They packed the courtroom and when there was no more room in there, they stood in the halls that snaked around the federal courthouse.
Grandfathers, grandmothers, husbands, wives and children — hundreds of members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church showed up to a hearing Wednesday to protest the proposed sale of more then 700 acres they consider sacred on the Utah-Arizona border.
"It affects our way of life," an FLDS man named Jerry said as he left the courthouse. "It's our home. It's our future."
A hearing is scheduled Friday in St. George on the sale of Berry Knoll, a place FLDS members claim is prophesied to be a holy temple site.
U.S. District Judge Dee Benson declined to grant a temporary restraining order to stop Friday's hearing but promised to hear arguments if a sale were to go forward.
"There doesn't seem to be anything of really imminent harm," Benson said. "Bulldozers aren't moving in."
FLDS members claim the reformed trust violates their First Amendment rights to freely practice their religion. They have filed a series of lawsuits in several different courts to challenge the UEP Trust and specifically block the sale of Berry Knoll to what they say is a "rival polygamous group."
"What's literally at stake is the preservation of the faith itself," their attorney, Stephen C. Clark told the judge.
But lawyers for the UEP say their claims are about 3 1/2 years too late. The UEP Trust was taken over by the courts in 2005 amid allegations that FLDS leadership mismanaged it by defaulting on multi-million dollar lawsuits filed by ex-members, and property and funds were being siphoned away.
A judge appointed a special fiduciary, Bruce Wisan, to manage the trust. Efforts to involve the FLDS were met with a wall of silence, said Wisan's attorney, Zachary Shields. He argued that waived any claims they had through the court process.
"These people openly elected not to participate," he said, suggesting it was under orders of FLDS leadership.
"Suddenly they want to undo everything."
The reformed UEP Trust does away with the communal "united order" concept and paves the way for private property ownership. The FLDS claim in their lawsuits that by not being able to consecrate the property to their church, it violates their freedom of religion. Ex-FLDS members who have returned to Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., are also beneficiaries of that trust, the fiduciary's attorneys say.
The trust is also nearly $2 million in debt, hence the need to sell the land to pay bills. The attorneys and Wisan himself haven't been paid in more than a year.
"They are welcome to make a better offer," Shields said to scoffs from FLDS faithful in the courtroom audience.
Outside of court, FLDS members said they were grateful to have a chance to be heard, but still fear losing their homes. Members offered different reasons for their silence all these years.
"People would come and take our children and put us in jail. That's why we never came forth," said an FLDS woman who refused to give her name. "Not because Warren Jeffs told us to."
FLDS member and spokesman Willie Jessop said they didn't realize they were "under attack" until it was too late.
"If his (Wisan's) job was to preserve the trust, why did we need to panic in the first place?" he said. "We had no idea the fiduciary had declared a sociological and psychological war on us."
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com