A judge has ordered the state of Utah to pay off $4.6 million in debt incurred by an accountant tasked with managing a land trust once run by jailed polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs.
The debt is for expenses incurred since those working for the trust were last paid in 2008.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to keep a polygamous sect’s property trust under government control Wednesday, siding, for now, with a state court judge in a heated judicial standoff.
The appellate judges blocked a federal court order that would have temporarily returned control to theFundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for the first time since the state of Utah took over the trust six years ago.
The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday wrestled with the issue of who has the final say over state law as part of a long-running battle for control of a communal land trust tied to Warren Jeffs’ polygamous church. The question comes on the heels of a February federal court ruling, which found that the state of Utah violated the religious rights of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when it took over the church’s land trust in 2005.
A Utah state judge is squaring off with her federal counterpart over state control of a polygamous sect’s property trust.
In a rare move, 3rd District Judge Denise Lindberg on Monday ordered the court-appointed trust administrator not to comply with a federal court order giving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints temporary control of the trust.
A federal judge on Friday gave a polygamous sect control of its trust for the first time in six years.
he Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can manage its properties and businesses, valued at $110 million, but is prohibited from selling those properties or evicting any tenants. The FLDS also must honor existing contracts and leases.
In a decision that could have major implications for a long-running court battle between the state of Utah and the polygamous FLDS sect, a federal judge ruled Thursday that a state takeover of the sect’s property trust six years ago was unconstitutional.
Utah’s state courts seized control of the trust in 2005 amid allegations of mismanagement by church leaders, including Warren Jeffs, the newly reinstated head of the church who is currently in jail in Texas pending trial on charges of bigamy, aggravated sexual assault and assault.
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.
The FLDS church and heirs of a former prophet want a Utah judge to remove a fiduciary who oversees a polygamous community’s property trust, alleging the trustee’s actions have left the trust in “decidedly worse” shape than when he took over its management.
They ask the judge to appoint a new fiduciary who does not have “an obvious conflict of interest” — something she has refused to do in the past.
A polygamous sect is asking the Utah Supreme Court to overturn a state court decision that stripped the religious purposes from its communal land trust.
In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints say making the United Effort Plan Trust secular was a violation of the faith’s constitutionally protected religious rights.
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.