ST. GEORGE — Defense lawyers in a lawsuit alleging ritualistic sex abuse of young girls by former polygamous sect leaders have asked a Utah court to dismiss the suit because the plaintiff used a pseudonym rather than her real name when she filed it.

The lawyers argue that the suit was never legally filed because the plaintiff — identified as R.H. — failed to get a judge’s permission to use the pseudonym. And because it wasn’t properly filed, the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case, they argue in a motion filed with the 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City.

High-ranking leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are accused of carrying out a “calculated plan” of ritualistic sex abuse involving girls as young as 8 years old in the lawsuit filed in late December against former FLDS President Warren Jeffs, his brothers Lyle Jeffs and Seth Jeffs, former FLDS leader Wendell Nielsen, the FLDS church and the United Effort Plan Trust, the church’s former land trust.

The UEP Trust was taken over by order of a Utah state court in 2005 appointing a special fiduciary in response to accusations that Warren Jeffs and other FLDS leaders mismanaged it; the responsibility of the special fiduciary has since been reduced and the trust is now largely run by a court-appointed board of trustees. Since the 2005 intervention, communal property has been subdivided and farms and other businesses have been claimed by the trust as taxes went unpaid. It has been overseeing distribution of church property in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.

The UEP Trust filed the motion to dismiss, which prompted a response from R.H. seeking permission to proceed without her real name, a strategy UEP’s lawyers say should be rejected.

Read the full article at St. George News.

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