Bigamy Trial Jury Deliberates

A jury Friday night began deliberating the fate of an avowed polygamist charged with bigamy for living with five wives at a remote compound in the Utah desert.

Prosecutor David Leavitt showed jurors several marriage licenses Tom Green, 52, took out when he married the young women.

The weeklong trial has put the spotlight on Utah, where multiple marriages once thrived among Mormon pioneers who settled the state. But the practice has long been illegal and is banned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is formally called.

The state has charged that Green married women in their teens, divorced them but continued to live with them while they collected welfare payments.

Besides four counts of felony bigamy, Green has also been charged with one count of failure to pay child support. If convicted of all charges he could go to prison for up to 25 years.

Green, who testified that he believed he was legally single and married only in the “eyes of God,” argued that he practices polygamy as part of his religion, which should enjoy the protection of the U.S. Constitution.