FLDS Raid: Mass Evictions At Hildale, Utah Polygamy Compound Formerly Run By Warren Jeffs

FLDS polygamous families were evicted from the compound formerly run Warren Jeffs. The state of Utah officially took control of the Hildale compound after Jeffs was sent to prison. Jeffs is serving a life sentence for sexually molesting underage girls, but some claim he still runs the polygamy compound from his prison cell. Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints leaders at the polygamy compound reportedly told the residents not to pay the government the $100 monthly occupancy fee.

Utah law enforcement officers spent more than seven hours evicting the FLDS families from the homes on the former Warren Jeffs Hildale compound. The polygamy compound raid reportedly focused on 14 homes chosen at random. Inside the homes of the polygamous families, multiple wives lived with a single spouse and their combined children. Each wife had her own bedroom, living space, and entrance to the spacious homes.

Warren Jeffs’ followers reportedly felt that they should not be compelled to pay the government $100 each month to live in the homes they built and maintained themselves. The Utah polygamy raid was conducted without any “major confrontation,” according to law enforcement officials. The process was reportedly slow, and required the changing of locks on all entrance doors and clearing the very large homes where the sister wives and dozens of children lived.

“There are so many darn doors with all the wives. They each have their own way in and out,” Washington County police official Jean Dickson said. “They knew this was coming. They were pretty cooperative.”

The Utah polygamy compound evictions were the first such actions taken since the state took control of the trust managed by Warren Jeffs in 2005. Jeffs and other leaders of the FLDS sect were accused of mismanaging the trust which governed the private community. The trust was created by a Mormon fundamentalist in 1942, and contains more than 700 homes. The property spans Hildale, Utah to Colorado City, Arizona, and is valued at more than $100 million.

Seven more evictions at the polygamy compound are expected to take place in the coming weeks if the residents do not pay the monthly occupancy fee ordered by the state. Utah Judge Denise Lindberg ordered the evictions on the Warren Jeffs’ compound in July. Judge Lindberg said she hoped the eviction notice would prompt the FLDS families to pay the monthly fee.

“They move people around so frequently and so often that they could be in another home with another family,” Val Overson, a representative of the government officials appointed to oversee the FLDS Mormon trust, said when asked why the eviction notices were served on specific house addresses and not individuals.

What do you think about the Utah polygamy eviction notices on the Hildale FLDS compound once controlled by Warren Jeffs?

[Image via: Child Bride’s]