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FLDS exiles praise documentary film on prophet's abuses
By Kevin Jenkins
Ben Thomas, a former work manager for Hildale’s Phaze Concrete, watched with some discomfort Friday night as he was projected on the big screen at Springdale’s O.C. Tanner Amphitheater during the DOCUTAH film festival’s premiere showing of “Prophet’s Prey,” a documentary on the local polygamist community. “I thought it went really well. … It was really well done,” Thomas said prior to being invited onstage at the film’s close for a question and answer panel. “But it was really hard to watch,” he said. “My brother-in-law runs (Phaze) now – as far as I know. They feel like I threw them under the bus” by deciding to appear in the documentary. A few hundred people made the trek to the outdoor amphitheater on the doorstep of Zion National Park to see the insiders-on-the-outside accounts of life under Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the film’s name. DOCUTAH officials estimated about 800 more filled Dixie State University’s Cox Auditorium nearly to capacity Saturday for the film festival’s final-day showing. Among those viewing the film for the first time were a number of the film’s participants, such as Thomas. Thomas’ role included talking about how he monitored the contractor’s large commercial concrete jobs from Seattle to New Mexico and helped funnel money to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints under the direction of Jeffs’ religious hierarchy. The workers might put in 400 hours on a given job, but then managers would tell them that “we need to donate,” Thomas said. The men would then donate their time to the company, so out of the 400 hours, Phaze might only pay workers for about 200 and divert the rest as unrecorded profits to the church, he said. Church priesthood holders were initially expected to donate $1,000 per month to the church as tithing, but after Jeffs established a United Order the expectation grew to “turn everything over” under a communal system, Thomas said. “All that money goes straight into the church’s coffers,” said Cedar City private investigator Sam Brower, whose ubiquitous ball cap and cowboy hat symbolize his no-nonsense approach to discussing the ways “millions of dollars a month” in donated funds could empower Jeffs for criminal pursuits – primarily the incidents of child sexual abuse that led Jeffs to a life sentence in a Texas prison four years ago. Brower wrote a New York Times bestseller four years ago that inspired the film approach to telling the history of the FLDS church’s transformation under Jeffs. “Lots of people take pride in their work and want to do a good job,” Brower said. “But (for FLDS members,) your salvation depends on you succeeding in business – and your status and stature within the church.” Thomas said he testified on behalf of Jeffs during his Utah trial in 2007, but after learning about evidence gleaned from the FLDS church’s temple compound in Texas a few years later, he got on the Internet to see what it was all about – a turning point in his life and his relationship with his community. That evidence ultimately included an audio recording of Jeffs having sex with a preteen girl he’d claimed as a wife, a segment of which was played in the film. Former church member Lorin Holm found himself in a situation similar to Thomas’ after being exiled from the church and told to distance himself from his family and the polygamous community for reasons that weren’t explained to him by his religious leaders. While in exile in Nevada, he learned of the Texas case against Jeffs and began encouraging his wives to leave. One did, and a lawsuit attempting to force the other two to hear the evidence about Jeffs became a custody battle Holm eventually won after his wives plugged their ears in court and defied court orders regarding visitation at home. “I think they did a good job (with the film),” Holm said after seeing it for the first time Friday. “I’m glad they’re getting it out.” Leroy Timpson, who accompanied Holm, said he thought the film was a good depiction of events in the community overall but sensationalized a few things – particularly in claiming that church leaders had drawn members out to await an end-times event that would take them up to heaven. “That did not happen,” he said. “We’ve never been told to go meet somewhere and we’re all getting lifted up.” Ron Rohbock, an FLDS exile who told the film’s viewers how federal agents reunited him with a young daughter that had remained with relatives inside the insular church community, and then how that daughter was grabbed and pulled into a pickup by strangers as the family was stopped by the road, said he saw the first version of the documentary released at the Sundance film festival earlier in the year but attended again in Springdale to see additional footage added for DOCUTAH. “I actually liked the first version better. … It played more on the emotions,” Rohbock said. “This to me was a little bit long. I still thought it was well done, though. And there’s still so much that isn’t covered.” Rohbock questioned why the government isn’t taking a firmer hand in stopping alleged criminal activity in the church community. “If you knew there was a town full of kidnapped kids, what would you do if you had the authority?” he said. “Everybody’s trying to do the very best they can, but it’s not enough. If they need to put the National Guard in there and go find the mothers and the fathers for these kids that are being kept in homes, they need to do it.” Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, who also attended the Friday night screening, praised the “heroes” surrounding him on the panel who stood up to oppression in the community, and said the film struck a balance between focusing on church leaders’ manipulations while not passing judgment on the members’ religious beliefs. “All I can say is, from our administration, we do want to aggressively attack the criminal elements that we see. … If there are instances, whether they are abuse of children, rape of children, tax fraud, benefit fraud, those are the areas we are most concerned about,” he said. Nadine Hansen, the court guardian ad litem who represented the children in Holm’s case, pointedly asked Reyes what he was going to do to decertify the Colorado City Marshal's Office in the community in the wake of years-long reports about the officers’ efforts to favor the church’s edicts over residents’ rights. A federal lawsuit in Arizona is scheduled for a January trial on the claims. Reyes said his office doesn’t have the authority to decertify the marshals. He did file a letter of support of the Arizona attorney general in his unsuccessful efforts to get the judge in the federal case to shut down the marshal's office last year. Brower praised Reyes’ efforts, saying previous AG administrations were “missing in action.” “From my perspective, there’s more (outside law enforcement involvement) going on now than there’s ever been,” he said. Following DOCUTAH, the movie will have its East Coast theatrical premiere in New York City at an event attended by its executive producers, including famous director-actor Ron Howard. Then it will debut on the West Coast in Los Angeles, followed by additional showings in big markets across the country, Brower said. On Oct. 10, it will premiere on Showtime’s television outlet and completes its bid for consideration among Oscar and Emmy award nominees. Contact: kevin@thespectrum.com
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