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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bountiful-sect-members-face-polygamy-child-related-charges-1.2735785

 

FLDS RELIGIOUS SECT - YEARS OF POLYGAMY & CHILD-RELATED CHARGES 

 

Bountiful sect members face polygamy charges

 Bountiful, British Columbia, Canada - Sect Members - Winston Blackmore is accused of marrying 24 girls and women between 1990 and 2014.

 

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Bountiful+timeline+chronology+from+1843+present/2132938/story.html

 

CANADA-USA - TIMELINE OF RELIGIOUS SECT POLYGAMY, CHILD MARRIAGE, UNDERAGE TRAFFICKING,

RAPE, SEXUAL EXPLOITATION - SERIES OF COMPLEX INVESTIGATIONS & COURT HEARINGS

Chronology:

1843 — Officially recorded year of Joseph Smith's revelation that Mormon men are allowed to have more than one wife.

1852 —The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reveals Doctrine and Covenants 132, which makes plural marriage legal in the eyes of the church.

1862 — U.S. Congress passes a bill prohibiting polygamy.

1879 — George Reynolds (LDS prophet Brigham Young's secretary) appeals his conviction on polygamy to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying that the law infringes his constitutional right to freedom of religion. The justices disagree and Reynolds goes to prison.

July 26, 1886 —LDS elder Charles O. Card is arrested and charged with polygamy. He escapes, becomes a fugitive and eventually founds the town of Cardston, Alberta.

1888 — Charles Card and two other Mormon elders meet with Sir John A. Macdonald in Ottawa and ask for special dispensation to bring their plural wives and other families to Canada. The prime minister says no, orders the Northwest Mounted Police to watch the Mormons carefully.

1890 - The Canadian government approves legislation outlawing polygamy. The law specifically mentions Mormon polygamy.

1890 — The U.S. Government enacts the Edmunds-Tucker bill, authorizing the confiscation of all the LDS property (except chapels) worth in excess of $50,000 and dissolve the church as a corporate entity. It was approved in 1890 and found to be constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, forcing Wilford Woodruff's hand.

1890 —After the enactment of the Edmunds-Tucker Act passed and the government threatening to send the army, LDS Prophet and President Wilford Woodruff issues a manifesto declaring an end to the polygamy in this life, but not in the hereafter.

1929 — Despite the mainstream Mormon church's Manifesto, a small group of men continue the practise of polygamy and form what they call "The Work." It is the core of what will become the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

1945 — Owen LeBaron visits Cardston from Utah, preaches about polygamy and distributes pamphlets about "The Work". Harold Blackmore, a prominent dairyman and teacher, is one of the early converts.

1946 — Harold Blackmore buys property in Lister, B.C. and what will later become known as Bountiful. Blackmore moves there with his wife and children and a few months later, marries a second wife in a "celestial marriage" in Utah. His second wife is his first wife's sister.

Dec. 28, 1947 —Harold Blackmore's father, John H. Blackmore, is ex-communicated by the mainstream Mormon church. John Blackmore, a sitting member of Parliament from Alberta, is one of the most prominent Mormons in Canada. He was ex-communicated even though he never practised polygamy, he only questioned the validity of Woodruff's Manifesto.

1953 — John Blackmore's son, Ray Blackmore joins his nephew, Harold Blackmore, in Lister. Within a short time, Ray wrests control of the community from Harold.

July 26, 1953 — Arizona highway patrolmen, Mohave County sheriffs and Arizona National Guardsmen raid Short Creek, arresting as many men as they can find. The men are charged them with statutory rape, adultery, bigamy,open and notorious cohabitation, contributing to the delinquency of minors, marrying the spouse of another and an all embracing conspiracy to commit all of these crimes along with income tax evasion, failure to comply with Arizona's corporation laws, misappropriation of the school fund, improper use of school facilities and falsification of public records. The men were jailed and the women and children dispersed across the country. The raid was soundly criticized and resulted in the Arizona governor Ernie Pyle's defeat when he came up for reelection.

Aug. 25, 1978 —Alberta Provincial Court Judge Litsky rules that "Canada has not yet accepted the plural wife principle" in a child custody case involving members of a fundamentalist Mormon group called the Alpha and Omega Order of Melchizedik, G.E.O.M.

August 1984 — Ray Blackmore's son, Winston, is sworn in as the FLDS bishop for Bountiful.

October 1991 —RCMP conclude a 13-month investigation and recommend charges be laid against Bountiful's bishop Winston Blackmore and its patriarch Dalmon Oler.

June 1992— B.C. Attorney General Colin Gabelman rejects the RCMP's recommendations after receiving legal opinions suggesting that the Criminal Code's polygamy section breaches the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom.

Sept. 8, 2002 — FLDS prophet Rulon Jeffs dies and is succeeded by his son, Warren Jeffs. The new prophet declares Winston Blackmore an apostate and appoints James Oler, Dalmon's son, bishop of Bountiful.

Spring 2004 - Debbie Palmer, third wife of Winston Blackmore's father, Ray, and several others, files a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. By the time Palmer left Bountiful in 1988, she had eight children and three different husbands. She was married to her first husband when she was 15; he was 57 and already had five wives. He was also her step-grandfather. Palmer took all of her children when she left Bountiful.

June 14, 2004 — B.C. Attorney General Geoff Plant asks RCMP to once again investigate Bountiful.

July 20, 2004 —B.C. Civil Liberties Association calls for a full public investigation into every aspect of Bountiful but with particular emphasis on sexual exploitation and abuse and allegations that racism is being taught in the schools. BCLA maintains its longheld view that the polygamy law would not withstand a constitutional challenge, adding that, "The question of polygamy is an unhelpful diversion from the other allegations at hand."

April 2005 - Winston Blackmore holds a polygamy summit in Creston, B.C. At the summit, he says that his son married a 14-year-old. He also admits that he has married ``several under-aged girls.''

Summer 2005 — Wally Oppal is appointed attorney general of British Columbia and describes the situation in Bountiful as ``intolerable.’' FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs becomes a fugitive after he and seven other FLDS elders are indicted an Arizona grand jury along with seven others on various charges of sexual conduct with minors.

May 5, 2006 — FBI puts Warren Jeffs on its 10 Most Wanted list.

August 25, 2006 —Warren Jeffs is arrested outside Las Vegas on a routine traffic stop and sent to Purgatory Correctional Center in Utah.

Dec. 8, 2006 — Winston Blackmore goes on Larry King Live! And admits to marrying several under-aged girls.

Aug. 1, 2007 - Special prosecutor Richard Peck recommends to Oppal that rather than laying charges, the province should refer the polygamy law to the B.C. Court of Appeal to determine whether it is constitutionally sound. Oppal disagrees.

Sept. 7, 2007 - Oppal appoints another special prosecutor, Leonard Doust to review the evidence RCMP collected and review Peck's decision.

Fall 2007 - Warren Jeffs is found guilty of being an accomplice to the rape of 14-year-old Elissa Wall, who he forced to marry her 19-year-old, first cousin.

April 2008 - Texas authorities raid a compound near Eldorado, where the FLDS had built a temple that is similar to the LDS tabernacle in Salt Lake City. The women and 416 children found at the Yearning for Zion ranch are forced on to buses and taken by child protection authorities. The Texas Supreme Court eventually rules that the children were wrongly taken from their families and orders them to be returned. But evidence collected during the raid eventually results in charges against 13 men including Warren Jeffs.

April 7, 2008 - Doust reports to Oppal that he agrees with Peck and recommends a court reference. Oppal is still not convinced.

June 2, 2008 - Oppal appoints Terry Robertson as special prosecutor, who subsequently asks RCMP to do more investigating.

January 2009 - Winston Blackmore and James Oler are arrested. Each is charged with one count of polygamy. Blackmore's indictment lists 19 "wives", nine of whom were under 18; Oler's lists two.

September 2009 - The indictments against Blackmore and Oler are quashed by a B.C. Supreme Court judge who ruled that former attorney-general Wally Oppal acted improperly by asking more than one special prosecutor to offer advice on how to proceed on the polygamy file. The first special prosecutor recommended a constitutional reference case; the second, recommended charging Blackmore and Oler.

October 2009 - B.C. Attorney-General Mike de Jong files a constitutional reference case in B.C. Supreme Court. He asks the court to rule on two questions: 1)Is the Criminal Code's polygamy section consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? If not, in what particular or particulars and to what extent?

2)What are the necessary elements of the polygamy offense in the Criminal Code? Does the law require that the polygamous conjugal union involved a minor or occurred in a context of dependence, exploitation, abuse of authority, a gross imbalance of power or undue influence?

December 2009 - Chief Justice Robert Bauman of the B.C. Supreme Court appoints Vancouver lawyer George Macintosh as the "amicus" to make the case that the polygamy law is unconstitutional. The amicus - whose bills will be paid by the B.C. government - along with intervenors such as the FLDS and the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association will go up against the combined forces of the attorneys general of B.C. and Canada.

July 2010 - FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs's conviction on two counts of being an accomplice to rape are overturned by the Utah Supreme Court and a new trial is ordered.

September 2010 - Texas files extradition papers in Utah for Warren Jeffs, who is charged there with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and bigamy, which could result in at least one life sentence. Jeffs refuses to waive his right to a hearing.

November 2010 - Warren Jeffs's extradition hearing is scheduled in a Salt Lake City courtroom. In Vancouver, B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman will begin hearing the constitutional reference case to determine the constitutionality of Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which outlaws polygamy.

Early 2011 - Jeffs banishes James Oler for not following his directives. James’ half-brother, Ken Oler, becomes Canadian bishop.

November 2011 - B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Bauman upholds the criminal sanction against polygamy.

November 2011 - Ken Oler writes a letter to Jeffs denouncing the practice of child marriages. Within a week, he’s stripped of his wives, children, home and position. He goes to the RCMP.

Jan. 17, 2012 - Peter Wilson appointed special prosecutor and asked to review new evidence regarding Bountiful men who transported 31 underage girls across the border to become brides.

September 2012 - Six FLDS men banished from Bountiful go to court to get access to 40 children they were forced to leave behind.

Jan. 16, 2014 - The Criminal Justice Branch of the Attorney General's Ministry issues a press release saying that Wilson's mandate now includes consideration of "potential offences contrary to the polygamy provisions of the Criminal Code."

Feb. 28, 2014 – Winston Blackmore goes voluntarily as a witness for the UEP Trust’s lawyers in a civil case involving Elissa Wall and without a lawyer. During the deposition, he admits to having married 10 women who were under the age of 19; three of whom were 15 and one who was 16.

Aug. 14, 2014 – Winston Blackmore charged with one count of polygamy. James Marion Oler charged with one count of polygamy and one court of unlawful removal of a child for sexual purposes. Brandon James Blackmore and Emily Ruth Crossfield (also called Gail), charged with one count of unlawful removal of a child for sexual purposes.

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