Salt Lake City, USA - The court-appointed accountant for a land trust once run by jailed polygamous leader Warren Jeffs wants the Utah taxpayers to pay off $4.6 million in debts incurred for its management.
In court papers, attorneys for Bruce Wisan have asked a 3rd District judge to order state officials to pay the United Effort Plan Trust debts.
"The trust is facing a continuing, on-going crisis due to a lack of funds to pay the costs of administration," Wisan's attorney, Jeff Shields, wrote in the May 27 court filing.
The Utah Attorney General's Office opposed the request in a response filed Friday with the court.
The money is owed to lawyers, Wisan's own Salt Lake City accounting firm, an engineering and surveying firm, a public relations firm, and others hired for trust-related business.
Wisan alone is owed more than $1 million and the firm that employs Shields is owed nearly $2.4 million, according to court documents.
In addition, about $2 million in property taxes is owed on trust property in Utah and Arizona.
The $4.6 million currently owed is for expenses incurred since those working for the trust were last paid in 2008.
"It is an extreme burden for (Wisan) and his professionals to carry the full weight of the ongoing cost of this UEP Trust administration," Shields wrote.
A message left for Shields by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.
Utah took over the communal land trust in 2005 amid allegations of mismanagement by Jeffs, president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and other church leaders. All were removed as trust managers by the courts, when Wisan was appointed.
Jeffs is now jailed in Texas awaiting trials on charges of bigamy and sexual assault for alleged relationships with underage sect girls. A court has entered not guilty pleas on his behalf.
Formed in the 1940s, the trust holds more than $100 million in property — mostly the land and home of FLDS members in Hildale, Utah, Colorado City, Ariz., and Bountiful, British Columbia — but no cash.
Debts were to be paid from resident fees and property sales.
But the FLDS have rejected Wisan's authority and have mostly refused to pay court-imposed monthly occupancy fees.
Church members have also sued to regain control of the trust in state and federal court, stalling Wisan's efforts to sell off land to pay the debts.
Under Wisan's leadership, the trust was rewritten to remove its original religious tenets. The FLDS view the move as an assault on their religious beliefs.
The FLDS oppose Wisan's effort to get the state to pay off debts that never should have been incurred, said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City who represents the church.
"Mr. Wisan was given a limited assignment by the court, coupled with an order not to go into debt. Instead, he alienated the community," Parker said. "It should not be the responsibility of the taxpayers or the FLDS to pay for what Mr. Wisan's lawyers have described as a `sociological and psychological war' waged on those whose interests he was hired to protect."
In court papers, the Utah Attorney General's office said Wisan's requests violates multiple state and federal court orders that block all but the most necessary administration work pending the resolution of several lawsuits.
In addition, state attorneys said Wisan's request is not an action designed to preserve or protect trust assets.
"Instead, (Wisan's) motion seeks to protect his own interests by securing payment from the State of Utah for the substantial expenses he claims to have incurred since April 2008," the court papers state.