| Author |
Message |
    
Anonymous
| | Posted on Monday, June 17, 2002 - 1:31 pm: | 
|
Polygamist's Custody Fight Raises Many Issues
By ADAM LIPTAK
Until recently, Rodney Holm, a police officer, shared a five-bedroom home in Hildale, Utah, on the Arizona border, with his three wives and their 20 children. Then Mr. Holm's third and youngest wife, Ruth Stubbs, left in December, with their two children.
Mr. Holm sued for custody of the children. That gave rise to a legal battle infused not only with the usual wrenching accusations of abuse and neglect but also with serious questions about religious freedom, the sexual exploitation of teenagers by religious institutions and a law enforcement official's obligations to obey the law in his personal life.
Ms. Stubbs said she was ordered to marry Mr. Holm in 1998 by Rulon Jeffs, the leader of a breakaway Mormon sect known as the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints. It has thousands of adherents and dominates the twin towns of Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz.
"I made an appointment with the prophet," Ms. Stubbs said, referring to Mr. Jeffs. She said she had hoped to gain his approval to marry a young man she loved. But Mr. Jeffs, after considering the request, came to another conclusion.
"It comes to me that you belong to Rod," Ms. Stubbs said Mr. Jeffs told her. "He said I'd lose my salvation if I didn't marry him."
Ms. Stubbs was 16. Mr. Holm, then 32, already had two wives, one of them Ms. Stubbs's older sister, Suzie Holm.
++++"There is clearly abuse going on, and it's clearly sexual abuse," Mr. Walker said. But while the accusations against Roman Catholic dioceses have centered on inadequate supervision of errant priests and on institutional cover-ups, Mr. Walker said that the abuse here was inherent in the doctrine of the sect.
"This is policy that comes from the top," Mr. Walker said. "It is a dictate from above: If we command it, thou shalt have sex with underage women."
+++Ms. Stubbs said Mr. Holm controlled the details of her life.
"I was totally forbidden from seeing any of my relatives because they were apostates," she said. "I'd get in trouble for eating a candy bar if I didn't ask, any caffeine, any junk food, any soda."
Bigamy and adultery are crimes in Utah, although they are seldom prosecuted. The most serious accusation against Mr. Holm is that he had sex with a minor. In Utah, it is a felony for someone who is 10 or more years older to have sex with someone who is 16 or 17. This does not apply to lawful marriages, and Utah does allow marriages involving minors as young as 16 if the minor has permission from a parent and the court.
In a deposition in the custody case, Mr. Holm invoked his Fifth Amendment right against being compelled to incriminate himself when asked about his sexual relationships with his wives and about whether he had sex with Ms. Stubbs while she was a minor, but he acknowledged that he is the father of her children.
+++Judge Shumate compromised. He allowed the children to visit their father every other weekend, but he ordered Mr. Holm not to have sex with his second wife, Wendy Holm, while the children were under his roof, because the state recognizes only his first marriage. Neither side was pleased with the ruling.
"I don't like my children going up there," Ms. Stubbs said. "I don't like them being with the other mothers. I don't know what they're being taught. I know Rod still wants to teach them polygamy."
Mr. Parker was puzzled by the ruling. "I don't know how his relations with Wendy bear upon the best interests of a 2-year-old," he said.
See http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/16/national/16POLY.html?ex=1024977600&en=c9efa9c5b4e3875f&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Monday, September 09, 2002 - 7:59 pm: |
|
Utah polygamist leader Rulon T. Jeffs dies
September 9, 2002 Posted: 9:22 AM EDT (1322 GMT)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- Rulon T. Jeffs, the leader of what may be the nation's largest polygamist sect, has died, a church spokesman said.
Jeffs died Sunday of natural causes at Dixie Medical Center in St. George, said R. Scott Berry, attorney for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Berry said Jeffs was 92 or 93.
Jeffs' church has thousands of members, mostly in the twin border communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona. Estimates of the membership have ranged as high as 12,000, but Berry said it probably was 6,000 to 8,000.
Jeffs, an accountant, was rumored to have had 19 to 75 wives and dozens of children, KSL Radio said.
---His son Warren Jeffs was the No. 2 man in the church, but KSL TV said there may be a struggle for the leadership of the church. Berry said no decision has been made about the succession.
The church is highly secretive and its leaders rarely grant interviews. It is one of the polygamist sects that have been the target of allegations of welfare abuse and forced marriages of teen girls. Two years ago, the leaders told parents to pull their children out of public schools and teach them at home.
---Colorado City and Hildale have been dominated since 1935 by polygamists, who used the border to escape raids by either Arizona or Utah law enforcement officers. The raids ended in 1953 after an attempt to break up the hundreds of illegal marriages drew public scorn.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/09/obit.rulonjeffs.ap/index.html |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 15, 2002 - 11:00 am: |
|
Utah woman charged in polygamy case
Posted on Mon, Oct. 14, 2002
By PATTY HENETZ
Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY - For apparently the first time in more than 100 years, Utah prosecutors are going after a woman on polygamy-related charges.
The woman, Suzie Stubbs Holm, 36, is part of a polygamous household in rural Utah. But she is not directly charged with polygamy. Instead, she is accused of getting her 16-year-old sister to marry into the household.
Holm was charged by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff last week with abetting bigamy and illegal sex and could get up to 10 years in prison. Holm's husband, Hildale police officer Rodney H. Holm, 36, was charged with illegally marrying the little sister.
Utah men are rarely prosecuted for polygamy; there is only one other known case over the past 50 years or so.
***"It is not only holding the man responsible but holding the other adults in the home responsible for not reporting child abuse," said Flora Jessop, a Phoenix anti-polygamy activist and former plural wife.
Polygamy persists throughout the West with an estimated 30,000 practitioners.
The Holms belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose members openly practice plural marriage. Most of them live in Hildale-Colorado City, twin desert towns straddling the Utah-Arizona state line.
The Fundamentalist church is an offshoot of the Mormon Church, which disavowed polygamy in 1890 and excommunicates those who practice it. More than 6,000 Fundamentalist church members live in the community, a modest town of houses clad in untreated plywood.
**said Utah historian Will Bagley. "It's been child abuse and welfare fraud that's brought prosecutions."
***Rowenna Erickson of Tapestry Against Polygamy, an organization started by former polygamist wives, agreed plural wives are victims but said they still bear responsibility.
"Why not charge them?" Erickson asked. "Maybe this will help the women to wake up and say, `I'm accountable.'"
Rodney Holm is accused of having sex with the 16-year-old at least three times. State law bans sex involving 16- and 17-year-olds when the partner is 10 or more years older, unless the couple is legally married.
***Prosecutors say that the girl's older sister told her it was her godly duty to marry Holm.
The girl was warned that she would "burn in hell" if she refused to marry Holm, her attorney, Bill Walker, told The Salt Lake Tribune. Walker told the newspaper that the girl, who has since left Holm, was coerced by the church's late leader, Rulon Jeffs.
Suzie Holm's prosecution is "a groundbreaking case," Jessop said. "People don't understand this has nothing to do with religion. It's a human rights violation, a civil rights violation."
On the Web:
http://www.polygamy.org/
http://www.helpthechildbrides.com/
From the page:
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/4283180.htm |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Saturday, October 26, 2002 - 11:22 am: |
|
Jilted Husband Sues Polygamous Church
Friday, October 18, 2002
BY MICHAEL VIGH
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Jason Miles Williams says his ex-wife was persuaded by leaders of a Utah polygamous religion to divorce him and become the second plural wife of another church member.
On Thursday, Williams of Hurricane filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City against the estate of Rulon Jeffs, the late leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS).
Williams claims his former wife was "brainwashed" by Jeffs and other "elders of the church" to leave their Colorado City, Ariz., home and divorce him.
Williams is a former member of the church that practices polygamy in the twin border cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. Jeffs died on Sept. 8 at 92.
+++The alienation of affection lawsuit, the second that Williams has filed against Jeffs and other members of the church, seeks $20 million and asks that church leaders "cease and desist from unlawfully influencing [his] children's beliefs."
"Defendants have irreparably destroyed plaintiff's marital state, his children's well-being and stable happiness that they once enjoyed," the lawsuit states.
Williams also claims Jeffs and other church leaders have "usurped his guarantees under the Constitution to free speech and the [practice of] his beliefs."
+++Williams' attorney, Christopher Edwards of Hurricane, claims that the federal court is the proper venue for the lawsuit because a similar suit filed in state court in 1999 was tossed by 5th District Judge James L. Shumate of St. George.
In July, the Utah Court of Appeals upheld Shumate's dismissal, finding that Arizona law, which does not recognize alienation of affection, applied. The judges also found Williams failed to prove his suffering warranted recovery for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Williams attempted to attend the late church leader's Sept. 12 funeral, but was turned away. He told a Salt Lake Tribune reporter that he understood the church's position and went away quietly.
mvigh@sltrib.com
seen at http://www.sltrib.com/2002/oct/10182002/utah/8186.htm |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 1:10 pm: |
|
Meeting sheds light on Colorado City polygamist sect
By Jim Seckler
Miner Staff Writer
The sign unfurled over the table asked, “Where is Ruby Jessop?”
Ruby Jessop was 14 when she disappeared in April 2001 after being married to her stepbrother in the polygamist town of Hildale, Utah.
Bob Curran and Jim Ashurst talked about the controversial polygamist sect along the Arizona-Utah border during a meeting Wednesday night at the Powerhouse Visitor Center.
Curran who lives in St George, Utah, helped found “Help the Child Brides,” a small group of volunteers and activists whose goal is helping young girls like Jessop escape from the sect, which is called The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints.
The fundamentalist Mormon church is based in the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City at the northern tip of Mohave County.
One girl at a time, Curran said he and others are trying to help girls flee on their version of an underground railroad.
One happy story is of then-15-year-old Caroline Cook, who escaped an arranged marriage. The sad flipside is the disappearance of Ruby Jessop.
Curran and Jim Ashurst of Henderson, Nev., who created the group’s Web site, have gathered numerous stories of young girls and women who have escaped from Hildale and Colorado City.
*** Curran also called Warren Jeffs, the current sect prophet who succeeded his late father, Rulon Jeffs, a thug.
Curran said Jeffs has preached “blood atonement,” or messages to members of possibly killing members who leave the church.
Curran also said public officials such as Mohave County Attorney Bill Ekstrom have been lax in prosecuting underage marriage, incest and white slavery.
Curran said public officials on either side of the state line have said the problem is in each others' jurisdiction.
“It’s sensitive issue,” he said. “They would rather keep it a secret. Our job is to get public officials out there to get this stopped.”
*** “They see themselves above the law,” Ashurst said of the polygamist sect.
Curran said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has vigorously begun to go after child abuse violations in the community. But Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has not done enough to enforce child abuse laws, he added.
One of the women who spoke during the meeting was Pam Black, who said she was raised in that secretive environment. Black gave a snapshot of life in polygamist Colorado City.
“It’s like living behind a veil, just as the woman in Iraq,” Black said. “We all lived in a constant fear. We are always expected to submit.”
Black said fear and religious propaganda kept women subdued and obedient to their husbands. Books that she tried to read were taken away. She and other women were taught to fear and distrust outsiders.
She also said children were the property of the husbands. A common sign in many homes reads, 'Keep sweet, no matter what.' "It’s a matter of life and death,” she added.
Black, who is divorcing her husband from her own arranged marriage, said she only wants freedom to do what she wants. She still lives in the area near her parents but said her phones are tapped and her movements watched.
*** http://tinyurl.com/c1wv |
Anonymous (68.119.47.6)
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2004 - 3:40 pm: |
|
the latter day siants church s a cult they and the one in salt lake too the preach fro a book that is not THE BIBLE they deny JESUS as doing the FINISHED WORK. either way they are a cult |
|
