Deep
divisions that stir the Utah dust
May 22, 2001
BY SUZAN MAZUR
Tom Green may have been tried and convicted on four counts of bigamy and one
count of criminal non-support of 25 of his children - each charge carrying a
potential five-year prison term. But Tom Green is not Utah's only bigamist.
Green told me in Salt Lake some months ago: "If I'm convicted and sent to
jail then it's going to be hard on other families. Because, in order to avoid
the allegation of selective prosecution, [the authorities] will almost be
compelled to go after the other polygamists - and they don't really want to do
that."
So what will happen to the others?
Not much for now, according to David Leavitt, prosecutor in the Green trial. He
told a meeting in Nephi, Utah, last October: "I acknowledge there are many
more polygamists in Juab County than Tom Green . . . Am I going to go out and
investigate other polygamists like I have Tom Green? No I'm not. It's consumed
nearly two years now."
Today, Leavitt says he's "waiting for the dust to settle" and that Ron
Barton, Utah's Investigator for Closed Societies, will continue the
investigation for the attorney general's office.
In fact, life could become easier for them. The state's attorney general, Mike
Shurtleff, last week announced his intention to introduce legislation in the
next session to downgrade bigamy from a felony to a misdemeanor.
This week, however, he says the Green case turned up evidence that indicated
abuse in Utah's closed societies was far greater than realized and that he would
increase efforts to prosecute crimes associated with polygamy, such as child
rape, incest, abuse and welfare fraud. He still does not agree that polygamy
itself is a human rights problem, and has not abandoned his position on changing
the law.
Opinion polls in Utah, following the trial in Provo, reflect the deep divisions
over whether those who practice polygamy should be prosecuted, although they do
show that most people want to see an end to the controversial subculture.
Utah state Senator Ron Allen said last year: "We have thousands of women
pulled out of school at an early age, forced into marriages with older men, kept
isolated from society, constantly impregnated, and often placed on public
assistance with no financial means of their own. They are forgotten citizens
facing abuse and fear. On top of it all, the victims are constantly taught that
God is just pleased as punch about the whole deal. It has to stop."
The US outlawed multiple wives in the late 1800s with the passage of the Morrill
and Edmunds-Tucker Acts. The main Mormon Church abandoned the principle of
polygamy in 1890 in compliance with federal law. The state of Utah, where most
polygamous families lived, also made plural marriage a third degree felony under
a bigamy statute, punishable by five years' imprisonment.
But plural marriages have continued to grow. Estimates are that between 50,000
and 100,000 individuals now practice polygamy in the US. Some suspect that
hidden forces are looking after these closed societies and making it possible
for them to operate. Jay Beswick, a victim's advocate based in Hurricaine, Utah,
is concerned by the number of teenagers fleeing the polygamous culture and by
the law's reluctance to deal with the issue of forced sex.
He says the problem is that "fundamentalist Mormon polygamy is too close to
the theology of the Church of the Latter Day Saints". Influential members
of the LDS church have ties to local law enforcement and the FBI, he says,
citing the case of Ken Crooke, a special agent in the FBI's Salt Lake City
office and a member of the Mormon priesthood.
"Utah politics mysteriously parallels the LDS Church and it is common
knowledge that the LDS Church is well connected in Washington," says John
R. Llewellyn, a retired Salt Lake County sheriff who specialized in
investigating sex crimes inside polygamy and is author of the novel, A
Teenager's Tears, When Parents Convert to Polygamy (Agreka Books in the US). It
is known that J. Edgar Hoover staffed the FBI with Mormon agents because they
could keep a secret. To this day, many field agents are Mormon. The danger is
that the special interests of the Church are put above those of the US people.
Detective Scott Cosgrove, lead investigator on a 1999 incest case, who is also
Mormon, says Mormons are part of law enforcement across the board in Utah. He
says there are many more polygamists than estimated in Utah and that the Church
is "nostalgic" about polygamy.
Tom Green, who is also awaiting trial on child rape charges, will not be
sentenced until June 27 and remains free on bail at his Greenhaven trailer camp
in Utah's west desert with his wives Linda, Hannah, Cari, Shirley and LeeAnn.
He has not disavowed polygamy and there are fears he could move to Mexico where
a branch of his group of independent polygamists is believed to have another
base.
Some of Green's wives have said they would continue to work to support the
family if Green goes to jail - including becoming truck drivers. Wife Hannah
said: "God will protect us."
So does Green's case lead to further polygamy prosecutions? "Yes,"
says Doug White, attorney for the anti-polygamy group, Tapestry Against
Polygamy.
White says Tapestry plans to meet the attorney general after Green is sentenced.
A practicing Mormon, he believes polygamy is a human rights violation but that
the problem is not the theology of the Church, but more of a generational one.
"We have a new generation of Utahns," he says. "And, according to
a 1997 Salt Lake Tribune poll, 94 per cent want the polygamy laws
enforced."
Vicky Prunty and Rowenna Erickson, directors of Tapestry, say they will oppose
the attorney general's push to downgrade the bigamy penalty.
So, as Utah tries hard to clean up its image before the Winter Olympic Games
early next year, a big question mark still hangs over victims' rights in its
polygamous subculture.
