FLDS: Polygamy sect members fleeing as law closes in

[FLDS] Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), USA’s largest polygamist sect — founded in defiance of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints‘ ban on polygamy more than a century ago — are fleeing Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, and building compounds in West Texas, southwestern Colorado and South Dakota’s Black Hills.

Pressure

In an attempt to crack down on polygamy and teen marriages authorities have increased the pressure on the group.

“”The bottom line is, we’re not arresting them because we can’t get anyone to testify in court.”
Sheriff Kirk Smith, Washington County, Utah

Instead, they are pursuing allegations of financial irregularities and using child-abuse charges to crack down on the young girls’ marriages.

• Their prophet, Warren Jeffs, who heads the sect since 2002 and has 50 wives, is on the run accused of uniting teenage girls with older, already-married men. He was charged last week with rape for allegedly forcing a teenage girl to marry an older man.
• Members are being evicted for tax evasion.
• Members who are police officers in both towns are being forced to choose between their jobs and plural marriage.
• The FBI and state officials are offering a $60,000 bounty on Jeffs.
• In addition to the charge last week, Jeffs was charged in 2005 in Arizona with child sex abuse for arranging another teenager’s marriage to an older, already-married man. A federal arrest warrant was subsequently filed.
• Peace Officer Standards and Training groups in Utah and Arizona are warning police in Hildale and Colorado City they could be decertified if they practice polygamy or refuse to enforce legal action against the group.
• A Utah court last year appointed Salt Lake City accountant Bruce Wisan to oversee the assets of the fundamentalist church’s trust, estimated at $110 million, to keep the money from being drained away by Jeffs and his inner circle.

Hate Group

Gary Engels, an investigator for the Mohave County, Ariz., Attorney’s Office, has a tape of one sermon in which Jeffs’ muted, singsong voice can be heard denouncing black people as “uncouth, or rude and filthy … low in their habits, wild.”

His pronouncements have been so outlandish that some in the famously closed sect, last year classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, began to speak publicly against him.

Stand-off

Authorities are mindful of talk that sect members in Hildale, who number about 6,000, have vowed not to submit.

“They ought to be concerned, really. I think there’s a good chance there would be a standoff. Warren has predicted he would be a martyr.”
Ross Chatwin, a former member who disobeyed orders to give up his wife and six children

* With information provided by USA Today [Cache] and Religion News Blog