A district judge says she plans to separate religion from facts within the next 14 days in a case involving the assets of a secretive polygamist sect's trust thought to be worth millions.
Meanwhile, a court-appointed accountant temporarily managing the trust said he believes huge sums of money are passing through the church regularly and going into a "mysterious black hole" rather than being used to pay legitimate debts such as property taxes.
Third District Judge Denise Lindberg said she will do her best to "reform" the trust so the religiously neutral principles of civil law can be applied to its management. Her reform guidelines then will be available for comment and suggested changes from various interested parties, including the attorneys general for Utah and Arizona, lawyers for various church members and others.
Lindberg said her work on what promises to be a complex and lengthy document is being guided by three principles:
To preserve the charitable intent of the trust.
Keep the court from sanctioning illegal practices.
Resolving property disputes involving a religious institution by applying the neutral principles of the law, not theories of belief or judgments about how well or poorly someone has lived his or her faith.
The judge previously stripped polygamist church leader Warren Jeffs and five others from serving as trustees of the United Effort Plan, a trust that evolved decades ago out of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jeffs currently is on the lam from the FBI on sex-related charges.
Lindberg acted after the Utah Attorney General's Office sought court help in protecting the trust's assets, which state officials feared were being sold at below market value or were otherwise being mismanaged.
Lindberg was set to appoint new trustees Monday, but chose not to after Bruce Wissan, the special fiduciary appointed by the court as a temporary manager, asked for more time to take inventory and do more research.
His job is complicated by the fact that most church members and residents of the adjoining towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz. won't talk to him. There also are few written records available, and antiquated and/or secretive practices seem to have been employed involving trust finances.
"The trust has never even had a checking account," Wissan said in court Monday.
Lindberg on Monday also said she will appoint a temporary board of advisers to give Wissan input. She will appoint new trustees at an unspecified later date.
Wissan recently got court permission to sell some trust-owned property that netted $1.5 million. He wants to use that to survey all property in the southern Utah community and also put funds toward reviving its declining economy. He said that money should not be used to pay property taxes, which often are in arrears, since individuals and the church should be responsible for taxes.
"I have the feeling that great sums of money are passing on a monthly basis through the church," Wissan said in court, adding that he suspects individuals are choosing to "allocate the funds for other projects," a possible reference to a huge compound and temple the church is building in El Dorado, Texas.
Wissan testified he doesn't want money that should rightfully pay tax bills to disappear into a "mysterious black hole."
E-mail: lindat@desnews.com