Vera Black, whose children were taken away because she was a polygamist in a landmark Utah case, dies at 102

Nate Carlisle
Salt Lake Tribune
May 14, 2020

Vera Black, who made international news in the 1950s when she let the state of Utah remove her children rather than teach them polygamy was wrong, died Monday in Colorado City, Ariz. She was 102.

One of her sons, Harold Black, said she died in the home of her oldest living daughter. Black had been bedridden for about 30 years after suffering a series of strokes. Her death happened the day before a new Utah law took effect reducing the offense for polygamy among consenting adults from a felony to an infraction — less than some traffic tickets.

In the more than 60 years since Black let her children go into state care, then got them back after she and her husband made the promises Utah sought, the case of the Black family has been a cause célebrè for both polygamists and their detractors. Polygamists and sympathetic scholars and authors have seen the custody case as a government oppressing a religious minority.

Arizona’s 1953 raid on Short Creek, near its border with Utah, which happened a few months before proceedings against the Blacks began, and the custody case have been cited as a reason for a multigenerational mistrust by polygamists of child welfare and protection agencies. Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, to which Black and many of her descendants belonged, compared Utah’s treatment of the Blacks to what Texas did in 2008, when it removed children from the Yearning for Zion ranch.

Critics of polygamy have appreciated the 1955 Utah Supreme Court decision that upheld the children’s removal. That ruling, which has been cited in subsequent polygamy cases, found the religious protections in the Utah Constitution did not extend to polygamy.

The opinion also said the Black kids met the state’s definition of neglected children due to what the Utah Supreme Court described as “an immoral environment.”

“The good name of this State and its people,” the majority opinion said, “committed to sustaining a high moral standard, must not be obliged to suffer because of the unsavory social life of [the Blacks] and others claiming the constitutional right under the guise of religious freedom to bring shame and embarrassment to the people of this state. ... There must be no compromise with evil."

Still, the state’s high court gave Black and her husband, Leonard Black, an option: The children could remain with their mother as long as she did not live with their father. Vera Black also had to sign an agreement to teach her children that polygamy was against the law and that she would discourage them from entering the practice.

The first condition was not an issue. Leonard Black had two other wives with whom he could stay. But Vera Black refused to sign any such statement critical of polygamy.

“It is an upright life,” she said of polygamy.

She changed her mind June 11, 1956, almost five months after seven of her children had entered a foster home in Provo. (Then-4-year-old Vaughn was ill and had been allowed to stay with his mom.) With the state making plans to place at least some of the younger children for adoption, Leonard and Vera Black appeared in front of 6th District Juvenile Court Judge Durham Morris.

Vera Black signed the agreement and gave verbal promises to the judge. Leonard Black testified he would teach his children to obey Utah laws and that he would support them.

The family was reunited two days later.

“I don’t like to go back on some of the things I believe,” Black told The Salt Lake Tribune the day of the reunion, “but my children are my first responsibility.”
Polygamous roots

Black was born into Mormon-based polygamy as Vera Johnson on Dec. 5, 1917, in Fredonia, Ariz., to Warren Elmer Johnson and Viola Spencer. Her paternal grandfather was a polygamist who bought the Colorado River ferry in Lees Ferry, Ariz., from John D. Lee’s widow after Lee was executed for his role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

One of Vera Black’s paternal uncles was Leroy Sunderland Johnson, who was the leader of the Short Creek community — later incorporated into the adjacent towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. — and the prophet of what became the FLDS.

The Johnson family belonged to the group of so-called Mormon fundamentalists who lived along the Utah-Arizona line and continued practicing polygamy after the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began to abandon plural marriage in 1890.

Leonard Black legally married his first wife, Verna Colvin, in 1928. He entered into a “spiritual marriage” with Vera Johnson about 1934 or 1935, according to court documents, and she started using his surname. Not long after that union, Leonard Black spiritually married Vera’s sister, Larna.

The family’s troubles began — as they did for everyone living in Short Creek — on July 26, 1953. Police and agents from Arizona stormed the community and removed 263 children and mothers, including Vera Black’s two sister wives.

Vera Black and her children lived on the Utah side. Then-Utah Gov. J. Bracken Lee declined to have his state join Arizona in the sweep. But after the arrests, according to “Kidnapped From That Land: The Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamists” by Martha Sonntag Bradley, the Arizona attorney general called Utah 6th District Juvenile Court Judge David F. Anderson.

The Arizona official expressed concern for Short Creek children north of the state line. Anderson convened a meeting with juvenile probation and welfare agents, and an investigation of the Utah polygamists’ children got underway.

By December 1953, Anderson was considering 20 petitions alleging a total of 80 children were being neglected by parents who were not teaching them proper morals. According to Bradley’s book and later scholarly works, Vera and Leonard Black’s children were picked as test cases.

Vera Black was turning 36 years old. Her children and their ages at some point in 1953 were Orson, 17; Lillian, 12; Spencer, 10; Elsie, 8; Emily, 6; Wilford, 5; Ivan, 4; and Vaughn, 1.

The mother and children lived in a two-room home with no indoor plumbing, according to court records. The austerity and the fact five of Leonard Black’s older daughters with his other wives had already entered into plural marriages became the rationale for the Utah Department of Public Welfare to declare Vera Black’s children neglected.

During a March 1954 trial, the Blacks acknowledged they had a polygamous marriage but said they had not lived together since the raid. Anderson, who visited Vera Black’s home to investigate the living conditions, found her household an “immoral environment” and ordered their children into foster care.

A welfare agent arrived at Vera Black’s door on June 4, 1954, to take her seven oldest children. At the urging of Juanita Brooks, the famed Mormon historian who viewed what was happening to the Blacks as an outrage, Vera Black insisted she accompany her children. She was allowed to ride with them as far as Cedar City before she was directed to get out of the car and say goodbye.
Winning, losing

That same month, Vera and Leonard Black scored a legal victory. A state district court judge in St. George found Anderson’s ruling unconstitutional. The children were allowed to come home within a week of the new ruling.

The 1955 Utah Supreme Court decision then restored Anderson’s order. The children were allowed to remain with Vera Black while she and her husband appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The nation’s top court declined to hear the case in December 1955, ending the parents’ legal options. When the parents refused final offers to disavow polygamy and promise not to teach it to their children, the Blacks received a notice that welfare agents would come for the children Jan. 10, 1956. The notice included a request for Vera Black to have her seven oldest children ready to travel.

A crowd of Short Creek residents gathered at Vera Black’s home in a show of support. But no one tried to prevent the Washington County sheriff and welfare agents from taking the kids. (A similar scene played out when Texas authorities entered the FLDS temple in 2008. Sect members stood in front in protest but did not attempt to stop law enforcement from going inside.)

Journalists from United Press wire service were in Short Creek and published an account that ran in newspapers across the country. The article quoted young Wilford saying, “I’m not going, Mommy, I’m not going.” Ten-year-old Elsie insisted she would take the family cat with her, though the article didn’t say whether the feline made it to Provo.

Two days later, United Press took photographs of Vera Black giving a goodbye hug to her children at the Provo foster home. One photo has since been placed in the Library of Congress.

Vera Black was allowed to visit her children. Orson, who by then was 19 but went with his siblings, was permitted to travel for work and schooling. Meanwhile, public lobbying continued.

When the governor declined to intervene, Vera Black held a news conference in Provo seeking sympathy for her cause.

“I just couldn’t sign that document,” she said. “It was against my conscience and my religion. God help me to regain my children.”
Personal trials

Utah’s plans to place her younger children for adoption changed Vera Black’s thinking. She agreed to the state’s terms and was reunited with her children.

By then, Utah had altered its approach to dealing with plural families. Those other Short Creek custody cases were adjudicated without removing the children.

The Blacks returned to Short Creek. Vera and Leonard Black had two more sons, Harold, in 1959, and Sheldon, in 1962, but life didn’t return to normal.



https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/05/14/vera-black-whose-children/

Cristina Rosetti: Making polygamy a crime hasn't helped its victims

Cristina Rosetti
Salt Lake Tribune
February 26, 2020

On July 26, 1953, multiple branches of law enforcement entered Short Creek, a community built by polygamist Mormons on the border of Utah and Arizona.

Over the course of the afternoon, officials drove thirty-six men and eight women to the jailhouse in Kingman, Ariz., and 153 out of the 263 children in the town were taken from their homes. The cited crime was polygamy.

The 1953 raid, and previous legal actions meant to “save” members of polygamist communities, failed. Rather than protect vulnerable members of the community through legal action and prosecution, it instilled fear and led to increased isolation.

Following the raid, women lived in fear of losing their children, victims no longer felt safe turning to law enforcement to report crime, children did not receive necessary government resources and families carried the label “felon.” Taken together, the government created a system where polygamists increasingly distanced themselves from society. Like the 1953 raid, current polygamy laws are a failure that instill fear and create barriers.

Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), was born into this system. Once Jeffs took over the leadership of the FLDS in 2002, he began to harness the fear and isolation already present in the community to perpetuate and hide his crimes.

The legal status of polygamy was used to scare victims into silence. The raids became a weapon. Members of the community were taught that disclosing criminal activity would lead to arrests and loss of family. The law that was intended to protect women and children created an environment where reporting crime was inconceivable and secrecy was encouraged.

Jeffs was sentenced in 2006 and is currently serving a life sentence for accomplice rape. However, Jeffs was not the first or last man to weaponize the legal status of polygamy.

The status quo failed victims and it is time to try something new. This week, Utah state Sen. Deidre Henderson’s bill to amend polygamy laws in Utah was unanimously approved by the full body of the Senate.

Rather than approach polygamy as an issue of religious freedom or marriage equality, the bill takes the approach of harm reduction. Currently classified as a felony, polygamy under SB102 would be reclassified as an infraction for consenting adults. However, in cases where polygamy is involuntary or associated with other crimes (such as rape or domestic violence), it would remain a felony.

By lowering the criminal status of polygamy, fear of the government and need for isolation would no longer be a weapon. The passage of SB102 would offer victims greater safety in reporting crimes, the potential for increased prosecution of violent offenses and a more open relationship between polygamist communities and law enforcement.

I know women who were taught not to report crime, whether home invasion or rape. They were instructed that involving police would jeopardize their families’ safety. These women were victimized by their leaders because they came to believe the law wasn't intended to protect them.

know women who were deterred from escaping harmful situations because they believed the outside world was scarier than any situation on the inside of their insular community.

I know women who, once they fled, faced discrimination in everything from employment to housing. Many, being outwardly marked as polygamist from their clothing, were unable to receive something as simple as a driver’s license or ID card.

The current law, aside from deterring vulnerable communities from reporting, creates a second-class citizenry in Utah.

As a scholar of Mormon fundamentalism, I have spent years with families that practice plural marriage. I have also listened to victims bravely explain how the law created violent and exploitative situations for minors and individuals trying to leave their community.

Utah achieved statehood in 1896 after its dominant religious group, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stopped practicing polygamy. For this reason, Utah is the state to watch when discussing reform. However, polygamy is not solely a Utah issue. Currently, Mormon polygamists live throughout the United States, as well as Canada and Mexico.

We tried making polygamy illegal and criminal. Nevertheless, the United States’ efforts to end the practice only drove it into the shadows, allowed men like Warren Jeffs to rise to power and contributed to increased victimization. With SB102 approaching a vote in the Utah House of Representatives, it is time for a conversation on the decriminalization of polygamy that centers harm reduction.



Cristina Rosetti

Cristina Rosetti, Ph.D., teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California Riverside and is co-chair, Religion in America, American Academy of Religion - Western Region.



https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/02/26/cristina-rosetti-making/

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/

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/

‘We’re all coming out of a bad spot’: Polygamous sect members convicted in Texas receive homes in Utah

As more people leave Warren Jeffs, Short Creek talks of reconciliation.
Nate Carlisle
Salt Lake TribuneFebruary 19, 2018

For years, George Jessop was too angry with Wendell Nielsen to speak to him.

But when Jessop was organizing the 2016 July Fourth celebration in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., he made sure to call and invite Nielsen, who was once one of the top men in the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

After the invitation, Nielsen had a question for Jessop. Should Nielsen try to move back into his house in Hildale?

"He just wanted to know if people would accept him," Jessop said.

More people continue to leave the FLDS and its imprisoned president, Warren Jeffs. When they do, questions of forgiveness are inherently wrapped in a logistical question: Who should get a home from the sect's old land trust?

The United Effort Plan, or UEP, is a collection of homes and properties polygamists on the Utah-Arizona line donated to live in what Mormon fundamentalists call a United Order. Utah seized the trust in 2005. A board is trying to dissolve the UEP by giving away, or selling at low cost, homes in Hildale and Colorado City.

According to court filings, the UEP board recently agreed to give deeds to two of the men convicted after the 2008 raid on the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas.

Nielsen, who was convicted of bigamy in 2012, received the home that property records say he built in 1999 — before he moved to Texas.

And last month, the UEP notified a Salt Lake City judge it was giving a home to Michael George Emack, who in 2010 pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting a child. The victim was a 16-year-old girl who became Emack's plural wife in 2004. Emack was 53 at the time.

Emack served seven years in a Texas prison. He was released in January 2017 and is on the sex offender registry in Arizona, where he has been living.

Nielsen and Emack did not return messages from The Salt Lake Tribune sent to them through family. FLDS members have generally refused to accept property distributions from the UEP. Nielsen's and Emack's deeds appear to indicate they no longer follow Jeffs.

There has been no noticeable outcry over the homes given to Nielsen, 77, and Emack. In interviews this week, some former Jeffs followers said the UEP was right to give the men their houses even if some hard feelings remain.

"I'm still doing ​my own reconciliation with hundreds of people," said Dowayne Barlow, another man who was part of Jeffs' inner circle and who has since testified in various legal proceedings targeting the FLDS and its followers. "And I think everybody that's coming out of this is ​objectively looking at this and saying, 'Look, we're all coming out of a bad spot — a tough spot​. We all need allowance to reset.'"

The distribution of homes in Hildale and Colorado City, collectively known as Short Creek, has been described as a way to entice people to leave Jeffs. Yet every time someone takes that opportunity to leave the sect and move into a UEP home, it creates one more person you may have to reconcile with, Jessop explained.

Jessop points to Nielsen as an example. Nielsen at one point ranked just below Jeffs in the FLDS and stood by as Jeffs evicted perhaps hundreds of men he deemed unworthy.

Nielsen "knew a lot of these people personally," Jessop said, "So he well knew they weren't criminals in any way as far as their relationship to God."

Jeffs would then reassign the evicted men's wives and children to other men. Nielsen was a beneficiary. Records seized by Texas authorities showed he had 21 wives at one point.

Still, Jessop said, the UEP was right to give Nielsen his house back. Nielsen, who had been living in eastern Utah's Uinta Basin at the time of that 2016 conversation, needs a home where his children and grandchildren can go when they stop following Jeffs, Jessop said.

"Just because I disagree with [people like Nielsen]," Jessop said, "doesn't mean they shouldn't get their home back."

People booted from the FLDS or who left on their own are dubbed "apostates" and can receive shunning or abuse from those who remain. Isaac Wyler, whom Jeffs evicted along with 20 other men during a 2004 church service, has testified about how his home and property were vandalized and how FLDS members on the local police force wouldn't investigate. Wyler went on to work for the UEP after the state seized it.

Wyler says homes for Nielsen, Emack and other longtime Jeffs followers help everyone become good neighbors again. Some of those former FLDS members sometimes apologize for how they harassed him and thank him for treating them professionally, he said.

"One guy called me," Wyler recalled, "and said, 'I want to apologize for some of the stuff that I did to you.' And I said, 'That's OK. Let's let bygones be bygones.' "

For his conviction on three counts of bigamy, Nielsen was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was paroled in 2013 and will remain on parole until 2022, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The UEP has a set of criteria to determine who receives a home. The criteria include contributions applicants made to the trust, their history with a particular home and what their need is now. Criminal history is not listed as a reason to exclude anyone, though the trust's bylaws, which were approved by a Utah judge after a state takeover in 2005, give the board latitude to consider applicants' circumstances. The board has made an effort to give houses to the people who paid to build or maintain them.

Applications to the UEP and the board deliberations are private. But court and property records show the UEP board in the summer of 2016 elected to give Nielsen his 13,804-square-foot home with 25 bedrooms and 21 bathrooms.

Washington County assessed the home at a value of $804,600, but Nielsen had to pay just $13,264 — the cost of the 2 acres in Hildale where the house sits.

In the case of Emack, he worked on UEP homes and properties all over Short Creek and was an "exceptional contributor" to the community, Barlow said. Emack was a licensed electrician in Utah before being sentenced to prison in Texas.

Barlow, while not apologizing for or defending Emack's willingness to marry a teenager, also feels Emack became another Jeffs victim by believing in him.

"He was absolutely in a situation where he could be preyed upon by Warren because of his deep sense of loyalty," Barlow said.

Barlow said he hasn't spoken to Emack since he returned to Utah, but Emack used to write to him from prison. Emack, Barlow said, would discuss his experiences there and his faith; there was little discussion of Jeffs.

"The whole focus was on the great principles of the gospel," Barlow said, "and loving our neighbors as ourselves."

Emack is receiving a more modest Hildale home than Nielsen, according to court and assessor records: 7,452 square feet, 15 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms for $25,454 — about a tenth the assessed value. Like Nielsen, he lived in and maintained the home before moving to Texas.

If there is one group of people who Barlow, Jessop and Wyler believe should never receive homes from the UEP, it's the members of Jeffs' inner circle who have stayed loyal to him, especially his full brothers.

The Jeffses were raised in Salt Lake County, not among the UEP homes in Short Creek. When they did move to Short Creek about the time of the new millennium, they used money and labor from the faithful to build their homes and continued using those assets to finance projects in Texas, South Dakota and elsewhere, Barlow said.

Jeffs is serving a prison sentence in Texas of life plus 20 years for crimes related to sexually abusing two teenagers he married as plural wives.



https://www.sltrib.com/news/polygamy/2018/02/18/were-all-coming-out-of-a-bad-spot-polygamous-sect-members-convicted-in-texas-receive-homes-in-utah/

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/