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HILDALE -- The Fundamentalist LDS Church paid a $192,600 bill to the Utah Attorney General's Office, but said it was doing so under protest.
Because of that, the accountant appointed by the courts to oversee the polygamous sect's real-estate holdings arm refused to accept it.
"My attorneys would not accept it under protest," Bruce Wisan, the court-appointed special fiduciary of the United Effort Plan (UEP) Trust told KSL NewsRadio late Monday. "That's a legal term, I think it has to do with the right of them to go back and make a claim against the funds."
The southern Utah-based polygamous sect said it paid the bill after a judge in Salt Lake City's 3rd District Court ordered it to or she would lift the stay on massive litigation over the UEP Trust.
In 2005, Third District Court Judge Denise Lindberg took control of the UEP over allegations that FLDS leaders had mismanaged it, including defaulting on civil litigation. She appointed a special fiduciary to manage the trust, which controls homes and property in the border towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz.
In a statement Monday, FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop claimed the fiduciary was getting paid twice - first from occupancy fees from those living on UEP property and by selling milk produced at an FLDS-run dairy.
"Although we believe the agreement regarding the milk sale revenue satisfied the occupancy fee requirement, the FLDS have tendered the $192,600 to the Attorney General under protest, because the Court stated that if we do not make that payment the stay of litigation will be lifted and all the work that has been done to settle this case will be lost," Jessop wrote.
Wisan disputed that claim. "I vociferously disagree with that," he said.
For years after the trust was taken over, the FLDS were largely silent as the judge enacted reforms that did away with the early-Mormon concept of a "united order" that the trust was built upon, paving the way for private property ownership. When the fiduciary sought to sell off some land that the FLDS considered a sacred site, they sued. The fiduciary estimates the trust is more than $1 million in debt, mostly going to administrative and attorney's fees.
Among the FLDS' claims is that the trust reforms violate their right to freely practice their religion by preventing them from consecrating their property to the church.
All sides have been engaged in a litigation "stand down," while negotiations have been carried out to try to end the legal battles. During a status update last week, the judge ordered the fees to be paid.
"As a peaceful people, we believe that settlement is the best way to resolve differences. Our payment of these funds continues our commitment to work in good faith to achieve a settlement of this dispute," Jessop wrote.
E-mail: bwinslow@ksl.com
