FLDS action is everywhere but here
 
By Tom Vaughan
Mancos Times Editor
 
Warren Jeffs can be excused if he feels he is beset on all sides by critics - he is.

The 49-year-old self-appointed prophet of perhaps 10,000 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is said to have total control over both the lives and the assets of his flock. That includes resident communities in the twin cities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah; a community in Bountiful, British Columbia, Canada; a fast-growing compound outside Eldorado, Texas - and land in the Mancos Valley.

Despite the conjecture by some FLDS-watchers that the land north of Mancos was purchased as a potential hideout for Jeffs, there is no evidence that this has become a reality. In fact, there are few clues as to what the plans are for the property. The Montezuma County Sheriff's Office has repeatedly stated that no allegations of law-breaking have been made and no investigations are under way regarding the CR 39 properties.

FLDS AND WARREN JEFFS

Polygamy is the feature of FLDS practice that gets the most attention. It is not the only breakaway LDS group to practice "the Principle," but the FLDS has received the most attention recently. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints accepted the practice of men having multiple wives in the 19th century, but it was banned by the church in 1890. It is not allowed by the LDS today, and there is no formal linkage between the LDS and the FLDS or any of the other polygamous sects.

Key to the FLDS story is the United Effort Plan, an incorporated trust, which owns virtually all of the property in the community. FLDS members are allowed to invest time and money building homes, but the land remains in possession of the UEP, whose assets are allegedly at the disposal of the FLDS Prophet.

Rulon Jeffs followed LeRoy Johnson as prophet in 1986 and when he died in 2002, one of his sons, Warren Steed Jeffs, became prophet.

In addition to the issue of polygamy, Jeffs is accused of controlling people's lives, bodies and property with an iron hand. Girls of 14, 15 and 16 are reportedly assigned to men two to four times their age as wives (FLDS men are expected to have at least three wives). Members who get crosswise with Jeffs are excommunicated and their wives and children are reassigned to other men within the congregation. As head of the UEP, Jeffs also claims to have control over the property of those who are kicked out.

Jeffs has been served notice by publication that he is the object of a Utah lawsuit brought by his nephew, Brent Jeffs. In July, the nephew sued three of his uncles - Warren Jeffs, Blaine Balmforth Jeffs and Leslie Balmforth Jeffs - for sexually assaulting him when he was a child. Warren Jeffs is also the object of a suit accusing him of racketeering (excommunicating young male members in order to retain a gender balance that would allow older men to have multiple wives).

A third suit accused the United Effort Plan Trust of "unjust enrichment" in a case in which the UEP attempted to appropriate the residence of member Martin Holm, excommunicated because his wife, Lenore Holm, refused permission for her 16-year-old daughter to be assigned to an older man. The suit was settled in favor of the Holms in the Arizona Court of Appeals on Nov. 30.

SHORT CREEK

The Colorado City side of the state border has been in the news recently for financial issues, as well as signs of discord within the FLDS.

In June, the Bank of Ephraim folded, partly due to an embezzlement scheme, partly due to bad loans to FLDS members through its Hildale branch.

Also defaulting, at least until a transfusion of state money arrived, was the Colorado City Unified School District. The district had been issuing rubber paychecks since Oct. 18, due to a default on a $950,000 line of credit. The district was expected to receive $750,000 in "expedited" grants and advanced state aid in early December.

The district, which has 104 employees (many of them FLDS) for 289 students (none of them FLDS), has been in trouble with the state of Arizona for financial reporting lapses. Since Rulon Jeffs withdrew all FLDS students from CCUSD schools in July 2000, the only students enrolled are members of a rival polygamous group (there are only 10 last names among the 21 student council members listed on the district's Web site, www.ccusd.net).

ELDORADO, TEXAS, HOME OF THE YFZ

Another site of FLDS activity is Eldorado, Texas. Exactly a year from David Steed Allred's purchase of 1,691 acres of land in Schleicher County, four miles from Eldorado, the FLDS activities were the subject of the lead article on the cover of the November Texas Monthly (provided to the Times by Kenny and Patsy Smith). Steed alleged the purchase was to have a hunting retreat, which he has since acknowledged to Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran was not quite true.

While the real purpose of the compound is still not quite clear, Mankin has chronicled a stunning year of growth in The Success. Within a few months, three residences, each three stories and each enclosing more than 20,000 square feet of floor space, were constructed and occupied. The lumber for the buildings, according to Mankin, was trucked in from the FLDS-owned mills in Bountiful.

The compound in Schleicher County now includes at least eight large residences, a meeting hall, a commissary and the foundation for a large building being constructed of limestone quarried on the site. The new building is speculated to be a temple, which would be a first for the FLDS.

MANCOS. WHY?

In July 2003, before the Eldorado purchase was finalized, David S. Allred bought the 60-acre parcel at 15252 CR 39, previously owned by Jim Craighead. As in Texas, it was alleged that this was for the purpose of a hunting retreat.

When purchased, the land had a three-bedroom, two-bath house and barn with an open understory, enclosed above. The parcel is zoned AR 35+, which allows up to three residences, and has a permitted well, which can support up to three taps.

When the linkage of Allred with the FLDS and with the YFZ purchase was established in October, considerable changes had already taken place. The lower floor of the barn had been enclosed; the "barn" is now listed as containing four bedrooms and four baths. A new, small log house shows up in aerial photos slightly east of the house Craighead built, and a very large, three-story log house is now standing in the ravine at the south end of the property, largely hidden from the road.

Allred almost immediately appeared as the principal in the Oct. 7 purchase, in the name of Sherwood Management Group, Inc., out of a post office box in Mesquite, Nevada, of another 60-acre parcel at 15976 CR 39.
 
cortezjournal.com
Originally published January 11, 2005
 
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