Utah Drags Polygamy Out of Shadows and Into Court

For a half-century, prosecutors in this state rich with a religious tradition of polygamy have tried to look the other way when it came to enforcing laws against bigamy. Practitioners of plural marriages tend to live in the shadows, and proving a man is entwined in multiple, simultaneous marriages can be complicated.

But authorities said they could no longer ignore Tom Green.

Green, a 52-year-old magazine subscription telemarketer, has flaunted his lifestyle on national television, with five wives in tow. From network news programs to TV talk shows, Green spread his gospel that polygamy is his God-given right, if not instruction. And all along, he said, he made sure that he was never legally married to more than one woman at a time, even though at one point he had seven wives in what he called “a spiritual sense.”

Enough was enough, said Juab County prosecutor David Leavitt, and on Tuesday he laid out for jurors his reasons for charging Green--the first person in nearly 50 years to stand trial on bigamy charges in Utah.

The prosecutor said Green has clearly established marital relationships with five current wives, whether licensed or not.

Leavitt alleged that Green is guilty of four felony counts of bigamy and one count of criminal nonsupport for failure to reimburse the state for more than $50,000 in welfare paid to his family.

“The evidence will show,” Leavitt told the five-woman, three-man jury during the trial’s opening statements, “that Tom Green thinks it’s pretty big of him to have so many wives and children. We’ll also show it’s bigamy.”

If convicted, Green could face up to 25 years in prison.

Given its roots in the state, putting polygamy on trial is big news here. Utah officials stopped aggressively pursuing polygamists in the 1950s, when news accounts of a police raid showed families being forcibly separated, and public outrage prompted authorities to back off.

Polygamy has strong roots here. Prosecutor Leavitt and his brother, Gov. Mike Leavitt, are descendants of polygamists, as is Republican U.S. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch. In a state heavily populated by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--whose early leaders embraced polygamy as essential to reach the highest degree of celestial glory--the court called a large pool of prospective jurors to find eight who promised to be impartial.

Green sees the trial as a chance to establish his religious right to maintain multiple wives.

He contends that his relationships with his five wives are pacts struck between them and God.

To avoid breaking Utah law, he said, he would marry one woman, then divorce her in Nevada--where he claimed part-time residency--so he could marry again. In 1996, he tried to marry a sixth woman in Utah, but he was stopped by a judge who ruled that, by common-law definition, Green already was married.

Green’s defense attorney, John Bucher, suggested in his opening statement that there’s a legal world of difference between state-defined bigamy and religious-based polygamy.

“Tom Green has never considered himself a bigamist,” Bucher said. “He has a spiritual and physical relationship with these women, but they don’t consider themselves legally married.”

If anything, Bucher said, his client is guilty of fornication. “This is unusual, peculiar and maybe immoral to you,” Bucher told the jury. “But whether it’s illegal, keep an open mind to that.”

Later in the day, District Judge Guy Burningham advised jurors that religion “is not a defense to the crime of bigamy.”

Green said he is prepared to go to prison to defend his beliefs, even if it means leaving his five wives and their 25 children, who live in a ramshackle collection of trailers in a remote desert valley near the Nevada line, 125 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Four of the women are pregnant, and Green fathered four other children in two earlier, monogamous marriages.

The prosecutor said Green owes at least $54,000 in welfare payments to the state.

“It takes a lot of food to feed that many mouths,” Leavitt told jurors. “They went to the state for welfare aid after swearing they were single parents.”

At a later trial, Green also will face a charge of child rape--for allegedly having sex in 1986 with a 13-year-old who today is his senior wife and, in the eyes of the state, his one legitimate marriage partner.

An estimated 30,000 people in Utah and neighboring Arizona and Colorado are estimated to be involved in polygamist relationships. The Mormon church disavowed polygamy in 1890, and it was banned by the state Constitution when Utah was admitted to the union six years later.

Green was excommunicated from the Mormon church for the practice, and he now calls himself a “fundamentalist Mormon.”

Because plural marriages are hard to prove when one marriage is sealed by the state and others created through homespun religious ceremonies, prosecutors in the past have gone after polygamists for other crimes, including child rape and abuse. Historically, women commit themselves to polygamists while they are still teenagers, leaving the homes of their own polygamist parents or sometimes abandoning other polygamist husbands.

Green married each of his current five wives when they were 14 or 15. They are Linda Kunz, 28 and considered the “head wife”; Shirley Beagley, 31; her sister, LeaAnn Beagley, 26; and Cari Bjorkman, 25; and her sister, Hannah Bjorkman, 24.

The women were excluded from the courtroom Tuesday because some will be witnesses, but they were featured in a series of video snippets of Green’s television appearances that the prosecution showed the jury.

The appearances included “The Jerry Springer Show” and “Sally Jesse Rafael,” where Green and his wives were at times taunted by audience members.

Frequently on camera, Green admitted he was violating Utah law. Jurors maintained mostly emotionless expressions watching the shows, but some trial spectators had difficulty containing themselves at times when viewing his appearance before an incredulous “Judge Judy.”

“I don’t think there’s a law against polygamy,” he told the television jurist. “In essence, they’re all mistresses. Am I the only man in American to have a mistress--or several?”

The attorneys on both sides are prohibited from discussing the case outside of court because of a gag order, but Green made himself available for interviews Tuesday.

“Polygamy is plural marriages. Bigamy is a crime because it defrauds the state and is deceiving to wives,” Green said. “Mine is an association among consenting adults. We are committed to be spouses and to build a family.

“We don’t need the state to sanction our relationship. Our spiritual commitment is more binding than anything involving the state.”