Salt Lake City, USA - Two marshals suspected of an unprofessional allegiance to polygamous leader Warren Jeffs have resigned from policing towns on the Utah-Arizona border.
Fred L. Barlow and Preston L. Barlow resigned from the Hildale, Utah, marshal's office within the past few weeks, said Hildale Mayor David K. Zitting. The pair also were marshals in the adjoining town of Colorado City, Ariz., but the state of Arizona revoked their certifications in September.
Utah authorities had started proceedings to do the same.
The two towns are the home base of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, led by Jeffs.
Arizona decertified Fred Barlow, the chief marshal, for a letter he wrote to Jeffs pledging his allegiance and seeking counsel on operating the office. Jeffs then was a fugitive. Last week, Jeffs was sentenced to consecutive terms of five years to life in prison on two counts of rape as an accomplice.
Fred Barlow and Preston Barlow, a deputy marshal, also did not answer questions from an investigator looking for Jeffs.
Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Jeff Nigbur, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Public Safety, said Utah regulators will proceed with a hearing before an administrative law judge. The border towns still have six or seven marshals, Zitting said, including two who recently graduated from Utah's police academy. Sheriff's offices on both sides of the state line also have a presence in the towns.
Zitting said he hopes government agencies are done investigating the conduct of the towns' marshals, accused in the past of following church leaders rather than the law.
"It's an issue that's been going on for a long, long time and I don't know if it's entirely settled either," Zitting said.