FLDS Fiduciary Asks for Jeffs' Help
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 2006-10-21
By Ben Winslow Deseret Morning News
The man appointed by the courts to oversee the Fundamentalist LDS Church's financial arm is reaching out to captured polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.
He's asking for Jeffs' help in getting FLDS followers to pay property taxes.
Court-appointed special fiduciary Bruce Wisan confirmed to the Deseret Morning News he has sent letters to Warren Jeffs at the Purgatory Jail in Hurricane, as well as other top FLDS leaders. The letters ask not to repeat the painstaking process of going door-to- door to collect property taxes in the border towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz.
"If Warren says 'pay property taxes,' they'll pay their property taxes," Wisan said Friday. "That would make my life simpler."
Wisan told the Deseret Morning News he was planning to send another letter to Jeffs, who had issed an edict telling FLDS followers to "answer them nothing."
In 2005, a judge took control of the $110 million United Effort Plan Trust, which controls homes, businesses and property within FLDS enclaves, amid allegations that Jeffs and other top church leaders were fleecing it.
Jeffs, 50, is facing criminal charges accusing him of arranging a child bride marriage between a teenage girl and an older man, now reported to be her first cousin. Jeffs faces a preliminary hearing Nov. 21 in St. George's 5th District Court on charges of rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony.
Meanwhile, a new round of trials is set to begin for a group of FLDS men accused of having sex with teenage girls.
David Bateman, 49, is scheduled go on trial Monday in Kingman, Ariz., on charges of sexual conduct with a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. Over the next four weeks, four other men will stand trial on similar charges.
A trial for ex-Hildale police officer Rodney Holm has been postponed.
"We asked the court to continue it so that we could prepare for State vs. David Bateman," Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith's office said in an e-mail to the Deseret Morning News. Holm, 40, recently appealed his bigamy conviction in Utah to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Only one of the eight men charged has been convicted. Kelly Fischer, 39, was sentenced to 45 days in jail on the charges. Donald Barlow, 50, was acquitted in September on a single charge of sexual conduct with a minor.
A trial for Randolph Barlow, 33, was also postponed after the alleged victim -- one of his wives -- refused to testify. Police and prosecutors claim she may have been influenced by her family, who are allegedly trying to protect Jeffs.
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