Dominion listed as county’s top taxpayer
YFZ Land, LLC ranks 4th overall
 Dominion Oklahoma Texas E&P tops the list of Schleicher County taxpayers this year with an overall levy of $446.916.02. Pogo Producing Company was second highest at $446,370.08 including a small levy on the City of Eldorado’s tax roll. Approach Operating, LLC placed third at $439,174.26 while one of the county’s newest taxpayers, YFZ Land, LLC came in fourth overall with a total levy of $414,391.70. Discovery Operating rounded out the top five list at $244,760.77.
The tax totals come from taxes levied by Schleicher County, Schleicher County ISD, Schleicher County Hospital District, Plateau Underground Water Conservation District and, in the case of Pogo Producing Company, the City of Eldorado.
The school district gets the lion’s share of the tax levy. In the case of Dominion, the top taxpayer, SCISD receives $257,886.81 or just over 57.7 percent of the total levy. The county gets the next largest slice, some $127,588.06 or 28.5 percent of the company’s total tax bill. Schleicher County Hospital District will receive $55,793.89, representing 12.5 percent. The remaining $5,647.26 goes to the water district which receives just over 1.2 percent of the total levy.
Lawyers circle as Jeffs asks for return of seized property
Polygamist prophet Warren Jeffs wants material seized by the FBI during his arrest last August returned to him and he is asking a federal court in Las Vegas, Nevada to order the Feds to hand it over. Jeffs claims that information contained in letters, on laptop computers and in the memory of cellular telephones confiscated by authorities is sacred and confidential since it contains matters relating to FLDS church doctrine and private communications between Jeffs and his loyal followers. There was some $54,000 in cash found Jeffs’ Cadillac Escalade when he was arrested. He wants that back, too.
State and federal prosecutors disagree. So do attorneys representing the United Effort Plan Trust, and Shem Fischer. The UEP Trust was the financial arm of the FLDS Church through which Jeffs exercised near dictatorial power over the twin towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona until a Utah state judge removed him from the UEP board last year. Fisher is a former Jeffs follower who sued the prophet and won a $338,000 judgment after being fired from his job in Hildale, Utah when he left the FLDS faith.
Jeffs taken to hospital for emergency treatment
Warren Jeffs, the jailed leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints received emergency medical treatment Sunday morning, according to a story in The Spectrum and Daily News from St. George, Utah.
Jeffs, who once prophesied that he would die in prison, was transported by Fire and Rescue of Hurricane, Utah at about 6:30 a.m. to the Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George where he was kept for several hours as he underwent treatment.
Jeffs was returned to his cell at about 10:00 a.m. after doctors cleared him to return to the Purgatory Correctional Facility.
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U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear polygamist’s appeal
 Bigamy is illegal in all 50 states, a fact that the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed Monday when it declined to take up an appeal brought by Rodney Hans Holm of Hildale, Utah.
Holm, a former Hildale police officer, was convicted in 2003 by a Utah jury of bigamy and two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. The case stemmed from a 1998 polygamous marriage to his then his 16-year-old sister-in-law. She became his third wife.
After losing on appeal before the Utah Supreme Court, Holm petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006. The high court answered his petition Monday with one terse word, “Denied.”
Holm is a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a break-away sect of the mainstream Mormon church. The FLDS holds fast to the practice of polygamy, or plural marriage, even though it is expressly prohibited in the constitutions of both Utah and Arizona.
Jeffs’ Utah empire crumbles, but its business as usual at the YFZ Ranch
 Jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs and several of his top lieutenants in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) have been ordered to pay nearly $9 million in damages to the United Effort Plan Trust (UEP) they once managed.
Salt Lake City judge Denise Lindberg ruled last Thursday that Jeffs and other former trustees of the UEP must pay $8.8 million because of their mismanagement of the trust, misappropriation of property and other misconduct.
Meanwhile, closer to home, Jeffs’ followers on the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado continue to pour millions of dollars of material and workmanship into new homes and infrastructure of a planned FLDS community.
Special Fiduciary Bruce Wisan, administrator of the UEP Trust, brought the lawsuit against Jeffs in an attempt to collect money he says is missing from the UEP, may have a hard time collecting any of the $8.8 million. Jeffs has demonstrated an unwillingness to cooperate with the court, going so far as to order his followers who continue to live in homes owned by the UEP, not to pay their portion of property taxes.
Jeffs indicted yet again
Warren Jeffs, jailed leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, faces yet another felony charge this week, after a federal grand jury in Salt Lake City, Utah indicted him on a charge of Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution.
The charge came down Wednesday morning, March 7, 2007. It carries a possible penalty of five years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
Jeffs, whose followers are building a new town on the YFZ Ranch just four miles from Eldorado, was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list until his capture during traffic stop near Las Vegas last year. An “illegible license plate” prompted a Nevada state trooper to pull over the Cadillac Escalade driven by Isaac Jeffs. Warren Jeffs, and one of his wives, was found in the vehicle.
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