PROVO — After three hours of testimony, Utah's most outspoken polygamist was sentenced Friday in Provo's 4th District Court to up to five years in state prison.
Tom Green also was ordered by Judge Guy Burmingham to pay some $78,000 in restitution to the state government for welfare assistance his family fraudulently collected.
Green, 52, the Juab County man who has appeared on television around the globe for his plural-marriage practices, was convicted by a jury in May on four counts of bigamy and one count of criminal nonsupport. Green faced up to five years in prison on each count and a fine of $25,000.
Green kissed his five wives and five of his 30 children before he was taken into custody by Utah County sheriff's deputies.
"We are just all very sad that we live in a society where a man can be sent to prison for being a father," said Green before he entered the Provo courtroom for his sentencing.
Green is expected to appeal his conviction — and defense attorney John Bucher said he also will appeal the amount of restitution Birmingham ordered.
There will be a hearing Sept. 4 on a motion to release Green to allow him to work on the appeal of the conviction. Meanwhile, Green was taken directly to a Utah State prison facility.
Defense attorney John Bucher said he believes there are about "200 grounds" on which he could appeal Green's conviction. He also plans to appeal the amount of restitution ordered.
Burningham sentenced Green to serve five years on each of the five felony charges. The sentences are to run concurrently.
"It is specific in the Utah Constitution that polygamous acts or polygamous marriage was forbidden when it became a state," said Birmingham, before he sentenced Green.
The judge ruled that religious belief is protected in U.S. and Utah constitutions, but religious practice that is deemed a threat to society can be regulated under law.
During the weeklong trial in May — in what was Utah's first polygamy trial in 50 years — Juab County Attorney David Leavitt painted Green, 53, as a man with a lust for teenage girls.
Bucher told jurors that Green may not have socially acceptable views and religious beliefs — but he didn't break the law because, legally, he was married to one woman at a time.
Utah settlers, mostly members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, practiced polygamy in the 1840s. Church leaders later renounced the practice, and Utah's Constitution specifically outlaws plural marriage.
There are an estimated 30,000 polygamists in the country.
Green has yet to be tried on one count of child rape, which stems from his 1986 marriage to Linda Kunz.
Prosecutors contend Kunz, now Linda Green, was 13 when she conceived a child with Green. She now is pregnant with her seventh child.
Green was in court Thursday to argue that the statute of limitations has run out on the child rape charge and therefore should be dropped. A judge has yet to make a decision in that matter.
E-MAIL: gfattah@desnews.com