NEPHI, Utah (CNN) -- Convicted polygamist Tom Green was in a Utah courtroom Thursday for an evidentiary hearing on a child rape charge.
The case involves a woman who later became one of Green's five wives. Prosecutors say Green had sex with her in 1986, when she was 13 years old.
Green, 52, is charged with first-degree felony child rape which carries a prison term of six years to life.
The self-professed "fundamentalist" Mormon was convicted in May on four counts of bigamy. He also was found guilty of failure to pay child support.
Green is scheduled to be sentenced Friday, and faces up to 25 years in prison.
Green lives with his five wives and 29 children near Trout Creek, 125 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
During the trial -- Utah's first high-profile bigamy case in half a century -- Green flouted a judge's warnings by going on national television to defend his lifestyle, which was common Mormon practice until the mid-19th century.
After the verdict was delivered, Green lambasted Mormons such as Juab County prosecutor David Leavitt, the brother of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, for what he said was a rejection of their Mormon heritage.
"How can somebody claim to be a Mormon and say that plural marriage is wicked?" Green told Reuters.
Polygamy's legacy in Utah dates back to the 1840s, when members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, as the Mormon church is formally known, first settled in the state.
But the practice never gained wider currency outside the Church. By 1890, the Church banned the taking of multiple wives, with the penalty for offenders being excommunication. Utah's constitution formally outlawed polygamy as a condition of statehood.
But despite the ban, polygamy never died out in Utah. An estimated 30,000 polygamists, most of them in Utah, live in the American West, according to the Associated Press.
For this reason, Green maintained that he was being unfairly singled out for perpetuating a practice that was once a cornerstone of Church theology.