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Utah proposes soft settlement with FLDS sect over land

The Utah attorney general’s office has proposed a settlement to end a four-year dispute over US$100 million in land in Utah, Arizona and Canada once held by a polygamous sect and its leader, Warren Jeffs.

Under the settlement proposal, filed in a state district court in Salt Lake City on Monday, most of the estimated 405 hectares would be returned by the state to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or FLDS.

Most of the land is in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, small twin communities settled by the sect in the 1920s. A smaller parcel lies in Bountiful, British Columbia, Canada.

The FLDS broke away from the mainstream Mormon Church after it rejected polygamy in 1890. The sect views Hildale and Colorado City as among the few places where it can practice its beliefs.

Through its trust, the FLDS controlled the land there and in Bountiful until 2005, when the trust was seized by the Utah courts on grounds of mismanagement. The judicial decision ordering the seizure noted that rather than defend the trust against two lawsuits seeking damages for alleged sexual abuse, the trustees had simply declined to administer it.

A court-appointed fiduciary, Bruce Wisan, has managed the trust ever since, and the FLDS has been fighting to regain control of it.

Jerrold Jensen, an assistant Utah attorney general, said on Tuesday that the state felt it was appropriate to return control of the trust because the sect’s current leaders had agreed to take responsibility for it and the residents of the three communities.
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