Prosecutor Now Sees Other Side of Bigamy

Juab County Atty. David Leavitt’s recent prosecution of one of Utah’s most notorious polygamists wasn’t his first courtroom confrontation involving men with multiple wives.

He has argued both sides of the fence, and been successful in convicting them and defending them.

As a young public defender in 1993, Leavitt loaded himself for bear when he represented a polygamist. This was a 1st Amendment case, he’d argue. The religious freedom to be married to more than one wife transcended state law, he believed.

The charges against his client were dropped just before trial, and Leavitt wallowed in his victory. It felt good too, because Leavitt is the great-grandson of two polygamists. “I thought I knew the culture,” he says now, “and I believed that if they’re not hurting anybody, why bug them?”

These days--while heading a prosecutor’s office that most often handles drunken driving and drug cases--the 37-year-old Leavitt is known as a bigamy buster.

Saying he no longer could ignore ubiquitous TV talk show guest Tom Green and his five wives, especially after their 1999 appearance on NBC’s “Dateline,” Leavitt pursued a case that generated worldwide media coverage. It took a jury just a few hours earlier this month to convict the Utah man of bigamy and of failing to reimburse the state for welfare benefits paid to the 25 children of his current wives.

The Green case marked the first time in nearly 50 years a polygamist was convicted by a Utah jury.

And as firmly as Leavitt believed eight years ago that polygamy was a protected religious right, he now believes that it sabotages society by harming young women and defrauding the state’s welfare system.

“If Tom Green wasn’t hurting anybody, I didn’t want to prosecute him,” said Leavitt, reflecting the unspoken rule among most Utah prosecutors that pursuing such cases is more trouble than it’s worth. An estimated 30,000 polygamists quietly live in Utah and surrounding states, pursuing a lifestyle that Mormon church leaders encouraged until 1890.

“But I became firmly convinced that this was a guy who had to go down because of what he was doing under the name of religion,” Leavitt said. “I saw a man who was seriously hurting people--marrying 13- and 14-year-old girls and sucking the welfare system dry.”

For taking on the case, Leavitt, whose brother is Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, was targeted with threats, some less veiled than others. “One man was leaving me voicemails that said unless I ceased the Tom Green prosecution, he’d formalize the ritual of sending me to God,” Leavitt said.

He told his wife, Chelom, but not their five young children.

Sheriff’s deputies were vigilant in looking out for Leavitt. “And there’s a benefit to being the governor’s little brother,” he said. “He saw to it the state patrol was watching out for me.”

Now that the trial is over, the attorney is returning to the normal rhythm of his office in rural Juab County, 90 miles south of Salt Lake City.

He’s always had a hankering for small town legal work, which is why he was sheepish about media attention given him in the Green case.

The fifth of six children--all boys--Leavitt resisted the pull to join his father’s thriving insurance business and pursued law instead.

At his first jury trial, he defended a man accused of smuggling marijuana across the state. The defendant said he merely had been asked to drive the vehicle and knew nothing of a secret compartment.

“I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was my first case in front of a jury,” Leavitt said, “and I’m everlastingly thankful he was found not guilty.”

The experience fed his belief that police sometimes arrest innocent people. “The largest group of people who keep America free are criminal defense attorneys, who keep check on the state,” he said.

Leavitt agreed four years later to complete the unexpired term of Juab County’s prosecutor. “I came to believe I could accomplish more good from within the system than from the outside.”

Among his most moving experiences: releasing two convicted rapists who had spent four years in prison after subsequent DNA tests proved their innocence.

“My biggest nightmare is prosecuting an innocent person--because I’ve defended them,” he said.

But Leavitt doesn’t mind going after people he personally knows--not an uncommon occurrence in the town of Nephi, population 4,800, where he lives. Over the last four years, he has prosecuted seven of his neighbors.

One of them, Carla Bailey, was arrested four years ago for embezzlement. “David Leavitt did something that other lawyers might think was a conflict of interest,” she said. “He came over to my house, before we went to court, to offer me support and help me handle the situation.

“But when he got in the courtroom with me, he was all business--and he hurt my feelings pretty bad. But I was guilty, and I guess I deserved it.”

To this day--after Bailey served six months in jail--the two remain friends.

Utah’s attorney general, Mark L. Shurtleff, said other county prosecutors might have given short shrift to the Green case. “But David spent months delving into every issue, every document, to make sure every loophole was closed. And he sent a message to other prosecutors, in a groundbreaking way, to go forward and prosecute similar cases.”

Doug White, an attorney for the group Tapestry Against Polygamy, said Leavitt’s “courageous” prosecution already is having an effect.

“Many older men in polygamist communities have stopped pursuing marrying young girls because they simply don’t want to be put through the kind of scrutiny and litigation that Tom Green went through,” White said.

Said Leavitt: “As a small town prosecutor, I am a changed man. I realize one person can really change the world in some small way. Because of what I did, some people love me, some people hate me. But I’d do it all over again.”