SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A proposal to let people from polygamous communities receive money from a crime-victims fund to help rebuild their lives passed another key step at the Legislature on Wednesday.
The measure approved by a Senate panel allows victims of bigamy and related crimes to apply for assistance grants at the Utah Office for Victims of Crime.
Analysts estimate the fund would pay out about $3,500 a year per victim beginning in 2020.
Brielle Decker, a former wife of Warren Jeffs, the imprisoned leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, told The Associated Press that she could have used the money for therapy after years of threats, harassment and displacement pushed her to run away.
“I’ve been free for about seven years,” she said. “I actually climbed out a window and I did escape.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renounced polygamy in the late 19th century. A handful of groups scattered through the state continue to practice it, and have a range of specific beliefs and practices.
Among the most prominent is the FLDS, whose female members typically wear prairie-style dresses and distinctive hairstyles. Jeffs, its well-known longtime leader, is serving a life prison sentence in Texas for assaulting girls he considered wives.
The legislation says anyone leaving a polygamous community is qualified to apply for the fund. But in order to be eligible for compensation, the perpetrator must be reported to law enforcement for investigation, which isn’t always an easy task.
“A lot of people who are leaving don’t realize they are a victim of any crime,” said Angela Kelly, director of Sound Choices Coalition. “If there is anything they know it is that they are leaving polygamy.”
Gary Scheller, director of the Utah Office for Victims of Crime, noted that enacting the legislation to add people leaving polygamous communities would not change anything for Utah taxpayers and businesses. Scheller went on to say that with nearly $3 million in reserve, the Utah Office for Victims of Crime would be able to afford and sustain the new proposal.
Supporters note that the legislation will help people who leave polygamous communities with few resources, often with children to support.
“This bill will help for emergency housing, getting new doctors for therapy and to show who we Utahn’s really are as a society,” Decker said.
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