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John Hollenhorst ReportingA war of words broke out today over the polygamist church that controls a town on the Utah-Arizona border.
The Attorney General today predicted criminal charges against polygamist leader Warren Jeffs. He dominates the twin border communities of Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah Meanwhile, Jeffs' church counter-attacked on two fronts today.
Attorney General Mark Shurtleff: "There are some good people there. I don't doubt that. But there are also some real evil, bad people there who are committing crimes."
Rod Parker, Attorney for FLDS Church:"I think it's unfortunate that we continue to hear this sabre-rattling by the attorney general."
The fundamentalist group's lawyer denounced the Attorney General for vilifying the group's leader Warren Jeffs. And he fired back at Ross Chatwin, the ousted church member who drew big media attention in Colorado City last Friday.
When Ross Chatwin called his heavily guarded news conference, he accused the town's most powerful man of being like Hitler.
Warren Jeffs is the so-called prophet of the polygamist church that ordered Chatwin out. Chatwin has only one wife, but he acknowledged his belief in polygamy.
Ross Chatwin, Last Friday: "Polygamy is not the problem here. It's the dictatorship."
Now Jeff's group claims it was Chatwin's own desire to become a polygamist that got him ousted. The group's lawyer, Rod Parker, says Chatwin pursued two teenage girls as potential brides. Their father got a court order to keep Chatwin away.
Rod Parker, Attorney for FLDS Church: "My sense of it, based on reading the court papers is that it was more like stalking. He was sending them anonymous letters, he was coming to see them at school; he was doing things that were very inappropriate."
Parker also accuses Chatwin of running an unlawful used-car business in Colorado City and running up big debts.
Rod Parker: "We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. He couldn't pay back."
But Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says Chatwin did a service by encouraging others to speak out against Jeffs, who he says really is a dictator.
Mark Shurtleff: "Absolutely. I've heard it from way too many people-- children, women and men who have been victims of that oppressive regime."
Shurtleff says he's sure criminal abuse does go on. But Parker says Shurtleff is convicting Warren Jeffs in the news media with "wildly false" accusations.
Rod Parker: "They get their information about that community from its most vocal critics and its most vocal detractors. It is like trying to learn about the mormon church from street preachers on main street."
Mark Shurtleff: "I'm not listening to outside critics. I'm listening to people who are victims of crimes."
Ross Chatwin told us tonight he did pursue a 17-year-old as a possible wife because he was brought up believing polygamy is right.
Chatwin: “Now that I have left the cult, my eyes have been opened. I can see that what I did was wrong.”
