Polygamist Leader Drives Public School into Deep Financial Trouble
 
KSL TV Channel 5
 
Accusations are swirling around a public school on the Utah-Arizona border.

There are stories of financial mismanagement and corruption stemming from domination by a fanatical polygamist leader.

John Hollenhorst has returned from that controversial community and joins us with details.

The polygamist community sprawls on both sides of the border.

The school serves students from both states, but Arizona officials are taking the lead and may step in.

They say the public school has been badly mismanaged into a deep financial crisis.

The majority of community residents are followers of Warren Jeffs, a fundamentalist prophet who's taken an increasingly firm grip.

He triggered the financial crisis by ordering his followers to take kids out of the school. Since then the problem has deepened.

Arizona officials say the school overspent its budget by 1.2 million in the last 20 months.

That's partly because of allegedly wasteful purchases such as a half-dozen Ford Excursions and a Cessna aircraft.

There are also accusations that school staff faithful to Jeffs have diverted school vehicles, equipment and supplies to personal or church use.

GARY ENGELS, MOHAVE COUNTY (ARIZ) INVESTIGATOR: "THEY WORKED THE SYSTEM VERY WELL IN WHAT THEY DID. SOME OF THE THINGS THEY DID I THINK NORMAL PEOPLE WOULD FIND A LITTLE BIT OUTRAGEOUS."

Richard Holm is a former follower of Jeffs and a former Colorado City Councilman.

He says the school problems stem from a troublesome mixture of Church and State and Jeffs' increasing stranglehold.

RICHARD HOLM, FORMER JEFFS FOLLOWER: "HES SO DRIVEN, SO SUPERCHARGED WITH THE IDEA THAT HE'S GOT TO PURIFY A PEOPLE AND PURIFY HIMSELF THAT, I THINK HE BORDERS ON INSANITY IN MANY CASES."

We'll have more on the school and Richard Holm's agonizing situation ... tonight on Eyewitness News at 10.
 
KSL.com
Originally broadcast March 13, 2005
 
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