May 16, 2001--
It's day three in the trial of polygamist Tom Green, and
this morning's testimony focused on welfare.
A polygamy
investigator for the state testified that
Green and his five wives and 26 children recieved at
least $46,000 in welfare, food stamps
and other public assistance in a single year.
Tuesday, a prosecutor told jurists that Green has told his story to millions of people, but his motivations were anything but noble.
Green, 52, is charged with four counts of bigamy and one count of nonpayment of child support. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison and $25,000 in fines.
He is also charged separately with child rape stemming from his marriage to one of his wives when she was 13. That trial has not yet been scheduled, and the matter can't be mentioned during the bigamy trial.
So Juab County Attorney David Leavitt carefully avoided mentioning the ages of the young women Green married _ most around the ages of 14 and 15 _ as he led jurors through the complex maze of names and dates that make up Green's marital history.
"One of the things the evidence will demonstrate is that Tom Green feels like it's pretty big of him to have so many wives and so many children. It will also demonstrate that it's bigamy," Leavitt said, borrowing a line from Groucho Marx that produced grins in the audience.
He also painted a stark picture of the Greens' home in Utah's West Desert, mentioning 70 miles of dirt road, barren sagebrush, and the cluster of ramshackle trailers where Green and his wives live with at least 25 children.
But Green's attorney, John Bucher, defended his client's lifestyle, which Green argues is a religious and personal choice.
"These trailers aren't the nicest things in the world, his living environment isn't the nicest place in the world, but no one is forced to be there," Bucher said in his opening statement. "You will see they do it for love."
Three of Green's wives _ Linda, Shirley and Hannah _ and three sons were present in the courtroom during opening arguments and comforted him in the break immediately afterward. The women were later sworn in as witnesses, Shirley clutching a baby in her arms, and were expected to testify later Tuesday.
Before proceedings began, Bucher told 4th District Judge Guy Burningham that Green's third wife, LeeAnn, who was due to have a baby in about a month, went into labor during a TV interview Monday night and would be unable to testify. His fourth wife, Cari, was at home helping with the delivery.
Before the Greens took the stand, prosecutors showed the jury clips from more than half a dozen television appearances the family made, including "Dateline," "48 Hours," "Judge Judy," "The Jerry Springer Show" and shows from French and Japanese TV.
Leavitt has said that without the media attention, he would never have gone after or even known about Green. Although polygamy was banned when Utah became a state in 1896, there has not been a major prosecution since federal agents raided the polygamous town of Short Creek, on the Utah-Arizona border, in 1953.
Today, there are an estimated 30,000 polygamists living around the West, many of them in situations like the Greens.
In the videos, the family talked about their children, their daily rituals _ including laundry for two dozen children _ and their sex lives, which drew clucks of disapproval and snickers from the courtroom audience.
Bucher said the tapes were edited to focus on "the most prurient" sections. He also insisted that Green, while openly polygamous, is not a bigamist, and asked jurors to keep an open mind.
"He may be what you think of as ... a bad man, but that is irrelevant to the case," he said.
Mormon pioneers brought polygamy to Utah in the 1840s, but 50 years later the church renounced the practice to win statehood for the territory. Utah's Constitution specifically outlaws plural marriage.
The practice has persisted, particularly among those who say they are following the Mormon Church's original scriptures. Polygamists are excommunicated from the church.
(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
APTV 05-15-01 1345MDT
