Jessop herself married only one man. For years, Jessop loved living in the Creek. But after Jeffs took charge, things changed. Every Sunday, Jeffs banned something new or claimed a new degree of power. It got to the point where Jessop dreaded going to church. And she wasn't alone: In one year, she helped almost two dozen friends and neighbors pack up and flee a town they no longer recognized..

Eventually, Jessop fled, too, landing in the nearby town of Santa Clara, Utah. In Short Creek, the only choice had been obey or go to hell. Now she was signing on a house and putting her kids into local schools. Her life began to feel like her own. But a few years later, Jeffs went to prison and her husband wanted to return to their old town. Jessop agreed, on one condition: she would bring the experience of choice back to the community.

Her opportunity came almost immediately, when the Alliance announced their call for election candidates in January 2017. At first, Jessop was scared. Her neighbors saw her as a wicked apostate. Besides, she was, in her words, "just a chick from the sticks." But then something changed. "The night that they said if you're willing to run, throw your hat in the ring, I knew," she says. "Something settled over me that was like, this is what you're doing next. And I knew I would win."

So Jessop declared her candidacy. She cleaned up voter rolls. She went door-to-door. She joined a democracy study group, poring over the nuts and bolts of running a city. And then the unthinkable happened: she won. On November 7th, 2017, she became Hildale's first ex-FLDS mayor, its first female mayor and its first democratically elected mayor, period. At her victory party, the crowd was electric with excitement. Forty percent had voted for the first time in their lives, and many had cried while filling out ballots. But in the city hall offices across town, the mood was somber. The next day, 11 men resigned from their city posts, saying they refused to work with a woman and an apostate.

Jessop's struggle was only beginning. After her second council meeting, she went into her office and sobbed. She didn't know how to run a city. Two FLDS councilmen refused to come to meetings at all. When Jessop and a fellow councilwoman went through the budget for the first time, one of the men quipped, "Ladies, try to keep up." And when Jessop wanted to appoint a zoning commissioner who shared her broad vision of equality and her practica vision for growing the local economy and getting better water, roads, and infrastructure, the FLDS mayor of Colorado City told her that approach was wrong for Hildale. It was a moment that would normally have shut Jessop up, sending her into a spiral of insecurity. But this time, she stood her ground. "I am Hildale," she told him. "The people voted me in, and I will have a zoning commissioner who shares my vision." For Jessop, it's not just about elections. It's about standing up to an authority she has always feared.

Ideas like this rankle Norma Richter. She doesn't mind Jessop being mayor, but she thinks she should focus less on grievances and more on fixing potholes. She can't understand why Jessop badmouths Warren Jeffs, or why the ex-FLDS insist on dredging up all the ways they've been hurt by FLDS leaders. It makes Richter suspicious. Just a few years ago, many of these people were believing members, and had no problem with the way the Church did things. "The only thing that changed [for these people] is their perspective on who they are," Richter says.

But for Jessop and Musser, that's exactly the point. More than a platform, they believe residents of Short Creek need a fundamental shift in the way people see themselves. "When I first moved out here and said 'you matter,'" Musser says, "people would look at me point blank and say, 'No I don't.' But when you insist, people start thinking, 'Maybe I do matter. Maybe I do exist.'" Jessop feels the same way. "Hildale had a heart," she says. "Warren Jeffs didn't take a gun out and shoot people. He ripped the heart from their bodies." Jessop and Musser are trying to heal the hearts of residents and of the community, and that means showing up, again and again, building relationships. It's hard work, and in another town they might have given up. But in Short Creek, their enemies are also their family – and for Jessop, it's this bond that's pulling them through this crisis. "[The FLDS] love me," Jessop says, "They just forgot. But I'm standing here no matter what, loving them."

If the FLDS do love people like Jessop, they've got to start remembering it soon. In November, Colorado City will go to the polls for the first time, and the faithful will likely face off against another batch of apostates. This battle is a bigger challenge than Hildale. With a poulation of nearly 5,000, Colorado City is almost twice as big, the FLDS presence is stronger. But organizers say there's a different mood this time. After Hildale, people don't scoff as much at the idea of government. Instead, they ask how to register to vote.

Regardless of the results, Musser feels like he's done what he came back to Short Creek to do. He didn't die in the spring. Instead, he seemed to get better as the town did, eventually trading in his bed for a wooden cane. And Jessop has stopped flinching when she drives into town. "We are all joined up," she says. "We're not one above the other. We are all on the same level. We are all humans. We have a light and that light is stamping out the darkness."

The battle in Short Creek is far from over, and old enmities are strong. Richter may have made food for the luncheon, but she still doesn't believe in a compromise. Instead, she relies on a higher power. "Heavenly Father knows what we're going through," she says. "Yeah, we'd like Him to [make it] stop, and we hope it's soon. In the meantime, you just have to love." Most people would see that as a rejection, but Musser and Jessop see it as an invitation, a possibility for relationship to overcome ideology. Sure, the FLDS might want God to get rid of them. But still, people are here, at an awkward reunion on a dusty lot, serving macaroni salad across the gap. As Jessop would say, they love each other. They just forgot.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/polygamy-democracy-fundamentalist-mormon-short-creek-w520665

Utah company that used child labor from polygamous sect to pick pecans must still pay $200,000 to compensate kids, federal appeals court rules

Nate Carlisle
Salt Lake Tribune
March 15, 2018

A federal appeals court has upheld most of the ruling against a company affiliated with a polygamous church and which was found to have used child labor, though the company did win one point.

The contempt of court finding against Paragon Contractors Corp. and its owner, Brian Jessop, stands, and they still must pay $200,000 into a fund to compensate the children who harvested pecans on a ranch near Hurricane in 2012.

But the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said a federal judge in Salt Lake City was wrong to make Jessop and Paragon report to what is called a special master — someone who would monitor their business practices. That could be an important ruling for Jessop. Last month, he appeared at a new court hearing where he was accused of failing to comply with that special master.

Jessop is a city councilman in Hildale. Both he and Paragon have ties to the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In December 2012, children from the FLDS were sent to the pecan ranch.

Some of those children later described that harvest and others they worked on at the ranch. They complained of being cold, having limited access to bathrooms and being required to work to keep themselves and their families in good standing with the FLDS. Most importantly, they testified they were not paid for their labor.

Paragon and Jessop had entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor in 2007 to not use child labor in ways that violated the law. After hearing testimony about the 2012 pecan harvest, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell found Paragon and Jessop in contempt for violating the earlier agreement. She then ordered the $200,000 be paid and that Paragon and Jessop report their work to the special master.

In Tuesday’s ruling, the 10th Circuit Court in Denver rejected the argument that the children were volunteers or that they were the responsibility of an independent contractor. But the court said that by the time of Campbell’s ruling in 2016, Paragon and Jessop were in compliance with the earlier agreement.

Therefore, the 10th Circuit Court ruled, appointing a special master who would ensure future compliance exceeded Campbell’s authority.

“A coercive sanction cannot be imposed on a party that is currently in compliance just to ensure future compliance,” the 10th Circuit Court judges wrote.

Jessop may still be in trouble for more recent business dealings. At the hearing last month, the Labor Department presented evidence that Paragon had folded into a new company, called Par 2, that should inherit the child labor restrictions imposed in 2007. Inspectors in Arizona found Par 2 building a motel. They also suspected Par 2 of employing two 17-year-olds who were using nail guns.

Federal labor laws says no one under 18 may operate such machinery.

Jeff Matura, an attorney for Par 2, on Thursday said a judge in Salt Lake City can still consider whether Par 2 is subject to the order not to violate child labor laws, but questions about the special master are moot.

“We can’t be held in contempt for violating something that should not have been ordered in the first place,” Matura said.



https://www.sltrib.com/news/polygamy/2018/03/15/utah-company-that-used-child-labor-from-polygamous-sect-to-pick-pecans-wins-one-point-in-appeal-but-most-of-a-lower-courts-ruling-will-stand/

Public Officials In Town With Polygamous Sect Resign After Elections

SARAH VENTRE
NPR
February 12, 2018

Political turmoil in the communities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, have resulted in the resignations of nearly a dozen city and utility board employees.

The communities are the longtime home of a polygamous sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which has been the target of state and federal investigations and lawsuits. FLDS leader Warren Jeffs is serving a life sentence for sexual assault of children.

The resignations follow the historic election last year of non-FLDS followers to vacant Hildale city council seats and the mayor's office. One of the employees cited conflict of religion as the reason for his resignation. He said in his resignation letter that it is against his faith to follow a woman or to work with "apostates," which is the FLDS word for those who have left or been kicked out of the church. FLDS faithful typically do not associate with apostates. Those who leave the church, whether by their own choice or by the decree of church leaders, are shunned.

The adjacent communities are essentially one town and share services.

The newly elected Hildale mayor is Donia Jessop, who left the FLDS church about four years ago with her family. Jessop is the first woman, and also the first "apostate" to be mayor of Hildale and said she respects those who have resigned for following their beliefs.

Still, the resignations suddenly leave the town with empty municipal jobs. Jessop and others on the council were not caught completely off guard. There had been rumors in the communities of the mass resignations. Jessop said she is working on filling the positions with the guidance of a court-appointed monitor named Roger Carter, who is the city manager of Washington, Utah, which is about 45 minutes away from Hildale. The monitor was appointed as a result of a 2016 Justice Department lawsuit alleging institutionalized religious discrimination in the community. Non-members complained that they were denied access to city services because they were not part of the FLDS faith. In 2016, the towns were found guilty of religious discrimination by a federal court jury.

The towns and FLDS church leaders have been the subject of lawsuits and prosecutions ranging from food stamp fraud to sexual abuse for years. Officials in Arizona and Utah have also successfully challenged FLDS dominance of the school system, town marshal's office and a religious trust that once controlled nearly all the land and homes in the border towns.

Hildale and Colorado City have undergone significant changes in the last few years, particularly as population demographics continue to shift with people leaving the FLDS church, which has always been the dominant cultural and political force in the towns.

While the faithful still follow Jeffs' edicts from prison, there is work being done in the community to provide resources and services from those leaving the extremely strict and insular church, as well as efforts to open up the community and make it more welcoming to outsiders.

KJZZ chronicled a number of these changes in a series about the community, known collectively as Short Creek.

NPR's Howard Berkes contributed reporting for this story.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/12/585180219/public-officials-in-town-with-polygamous-sect-resign-after-elections

For the first time ever, Hildale has a woman and ex-FLDS mayor

BEN WINSLOW
fox13now.com
JANUARY 5, 2018

HILDALE, Utah -- In an historic ceremony before a crowd of hundreds, Donia Jessop took the oath of office, becoming this polygamous border town's first-ever woman mayor.

She's also the first mayor to not be a member of the Fundamentalist LDS Church, which has dominated local politics. Mayor Jessop, an ex-member of the faith, was elected by a narrow majority in November.

"I look forward to working with every single person and to create relationships that haven't been able to be created until now. I'm just excited to do this," she told FOX 13.

Relationship building will be big in her administration, Mayor Jessop said. Changing demographics in Hildale -- once the stronghold of the FLDS Church -- allowed for her and other ex-FLDS members to be elected to city government. Many FLDS faithful have moved out under orders from their leaders as court-ordered reforms to the communal land structure of the town have taken hold.

Still, the mayor said she wanted to work with everyone.

"Repairing relationships, creating relationships," Mayor Jessop said. "Right now, I believe we're really in the relationship stage."

When she was in the FLDS Church, the mayor said, she was told by church leaders who to vote for. Others also pointed that out.

"It's one of the greatest days in the history of this town. To have a real election for people who don't have to be inside the church to be able to serve the city and the community," said Gary Taylor, who lives in Hildale and attended Thursday night's swearing-in ceremony.

Hildale's government has been under a cloud of controversy for years. The U.S. Department of Justice sued it and neighboring Colorado City, Ariz., accusing the town governments of discriminating against non-FLDS members in services. The police department was accused of being loyal to polygamist leader Warren Jeffs. A jury sided with the feds and the towns have been implementing court-ordered changes.

FLDS faithful remain loyal to Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence for child sex assault stemming from underage "marriages."

Mayor Jessop said she wants to make some big changes in the community with the help of the city council, which also includes three new members: Maha Layton, Jvar Dutson and Jerod Nicol. She said the water system needs fixing, the roads need work and she wants fiber optic networks in town to attract new business.

At Thursday's ceremony, Mayor Jessop led the crowd in a singalong. Nodding to everyone in the audience -- FLDS and non-FLDS -- she urged them to stay and mingle.

"My friends, this is our community," she said.

http://fox13now.com/2018/01/05/for-the-first-time-ever-hildale-has-a-woman-and-ex-flds-mayor/

Utah-Arizona border towns pay to settle more lawsuits as effort to boot cops from polygamous community stalls

Nate Carlisle
Salt Lake Tribune
November 6, 2017

Two towns on the Utah-Arizona line have agreed to pay $350,000 to people who allege they were wrongly arrested by police loyal to a polygamous sect.

The settlements noted in court records last week resolve two civil rights lawsuits against Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., and their joint police force, referred to as marshals. The towns are the longtime home of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The settlements arrive as Arizona’s police regulators are seeking to remove six of the community’s seven marshals for allegations including making false arrests, failing to investigate crimes and lying to investigators.

The plaintiffs’ attorney in both lawsuits, Bill Walker, on Thursday said the settlements are “significant victories” for his clients. He also called the payouts further proof that the marshals still favor members of the FLDS and why the state of Arizona should boot them.

“I think it pretty much puts the last nails in the coffin of these marshals,” Walker said.

The lawyer for Colorado City, Jeff Matura, on Thursday said the towns were not admitting any wrongdoing. The settlements, he said, are “a business decision to limit the exposure and settle the case.” The money will be paid from city funds, Matura said.

Seth Cooke and a company he formed, Prairie Farms LLC, will receive $200,000, according to Walker and Matura.

Cooke and another man named Patrick Pipkin in 2015 obtained an agreement from the owner of an old Colorado City zoo to farm and ranch on the property.

Pipkin and Cooke went to take possession of the zoo, and a third man, Andrew Chatwin went with them. The towns’ marshals arrived and said the three were trespassing. Pipkin and Cooke refused to leave and were arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of trespassing for the first time on Oct. 13, 2015.

Four days later, Pipkin and Chatwin returned to the zoo and were arrested again. Pipkin and Chatwin settled their cases in August and received a combined $221,000.

In the second lawsuit recently settled, Isaac Wyler and his girlfriend, Twila Carstens, will receive a total of $150,000. On Dec. 23, 2015, they were changing the locks on a home in Hildale where sheriffs deputies had recently served an eviction.

According to the plaintiffs’ complaint, marshals arrived, accused Wyler and Carstens of trespassing and handcuffed and arrested them. Wyler and Carstens also accused the marshals of taking them to the Arizona side so sheriff’s deputies from Utah couldn’t provide assistance.

The marshals have been the subject of scrutiny for years as a series of civil rights lawsuitshave made their way through the courts. Then in November of last year, Arizona’s police regulators, called the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, voted to begin the process of removing six of the marshals. The marshals have remained on the job while they appeal. An appeal hearing has still not been scheduled.

Matura on Thursday said the standards and training board during the summer had asked his clients for more records about past incidents involving the marshals. Matura said the marshals have thus far not provided those records.

Matura explained he was trying to ascertain whether the records are part of the ongoing case against the marshals or part of a new investigation. Fact finding has ended for the current case, Matura said, and if Arizona is starting a new investigation, the marshals have a right to be informed of that before any records are provided.

“We’re trying to figure out why, what the scope of this request is,” Matura said.

Jack Lane, the director of the standards and training board, on Thursday declined to specify which records he requested, but said they address issues that have been raised previously. Providing them could be beneficial to the marshals, he said.

“It’s possible that these documents might actually clear some of these matters up that have been brought to the board,” Lane said.

The charges against the marshals include falsely arresting the men at the zoo. The marshals also are accused of failing to investigate crimes ranging from vandalism to child sex abuse, of lying to investigators about what names they have used over the years and whether they served on a church security force.

The marshals facing discipline are Chief Jeremiah “Jerry” H. Darger and deputies Samuel E. Johnson, Hyrum S. Roundy, Daniel R. Barlow, Jacob L. Barlow Jr. and Daniel N. Musser.

A seventh marshal, Curtis L. Cooke, resigned in 2016 rather than face discipline from the Arizona regulators. Cooke’s replacement is the only marshal not under suspicion.

The Hildale and Colorado City marshals are certified in Utah and Arizona. Utah’s police regulators in 2016 closed an investigation into the marshals with no action.

Laws in the two states are different. Arizona’s police board can take action against “malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance,” according to its regulations.

Utah once had similar language. Then, in 2010, the Utah Legislature changed the law to limit police discipline cases to a few specific offenses, including criminal conduct, sex on duty, and drug and alcohol problems.



http://www.sltrib.com/news/polygamy/2017/11/06/utah-arizona-border-towns-pay-to-settle-more-lawsuits-as-effort-to-boot-cops-from-polygamous-community-stalls/

How much power does a polygamous sect have in Hildale, Utah? It will be put to a vote

NATE CARLISLE

The Salt Lake Tribune
July 11, 2017

Not a referendum on polygamy » Candidates stress that they want everyone, FLDS or not, to have a voice.

Through all the troubles they've had the past 15 years — arrests, lawsuits, the seizing of homes — members of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints held all the seats on the municipal governments of Hildale, Utah, and adjoining Colorado City, Ariz. Now that might change. Hildale will hold an election Nov. 7 for mayor and three of its six council seats.

While the election is nonpartisan, two unofficial parties have emerged.

Each of the four offices on the ballot has two candidates — one who is still a member of the FLDS, according to locals, and one who is not.

"It's actually going to be the first official election held in Hildale," said Donia Jessop, a candidate for mayor who left the FLDS four years ago. "Like, we're actually going to have a campaign and hold an election where people can choose who they have in office."

Previously, according to Jessop and others who used to belong to the church, FLDS leaders told everyone whom to vote for through word of mouth. Even on the rare occasions that someone who wasn't an FLDS member ran for office, the church members had the numbers.

It's unclear if they do this time. Perhaps hundreds of FLDS members have moved from Hildale and Colorado City rather than cooperate with their former land trust, called the United Effort Plan, which Utah seized in 2005.

In recent years, the trust has sold or is in the process of selling about 80 percent of the homes in Hildale. Some in the town estimate that a majority of Hildale residents are now non-FLDS.

Colorado City, where property transfers have been slowed by a dispute over how to subdivide parcels, does not have a municipal election scheduled for this year.

Incumbent Hildale Mayor Philip Barlow, who is running for another term, acknowledges new people are moving into town. But he said he doesn't know what the religious split is in Hildale and isn't concerned with it.

"I don't know anything about any churches because I haven't checked with anybody about what they are," Barlow said. "So that really is a nonfactor."

Barlow, who declined to speak about his own faith, is 54 years old and works at Streamline Automotive — a Hildale business that has appeared in court records through the years as being an employer of faithful FLDS members.

It's unclear how the FLDS slate was selected. For the non-FLDS candidates, there was a meeting April 28 at Water Canyon School that worked much like a party convention. Candidates made their pitches to the voters in attendance, who selected the nominees. A few people who appeared to still be FLDS members attended and voted, said Jared Nicol, a candidate for City Council who was nominated that day.

The non-FLDS candidates say they have no opposition to anyone just because of the church to which they belong. Maha Layton, 30, a candidate for a council seat who lived in Hildale until age 15 and returned four years ago, says she has some family who are FLDS and some who are not.

"It's easy for me as a councilwoman to know that I can represent all Hildale citizens," she said. "It's not two-sided to me."

Layton and the other non-FLDS candidates say they just don't like the way Hildale has been managed and how people who do not follow FLDS President Warren Jeffs, who is serving a sentence of life in prison plus 20 years in Texas for crimes related to his sexually abusing two girls he married as plural wives, have been excluded from decisions.

The town's insurer has paid millions in settlements in recent years to end civil rights suits that accused Hildale and Colorado City of favoring FLDS members. Both towns are about to receive a court-ordered monitor to observe council meetings and other municipal functions and report to a federal judge whether any discrimination or favoritism is continuing.

In the mayor's race, both Jessop and Barlow talk about ensuring Hildale has enough drinking water, but Jessop wonders why the town government is buying new lots to drill wells when there are lots available through the UEP. She believes it's another example of the FLDS refusing to work with the land trust.

If elected, Jessop wants to go through the town budget to see where money has been spent and what employees have been paid. Many of the non-FLDS residents have complained Hildale and Colorado City do not provide enough information about their finances.

"It's like we're buying a farm, sight unseen," Jessop said. "We have no idea what we're going in on."

Barlow said he and the town's council have worked to take care of infrastructure. He points to how Hildale is applying with the state for grants and loans to improve flood control there. A 2015 flash flood in Hildale killed 13 people.

Both Barlow and Jessop talk about wanting to provide good municipal services to Hildale residents — all of them. Jessop makes it a point to say that she doesn't want to drive away the FLDS members.

"Those are my family," Jessop said. "I don't want them gone. I will want them to stay. I will want them to keep their homes."

There are worries about how fair the election will be. Many FLDS members work out of state, and the non-FLDS residents have been concerned people have registered or will register their addresses in Hildale and cast absentee or mail-in ballots.

Jessop said supporters of a new municipal government are going door-to-door in Hildale and asking whether the registered voter really lives there. When the answer is no, Utah law allows submitting a challenge to the official responsible for the election — in this case the Hildale city recorder — who sends a notice asking for proof the person is eligible to vote.

Mark Thomas, director of elections in the office of Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, said Cox and other state election officials have already visited Hildale to train municipal employees and candidates on procedures. Hildale has contracted with the Washington County clerk to run the election.

The mayor's race, at least, will not be a referendum on polygamy. One of Barlow's sons told The Salt Lake Tribune last year that the mayor has two wives. Jessop says her husband has a second wife she calls her "best friend."

No debates are scheduled between Barlow and Jessop. That's OK with Jessop. She says Barlow and the other FLDS candidates are already under stress to represent the FLDS, and a debate might cause him to say something the leaders don't like.

"I know the pressure they're under," she said. "I'm not about making them miserable or uncomfortable."

ncarlisle@sltrib.com

http://www.sltrib.com/news/5398676-155/how-much-power-does-a-polygamous

Exodus of the FLDS: After a century, polygamists are leaving their home on the Utah-Arizona line

Nate Carlisle
Salt Lake Tribune
May 13, 2017

Colorado City, Ariz. • Shannon Darger’s belongings were packed. Her family members have decided to leave their home and move to Oklahoma.

A lot of her neighbors and fellow parishioners in the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have made similar choices, either moving in with other families here or leaving the community altogether.

But Darger wanted to wait for the constable and locksmith to reach her house before she walked away, and as she did, she affirmed her belief in FLDS President Warren Jeffs.

“I know with all my heart Warren is a prophet of God,” she said, “and these homes belong to him.”

Heeding the lessons taught by Jeffs and other FLDS leaders over the generations, the Dargers and many FLDS members have refused to cooperate with the land trust that owns the homes where they have been living. As a result, the people who are synonymous with polygamy are leaving the community that for a century has been North America’s unofficial headquarters of the practice. Loyal FLDS members are scattering throughout Utah and surrounding states.

While the sect is famously secretive, many members last week agreed to discuss their decisions with The Salt Lake Tribune. In interviews here and in adjoining Hildale, Utah, collectively known as Short Creek, the members say they have had enough of evictions and the “apostates” running the land trust, called the United Effort Plan (UEP).

“It’s almost like there’s an exodus happening,” said Hyrum Dutson, who moved to neighboring Cane Beds, Ariz., last year with what he describes as his “large plural family.”

Dutson is closing his grocery store in Colorado City rather than striking a deal with the UEP. In recent years, his was one of two stores in the community where FLDS members shopped for groceries. Dutson said his gross has been a fifth of what it used to be.

That’s the only metric Dutson has to measure how many FLDS members remain in Short Creek.

There have been no Sunday worship services here in about a year, he said, nor do the FLDS still have a bishop in Short Creek.

The previous bishop, Warren Jeffs’ brother Lyle, absconded from a pretrial release in a case involving alleged food stamp fraud in June and remains a federal fugitive.

Dutson frames what is happening in a historical context beginning with what he calls the persecution of Mormon founder Joseph Smith in the 19th century and his eventual murder in Illinois. Dutson says Warren Jeffs, despite his sentence of life plus 20 years in Texas for sexually abusing two underage girls he married as plural wives, has been persecuted, too.

Dutson and Lyle Jeffs were among the 11 defendants accused of fraudulently using food stamp benefits. Dutson pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and served no jail time in the case.

“We look at all of this going on as a test,” Dutson said. “It’s a test of whether you like these earthly ways better than you like the Lord.”
Moving out

Utah seized the UEP in 2005 out of concerns that Warren Jeffs was mismanaging it and that residents would lose their homes. A judge reformed the terms so the UEP became religiously neutral. Anyone who placed assets into the trust or worked on its behalf is considered a beneficiary of it, regardless of religion.

FLDS members refused to participate. They saw the seizure as government persecution and theft.

Plus, the UEP hired former FLDS members as employees tasked with managing the properties and record keeping. Years later, a judge appointed more former FLDS members to the board of trustees.

FLDS members have been taught that people who leave the church and work against it are apostates who — to quote a discourse Mormon leader Brigham Young once gave on apostasy — should be left “alone severely.”

The FLDS members largely have refused to sign occupancy agreements — sort of a cross between a rental contract and an agreement with a homeowners association — with the UEP or pay a required $100-a-month fee per home. UEP staffers often haven’t known who are living in the houses.

Property taxes also have gone unpaid in many cases. The parcel where the Dargers have been living, for example, has not been up to date on taxes since 2013 and owes $144,545, according to Mohave County.

So in the past year, the board of trustees has sought to replace noncompliant residents with beneficiaries who will sign occupancy agreements and save properties at risk of a tax foreclosure. Tribune journalists watched 15 evictions of homes and commercial properties over three days last week.

UEP Executive Director Jeff Barlow has repeatedly said no residents have to be evicted — they just have to sign an occupancy agreement and keep the taxes paid. The trustees are even willing to defer the $100-a-month fee if that is the only sticking point.

“There’s absolutely no reason an eviction needs to go through,” Barlow told The Tribune for an article published last month.

But the FLDS members have been unwilling to comply. The remaining FLDS families in Short Creek have had to bunk up to stay ahead of the evictions.
Where to go?

Liz had been living with eight children in the basement of the same home where the Dargers live. On Wednesday, she was trying to move.

Rain fell on the couches, chairs and tables in the yard. On the other side of the house, where the second story extends over a patio, sat vacuum cleaners, tools, framed pictures and an aquarium that still had a few inches of water inside. One goldfish was on its side, wagging its fins trying to stay below water.

Liz, who gave only her first name, said she is separated from her husband. She and the children will move in with a sister for a week. Then that sister, according to a notice posted on her door, is due to be evicted, too.

Liz would like to move from Short Creek, but she doesn’t know where she can go or what she can afford.

“I have never purchased anything,” Liz said. “I have no credit.”

Two of her older daughters work in Kanab, Liz said, and the household’s income is about $2,000 a month.

Like most FLDS, Liz eschews going on the internet. Her housing search has relied on the phone book and numbers others give her.

Christine Marie Katas, a former Las Vegas resident who last year moved to Short Creek to help people living there, came to the house and used her smartphone to show Liz a listing for unimproved property near Newcastle Reservoir 30 miles from Cedar City. It’s $2,500 for 2 acres, Katas told her.

Then Katas showed Liz a newspaper article about the ghost town of Garnet, Mont., where the Bureau of Land Management will provide accommodations to anyone willing to live there.

Katas jokes that tourists would like the Old West look of Liz’s prairie dress.
Ends meet

Some FLDS members have moved to the central Utah town of Huntington, where the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingstons and which has members who are polygamists, has allowed them to live in some homes in exchange for repairing them.

Perhaps a few dozen FLDS members have moved to Beaver. One 34-year-old member, who identified herself only as Ms. Barlow, said she moved there in August in order to free housing in Short Creek for other members of her church. She is trying to open a retail bakery in Beaver, she said.

In a brief interview outside Beaver’s Cache Valley Cheese store, Ms. Barlow said she’s heard a few ignorant comments from her new neighbors. She declined to share what was said. For the most part the residents have treated her well. They are at least better than apostates, she said.

“There’s not a whole lot we can do [about the evictions],” she said, “except go somewhere else and make ends meet.”

Dutson said he was fortunate to find a place to live with his family in Cane Beds. They bought one house and rented another nearby.

“Zion is growing,” Dutson said. “It’s not getting less. They’ve forced us to be spread out over the whole Western United States.”

Back at the house where Liz and the Dargers were residing, Liz was cleaning her basement living quarters. She believes Warren Jeffs, God or both will put a stop to the evictions and return the land and homes to the FLDS. If she leaves the house clean, it will be returned to her clean, she said.

“We expect to be back,” Liz said.

When the constable, the locksmith and the UEP employee overseeing the evictions reached Shannon Darger’s house, she told them what they were doing was wrong.


After the eviction was served, Darger lamented leaving her friends and family, but she was confident that going elsewhere was the right thing to do.

“I want to be with them, and I love them,” Darger said. “And I want to be worthy to be, I want to be worthy to be with the prophet’s people.”

Statement from the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingstons and whose members include polygamists, regarding the evictions in Short Creek:

When families are being displaced and are without food or housing, people must mobilize to aid and provide relief to those people. There is a humanitarian crisis developing in our own backyard.

FLDS families are being evicted leaving thousands of women and children stranded with nowhere to go. As a condition to receive relief, they are being asked to deny their religion.

People have a right to basic needs regardless of whether we agree with their religion or what history brought them to the point they are today.

Our goal is to help, and to come to a solution that doesn’t leave families out in the desert with nowhere to go and nothing to eat. What should a woman with eight children do once she has been evicted from her home? We must come together to find a solution that does not violate their rights as citizens and their human rights.

Who will step in to help the women and children who are now without the basic necessities of life? Who will help them without forcing them to forsake religion and family as a condition to receive basic living essentials?

http://local.sltrib.com/online/sw/short-creek-exodus/

Judge rules polygamous border towns discriminate, but he won't break up the police force

BEN WINSLOW
FOX 13 News
APRIL 18, 2017

SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge has issued a major ruling in a discrimination case involving the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

In an order issued late Tuesday and obtained by FOX 13, U.S. District Court Judge Russel Holland ruled the town governments and their police force did discriminate against non-members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church. However, he declined to enforce severe sanctions against them, including dismantling the police force.

“Those findings reflect that FLDS Church leadership insisted upon city officials and CCMO officers advancing church and church members’ interests in preference to the needs and interests of non-FLDS Church residents…” the judge wrote.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit leveled in Phoenix by the U.S. Department of Justice against Hildale and Colorado City, accusing the towns of discriminating against non-FLDS members in housing and services. The police force was accused of acting as de facto agents for imprisoned FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.

Judge Hilland agreed that Colorado City Marshals turned a blind eye to criminal activities, including those involving FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.

“The officers supported Warren Jeffs when he was a fugitive, ignored underage marriages, ignored unauthorized distribution of prescription drugs, ignored food stamp fraud, and failed to cite or arrest the son of a church bishop,” Judge Holland wrote.

Jeffs is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for child sex assaulted related to underage “marriages.”

However, the judge ruled that he was unpersuaded by Justice Department arguments that the town governments should be dismantled. The feds, along with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, argued the Colorado City Marshals should be replaced with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Utah and the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona.

Instead, the judge demanded outside police consultants and new hiring procedures be implemented, and ordered the Colorado City Marshal’s Office to purchase body cameras.

“The Defendant Cities shall provide yearly training to all CCMO officers regarding the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments, the state and federal Fair Housing Acts, landlord/tenant law, trespass law, and any other topics that the Defendant Cities deem appropriate. The training shall be conducted by a qualified third person or organization other than the Defendant Cities’ attorneys, and the qualified person or organization must be approved in advance by the United States,” the judge wrote.

For the town governments, an independent monitor will be installed, Judge Holland wrote. He also ordered the subdivision of homes and property in the FLDS towns. For years, the communities have resisted efforts by Utah and Arizona authorities to enact court-ordered reforms to the United Effort Plan, the real estate holdings arm of the church based on the early-Mormon concept of a “united order.”

FLDS faithful have long argued a religious right to consecrate their property to their faith. Judge Holland said the town governments needed to recognize it was over.

“It is now time for the citizens of Colorado City and City of Hildale
to come together and accept the fact that communal ownership of residential property in the Defendant Cities is a thing of the past,” the judge wrote. “All residents of the Defendant Cities must be afforded equal access to housing and residential services, to nondiscriminatory law enforcement, and to free exercise of their religious preferences that are not contrary to law.”

In an email to FOX 13, Blake Hamilton, an attorney for Hildale, expressed hope that an independent monitor would resolve the situation.

“As rural, isolated, communities, founded by religious pioneers, Hildale and Colorado City have always recognized that there have been some issues in their collective past. While we do not agree with all of the Court’s findings today, we respect the Court and acknowledge that like any community there is room for improvement,” he wrote.

“The fact that the Court did not terminate any City employees or disband the Marshal’s Office as the Department of Justice requested gives the Cities hope that they can take this opportunity to improve the services they provide to all of their citizens. We are hopeful that the tools provided in the injunction, including a monitor, mentor, and consultant, will be used in a way that enables the Cities to move toward a better future.”


http://fox13now.com/2017/04/18/judge-rules-polygamous-border-towns-discriminate-but-he-wont-break-up-the-police-force/