SANDY — Two marshals from the Fundamentalist LDS border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., will face disciplinary action over their loyalties to polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs.

The Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training Council decided Thursday to move ahead with an administrative law hearing next month to formally take the badges of Hildale/Colorado City town marshals Fred Barlow and Preston Barlow.

"We're looking to schedule a default hearing," Utah POST investigator Steve Winward said Thursday. "We're looking to have it all finalized in March."

The two officers' certifications were revoked in Arizona back in September, and they resigned from the town marshal's office a short time later. Yet the POST Council has decided to proceed with the hearings.

"Do we have to do a default hearing? Can't we just take action on it?" Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff asked.

"As per our administrative rules and guidelines, it's recommended we do this. It's just so the process is clean," Winward replied.

The marshals in Hildale and Colorado City have faced continuous scrutiny over their loyalties to Jeffs, who is now serving a 10-to-life sentence in the Utah State Prison for rape as an accomplice, stemming from a marriage he performed between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.

On Wednesday, Jeffs' defense attorneys announced that he had resigned as "president" of the FLDS Church, but it is unclear if he is still the sect's prophet. Marshal Fred Barlow wrote a letter seeking guidance from Jeffs when the FLDS leader was still a fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

"I love you and acknowledge you as my priesthood head," Barlow wrote in the letter that eventually found its way into the hands of Arizona POST officials.

Deputy Utah POST director Scott Stephenson told the Deseret Morning News that neither Fred Barlow or Preston Barlow are cooperating with investigators.

"They have not sent back any kind of consent agreement or even let us know that they were not going to sign a consent agreement," he said. "They're basically not replying to anything."

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E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com