Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a Mormon fundamentalist group whose members practice polygamy. It is variously defined as a cult, a sect or a new religious movement. Warren Jeffs has been the church's president since 2002.
The FLDS has a large concentration of members in the twin towns of Colorado City, Arizona and Hilldale, Utah, where the church was formerly headquartered, in addition to various other populations across the Western United States, Mexico and Canada. The FLDS also previously owned a 1,700-acre complex near Eldorado, Texas known as the YFZ Ranch, which was the site of a high-profile law enforcement raid in 2008 that brought the church to mainstream public attention.
Since the mid-2000s, the FLDS has come under increasing scrutiny for allegations of child sexual abuse, child marriage, human trafficking, child labor abuses, welfare fraud and the ostracizing of members, with several prominent members and leaders having been investigated for or convicted of sexual offenses. Warren Jeffs himself was convicted on separate rape charges in Utah and Texas, respectively, and is currently serving a sentence of life plus twenty years in the latter state.
History
Origins
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints traces its claim to spiritual authority to when Brigham Young, then-president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, once visited the Short Creek Community and said, "This will someday be the head and not the tail of the church. This will be the granaries of the Saints. This land will produce in abundance sufficient wheat to feed the people."In 1904, the LDS Church issued the Second Manifesto renouncing polygamy, and eventually excommunicated Mormons who continued to solemnize or enter into new plural marriages. Short Creek, located in what was then the Arizona Territory, soon became a gathering place for these Mormons. Members of the community believed a statement published in 1912 by Lorin C. Woolley, of a purported 1886 divine revelation to then-LDS Church President John Taylor, took precedence over the 1890 Manifesto, which had prohibited new plural marriages by LDS members. The community believed that in issuing the 1890 Manifesto, Wilford Woodruff sold his right to the Priesthood, thereby making Lorin's father, John W. Woolley, his successor by the One Man doctrine.
After being excommunicated by the LDS Church, some of the locally prominent men in Short Creek, including Lorin Woolley and John Y. Barlow, created the organization known as the Council of Friends. The Council, consisting of seven high priests that were said to be the governing priesthood body on Earth, was the governing ecclesiastical body over the Short Creek Community until being incorporated as the FLDS Church under Rulon Jeffs. In 1935, the LDS Church excommunicated the Mormon residents of Short Creek who refused to sign an oath renouncing polygamy. Following this, Barlow led those in Short Creek who were dedicated to preserving the practice of plural marriage. Consequently, Mormon fundamentalists that didn't follow Barlow separated, leading to the creation of multiple fundamentalist organizations outside Short Creek by 1954. These included the Apostolic United Brethren and Kingston group through Joseph White Musser.
Postwar development and Short Creek raid
In the morning of July 26, 1953, 102 Arizona state police officers and National Guard soldiers raided the fundamentalist Mormon community of Short Creek, Arizona. They arrested the entire populace, including 236 children. Of those 236 children, 150 were not allowed to return to their parents for more than two years. Other parents never regained custody of their children.The Short Creek raid was the largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history, and it received a great deal of press coverage. After the raid, polygamists continued to live there, and later the town was renamed Colorado City.
From Leroy S. Johnson to Warren Jeffs
claimed to be both head of temporal affairs and the Priesthood through his United Effort Plan. By 1984, a schism emerged in Short Creek when some took issue with his One Man authority. Those followers moved south of Colorado City to Centennial Park, Arizona and called themselves "The Work of Jesus Christ", or "Second Ward."Leroy S. Johnson succeeded Barlow, and stress on the One Man Rule doctrine strengthened. Rulon Jeffs succeeded Leroy, incorporating Short Creek as the FLDS in 1984 to reorganize to an Episcopal polity reflecting the One Man authority.
With no clear succession, Warren Jeffs assumed leadership when Rulon Jeffs died. Winston Blackmore, who had been serving in Canada as the Bishop of Bountiful for the FLDS Church, was excommunicated by Jeffs in an apparent power struggle. This led to a split within the community in Bountiful, British Columbia, with an estimated 700 FLDS members leaving the church to follow Blackmore.
Legal troubles, 2003–2006
Polygamy is illegal in all 50 states of the United States as well as Canada and Mexico. Attempts to overturn the illegality based on right of religious freedom have been unsuccessful. In 2003, the church received increased attention from the state of Utah when police officer Rodney Holm, a member of the church, was convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with a 16- or 17-year-old and one count of bigamy for his marriage to and impregnation of plural wife Ruth Stubbs. The conviction was the first legal action against a member of the FLDS Church since the Short Creek raid.In November 2003, church member David Allred purchased for YFZ Land LLC the Isaacs Ranch northeast of Eldorado, Texas, on Schleicher County Road 300 "as a hunting retreat". The property would be known within the sect as Yearning For Zion Ranch, or YFZ Ranch. Allred sent 30 to 40 construction workers from Colorado City–Hildale to work on the property, which soon included three 3-story houses, each 8,000 to, a concrete plant, and a plowed field. After seeing FLDS Church critic Flora Jessop on the ABC television program Primetime Live on March 4, 2004, concerned Eldorado residents contacted Jessop. Jessop investigated, and on March 25, 2004, held a press conference in Eldorado confirming that the new neighbors were FLDS Church adherents. On May 18, 2004, Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran and his Chief Deputy visited Colorado City, and the FLDS Church officially acknowledged that the Schleicher County property would be a new base for the church. It was reported in the news media that the church had built a temple at the YFZ Ranch; this is supported by evidence including aerial photographs of a large stone structure in a state of relative completion. A local newspaper, the Eldorado Success, reported that the temple foundation was dedicated by Warren Jeffs on January 1, 2005.
On January 10, 2004, Dan Barlow and about 20 other men were excommunicated from the church and stripped of their wives and children, and expelled from town. The same day two teenage girls reportedly fled the town with the aid of Flora Jessop, who advocates for plural wives' escape from polygamy. The two girls, Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm, soon found themselves in a highly publicized dispute over their freedom and custody. Jessop sought help for the two Fawns from the Arizona Department of Child Protective Services, who assigned the girls to a foster home, but the girls fled when a judge barred them from contact with Jessop and their new address was given to their parents. Fawn Broadbent was allowed to move in with Carl Hohm, while Fawn Hohm remained in hiding. Fawn Hohm eventually moved in with a polygamist follower of Winston Blackmore.
In October 2004, Flora Jessop reported that David Allred purchased a parcel of land near Mancos, Colorado, about the same time he bought the Schleicher County property. Allred told authorities the parcel was to be used as a hunting retreat.
In July 2005, eight men of the church were indicted for sexual contact with minors. All of them turned themselves in to police in Kingman, Arizona, within days.
On July 29, 2005, Brent W. Jeffs filed suit accusing three of his uncles, including Warren Jeffs, of sexually assaulting him when he was a child. The suit also named the FLDS Church as a defendant. On August 10, former FLDS Church member Shem Fischer, Dan Fischer's brother, added the church and Warren Jeffs as defendants to a 2002 lawsuit claiming he was illegally fired because he no longer adhered to the faith. Fischer, who was a salesman for a wooden cabinetry business in Hildale, claimed church officials interfered with his relationship with his employer and blacklisted him. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the company and found that Fischer was not fired from his job, but quit instead. The district court ruling was overturned in part on the basis that Fischer was discriminated against on the basis of religion when he reapplied for his position and was denied employment because he had left the FLDS church. The parties eventually settled the case for an agreed payment of damages to Shem Fischer.
In July 2005, six teenaged and young adult "Lost Boys" who claimed they were cast out of their homes on the Utah–Arizona border to reduce competition for wives, filed suit against the FLDS Church. "The have been excommunicated pursuant to that policy and practice and have been cut off from family, friends, benefits, business and employment relationships, and purportedly condemned to eternal damnation", their suit read. "They have become 'lost boys' in the world outside the FLDS community."
On May 7, 2006, the FBI named Warren Jeffs to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He was captured on Interstate 15 on August 28, 2006, just north of Las Vegas, after a routine traffic stop.
The mayor of Colorado City, Terrill C. Johnson, was arrested on May 26, 2006, for eight fraudulent vehicle registration charges for registering his vehicles in a state in which he was not resident, which is a felony. He was booked into Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane, Utah, and was released after paying the $5,000 bail in cash.