Utah's Attorney General in court over FLDS trust

November 02, 2012

Utah’s Attorney General is in court this morning to explain why he is refusing to pay five point seven million dollars in debt incurred by managers of a communal land trust once run by a jailed polygamist sect leader.From Phoenix, KJZZ’s Steve Goldstein has more.

Utah seized control of the trust in 2005 amid allegations of mismanagement by Warren Jeffs and other leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.The Utah Supreme Court ruled the state must pay the court-appointed accountant overseeing the takeover. Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says the state doesn't have the money and that the fees were supposed to be paid out of the sale of FLDS real-estate assets. A string of pending lawsuits has frozen many of those assets. Shurtleff is appearing before Fourth District Judge Denise Lindberg this morning.

Steve Goldstein, KJZZ News, Phoenix.