| Colorado City family faces suit over eviction FLDS church claims right to expel disobedient family from property | |
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By Jane Zhang The Spectrum | |
ST. GEORGE -- A family being evicted from their Colorado City home will appear Thursday in Arizona state court in Kingman to answer charges in a lawsuit filed by the Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Judge James E. Chavez of the Superior Court of the State of Arizona will decide whether Milton and Lenore Holm will lose the home that Milton started building in 1976 on property owned by the church's United Effort Plan. The couple received an eviction notice in 2000 after Lenore Holm refused to let her underage daughter, Nichole, marry an older man. While the Holms worry about being thrown on the street with their nine young children, their case has been closely watched by anti-polygamy activists as a litmus test for future class-action lawsuits against the FLDS church. Jay Beswick, a child advocate who has helped women flee polygamous marriages, said the case could open a "Pandora's box" that leaders from the often-secretive and closed society "can't put the lid on." "If she wins, I'll be surprised," he said. "If she loses, it'll be the beginning of the house of cards falling apart." One of the largest polygamist groups in North America, the FLDS church owns most of the land in Colorado City, Ariz. and Hildale, Utah. Church members build multiple-entrance houses on the church's trust land, but they can stay only if they obey church rules, which include men obeying their prophet and women obeying men. On the eve of Nichole's 16th birthday, Lenore Holm said, the girl was taken to then-prophet Rulon Jeffs' home. The next morning, on Sept. 27, 2000, she said, Jeffs told her daughter, "You are right and ready to be plucked." God had chosen her to become a plural wife to Wynn Jessop, he added. Lenore Holm went to sit on the Jeffs' porch and insisted that her daughter be returned home. But Nicole was never the same again, the mother noticed. She behaved strangely and often went to other people's houses. On Jan. 14, 2000, the Holms were called into a meeting with Jeffs and his son Warren, who's now the prophet. "I just married a 16-year-old," Lenore Holm remembered Rulon Jeffs said. "What's wrong with that?" Lenore Holm gave her consent for Nichole to marry, but retracted later that day. "I will not give my legal consent," she recalled telling Warren Jeffs. "I don't feel right about it." The next day, Milton Holm received a call from Warren Jeffs. "You have lost your priesthood," Lenore Holm remembered Warren Jeffs telling her husband. "You've allowed your wife to rule over you, so you no longer can live on UEP land." Milton Holm said he was shocked. He demanded to talk to the prophet, Rulon Jeffs, but wasn't allowed. The prophet before Jeffs, Leroy Johnson, had allowed him to build the house. In return, Milton Holm had regularly donated money and labor to the church. While working for a church elder in 1977, he earned $1 per hour on 12-hour working days. "After all that work, 20 some years of hard labor, (it was) built in my spare time with no help from the church," Milton Holm said. "It's some cold-hearted people trying to run this UEP trust." Nichole didn't marry Jessop until she turned 18. But the FLDS church sued the Holms, who have refused to leave their house on the UEP land. Dan Barlow, mayor of Colorado City for 18 years and unofficial spokesman for the FLDS church, said he's confident that the judge on Thursday will protect the UEP's property rights. "It's a property issue," he said. "The properties will have to be maintained." Beswick, however, said the FLDS church is using their eviction power to tighten control on its members. "It's extortion using the girl as leverage," he said. The Holms are not the first tenants that have challenged the UEP. In 1999, about 20 people obtained the rights to live in the homes they built after a 13-year legal battle. But a Fifth District Judge in Cedar City ruled that the FLDS church has property rights. Considering the precedents, Beswick said the Holms likely will lose. And the couple was apprehensive before driving to Kingman on Tuesday night. "I'm really concerned because of all my children," Lenore Holm said. "I don't want to be on the street." The Holms have lived in the six-bedroom, three-bathroom house with their nine children, ranging from 5 months to 12 years old. A second marriage for both, the couple were married in November 1993. Six months earlier, Milton Holm's wife, MarJean, had died at age 35 of stomach cancer, leaving seven children. Eyeing the $50,000 in downwinders' compensation, Milton said, MarJean's relatives sought church leaders for help to take custody of the Holm children. As Milton Holm recalled, Sam Barlow, a former deputy town marshal in Colorado City, told the widower that "it's God's will" to send the children away. Milton Holm obeyed, but insisted that his brother, Thomas Holm, adopt the children, who were taken away from MarJean's funeral. Sam Barlow and bishop Fred Jessop later approached him and inquired about his house, Milton Holm said. In 1997, Fred Jessop even asked him to move to Idaho so the church could have the house, he added. Lenore Holm said she has sought help on Nichole's case from the police officers in both Mohave and Washington Counties, but no investigation has followed. Utah and Arizona prosecutors are investigating what they say are abuses, tax and welfare fraud and the practice of marrying young girls to older men. But they said lack of evidence has made prosecution difficult. Milton Holm, however, hopes Chavez will grant what he considers justice. "(It's) religious suppression and injustice," Milton Holm said. "With God's help and support from intelligent people, a fair judge, I feel like we should (win). I hope we do." | |
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TheSpectrum.com Originally published May 14, 2003 | |
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