Problems pile up for polygamist prophet
 
By Tom Vaughan
The Mancos Times
 
Other than the plants growing in the neatly fenced gardens on his property at 15252 CR 39 north of Mancos, nothing seems to be going right for Warren Jeffs, self-proclaimed prophet of the polygamous sect known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Jeffs himself is on the run or holed up evading arrest on a criminal warrant for illegally marrying a 16-year-old girl in Arizona to an already-married 28-year-old man. The FLDS leader has not definitely been seen in public in more than a year, and he has failed to respond or to engage counsel to defend him against three civil suits in Utah.

Winston Blackmore, leader of an FLDS community in British Columbia who was ousted by Warren Jeffs’ father, Rulon Jeffs, while he ruled as Prophet, says in his Share The Light blog (www.sharethelight.ca/b2/?m=200505), "I really think he is in Canada. I’ll bet they have a nice little private location right here in Canada. If he was trying not to get caught, he would just stay here."

Meanwhile, back at the YFZ Ranch in Schleicher County, Texas, the place where Jeffs has had his followers work day and night for 20 months building 20,000-square-foot residences and a huge temple building on a 1,691-acre parcel purchased as a "hunting ranch," the Eldorado Success reported last week that drillers have found oil on an adjacent ranch. Since Jeffs’ son-in-law, David Allred, did not acquire the mineral rights when he purchased the YFZ Ranch for the FLDS, the secretive sect may be forced by Texas law to allow wildcatters to drill for oil in their compound.

And then there’s the problem of Allred’s bounced $6,517.57 check for property taxes due on the two 60-acre parcels of land on CR 39 that he purchased for the FLDS. The Success reports that the 2005 tax bill on the FLDS property may exceed $175,000.

The Mancos Valley parcels were also purported to be intended as a hunting retreat, but so far it seems to have been developed for residential purposes. A flurry of building on the first property, acquired in July 2003 several months before the Texas purchase, expanded the improvements from a single three-bedroom, two-bath house and a barn with an open first floor to four residential buildings. The pace of construction has slacked off, with perhaps just a caretaker in residence last winter.

With warmer weather has come the creation of two fenced garden plots and fresh land-clearing activity adjacent to a large, three-story, lathed-log house hidden down in a drainage among trees. This is also where a white, late-model BMW SUV has been parked for more than a month; veteran FLDS-watchers say Allred’s wife Rosa drives such a vehicle.

Jeffs may be staying out of sight, but his assets are becoming more and more visible — and out of his reach. The FLDS base has been the holdings of the United Effort Plan, a trust that holds title to millions of dollars worth of property in the twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah (traditionally known together as Short Creek) and in British Columbia.

None of Jeffs’ recently acquired assets in Colorado and Texas are held in the name of the UEP, and attorneys for the plaintiffs in the three civil suits allege the Prophet, who appears to have sole control over the UEP assets, is illegally siphoning money from the trust to fund his other activities.

While those cases work their way through the Utah courts, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, joined by the Arizona Attorney General, has succeeded in getting UEP assets frozen. On June 22, Utah Third District Court Judge Glenn Iwasaki removed the UEP’s named trustees from power. Trustee Blackmore, the only one in court, said it was over in a matter of minutes, with no testimony invited.

On July 21, the court will name a new panel of trustees and charge them with the responsibility to secure the assets of the trust and make an accounting to the court, as well as to the trust’s intended beneficiaries. Not only will this separate the UEP assets from Jeffs’ control and influence, it could mark a historic change in FLDS governance — two women have been nominated as potential trustees.

Along with Blackmore and Lee Van Dam, a non-FLDS financial expert proposed by attorneys in the civil suits to run the trust, the nominees include Carolyn Jessop and Margaret Cook. The polygamous groups that formed after the LDS Church stopped plural marriages in 1890 and forbade their existence in 1904 have all been intensely patriarchal. If Jessop and Cook, both of whom fled the FLDS, are named UEP trustees, they will wield the most power ever accorded any woman over FLDS matters.
 
The Mancos Times
Originally published July 6, 2005
 
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