GMA: Convicted Bigamist Says Ruling Hurts Tradition

May 21, 2001 -- For the first time in nearly 50 years, prosecutors for the state of Utah went after a man for having multiple wives.

On Friday, a Provo, Utah, jury convicted outspoken polygamist Tom Green on four counts of bigamy. Green, who has five wives and 25 childrenfaces up to 25 years in prison.

His defense says he never legally married all of his wives, but the prosecution says they are his wives by common law and what he is doing is illegal.

Green, who has lived with his kids and wives in a compound of trailer homes in a remote part of the western Utah desert, said the government is trying to control his family and their beliefs. Green told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America that he will not change his lifestyle, even if he ends up spending years in prison.

"I'm committed to my wives and children and there is nothing that will keep me from that commitment," said Green.

"This has been a belief system in our culture for over 150 years and I don't know how you can legislate against somebody's beliefs and expect them, if they have any faith at all, to give up their beliefs," said Green.

When asked directly if he would stop polygamy, Green answered: "Well, before I'm sentenced, that's a tricky question to answer."

One of Green's five wives, Shirley Green, said she doesn't quite understand why others are even interested in her family. "If we're fine with it, why should other people be bothered by it," she asked.

Another one of his wives, LeeAnn Green, said people don't realize that she and the other wives were simply raised differently than most girls. "I think that they're missing that we are a different culture than them. From a young age were raised to be good mothers," said LeeAnn.

Green, 52, is planning to appeal the verdict, but says he is resigned to the expected prison sentence of up to 25 years in jail and does not mind going to jail to support his religious beliefs. So-called "fundamentalist" Mormons believe polygamy is the only way to achieve celestial reward, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints disavowed polygamy in 1890.

Green and polygamist leaders say the verdict will have a chilling effect in polygamous communities, and that those with multiple wives will be forced to go underground. Green is scheduled for sentencing on June 27.

Waving the Polygamy Flag

Prosecutors argued that Green took advantage of the state's welfare system and marriage laws. He partially supported the family from income he received selling magazine subscriptions, but they also received welfare payments.

In what is a common strategy among polygamists, Green married his first wife, called the head wife, then married and divorced the next four, called sister wives. Since they were all cohabiting, all five relationships could be considered common-law marriage, so prosecutors used these "marriages" to establish bigamy.

Although Utah banned plural marriage in its constitution in order to become a state, it has no specific anti-polygamy law on the books. Prosecutors charged him with bigamy, marrying one person while still legally married to another.

They probably wouldn't have known about Green, but for his penchant for the spotlight.

He was charged last year after repeatedly appearing on national television shows such as The Jerry Springer Show with his wives, essentially waving a red flag to prosecutors, who for decades had operated under a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy in regards to bigamy.

For his part, Green is convinced that the state of Utah wants him behind bars in time for the 2002 Winter Olympics. He thinks the state doesn't want the press to talk with him about polygamy during the Olympics.

Polygamy Banned Long Ago

Utah banned the practice of polygamy more than 100 years ago, but this was expressly to obtain statehood, and polygamists appeared to operate unconstrained. The last major prosecution was in 1953, when the federal government raided the polygamous town of Short Creek, on the Utah-Arizona border.

But the images of children being ripped away from their parents created public relations problems, and the government has mostly left practitioners alone since then.

In recent years, reports of frequent child abuse, welfare fraud and incest in closed polygamous communities have brought attention back to polygamy compounds like the one that Green operated.

No Conjugal Visits Allowed

While in jail, Green won't be allowed conjugal visits by any of his wives and will only be allowed regular visits by his wife Linda, the only one that the state recognizes. He does not think his children will be allowed to visit.

Green said the prosecutors have tried very hard to keep his children out of the courtroom because they didn't want the jury to see what kind of family they would be splitting up.

The family plans to carry on together without dad. The eldest son, 14-year-old Mel, has been appointed titular head of the family, but the head wife and the rest of Green's wives will have veto power.

They will continue to operate the telemarketing business and try to carry on as best they can, Green said.

Green's five wives now range in age from 24 to 31, but they were married to him when they were in their mid-teens, either 13 or 14. LeeAnn Green is eight months pregnant.

Green says his biggest fear is that the children will be taken away from their mothers and put into foster homes.

He is also fighting child rape charges stemming from his marriage to his first wife when she was 13. That trial date has not yet been set.