Criminal Charges Filed Under Seal Against Polygamist
BY MICHAEL VIGH and KEVIN CANTERA
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
The Utah attorney general has filed secret criminal charges against an admitted Hildale polygamist, The Salt Lake Tribune has learned, prompting the newspaper to sue Friday to lift a judge's seal on the case.
Officials with the Attorney General's Office declined to comment on the case, filed late this week against Rodney Holm in St. George's 5th District Court and sealed by 5th District Judge James L. Shumate.
The Tribune previously has reported Holm was being investigated for bigamy and alleged unlawful sex with a 16-year-old girl he wed in an informal "spiritual" ceremony when he was 32. Holm is town marshal for the polygamous communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
Under Utah law, it is a third-degree felony for a person who is 10 years or more older to have sex with a partner who is 16 or 17, unless they are lawfully married. Bigamy also is a third-degree felony, which carries a sentence of up to 5 years in prison.
Tribune attorney Michael O'Brien, who filed the newspaper's demand to unseal the case, said the Attorney General's Office has a duty to explain why the criminal charges were filed in secret.
"Criminal charges are brought in the name of the people of Utah," O'Brien said. "The people of Utah should be allowed to see and understand what is done in their name."
Sealed criminal charges are "extremely uncommon," according to Paul Boyden, executive director of the Statewide Association of Prosecutors. Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom, who has been a prosecutor for decades, agreed, saying he has sought only once to seal a criminal prosecution. In that case, prosecutors feared the defendant would disappear and were concerned for a confidential informant's life.
"Obviously, there is no standard [for secretly filing a criminal prosecution] because we just haven't typically done it," Yocom said.
"The only reason, as a prosecutor, to file a sealed document is if a criminal investigation is still going on," added Salt Lake City prosecutor Simarjit Gill. "It sounds troubling."
In The Tribune's request to unseal the case against Holm, O'Brien pointed out: "Given that much information about Holm is already in the public domain due to media coverage, it makes no sense to try and maintain secrecy in this case."
The investigation against Holm is at least as old as his 2001 custody battle with his former teenage wife, Ruth Stubbs, who wed Holm in a "spiritual" marriage and conceived her first child at 16.
The custody battle was settled Tuesday when Holm and Stubbs agreed their three children will live with their mother and cannot visit their father in the polygamous border town of Colorado City, "due to religious pressures."
As part of the settlement, Holm formally acknowledged he is the father of children, including the child conceived when Stubbs was underage. His attorneys have previously said Holm is a polygamist and acknowledges he is the father of Stubbs' children.
The final custody agreement also stipulates Holm "shall have no decision regarding where Ruth resides or the religious upbringing of the children."
Stubbs, now 19, filed a hand-written note in the custody case, saying she would urge against a jail sentence for Holm once the custody case was resolved. "I do not want Rod to go to jail," she wrote.
Holm's Salt Lake City lawyer, Rodney Parker, declined to discuss the criminal charges Friday. He has said Holm considered himself married to Stubbs' older sister and another woman.
In August, another of Holm's attorneys argued that Holm and the woman had a wedding ceremony, albeit a spiritual one, believed they were married and held themselves out to be man and wife.
"In all respects this was a marriage, except that Utah law says you can't have more than one wife," lawyer Max Wheeler said, adding that his experience representing polygamists had convinced him that a crackdown will only serve to send them further underground.
"They believe [polygamy] is of God; threatening them with prosecution is not going to change that belief."
mvigh@sltrib.com,
kcantera@sltrib.com
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