Salt Lake City, USA - A judge on Friday installed an outside auditor to take control of a polygamous church's assets, after state officials argued the move was necessary to keep the sect's reclusive president from raiding the trust.
Attorney General Mark Shurtleff sought the order against trustees for a fund operated by the southern Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints and its president, Warren Jeffs.
Virtually all property in the twin border communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. -- where a majority of the area's 10,000 residents are members of the FLDS church -- was at one time transferred to the United Effort Plan trust to be shared by church members.
Shurtleff alleges Jeffs is liquidating church assets under intensified pressure.
Assistant Attorney General Tim Bodily argued Friday the trust has transferred from $3 million to $5 million in land holdings to shadow companies set up by Jeffs' close associates, leaving only the property where lower-level church members live in its real estate portfolio.
Some ousted church members have sued the trust, and won the right to either remain living in their homes or be compensated fair market value from the trust if they decide to leave.
Bodily said if the sell-off continued, there would be no money left for church members who sought compensation.
Judge Robert Adkins's order was a stopgap measure to prevent further transfers pending a June 22 hearing over whether all trustees, including Jeffs, should be removed.
Jeffs and other church members were not notified of Friday's hearing for fear that would trigger the transfer or sale of more property. They were not represented in court.
The size of the trust is unclear, but Shurtleff has estimated it holds some $100 million.
Six people are listed as trustees, but investigators believe Jeffs exercises almost sole authority, as he allegedly does in determining which church members are assigned wives and children in the isolated border towns the church dominates.
Shurtleff's office has brought the church under increasing scrutiny amid allegations of sexual abuse, forced marriages and welfare fraud, although no criminal charges have been filed. He insists he's not interested in prosecuting members for illegal multiple marriages -- FLDS teaches that men must have at least three wives to reach heaven -- but instead is looking at other allegations of abuse.
Bodily repeated that promise Friday, saying, "There is no message to Warren Jeffs other than as a trustee of this trust."
The FLDS church traces its roots to Joseph Smith, founder of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1890, the mainstream Mormon church officially abolished plural marriage, and members who advocate it are excommunicated.
Still, it's believed that tens of thousands of Mormon fundamentalists and others across the West continue the practice. Though it's illegal, prosecutors have said it would overburden the legal and child welfare system to try to prosecute polygamists.
Jeffs has not been seen in either community straddling the Utah-Arizona border for more than a year, and is thought to be on a 2,000-acre ranch near Eldorado, Texas, where he reportedly plans to move select members of the church.