Salt Lake City, USA - A 3rd District judge on Thursday awarded nearly $8.8 million to beneficiaries of a property trust once overseen by Warren S. Jeffs.
Judge Denise Lindberg found that Jeffs and other trustees had harmed the trust by selling off property and ordering removal of buildings and farming equipment.
But collecting the judgment will likely be a challenge for Bruce R. Wisan, the court-appointed fiduciary now overseeing the United Effort Plan Trust.
"It's a nice piece of paper but converting it to cash is a different matter," said Jeff Shields, one of Wisan's attorneys.
The trust, which Wisan has run since May 2005, holds virtually all land and buildings in the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. The towns are the homebase of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The UEP trust was placed under court oversight after the Utah Attorney General's Office successfully argued that is assets were in jeopardy because of Jeffs' actions and lawsuits filed against him.
Other trustees named in the default judgment, each of whom is liable for the amount owed, include Truman I. Barlow, James Zitting, Leroy Jeffs and William Timpson Jeffs. The FLDS church and its leadership also are named.
"That means if we find any assets in those entities or those individuals, we could go after them," Wisan said after the hearing.
Wisan and six other witnesses who appeared in court on Thursday told Lindberg of efforts to track missing property and the difficulty of getting information about the trust from FLDS leaders.
"They've obstructed every attempt we've made to recover equipment," Wisan said. "They've not give us records or information. They've instructed the people to not pay taxes."
Among property taken: potato processing equipment, a grain elevator - which was later returned - a log-home manufacturing building and several modular apartment buildings.
In some cases, FLDS members have asserted that those items were private property rather than assets of the UEP trust. But Wisan has disputed that, providing evidence that they were contributed to or bought for the trust.
Wisan also identified 596 acres located in an area known as Apple Valley that were transferred to private individuals at Jeffs' direction. The net value of that land was pegged at $6.4 million by Steven Kemp, a commercial real estate broker from St. George.
Wisan told the judge that he wanted to get the default judgment before other claims against the trust and Jeffs are settled, including suits filed by teens who allege Jeffs drove them out of the community and a woman who has sued him for forcing her into a marriage.
Any money collected will be used to cover the trust's operations, Shields said, which could include setting up education funds to helping with home construction.
Wisan is optimistic about being able to make good on some of that judgment.
"We've got a couple things we're looking at," he said.