PROVO, USA - An avowed polygamist, charged with four counts of bigamy for living with five women in a western Utah desert compound, broke down on the witness stand on Thursday as he talked about his failed business dealings and the death of a young son in a fire.
Tom Green, 52, has also been charged with one count of failure to pay child support in a case that has put the spotlight on Utah, where the taking of multiple wives was once a bedrock of Mormon practice but is now forbidden.
The defense focused on the nonsupport charge, trying to rebut prosecutors' portrait of a man who married young women in their teens, divorced them but continued to live with them while they collected welfare payments.
Green said he had tried to provide for his family by selling magazines in the Western United States. "My residence was in my car. My suitcase in various states," he told the jury.
He said at one point his family was evicted from a mobile home park and looked around until finding a "piece of land with nothing down and reasonable terms."
He had trouble with his vehicle, and the family's mobile home was destroyed in a windstorm, he testified.
But the biggest heartache came on a cold night in January 1997. "A fire ignited. We lost our 3-year-old," he said.
"A dozen of our children were hospitalized with frostbite," he added, breaking down in tears. One of his wives, Linda, was admitted to a hospital with smoke inhalation after she carried children out of the fire, he said.
Green was brought up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Utah-based Mormon Church is formally called. But he told the court that he realized in 1980 that he was a "fundamentalist," meaning that he believed in early Mormon teachings, which endorsed polygamy.
Green says he practices polygamy as part of his religion, which should enjoy the protection of the U.S. Constitution under its guarantee of religious freedom.
The Mormon Church in the late 19th century banned the practice of taking more than one wife and excommunicates members who defy the ban.
Green was also charged with first-degree felony rape of a child for allegedly having sex in 1986 with a 13-year-old girl, whom he married, an offense that carries a prison term of five years to life if he is convicted. No trial date has been set on that charge.
Green is expected to be back on the stand on Friday as the last witness for the defense, with the case going to the jury in the afternoon.
21:51 05-17-01
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