Utah withholds $192K in FLDS dispute

The Utah Attorney General's Office is withholding $192,000 in payments from a court-appointed accountant in charge of a land trust once controlled by jailed polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs.

Members of Jeffs' Fundamentalist LDS Church asked Utah to delay transferring the money after learning the accountant, Bruce Wisan, sold 565 head of cattle from a church farm.

Members of the church were court-ordered to pay occupancy fees on homes in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. The homes are held in the United Effort Plan Trust, an arm of the FLDS Church.

The Utah courts seized the land trust — and put Wisan, a non-FLDS accountant, in control — in 2005 after allegations of mismanagement against Jeffs.

The farm and its assets are part of ongoing settlement negotiations surrounding how to divvy up the land contained in the trust, among other issues. The settlement would return most trust assets to the church.

As part of the settlement talks, a judge ordered the FLDS to pay Wisan $385,000 for six months of delinquent housing occupancy fees.

The FLDS made the final payment of about $192,000 on what they owed June 15, the same day the Utah Attorney General's Office filed a settlement proposal with a court to end the dispute over the $114 million property trust.

The sale of the cows also was disclosed in a court filing June 15, though the FLDS learned of the sale June 16.

The FLDS believe the sale of the cattle violates a court order issued after the sides agreed to negotiate, which halted trust litigation and limited trust management activity.

An attorney for Wisan says the $360,000 sale does not violate the judge's financial limits for trust management activity during the negotiating period that began last fall.

In a June 19 court filing, the attorney general's office in Utah said it had "great concern that the transaction was not disclosed until after it occurred."

A letter of intent outlining a possible settlement was filed with the 3rd District Court on June 15. The judge set July 1 as the day for responses to the proposal.

Jeffs was arrested in 2006 and convicted in 2007 of two felony counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in an arranged marriage involving a then-14-year-old follower in Utah. He is in an Arizona jail and faces criminal charges in that state and Texas related to other alleged underage marriages.