Utah to ask court for delay in naming FLDS trustees
 
The Associated Press
Arizona Daily Sun
 
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Utah Attorney General's office will ask a judge on Thursday to delay appointing trustees to manage the funds of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, after dozens of objections have been raised to the list of proposed candidates.

In June, the court permanently removed church leaders from management responsibilities of the United Effort Plan Trust, which has an estimated worth of more than $100 million.

The Utah attorney general sought the removal, saying the trustees, including reclusive church leader Warren Jeffs, had liquidated some trust assets and left others vulnerable by failing to defend lawsuits filed against Jeffs.

Church members formed the trust during the 1940s, willingly turning over their property to the church, so all could share in the community's assets.

Thursday's request to 3rd District Court Judge Denise P. Lindberg stems in part from concerns about who has been proposed to serve as a trustee, Assistant Attorney General Tim Bodily said.

He will ask the court to require each of the 19 candidates to list their potential conflicts of interest and a detailed plan of how they would administer the trust.

And that will take time, Bodily says, adding that the Attorney General's Office has no current opposition to any of the proposed names to fill eight positions.

But plenty of others do.

Of the 19 proposed names, only three southern Utah community leaders who have no connection to the FLDS church faced no written opposition.

However, 25 affidavits have been filed against remaining 16 names: eight suggested by the Arizona-based Child Protection Project and eight recommended by Salt Lake attorney Roger Hoole, who represents a group of boys exiled from the church who are suing Jeffs.

"What we need is people that have no agenda," said Pennie Peterson, a former FLDS church member who now lives in Mesa, Ariz., and independently filed an objection to the 16 nominees.

Peterson, 35, left the church in 1984, refusing to marry a much older man when she was 14. But her parents and sisters remain active in the faith, most of whose 10,000 members live in the twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz. and Hildale, Utah.

Peterson thinks none of the proposed trustees will be acceptable to church members because they are seen as either FLDS dissidents or apostates. Peterson will be in court Thursday and hopes to tell the judge the trust should be run by independent financial and real estate experts.

Hoole agrees that there's a complexity to the task at hand, but believes the trust needs someone who understand the inner-workings of the church.

"This trust is a one-of-a-kind deal," said Hoole. "You cannot approach this without those sensitivities because ultimately, you have to work with people whose lives are tied up in this thing."

Hoole also said he would support the court expanding the role of the independent auditor, Bruce Wisan, and the temporary appointment of nonvoting advisory committee to assist him.

On Tuesday, Wisan filed a report and recommendations to the court, asking for an expansion of his powers, along with an inventory of the trust, which he says, is comprised of real estate parcels in Utah, Arizona and Canada.

An inventory hasn't been completed of the Canadian holdings, but he said the trust has more than 170 properties in Utah and Arizona that are worth more than $90 million.

Bodily said he hopes not to have to take a position for or against anyone proposed as a trustee and acknowledges the competing agendas. Still, he says, it's not unlike other family trust disputes he's seen.

"We're not over concerned with the circus aspect of this," Bodily said.
 
azdailysun.com
Originally published August 4, 2005
 
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