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AZ seeks emergency hearing on twin polygamy towns July 14th, 2010 @ 12:32pm SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Arizona attorney general's office has asked a Utah judge for an emergency hearing on the rising tensions between residents of twin polygamous communities on the Utah-Arizona border. The Thursday request comes in the wake of property-use disputes and allegations that police have failed to enforce the court-ordered authority of an accountant charged with managing the United Effort Plan Trust. The trust holds nearly all the properties in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., the base of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus...

Eldorado, Texas • After being sent out to deliberate at 10:45 a.m., a Schleicher County jury returned a verdict of guilty for Abram Harker Jeffs at 11:40 a.m., in less than an hour. Jeffs, 39 and a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was charged with sexual assault of a child. He is the sixth FLDS member to be prosecuted on child sexual assault charges since a raid on the sect’s Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado two years ago. “In this case, we don’t have a car wreck or a snowstorm,” lead Prosecutor...

KINGMAN - The Mojave County Attorney's office confirmed late Wednesday that a judge has dismissed charges against Warren Jeffs. Jeffs was facing several charges of Sexual Conduct with a Minor. In the motion filed late Wednesday afternoon, the Mojave County Attorney outlined several reasons to dismiss the charges against the polygamist leader. Those include: Jeffs has already served more jail time than he would have served if convicted. Also, the paperwork says the State of Texas has much more serious charges lodged against Jeffs. And, some of the State's witnesses no longer wish to testify in the case.

<p>FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — A Mohave County judge on Wednesday dismissed all Arizona charges against polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.</p> <p>Judge Steven Conn granted a prosecutor's motion to dismiss the four charges of sexual misconduct with a minor with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled on the same set of facts.</p>

It's estimated that more than a thousand young men and women -- mostly men -- have escaped or been thrown out of the community known as "The Crick," the towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., dominated by the polygamous Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints sect. Getting those young adults to talk about their lives in and out of "The Crick" was difficult, say the filmmakers who have profiled some of those exiled teens for the documentary "Sons of Perdition." "The kids are taught that everyone outside their community is evil, especially those in the media," said Tyler Measom, who co-directed...

<p>NEPHI, Utah - Child welfare protection workers, family crisis shelter workers, police officers and other government employees got a lesson in polygamous culture on Thursday. A group that works with people in fundamentalist Mormon communities is teaching them how to better respond to a situation involving someone from a polygamous community.</p>

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Two members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints pleaded no contest Thursday morning in San Angelo to charges that included sexual assault of a child. Lehi Barlow Jeffs, 31, took a plea deal for eight years in prison for sexual assault of a child who was bound to him in a nonlegal marriage when the girl was 15 years old. The assault itself, based on the birth of her child, was alleged to have occurred on Sept. 18, 2006. Jeffs also plead no contest to bigamy, having had three wives,...

Colorado City, Ariz. » Law officers swept into a polygamous community at the Utah-Arizona state line Tuesday as part of an investigation into alleged misuse of public funds by the local fire department. About 25 officers and investigators arrived in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., about 7:30 a.m. and served search warrants on the Colorado City Fire District's main station, three substations and homes of the fire chief and town manager. The Mohave County Sheriff's Office said in a statement the investigation was aimed at "obtaining evidence of misuse of public funds as well as fraudulent schemes in connection...

SAN ANGELO, Texas — In the harshest sentence yet for members of a Texas polygamist group, a Tom Green County jury has sentenced Merril Leroy Jessop, 35, to 75 years in prison and imposed a $10,000 fine on one count of sexual assault of a child. The jury deliberated on the sentence from 10:30 a.m. today until 2:35 p.m. Jessop was convicted Wednesday on allegations that he illegally married and fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl while living at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Schleicher County in 2006. He is a member of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church...

San Angelo, Texas » A Tom Green County jury deliberated 62 minutes today before finding Merril Leroy Jessop guilty of sexual assault of a child in connection with charges he illegally married an underage girl. Jessop, 35, is a member of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Earlier in the day, lead prosecuting attorney Eric Nichols gave the first closing argument. "You can conclude who that child's parents are beyond a shadow of a doubt," he said about the baby resulting from the alleged assault. Nichols recalled testimony of DNA experts who said Jessop had...

San Angelo, Texas » Lawyers are in the final stages of seating a jury for the trial of Merril Leroy Jessop, 35, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints charged with sexual assault of a child. The attorneys have 36 people to choose from to seat 12 jurors and two alternates. One by one, potential jurors filed into Courtroom A of the Tom Green County Courthouse Tuesday morning to undergo individual questioning from lawyers. Eric Nichols, lead attorney for the prosecution, asked potential jurors whether they would be able to set aside whatever they...

 An open letter to the Vancouver Sun By Joel CampbellPublished: 2010-02-17 00:19:10 Patricia Graham, EditorThe Vancouver Sun Dear Ms. Graham: I know you are busy with all of that Olympic stuff going on up there in British Columbia, but when the flame burns out here is something to consider about how you use the terms "Mormon" and "Mormon fundamentalist" in your reporting, particularly as Mormons open a new temple in Langley. As both a journalist and a Mormon, I am continually dismayed that the Vancouver Sun and associated CanWest wire service choose to describe the British Columbia polygamist group with...

Gathering Joe Jessop’s brood together for a group photo is a challenge for even the most patient of snappers. After all, there are five wives, 46 children and – at the last count – 239 grandkids to squeeze into the frame. That’s because the 88-year-old is the bed-hopping patriarch of one of the world’s most extraordinary families. Joe and his clan live in Short Creek, Utah, a 6,000-strong community of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamous offshoot of the Mormon Church. Joe says: “My family came to Short Creek for the same reason...

SNIP THE PRINCIPLE of plural marriage was revealed to the Mormons amid much secrecy. Dark clouds hovered over the church in the early 1840s, after rumors spread that its founder, Joseph Smith, had taken up the practice of polygamy. While denying the charge in public, by 1843 Smith had shared a revelation with his closest disciples. In this "new and everlasting covenant" with God, plural wives were to be taken so that the faithful might "multiply and replenish the earth." After Smith was assassinated by an anti-Mormon mob in Illinois, Brigham Young led believers on an epic 1,300-mile journey west...

FLDS: 7 years handed down in plea deal Man accused of sex assault of child may appeal  Michael Emack, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, pleaded no contest to the accusation of sexual assault of a child Friday, was found guilty and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Judge Barbara Walther of the 51st District Court asked Emack if he understood what the plea allowed him to do.“I believe it helps me maintain my dignity,” Emack said.He also said he understood that it allowed him to appeal. The court recognized that...

  The Polygamists A sect that split from the Mormons allows multiple wives, expels The first church members arrive at the Leroy S. Johnson Meeting House in Colorado City, Arizona, at about 6 p.m. Within a half hour the line extends out the front doors, down the side of the building, and out into the parking lot. By seven, it stretches hundreds of yards and has grown to several thousand people—the men and boys dressed in suits, the women and girls in Easter egg–hued prairie dresses.The mourners have come for a viewing of 68-year-old Fo­neta Jessop, who died of...

VANCOUVER, B.C. (CN) - After its lengthy but unsuccessful bid to prosecute polygamists in Bountiful, the British Columbia government faces a lawsuit from Winston Blackmore, alleging unlawful prosecution of the embattled leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The state's charges were tossed by the British Columbia Supreme Court. Blackmore claims he suffered financial and business losses while defending himself, and that the charges were laid after the province's attorney general shopped around for a special prosecutor who would recommend charges despite the uncertain constitutional status of Canada's polygamy laws. After two special prosecutors declined to...

Lawmaker not fazed by FLDS ire Hilderbran says Texas will protect girls By Trish Choate Saturday, December 26, 2009 Hate mail from a polygamist sect makes West Texas lawmaker Harvey Hilderbran happy and proud. The state representative is probably in for more feedback from members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He authored new laws in 2005 to send a message to those who built and inhabit a small FLDS city in his district: Don’t mess with Texas. The trials of 10 men from the Yearning for Zion Ranch compound near Eldorado are putting to...

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Allan Keate raised his two cuffed hands Thursday, shortly after he heard the sentence of 33 years in prison for sexual assault of a child, and smiled briefly at the gallery, at more than a dozen fellow members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — men and women, adults young and old. They had sat there regularly for more than a week to follow Keate’s fate. Lead defense attorney Randy Wilson went to the FLDS members after Keate was escorted to the nearby Schleicher County Jail. Wilson embraced one of the...

Eldorado, Texas » A 57-year-old member of a polygamous group raided by Texas authorities last year has been convicted of sexual assault of a child. A Schleicher County jury in the West Texas town of Eldorado deliberated less than two hours Tuesday before convicting Allan Keate. He faces up to life in prison for his alleged so-called "spiritual marriage" to a 15-year-old girl who gave birth at age 16. Keate was immediately taken into custody. The jury will hear more testimony before deciding his sentence. Much of the prosecution's case relied on extensive church records seized from the Yearning For...