FLDS financial data sought from Seth Jeffs
 
By Ben Winslow
Deseret Morning News
Seth Jeffs

Seth Jeffs

After Seth Jeffs is sentenced in a Denver federal courtroom on Friday for harboring a fugitive, the FBI is expected to give him back a laptop computer and documents the agency has been keeping as evidence.

But lawyers for an accountant now in charge of the Fundamentalist LDS Church's financial arm want to take a peek before the items are returned to Jeffs, who is Warren Jeffs' younger brother.

"We want to know if there were any documents relating to UEP (United Effort Plan) assets that might assist the special fiduciary in his efforts to locate and identify trust property," lawyer Mark Callister said Monday.

Seth Jeffs, 33, is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Denver on a single charge of harboring a fugitive. He is accused of helping to keep Warren Jeffs on the run from authorities.

In October 2005, Jeffs was stopped by police in Pueblo, Colo. During a search of his car, police found $142,000 in cash, pre-paid credit cards, phone cards and even a glass jar filled with coins and a label that reads, "Pennies for the Prophet." Police also seized envelopes addressed to "Warren Jeffs," "The Prophet" and a number of church documents.

It is those documents that lawyers for court-appointed special fiduciary Bruce Wisan want to take a look at.

"These letters, written by church members and dated mid-October 2005, contained references to recent telephone conversations with Warren Jeffs; asked Warren Jeffs for advice on a number of issues, both business and personal; and discuss an ongoing project related to a compendium of sermons being prepared by Warren Jeffs," Callister wrote in court papers filed in Salt Lake City's 3rd District Court earlier this month.

In 2005, a Utah judge took control of the United Effort Plan (UEP) Trust amid allegations that Warren Jeffs and other leaders in the FLDS Church were fleecing it. The UEP Trust controls homes, businesses and property collectively owned by church members in the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

Wisan was placed in charge of the estimated $110 million in assets.

Since then, the accountant has been pushing people in the twin towns to pay their property taxes, despite an edict from Warren Jeffs telling them not to. Wisan has also been investigating the thefts of property from UEP-owned land. Entire buildings and huge pieces of farm equipment have vanished and reappeared.

"The judge ordered the former trustees to turn over documents," Callister said in an interview. "They haven't, and it's difficult to try to reconstruct what happened to the assets. As a result, we need to try and obtain information."

Last week, 3rd District Court Judge Denise Lindberg requested that Colorado's courts issue a subpoena for the documents, records and computer files in the FBI's possession.

Seth Jeffs has refused to say where his brother is, and a plea deal struck with federal prosecutors in May doesn't force him to say anything about it. He faces a possibility of up to six months in federal prison when sentenced, but Jeffs' lawyer has said he will likely get probation.

Warren Jeffs remains on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published Tuesday, July 11, 2006
 
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