Polygamist Tells Court of Failed Business Deals

An avowed polygamist, charged with four counts of bigamy for living with five women in a western Utah desert compound, broke down on the witness stand Thursday as he talked about his failed business dealings.

Tom Green, 52, has also been charged with one count of failure to pay child support in a case that has put the spotlight on Utah, where the taking of multiple wives was once a bedrock of Mormon practice but is now forbidden.

The defense focused on the nonsupport charge, trying to rebut prosecutors’ portrait of a man who married girls in their teens, divorced them but continued to live with them while they collected welfare payments.

Green said he had tried to provide for his family by selling magazines in the Western United States. “My residence was in my car. My suitcase in various states,” he told the jury.

Green was brought up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Utah-based Mormon Church is formally called. But he told the court that he realized in 1980 that he was a “fundamentalist,” meaning that he believed in early Mormon teachings, which endorsed polygamy.

Green says he practices polygamy as part of his religion, which should enjoy the protection of the U.S. Constitution under its guarantee of religious freedom.

The Mormon Church in the late 19th century banned the practice of taking more than one wife and excommunicates members who defy the ban.