An Arizona judge has found an employee of the United Effort Plan Trust guilty of criminal trespass for entering two homes without permission from residents.
Moccasin Justice Court Judge Mitchell Kalauli issued a ruling Friday that Isaac Wyler, who works for special fiduciary Bruce R. Wisan, illegally entered homes in Colorado City, Ariz., home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Wyler will be sentenced on March 30. The offenses are class 1 misdemeanors punishable by up to six months in jail, three years probation and a $2,500 fine.
Wyler, a former FLDS member who still lives in the community, has worked for Wisan since 2005, when a Utah court took over the property trust. It holds virtually all land and homes in the twin towns of Colorado City and Hildale, Utah. Wyler has posted tax notices and kept track of homes for Wisan.
The Salt Lake Tribune was unable to reach Wisan or his attorneys Friday. Jonathan Roundy, a Colorado City town marshall, said, "We are...looking into Bruce Wisan as an accomplice to trespassing."
During a trial last December, Wyler admitted he did not have a court order when he entered homes in 2008 on Warren Avenue and Edson Avenue. He testified he had staked out the homes and knew who lived in them.
The resident of the Warren Avenue home had signed an occupancy agreement, as required by Wisan. But Wyler entered, changed the locks and refused to let the occupant inside when she returned.
The judge said Wyler acted with "reckless disregard for the inhabitant's right to privacy, as she had signed a 'rental' agreement and the defendant testified to knowing that one had been signed."
No occupancy agreement had been signed for the Edson Avenue home. Wyler testified he looked through the home's windows before entering; once inside, he realized it was being used after finding a recent grocery receipt.
Wyler testified he had been watching the home for a year before entering it, telling the court that this "was the process he and the trustee had set up to deal with trust properties they believed to be abandoned."
But the judge said Wyler did not cite any precedent for his argument that provisions of the UEP Trust or a Utah Court order gave him "the right to not abide by Arizona law," which requires a court order or posted notice before a property is entered.
Kalauli said that the state had a duty to protect residents against Wyler's "ill-defined judgment" regarding property.
The decision came as a welcome "surprise" to FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop.
"There was not much hope we would get someone to say you can't just go into our homes and change the locks," he said. "We didn't think the judge would recognize the violation. When we least expected any one would care, they do and we're grateful."
