Ex-FLDS member exploring custody solutions

SOUTH JORDAN — Dan Fischer is conflicted.

He is considered an "apostate" because he left the Fundamentalist LDS Church; yet he also wants to help family members inside the polygamous sect, whose children were taken from them in the Texas raid on thue YFZ Ranch. He feels empathy for his kin, yet he also abhors the abuses he says exist in the FLDS community.

Fischer has devoted part of his life — and his dental-products manufacturing fortune — to helping teenagers kicked out of the polygamous sect, and he is now trying to help mediate the massive custody battle between Texas and the FLDS people. He recently traveled to San Angelo, Texas, where he says he met with officials for Texas child protective services and a representative of the FLDS Church.

"What is most important, here and now, is what occurs going forward," he said.

The invitation was initially made by a member of the FLDS Church, Fischer said. He declined to say with whom he met.

"I asked him what it was in regards to, and he explained that they were looking for whatever help they could get," he said in an interview with the Deseret News. "Why me?"

Fischer, a dentist who founded the company Ultradent, left the FLDS Church in 1996. He has sheltered people leaving the FLDS Church and created a foundation to help the so-called "Lost Boys." They are teenagers who have either been kicked out or run away from the FLDS Church over its strict codes of conduct.

Still, he flew to Texas, accompanied by attorney Roger Hoole, who has represented numerous ex-FLDS members suing the church.

"He is someone who could assist both sides in exploring solutions," Hoole said of Fischer. "If there's interest in that."

A spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services confirmed the meetings took place, but declined to say what was discussed. An FLDS official contacted by the Deseret News said he was unaware of an invitation extended to Fischer.

Fischer said he told both sides that solutions will not be easy to come by.

"I recommended to CPS that everything possible be done to reunite these children with their mothers as soon as was reasonably possible," he said. "I can understand, however, CPS's justifiable concern that these mothers have to be strong enough that they can prevent their child from being abused."

Fischer said it is critical that the fathers of the children taken in the raid also come forward and give DNA samples, even if it does reveal they fathered children with underage girls.

"We cannot accept the marriage of underage girls as a religious right," he said, adding that the states have a duty to protect children from abuse.

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