Utah polygamous sect strikes deal to keep meetinghouse
After months of silence, the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Wednesday reached an agreement to keep its meetinghouse.
The sect risked losing the Leroy S. Johnson Meetinghouse in Colorado City, Ariz., in a lawsuit over how the building was being used. Sheriff’s deputies — some dressed in camouflage tactical gear — and a locksmith arrived at the meetinghouse Wednesday. A video posted to Facebook shows the deputies and locksmith outside the meetinghouse as FLDS members stand across the street asking questions.
“They won’t take my faith,” teary-eyed FLDS member Lori Barlow told KUTV as she watched the deputies and the locksmith.
In a brief telephone conversation Wednesday afternoon, Jeff Barlow, the executive director of the United Effort Plan (UEP), the land trust that owns the meetinghouse, said the FLDS hadn’t responded to the legal action filed to take possession of the meetinghouse. A Monday hearing, Barlow said, led to the UEP getting title.
Read more: http://www.sltrib.com/news/polygamy/2017/10/25/utah-polygamous-sect-losing-meetinghouse-as-locks-get-changed/