After three years of asking, Tribune polygamy reporter Brooke Adams finally gained access to a meeting of the Safety Net Committee.

This committee is established to "open communication [and] break down barriers" between people living in plural marriages, law enforcement and other concerned parties, according to the Website of the Utah attorney general. That office administers the committee.

Adams writes on her blog:

...I was consistently and firmly told that committee members did not want the media to attend.

I had a problem with that. For one thing, the committee was previously funded by a federal grant: Your tax dollars.

Presumably, the committee will follow other provisions of Utah's open meeting laws, including publishing agendas in advance.

By the way, can you guess what publication Adams used to make her argument to the attorney general's office? Yep, the handbook on open meetings and open records... published by the attorney general's office. A PDF of that handbook is available by clicking here.

— NC

Labels: Open and Public Meetings Act, Polygamy

You have an important meeting at your job to talk about something a lot of people, maybe even a U.S. Senator, care about. You take notes in the meeting, right?

You jot down a task assigned to you. ("Find out if the FLDS are having sex with kids.") Or maybe scribble something interesting. ("Bill says Warren Jeffs is funding al-Qaeda.")

But not if you're the attorneys general in Utah, Arizona or Nevada. (i.e. The Bigamy Belt.) They met June 11 in Las Vegas to talk about polygamy and they all say they did not take notes.

I sent Utah's Mark Shurtleff, Arizona's Terry Goddard, and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada a letter seeking:

-- All e-mails, correspondence, memorandums, notes or other documents generated as a result of the June 11, 2008, meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, concerning polygamy.

Shurtleff and Cortez Masto's office both said they had no responsive documents. Goddard's office supplied a newspaper column he wrote after the meeting and a copy of an e-mail from The Tribune asking for an interview, but no notes of what was discussed in the meeting.

Both Goddard and Shurtleff gave interviews to The Tribune after the meeting where they discussed, in general terms, what was said in the meeting, but I was seeking more specifics.

Mohave County, Ariz., Attorney Matt Smith also says he has no notes on the meeting. I'm waiting for a response from Washington County, Utah.

-- nc

Labels: Polygamy

Today's article about the old FBI investigation into the FLDS leadership relied on documents I acquired under the Freedom of Information Act. But the acquisition didn't go smoothly.

In January, 2007, I made my first request to the FBI asking for their files on LeRoy S. Johnson and Rulon T. Jeffs, two former prophets of the FLDS. They've been dead for years and files maintained by the federal government usually are subject to disclosure once the subject dies. (Check out the list of famous corpses in the FBI reading room.)

On March 29, 2007, I received a letter from the FBI saying it had no files on Johnson. Then, less than a month later, I received a telephone call from the FBI employee processing my request for Jeffs' files. She told me that in searching for Jeffs documents, she found pages discussing Johnson. The employee sounded annoyed that no one had found them earlier.

The first batch of documents arrived in July. The FBI redacted some names and omitted entire pages because they were concerned with violating the privacy of the people who are still alive. In some cases, the government said, papers had been destroyed years ago. But I used the information in the documents to make additional requests. I asked for the entire files referenced in the information about Johnson and Jeffs.

The back-and-forth continued until January, when the U.S. Department of Justice claimed it had no more documents it could give me. In all, I received a couple hundred pages.

-- nc

Labels: FBI, FOIA, Polygamy

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Take 'er easy, Texas.

I spent 11 days here covering various aspects of the raid on the FLDS compound. Today The Tribune is recalling me. West Texas was all I ever heard: vast, flat, windy, hot and rough.

And I've never been in a place where everyone was so polite every time they told me to go away. (That includes the Amarillo, Texas, police department, which was very friendly when it investigated why I was parked outside a children's home in that town.)

So as I switch from barbecue sauce to fry sauce, ditch belt buckles with your names for elder name tags and trade conservative politics for . . . uh, well, here's a list of record requests the newspaper has made in the last few years to assist with reporting on the FLDS. Maybe it will demonstrate how open records can further public knowledge on a topic.

-- Nevada Highway Patrol -- reports and photographs concerning the capture of Warren Jeffs

We here at The Tribune are so proud of acquiring these photographs, we won't share them with others. That's not a joke. Don't snag this photograph from the Website unless you're lonely and need a phone call from a Tribune lawyer to cheer you! The reason we like the photos is because they demonstrate how Jeffs was living during his roughly two years on the lam. Along with Jeffs in his German-tourist disguise, there were photographs of his cash, cell phones and credit cards and storage lockers in Colorado.

-- Fremont County, Colo., Sheriff's Office -- reports and photographs concerning the surveillance of a home suspected of harboring Warren Jeffs

No one has ever said for certain Jeffs visited this particular house, but the photos at least demonstrate how law enforcement was searching for him.

-- Washington County, Utah, jail -- Visitor log and recordings of Jeffs

The newspaper and other outlets were denied access to the documents while Jeffs was awaiting and on trial, but when Jeffs was convicted the records became public and showed how Jeffs wasn't holding up well in jail.

-- Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training -- conduct complaints against marshals in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah

The documents included a letter written by one of the town marshals to Jeffs and appeared to demonstrate the cop's loyalty to the then-fugitive.

We have other various record requests pending to a variety of places. Here's hoping I can report on their contents soon.

— NC

Labels: Polygamy

With the legal battles related to the raid on the FLDS compound in Texas looking as though they will continue for years, here, via a public record request, is an example of past police investigations into the sect.

We all know how Warren Jeffs was on the run for the better part of two years until the Nevada Highway Patrol pulled him over in August 2006. At the same time, police were investigating some of his various so-called safe houses, including one in Fremont County, Colo.

These are among more than 50 photographs the sheriffs office there took of that house and the people coming and going from there. The photographs include the house, people and license plates of the vehicles there. The investigative file, which The Tribune obtained through a records request, also includes a handwritten list of people suspected to have resided at the house.

The dates on the photographs indicate the sheriff's office continued monitoring the house into October 2006, even after Jeffs' capture.

— NC

Labels: Polygamy