The Stuff of Movies

This is the stuff of a good John Grisham novel.  A few months ago, Sim Gill, the Salt Lake County district attorney decided to file formal charges against former Utah Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, and disgraced (former) Attorney General, John Swallow.  The charges, both felony and misdemeanor, were for various crimes:- accepting bribes, interfering with criminal investigations, and various other acts of corruption.  For a list of the charges go to this article.

I met Bishop Swallow once.  He seemed like a nice guy.  He said he came from polygamous stock and would never intentionally harm polygamists.  I guess it doesn't matter any more.  He's likely to go to prison.

Shurtleff is another proposition.  He has always seemed to me to be a bit imperious and self-serving.  You always want to assume the best of your political representatives (unless they are Harry Reid [a relative of mine] or Nancy Pelosi).  I guess when you are an ambitious Mormon attorney and politician, it is easy to get tempted into corruption.  Shurtleff has had his share of adversity - months in an Ilizarov frame, colon cancer, heart attacks, a troubled daughter, and more.  I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but I am wondering what the mystical meaning is in this grand story.

Shurtleff was the one who, in 2005, executed the takeover of the (FLDS's) UEP trust, handing over day-to-day control of the trust to his corrupt crony, Bruce Wisan.  Wisan has recently quit his law firm job and his role as UEP Trust fiduciary in the wake of his public shaming for getting caught with a prostitute and lying about it. 

This is the stuff of movies.  I would cast Russell Crowe and Alec Baldwin.

I think the irony of it is the hypocrisy - the fact that Shurtleff championed his holy war on the Fundamentalist Mormons (for their alleged criminality), shopping Utah's stupid anti-bigamy statute to Texas, feigning good will towards us, all the while thinking only of his own personal advancement and political career.  Now, as I predicted, Shurtleff's is the fate of Governor Pyle, only worse.  He is likely to go to prison, hopefully among the felons he put away.

One of Shurtleff's errands for the blue suits at 50 E. North Temple was to keep the polygamists under control.  Thankfully the Church has no use for him any more.

Shurtleff's and Swallow's successor, AG Sean Reyes, has a few more days left to announce whether he intends to appeal Judge Waddoups' recent final ruling in favor of the Kody Brown family and the voiding of Utah's bigamy statute's unenforceable anti-cohabitation clause.  Let's hope that Reyes has some political corruption skeletons in his closet so that he too can be shamed for making war on the saints.

The drama continues.

Hypocrite

BRUCE WISAN

So, last year Brute Wisass got caught by Taylorsville police in a motel with a prostitute.  He at first said they did not have sex.  She said they did.  He said he was just giving her financial help until she "got on her feet" - (read: "till she got up from the bed"). He admitted that he had been showering with her.

This is a former Mormon Stake President - a paragon of religious virtue and integrity.  The one hand-picked by Shurtleff to bring salvation to the FLDS.

VOMIT !!!       Here is a chunk of the police report:
 

See also this article from the Salt Lake Tribune:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home3/58242242-200/wisan-woman-officer-court.html.csp

Off With Their Heads

I am still scratching my head over the FLDS implosion.  In 2005, the State of Utah seized the FLDS UEP trust and ran up millions in inflated fiduciary fees.  The Hooles assisted with the rewording of the UEP trust statement, hoping to plunder the trust for their own gain.  Warren told his followers to "Answer them nothing."  Young men were illegally detained and imprisoned in an Arizona prison, simply because they had no idea of Warren's whereabouts and could not disclose something they didn't know.

Warren was captured in 2007, but his conviction in a Utah court was overturned.

In 2008, 439 children were confiscated from the FLDS ranch in west Texas.  The feds knew at the time that Warren was molesting little girls.  The little kids were returned thanks to Julie Balovich, but Warren was later convicted by a Texas court, and should remain in his Texas prison until the next millennium.

Probably dozens of the young teen girls (now adults) still remain under FLDS house arrest.  Only God knows how they can regain a normal life in the wake of the destruction of their perverse, fairy-tale culture.

Fiduciary Bruce Wisan eventually had to get his filthy lucrative fees from the Utah legislature.  Mark Shurtleff, then the A.G. who targeted the FLDS, found himself at cross purposes with Judge Denise Lindberg, who would make a ruling in favor of the FLDS if her life depended on it.

Federal Judge Dee Benson demanded that the State return the UEP trust to its trustee (Warren Jeffs), but that got thwarted, too.

A wise man once told me that one can liken the UEP trust to an egg.  The egg was once fresh and whole and desirable.  Then somebody scrambled it and cooked it.  Then someone else came along and burned it.  Try as you might, you cannot return that egg to its shell, and put things back to how they were before.

Willie Jessop sued the FLDS church to recoup the money he loaned Warren to pay for all the lawyers who defended him.  Answering "them nothing", Warren watched Willie win the suit by default and earn a $20 million award.  Since then, Willie has gained control of the spectacular mansions built for Warren by his followers since his incarceration.  The porn theaters have been removed. 

After a period of time under the leadership of John Wayman, the control of the FLDS people has been handed back to Warren's brother, Lyle.  Warren and Lyle have bled virtually every penny out of the remaining faithful.  The number of faithful is dwindling steadily as they are systematically ejected from the fold because of any number of petty violations or heresies.  Families and children are abandoned, then jumbled up at Warren's whim.  Warren is now certifiably insane, so one has to wonder why Lyle complies with every directive.  Perhaps it is because he likes not working and living for free off other people's labors.  No one has been allowed to marry since 2006, and rumors abound now that a select group of men has been selected to play the role of community impregnators.  One thing is for sure - hundreds of families have been ripped to shreds, and some exiles are still trying to gain back the infant children they handed over to the church police while they were still sucked in by Warren.

This is turning out to be one of the worst humanitarian disasters since the days of Stalin.  It is a true tar baby for the State.  The State may have had a vision of some sort to rehabilitate the twin towns, but it didn't come about.  My sense is that the degree of indoctrination in the FLDS was so extreme, that many of the excommuniqués barely understand what has happened to them.  Would you feel guilty if you had been born into an oppressive cult, and had surrendered your free agency to a lunatic, just because your church's theology so dictated?  Would it be your fault, or just the fault of the lunatic and his cronies?

I wrote a blogpost in 2011 - Critical Mass - in which I pondered the eventual dissolution of the community.  I guess we are there now.  If we accept the premise of a pre-existence, we allow that all of the participants in this adventure consented to come to earth at this time and be tested by it.  For us outsiders, our duty is to provide whatever kindness and support is desired by those who have become victims of the nightmare.  I hope that we remember that it was NOT POLYGAMY that caused all this.  It was stupid humans doing cruel, selfish stuff.  That's the lesson.

What Does It Mean?

I just read a Salt Lake Tribune article about the moral departure of Willie (R.) Jessop from Warren Jeffs.  What does this mean?  Jessop was quoted as saying, "I came to the point where Mr. Jeffs’ conduct was indefensible and have chosen not to defend it publicly or privately."  Jessop said also, " . . . but what came to light in Texas is morally indefensible.”  What does he mean?  Does Texas law enforcement have critical information about Jeffs that the rest of us have not yet seen?  What is in the "millions" of pages of discovery documents Texas seized?  Did Jeffs confess to actually having sex with 12-year-olds?  Does someone have information about sex with 12-year-olds which corroborates the discovery documents?  Have the general members of the FLDS communities been shielded from access to such information?  Are they vouching for Jeffs only because they have been kept oblivious of the truth?

If Texas has damning evidence about foul acts on Jeffs' part with pre-pubescent girls, can it be made public before the trial?  Will the trial be delayed until Jeffs' attorneys have had a few years to read the "MILLIONS OF PAGES" of discovery?  Is Jessop revealing this now because, if he doesn't, it could be a long time before it comes to light?  How many other people know the information?  Did Jeffs expel other people because he learned that they had discovered his (allegedly) "indefensible conduct" and didn't want them to come forward with it?

So many questions !!!

I say Jeffs (like all Americans) has a constitutional right to a fair trial (a thing which the other Texas defendants likely did not get).  It was long claimed that Jeffs' twelve-year-old "marriages" went unconsummated until the girls were older - which begs for the production of more evidence.  Nevertheless, I also applaud Jessop's courage in speaking what he apparently believes to be the truth in what some are claiming is an atmosphere of secrecy and fear.  This is a delicate situation, because one would not want to see a fair trial be derailed because of revelations made by a former defense-team-member.

I don't envy the Commerce Division (or the court) who may soon be tasked with the job of deciding who is the rightful holder of the position of Corporation of the President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Somehow it seems that it should no more choose the religious leader of the church than Diseased Pousse Lintbag should have re-written the Trust's religious intent language.

It makes me want the truth to be made clear very soon, so that the good people of the FLDS congregations can "choose the right" and have their Trust and normal lives restored.  After all, is that not what they want?  Is that not what the State always wanted?

I also echo the sentiments of Mary Bachelor who, in June of 2008, wrote this post.  If it is demonstrated that Jeffs is truly guilty of the (I say - capital) offenses alleged, will the community eventually conclude that Jeffs' leadership was fraudulent and morally bankrupt from the start, and that many families should not have been forcibly dismantled?  What does all this mean?

Not Messing Around

He's not messing around!  Yesterday, Judge Dee Benson followed through on his promise to give the UEP trust back to the FLDS.  He accepted the settlement compromises negotiated by the Utah Attorney General's office, and removed Brutal Wisass as manager of the trust, requiring him to turn over all pertinent documentation.  Read the AP article.

The FLDS have agreed to comply with the stipulations (not to kick out the ex-members who were given leases, not to sell off UEP trust property, etc.).

Wisass is claiming to be owed (along with Shields) some $1.5 million for his activities in recent years.  "Pay me for the abuse I inflicted on you!" he says.  So, here's what I think - - the fiduciary was hired by the Utah AG's office, and he did the bidding of the AG's office (one would assume).  The UEP trust is a land-holding entity.  It does not have "liquid" cash.  It even allegedly still owes back property taxes.  For Wisass to be paid, there would be three options.  Get ready to select an option - -


1.  Take more money from the FLDS people (GOOD LUCK WITH THAT !!!)
2.  Sell more of the UEP trust property (Benson forbade that, didn't he  . . . . ?)  - - or
3.  Have the Utah AG's office pay him for the spectacular work he did for it.

I vote for number 3.  Is there a fourth option?