Polygamy is funny.

The act isn't, but just read the first paragraph.



Man sentenced for marrying his 15-year-old cousin
Monday, January 26, 2004 Posted: 1:46 PM EST (1846 GMT)

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- A member of Utah's polygamous Kingston clan was sentenced Monday to a year in prison for taking a 15-year-old cousin -- who was also his aunt -- as his wife.

Jeremy Ortell Kingston pleaded guilty to incest in an arrangement with prosecutors. The felony charge will be reduced to a misdemeanor if Kingston successfully completes three years' probation.

Kingston was 24 when he took LuAnn Kingston as his fourth wife in 1995. Family members say he has at least 17 children.

At a hearing in October, Kingston told the judge: "I had a relationship, a sexual relationship, with LuAnn for about four years. That relationship ended about four years ago."

After Monday's sentencing, Luann Kingston told reporters: "I was glad that they saw through all of his save-face comments."

LuAnn Kingston left her marriage in 2000, taking with her their two daughters. She said she went to police hoping to set an example for other polygamous wives.

The Kingston clan, also known as the Latter Day Church of Christ, includes an estimated 1,200 members. The secretive group has amassed a $150 million business empire, running Utah companies that include pawn shops, restaurant supply stores and dairies.

The clan is not part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which practiced polygamy widely until the 1890s, when church leaders renounced it as a condition for Utah statehood.

Polygamists are now excommunicated from the Mormon church.

Last year, Jeremy Kingston's uncle, David Ortell Kingston, was released from prison after serving four years for committing incest with a 16-year-old niece.

Power battle prompts inquiry into 2-state polygamist group

By Mark Thiessen
The Associated Press

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — A power struggle has emerged in a small, tightlipped community known for polygamy, with a number of men being kicked out of the church-owned town and their wives and children being "reassigned" against their will to other men.

Authorities in Arizona and Utah now are stepping up their years-long investigation into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with the family "reassignments" sparking concerns of forced marriage of underage girls.

In a rare show of defiance in the typically secretive community, one man who was ordered to leave is refusing to do so, and is sharing information with authorities about church leader Warren Jeffs.

Ross Chatwin, 35, held a news conference Friday at his home in Colorado City. He said he was excommunicated from the church recently, capping a nine-month power struggle with Jeffs.

In an apparent move to solidify his control, Jeffs on Jan. 14 ordered 20 men to leave the area, but without their wives, children and personal property. Jeffs said a vision from God told him to force the men out. He later purged more men from the community, including Chatwin.

Chatwin said Jeffs "has to be stopped."

Jeffs, 47, took over the church after the 2002 death of his father, Rulon, despite a push for two more popular church elders in the community. Both men, in their 90s, were excommunicated in the Jan. 14 purge.

Three 16-year-old girls are known to have run away from the enclave since the men's excommunications. Two are in foster care in Phoenix, and the other is in state custody in Utah.

Chatwin said his willingness to talk could put him in danger in the community, notorious for retaliating against malcontents. He said he did it to encourage others to stand up to Jeffs, especially those who have been ordered out.

"If a few stand up, it could make it better for all," he said.

Chatwin advocates polygamy but has only one wife and six children. Chatwin's wife, Lori, 32, is standing by her husband. "I'm not going to leave him," she said.

Women and children are considered property and have no rights under church laws.

Colorado City and its adjacent counterpart, Hildale, Utah, form what many believe to be the center of the American polygamist movement.

The attorneys general in Utah and Arizona have been investigating both communities for several years. Chatwin said he was cooperating with investigators from both states, but declined to be more specific.

Utah attorney general investigator Ron Barton also was in Colorado City, saying the state is concerned about public safety.

Barton said the state is investigating the towns because "families are being destroyed." Barton refused to say whether criminal charges were being considered against Jeffs.

Former Hildale police officer Rodney Holm last year was convicted of bigamy and unlawful sex with a girl he took as a third wife when she was 16.

Holm was sentenced to a year in jail, and his police certification was revoked.

Jeffs' Salt Lake City attorney, R. Scott Berry, did not return calls seeking comment.

The mainstream Mormon church abandoned polygamy a century ago as the Utah territory sought statehood, but the fundamentalists refused to give up the practice.

Rulon Jeffs had an estimated 35 to 75 wives.

How could your cousin be your aunt? It's making my head hurt just thinking about it.

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Originally posted by KQ
Power battle prompts inquiry into 2-state polygamist group


Rulon Jeffs had an estimated 35 to 75 wives.

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Who in the hell would want that?

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Originally posted by Canuk
How could your cousin be your aunt? It's making my head hurt just thinking about it.

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OK. You have couple A and B who have girl child C. You then have couple D and E. A and D are brother and sister. D and E have child F. That makes C and F cousins. A divorces B and takes C as his wife. C is now F's aunt as well as cousin. C divorces A and marries F.

<scratches head>

I think that does it. Pretty sick, eh?

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Originally posted by Canuk
How could your cousin be your aunt? It's making my head hurt just thinking about it.

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There's a lot of inbreeding going on there.


I think it could work like this:

His Dad's brother/sister is her father/mother (which makes her his cousin) and/or her mother/father is his great aunt/uncle (or grandmother/father).

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Originally posted by joshbu
OK. You have couple A and B who have girl child C. You then have couple D and E. A and D are brother and sister. D and E have child F. That makes C and F cousins. A divorces B and takes C as his wife. C is now F's aunt as well as cousin. C divorces A and marries F.

<scratches head>

I think that does it. Pretty sick, eh?

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As nice as it would be to think divorce played a part in this strange episode I'm willing to bet they're all genetically related. These ppl are out there.

Edit: headache, fokkit

Rulon Jeffs had an estimated 35 to 75 wives. [/B][/QUOTE]


How wastefull. This guy has 75 wives and I cant get a girl that sticks around for more then a month. What an asshole.

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Originally posted by PaSucks



I cant get a girl that sticks around for more then a month. What an asshole.

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You must be if they won't stick around for more than a month. ;)

Studies that followed the offspring of first cousin marriages, demonstrated little, if any, genetic or behavioral derangement. These studies have been going on for many decades.

Supposedly, first cousin marriages were more acceptable in this country 100 years ago or so, especially amongst immigrants. But immigration officials deemed the custom counterproductive towards the assimilation of the transplanted people and the practice of close-cousin couplings quickly became frowned upon.

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Originally posted by KQ

Rulon Jeffs had an estimated 35 to 75 wives.

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I guess he didn't ski much.;)

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Originally posted by Beaver
You must be if they won't stick around for more than a month. ;)

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Ya I am definitly known to be an asshole, but i know way bigger assholes that get more play then I ever do and its more then a little annoying. Oh well thats what beer is for.

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Originally posted by KQ
There's a lot of inbreeding going on there.


His Dad's brother/sister is her father/mother (which makes her his cousin) and/or her mother/father is his great aunt/uncle (or grandmother/father).

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Flashbacks to living west of Chehalis...

Read Jon Krakauer's latest - "Under the Banner of Heaven." It's all about that stuff. There's quite a bit about Colorado City and "Uncle Rulon." Great read, but it really makes you shiver.

polygamy is funny

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Originally posted by Canuk
How could your cousin be your aunt? It's making my head hurt just thinking about it.

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If you learn all the words to " I Am My Own Grandpa" it will become clear(er).

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Originally posted by splat
If you learn all the words to " I Am My Own Grandpa" it will become clear(er).

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"it sounds funny I know, but it really is so"