Tag: Berry Knoll Farm

A federal judge is considering whether to block the sale of property from a polygamous sect’s communal trust based on the argument that the 2005 state takeover of the trust violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

Attorneys for 6,000 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are asking Benson for an injunction removing the states of Utah and Arizona from the United Effort Plan Trust and preventing the sale of Berry Knoll Farm.

An early leader in the fundamentalist Mormon movement prophesied in 1934 the land would some day be a temple site.

Five members of a polygamous church, including two bishops, want a say in how a court-appointed land trust sells a piece of farmland once set aside as a temple site.

Attorneys for the Fundamentalist LDS Church argued before the Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday that a lower court judge violated the constitutional rights Lyle Jeffs and James Oler by keeping them out of a United Effort Plan Trust legal dispute.

A Utah judge suggested Wednesday she may offer a polygamous sect’s historic farm to the highest bidder — a sale hundreds of FLDS members gathered outside the Matheson Courthouse Wednesday to oppose.

Salt Lake City accountant Bruce R. Wisan, who has overseen the trust for the past four years, wants to sell the farm property to solve the trust’s “liquidity” crisis. The trust has debts of about $3 million, mostly in fees owed to Wisan’s firm and that of his attorneys.

A swath of farmland on the Utah-Arizona border has become the subject of the latest legal war involving the polygamous sect. FLDS members Willie Jessop, Dan Johnson and Merlin Jessop are seeking to halt plans by the court-appointed special fiduciary of the United Effort Plan Trust to sell Berry Knoll.

If a proposed sale of Berry Knoll Farm is allowed to proceed, it will divest the FLDS Church of one of its most sacred sites and place it in the hands of a rival religious group, three sect members allege.