Talks start on polygamous sect’s property trust

SALT LAKE CITY — Negotiations are under way in a yearslong battle for control of a polygamous church property trust seized by the Utah courts in 2005 after allegations of mismanagement.

At stake are the assets of the United Effort Plan Trust, an arm of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The trust holds all the land and homes in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where most church members live. A church enclave in British Columbia is also held by the trust.

Two days of settlement negotiations began Wednesday at the state Capitol. University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell is the mediator for the states of Utah and Arizona, the FLDS and the court-appointed accountant who oversees the trust. Also at the table are two private attorneys for a handful of former church members who have sued the trust.

All the parties have agreed not to publicly discuss the details of the negotiations.

Among the issues to be resolved are how to distribute homes held in the trust, whether Hildale and Colorado City must be platted as subdivisions, how to divide undeveloped and communal properties (parks, a cemetery and a medical clinic) and how to pay some $2.6 million in outstanding bills owed to court-appointed accountant Bruce Wisan and his attorneys for trust management services.

At the midpoint in negotiations Wednesday, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said he was more optimistic than at the start of the day.

So far, negotiations have been focused primarily on resolving housing issues and all sides were showing a willingness to compromise, he said. There was some discussion of establishing a housing board made up of FLDS and ex-FLDS that would decide claims to property, Shurtleff said.

Shurtleff’s office moved to wrest the trust from the control of FLDS church leaders nearly four years ago, when church president Warren Jeffs was on the run and the church had failed to defend against civil lawsuits, leaving the assets vulnerable to liquidation.

The UEP trust was founded in the 1940s on a religious principle called the Holy United Order, which calls for the sharing of assets and a communal lifestyle that benefits all who follow the tenets of the FLDS faith.

In the state’s hands the trust has been rewritten as a secular entity and its beneficiary class expanded to include former church members who left or were excommunicated. The new trust allows for private property ownership and more than 200 people have petitioned Wisan to secure homes.

The FLDS view secular management of the trust as a violation of their constitutional rights to practice their religion. They have largely ignored Wisan’s management authority, but changed course last fall when he sought court permission to sell off land set aside for a church temple. That triggered the current settlement talks.