Salt Lake City, USA - Polygamist John Daniel Kingston has been granted unlimited contact with the children he has with Heidi Mattingly by a judge who ended the couple's prolonged child welfare case.
It's been nearly three years since a confrontation between the couple's two eldest daughters and their father over the girls getting their ears pierced escalated to a state investigation of abuse in their home.
After one of the girls testified their parents hit them and that Kingston once pushed Mattingly down some stairs, the case was expanded and a Juvenile Court judge removed all the couple's children _ except for an infant born during the case _ from Mattingly and Kingston's care. Judge Andrew Valdez found there was a history of abuse and neglect in the home and ordered Kingston and Mattingly to attend therapy sessions.
As a condition of getting her children back, Mattingly was ordered to have no contact with anyone in the vast Kingston polygamist clan. She had to quit her job, move to a new home and couldn't attend church. She eventually regained custody of eight of their 11 children by August 2005. In October of that year, she and Kingston relinquished their parental rights to the two teens who started the case. Mattingly already had custody of the infant.
Since then Kingston has only been able to visit the couple's children under supervision and later had to report his scheduled visits to the Division of Child and Family Services so a case worker could make surprise visits.
On Monday, 3rd District Juvenile Court Judge Elizabeth Lindsley closed the rest of the case after psychologist Ralph Gant testified Kingston, 51, had successfully completed domestic violence and anger management therapy.
Kingston said what he'd learned was helpful, but "the benefit will never outweigh the damage to my innocent children."
Mattingly, 35, called the conclusion of the case "bittersweet."
"Now we can start fixing all the damage and all the stress that's happened to our family," she said.
The couple's legal intrusions are not quiet over. Oral arguments have been held in an appeal filed by the attorney for the children in Utah Supreme Court _ a decision is pending. Kingston and Mattingly said Monday they plan to appeal, alleging improprieties by the state.
The protracted case has had numerous distractions, including alleged kidnapping threats, purported courthouse bombing plots and threats against Valdez, who recused himself after his son got into an altercation with other young members of the Kingston clan, who were protesting against the judge outside the courthouse.
The family has been the subject of numerous Division of Child and Family Services' investigations since 1994, but never reached the level of prolonged removal of the children until February 2004 when police were called after the ear piercing incident.
In 1999, Kingston spent 28 weeks in jail after pleading no contest to felony child abuse for beating one of his daughters, then 16, for fleeing a marriage to her uncle.
Kingston only admits to one wife, Rachael Ann Kingston, to whom he is legally married and has 12 children. It is believed he has more than 100 children with 13 other women, and testimony during this case verified many of those relationships before Kingston started invoking his Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination.
It is estimated that the secretive Kingston clan owns nearly 100 businesses in Utah ranging from ranches and dairies to restaurant supply companies and other shops.
Critics contend the sect teaches and promotes sexual abuse of young girls through illegal marriages, incest and polygamy. Members of the group contend they live a religious and lawful existence.