We have been following the investigation of former Utah Attorneys General John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff. When I first met Mark Shurtleff, he was Utah Attorney General leading the case against my clients, the Brown family in the Sister Wives case. After years of abusive investigations and public statements, we challenged the state criminalization of polygamy and Shurtleff fought to defend the law. He was then replaced in the case by Swallow. Now both have been arrested and taken into custody. For the Browns who were threatened with arrest and the loss of their children, it must be a truly ironic moment.
Both men were booked into the Salt Lake County Jail. Swallow was charged with receiving or soliciting bribe or bribery by public servant, false or inconsistant material statements, evidence tampering and misusing public monies.
Shurtleff previously denounced the police for their tactics in a search of his home
Swallow’s and Shurtleff’s relationship with Jeremy Johnson, a St. George businessman, is the subject of an 86-count federal indictment alleging fraud in connection with his online business, iWorks. Shurtleff alleged used Johnson’s private jet to fly to a fundraiser in California and later to fly to New York to pick up actor Vincent D’Onofrio from the TV show “Law & Order.” Now their relationship could be an episode on “Law & Order.”
Johnson and Shurtleff were then shown in a picture sitting together in Johnson’s yellow Lamborghini. Swallow also used Johnson’s luxury houseboat and Ferrari on several occasions. Other business relationships have also been the subject of the investigation as discussed by Deseret News
I have several dog wives and try to keep them all happy. itchinBayDog is not one of them. She chimes in on this blog sometimes. But I read the quote from Twain and I am heartened by his writing on this subject. I had a Mormon dog wife who ran off on me. She was the homeliest Beagle on Earth.
From Mark Twain’s book called Roughing It!
Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter.
I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here—until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically “homely” creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, “No–the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure–and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence.”
I am trying to sort all this out. We have two prosecutors from Utah, which is the Mormon center of the universe. So, are they Mormons? Why would Mormons be against polygamy? Mark Twain wrote about Mormons in one of his books. His general conclusion was that a Mormon man who married several of them was doing them all a favor because they were a homely looking bunch that would have been out of luck for a husband otherwise. I will find the section from Mark Twain’s writings and post them in here later.
Greg:
Thanks for DeNiro. Everybody needs a little street justice once in a while and of course who better to deliver it than his bud, Pesci, who is a genius:
Gary T wrote “fkn busybodies”
samantha wrote “there were no underage marriages at the YFZ ranch”
The only reason I hang out here is to point out just how ignorant glibertarians like gary are. Many want to be the guy at the top with many young wives, which makes them nothing more than gussied-up child molesters.
On the contrary, samantha, all one needs to do is go to the website of Canada’s National Post — a conservative newspaper — and search on “Bountiful polygamy” to find many stories regarding the relationship between Warren Jeffs and the Canadian branch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Now, I don’t know if you are playing a stupid semantic game because marriages possibly did not actually take place at that ranch, but the facts are clear that Jeffs and his toadies had many wives, including young ones brought from Canada.
Here’s a good article to read:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/14/daphne-bramham-polygamists-in-bountiful-are-taking-children-from-families-and-its-time-b-c-did-something-about-it/
Selective investigation/prosecution includes these insignificant characters and ignores the elephant in the room, the U.S. Attorney General who has conducted the Fast and Furious campaign, been found in contempt of Congress, refused to investigate his banana republic benefactor who has led this country to a constitutional “tipping point,” etc., etc.
Kraaken wrote “An attorney’s private beliefs have nothing whatsoever to do with his representation of a client”
Read JT’s previous post (see below) and you will discover that he is opposed to restrictions on polygamy. He seeks out these kinds of cases. Or he is known as someone who will defend loons.
Kraaken wrote “Although this case instant is in Utah, it has nothing to do with either the sister wives case, Warren Jett, or polygamy in general.”
Whatever. Utah is pretty much 100% Mormon. I have known non-Mormons who worked there who complained of religious discrimination. The Brown family originally lived in Lehi, part of the Provo-Orem metropolitan area. Another polygamy bastion is in Blanding, just a few hours down Route 191 from Moab. There is a major community on the Utah-Arizona border. There are many more.
I have traveled all over Utah and researched its history for fun. Did you know that Highway 12, passing through Torrey, Boulder, and Escalante, was the last part of the lower-48 to have regular mail service? I think it was Boulder which had mail delivered via horse / mule until the 1950s. The San Rafael Reef area not far to the northwest of Moab was one of the hangouts of Butch Cassidy, Robbers’ Roost.
I suspect you have never traveled through the state. In my opinion, Utah is the most beautiful part of the USA, but it has always offered places where people can hide from the world.
Kraaken wrote “Please tell me where in the above article JT wrote”
Mea culpa. I was reading both the current article and the original article at the same time. The latter, where I copied the opinion, was linked in today’s post, but here is is:
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/12/22/a-victory-for-morality-the-sister-wives-case-and-the-rejection-of-state-morality-codes
saucy, there were no underage marriages at the YFZ ranch, at least not until Texas changed the age of consent from 14 to 16. This is just more about how society is out to get its males, placing them on Mayan alters for sacrifice, perpetrated by the militant, extremist feminists in concert with sycophant men genuflecting for sexual favors — and gullible people buying it hook, line and sinker. How is polygamy different from the millions of single women with multiple children, each fathered by a separate man? If you are not one of them, at least you’re paying for them via taxation.
mespo,
If these AG’s start snitching on each other……..
Saucy, there are three mistakes here.
1) An attorney’s private beliefs have nothing whatsoever to do with his representation of a client. His job is to see that all the legal niceties are observed.
2) Although this case instant is in Utah, it has nothing to do with either the sister wives case, Warren Jett, or polygamy in general.
3) Please tell me where in the above article JT wrote:“It was about the right of consenting adults to make decisions for themselves and their families” (and that WAS what the sister-wives case was all about) because I can’t find that statement anywhere.
Police and prosecutors should be barred from public statements until after a trial is over. The FBI in particular has a bad habit of convicting and slandering people in the public eye, even when they don’t have enough evidence to bring charges. Richard Jewel and Steven Hatfill come to mind as two very prominent targets of a legal system that can and does destroy people, even when the law doesn’t have any proof of guilt.
All Mormon fundamentalists were one big, happy, polygamous family until the 1950s when the various sub-sects split.
The Browns are part of the Apostolic United Brethren Church, a/k/a the Allred Group because of the names of former presidents. According to a former AUBC member, “plural wives [of AUBC men] are sent into nearby Hamilton to apply for welfare as single mothers … welfare checks are often taken directly to the priesthood leaders.” One book covering the AUBC stated that “because African American Church members now had access to LDS temples, the Allreds concluded that all LDS temples were desecrated.”
In the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and one would assume the Apostolic United Brethren Church, only the top doggies are allowed to sample Mormon pleasures of the flesh. Younger members are kept in line by reminders that, if they do not behave, they will not be given wives. This policy explains how the obvious problem of polygamous marriage — woman are needed, but men, not so much — is solved by troublemakers leaving the community.
P.S. Are glibertarians really bad at math, given that the population is roughly 50% women, 50% men (ignoring selective abortion by many Muslims, Indians, and Asians)?
Texas is going Utah one better in that the Tea Party backed GOP candidate for AG in the next election has already admitted to criminal acts for which he has paid a civil fine already. The prosecutors are investigating to see if they can indict him before the election to keep from having to vacate the office once he is elected. If they wait, then Texas will have elected a real crook to be AG. If they wait until just before the election, then he may be removed from the ballot and leave Sam Houston as the Democratic candidate and a few minor ones on the ballot. Ken Paxton is the GOP crook who did not disclose to his clients that he was a paid agent for the investment brokerage firm getting a 30% commission on sales. That alone is WELL above the norm too. So as we say in Texas, everything is bigger here, including our crooks who become our elected leaders. Stay tuned, for it looks like Texas will beat out Utah for corrupt officials once again.
JT wrote “my clients, the Brown family in the Sister Wives case”
I did not know that you defended polygamy.
So can we expect to see you defending Warren Jeffs, former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in the near future? Jeffs is not officially considered by regular Mormons to be one because he evokes memories of the bad old days during the 1800s when the U.S. almost went to war against the Mormons in Utah over polygamy. Jeffs had lots of wives who started out as girls too young to make decisions regarding marriage.
Or maybe Winston Blackmore, one of the leaders of the Bountiful (British Columbia) sect which transported girls as young as 12 to Jeff’s gang in the Southwest? Blackmore was excommunicated from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints which should tell you something.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/28/court-rules-against-b-c-polygamous-leader-winston-blackmore-issues-150000-in-penalties/
Or maybe a Muslim who wants his very own harem in the USA?
JT wrote “It was about the right of consenting adults to make decisions for themselves and their families”
Do you honestly believe girls are consenting adults?
P.S. Did you know that the Mormon Church has officially disavowed polygamy?
Minor girls are not consenting adults.
People should have the right to live, and love, with whom they want to, as long as they are all consenting adults.
If you have a problem with that fundamental, then you probably have a problem with gay marriage as well.
It is none of your business what people do with their private lives.
fkn busybodies.
Gary T:
“At least the mafia was honestly illegal.”
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There’s something to be said for an authentic, patent crook versus a pious surreptitious wanna be.
mespo:
At least the mafia was honestly illegal.
These fkrs are the most hypocritical cream of the crop. They take the moral high ground when prosecuting others, then they go and do it themselves.
Lowest of the low, as was said here lock em up, and throw away the key.
“Johnson and Shurtleff were then shown in a picture sitting together in Johnson’s yellow Lamborghini.”
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Give me a good ol’ mafia don any day. Split level house, northern New Jersey, driving a Buick and eating in his cousin’s Italian restaurant every day. Those guys knew how to squirrel money and avoid the flashy. New crooks, not so much.
Lock them up and lose the key!
Utah AG’s, Illinois governors.
Seems that corruption runs in packs.
Prosecutors are having a bad day.