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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A court-appointed fiduciary is threatening to evict tenants of a polygamist sect's twin communities if they don't pay taxes and cooperate in managing the church's property.
Most of the property in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., is owned by the United Effort Plan, a trust arm of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The Utah attorney general's office asked the courts last year to remove the controlling trustees of the UEP, including fugitive church leader Warren Jeffs. In recent years, Jeffs and other church leaders purportedly used trust property to punish or reward church members for their obedience.
Wisan blames FLDS leaders for a "wholesale lack of cooperation and hostility" he has received from followers and local police officers.
Court-appointed trust officials have been complaining for months that some of the property, including buildings, appears to have been taken away. Some may be used at new FLDS-related enterprises, including farming in Nevada.
Wisan wants Utah and Arizona authorities to decertify police officers in the two communities for not cooperating in an investigation of missing UEP property.
"It is simply incredible to think that a certified police officer would refuse to answer such basic questions regarding their duties as law enforcement officers," Wisan said in a newly filed 68-page report. He said expects to get little help from them in stopping thefts.
Lack of cooperation also has made collection of property taxes difficult, Wisan said.
The church paid only some taxes due in Utah and Arizona last November, leaving a deficit of just over $500,000.
The tax shortfall is causing financial difficulties for the two towns and the Colorado City Unified School District.
"They financially are hurting out there because of the political situation and taxes not being paid," said Cal Robison, Washington County (Utah) clerk.
In the past, the FLDS church collected donations from followers to cover property taxes.
Wisan sent notices to residents urging them to pay their share of taxes either directly to him or to the counties.
"The fiduciary reserves the right to relocate and/or evict those who refuse to pay taxes," the document states.
He said evictions also may be necessary if people refuse to cooperate with his requests or if they engage in any illegal activity.
However, he told The Salt Lake Tribune that polygamy "is not something that would cause one to be evicted from UEP assets."
Jeffs is wanted on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution on an Arizona charge that he arranged a plural marriage between a 16-year-old girl and an older man.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
