This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The two top leaders are behind bars. The federal government seems poised to overhaul their municipal governments following the jury verdict in Phoenix.
The state of Utah still owns the United Effort Plan, and thus much of the real estate they used to control. And any day a federal judge in Salt Lake City may rule in a complaint from the U.S. Department of Labor and find one of their companies violated an earlier order to stop illegally using underage workers.
Oh, and some Utah Legislators want to make bigamy a felony again.
That's the situation encompassing members of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Things seem to be worse than at any point in its history — even worse than the 1953 Short Creek raid and worse than the 2008 raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Texas.
The absence of the church's two top leaders, President Warren Jeffs — serving up to life in prison plus 20 years in Texas for crimes related to marrying and sexually abusing underage girls — and his full brother Lyle Jeffs — recently jailed pending trial for alleged food stamp fraud — would be difficult for any organization. But the FLDS also have lost another Jeffs brother — Seth, who led the Pringle, S.D., compound — who also is being detained in connection with the food stamp case. Businessman and former FLDS bishop John Wayman is a co-defendant in the food stamp case, too, and has a hearing on Thursday to decide if he will remain jailed pending trial.
Financially, the federal government has reduced whatever income the church was receiving from the municipalities and utilities, businesses, labor and food stamps. Observers and aid workers in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., collectively known as Short Creek, have described Jeffs followers as going hungry because the FLDS storehouse isn't stocked and people aren't supposed to be purchasing food elsewhere.
So where will the FLDS go from here? It's tough to say because neither it nor the Jeffs brothers act rationally. There are some options, and it may play out in a way that is some combination of those options.
• Continue the status quo. Sure, it doesn't seem sustainable. It hasn't seemed sustainable since the Jeffs family thought the 2002 Winter Olympics would signal the end of the Wasatch Front and ordered the followers who lived there, and who were generally more prosperous than their counterparts in Short Creek, to run up debt, donate assets to the church and move to Short Creek.
Fourteen years later, the FLDS is still around, although its numbers might only be half of what they used to be. And those who remain are loyal. And if they stay loyal and follow the directives of the prophet, they are told, Warren will be freed and they will be lifted to heaven.
And until God saves them all, the status quo also means continuing to fight. The FLDS has chosen to be litigious in the Justice Department discrimination lawsuit and in the labor case — both of which, one would assume, could have been settled with far fewer repercussions than what the FLDS are now facing. They could appeal all the adverse rulings, work for acquittals in the food stamp indictments, hope to win or wear down the federal government and emerge from this with their leadership, municipal control and labor pools intact.
• Move. In about 2003, Warren purchased what he called refuges in Texas and South Dakota. He moved his chosen people, including girls he wanted to have sex with, out of Short Creek.
The Texas ranch is gone, and it doesn't sound as if there is enough room or resources at the South Dakota property for all the FLDS to live there. But there are still some scattered houses and work crews across the country.
The FLDS could decide to order everyone, or most everyone, out of Short Creek. The Pringle, S.D., compound could be the new headquarters, while faithful who can't be accommodated there live elsewhere.
There are some down sides to this plan. The FLDS would be leaving behind some assets and access to followers. On the other hand, the FLDS would be more of a moving target for law enforcement and regulator agencies. And it is not like things are going so well in Utah and Arizona.
• Go straight (polygamy notwithstanding). There is nothing in the FLDS' history, at least under the Jeffs family control, to suggest this will happen. But as said earlier, there has never been a time like this. The old way doesn't seem to be working.
A lot of the FLDS have seen enough of the outside world to know how things work elsewhere. (For example: of-age laborers, honest paychecks, cops that don't double as a church security force.) If reason prevails, going straight would also mean the lifting of bans on sex between spouses, new marriages and on accessing mainstream media — prohibitions that have driven people away from the faith and created witnesses for the government.
• Revolt against the Jeffs family. We got the current incarnation of the FLDS in large part through a fissure between two factions in the 1980s.
One group wanted "one-man rule." The other wanted a council to hold executive power. The former concept resulted in the FLDS we know today. The latter faction broke off, formed Centennial Park, Ariz., and haven't had near the problems of the FLDS. Each side still has family within the other group.
You would think conditions would be ripe for another upheaval. You could entice the rank and file with offers of lifting all those bans listed earlier. But it is not clear who would have the cachet to lead.
The last person to try a revolt was William E. Jessop, the former bishop of Short Creek who, after Warren evicted him, attempted to take control of the church. When that didn't work, he began leading his own congregation of former Jeffs followers.
Maybe a coup d'etat could lean on the former followers for support, but it would have to start on the inside.
• Get more devout. When things have gone bad in the past, including some of Warren's predictions of the FLDS being lifted up to heaven that didn't turn out to be correct, Warren has increased the restrictions on his people. That led to the creation of the United Order, which the federal government has cited as a reason the FLDS collected food stamp cards from members.
There's got to be something left to ban in the FLDS or more rules to make. The FLDS may look for a new recipe for salvation.
Twitter: @natecarlisle