![]() ![]() ![]() However, at his sentencing hearing Tuesday, Blackmore told the judge that he owns a sawmill in Kitchener, near Bountiful, that employs eight or nine people. (His brothers, Guy and Kevin Blackmore, are the other shareholders.) valued at $518,000, and his one-third of Blackmore Farms Ltd. It was comprised of the property and assets of the Church of Jesus Christ (Original Doctrine) Inc. What was left had a total appraised value of only $634,000. The last of his Canadian assets were seized last year by Revenue Canada in partial repayment for his more than $2.3 million in unpaid income taxes, penalties and accrued interest. Now, Blackmore is a convicted polygamist awaiting sentencing. He also had airplanes, fancy cars and progressively younger wives (a total of 27, according to his kids’ social media posts). He had dozens of businesses in which congregants worked for less than minimum wage. The page suddenly disappeared last week.Īt one time, Blackmore was the millionaire bishop of the fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful, B.C., and claimed $6 million in assets. Manage Print Subscription / Tax ReceiptĪs for the logo’d sweatshirt sales being sold on Amazon ($5 from each was to go to the legal fund), it’s not clear what happened.Westcoast Homes & Design Previous Issues. ![]() Vancouver Sun Run: Sign up & event info.The investigation and attempted prosecution of Blackmore and Oler dragged on for years due to uncertainty about Canada’s polygamy laws.Īfter a constitutional reference question was sent to the British Columbia Supreme Court, the court ruled in 2011 that laws banning polygamy were valid and did not violate religious freedoms guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Blackmore confirmed that all of his marriages were celestial marriages in accordance with FLDS rules and practices.” “He spoke openly about his practice of polygamy,” Donegan said. Blackmore even made two corrections to a detailed list of his alleged wives, she said. Donegan disagreed with assertions by Blackmore and his lawyer that the records should be given little or no weight, saying she found them reliable.ĭonegan said Winston Blackmore’s adherence to the practices and beliefs of the religious group were never in dispute, nothing that he did not deny his marriages to police in 2009. Much of the evidence in the trial came from marriage and personal records seized by law enforcement at a church compound in Texas in 2008. “There was nothing contrived or rehearsed in her answers. “She was a careful witness,” Donegan said. Justice Sheri Ann Donegan praised Jane Blackmore as a highly credible and reliable witness. The mainstream Mormon church renounced polygamy in the late 19th century and disputes any connection to the fundamentalist group’s form of Mormonism.Īt the 12-day trial earlier this year, witnesses included mainstream Mormon experts, law enforcement officials who worked on the investigation and Jane Blackmore, a former wife of Winston Blackmore who left the Canadian community in 2003. The two will be sentenced at future hearings.Īuthorities have said Jeffs still leads the sect from a Texas prison, where he is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides. Under Canadian law, the maximum penalty they will each face is five year in prison. This is what we expected.”īlackmore and Oler were prosecuted as part of an investigation first launched in the early 1990s by the provincial government. “Twenty-seven years and tens of millions of dollars later, all we’ve proved is something we’ve never denied. “I’m guilty of living my religion and that’s all I’m saying today because I’ve never denied that,” Blackmore told reporters after the verdict. His lawyer Blair Suffredine has already said Blackmore would challenge the constitutionality of Canada’s polygamy laws if his client was found guilty. Winston Blackmore, 60, and James Oler, 53, were found guilty by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Sheri Ann Donegan, who said the evidence was clear that Blackmore was married to 25 women at the same time and that Oler was married to five women in the tiny community of Bountiful.īlackmore, 60, never denied having the wives as part of his religious beliefs that call for “celestial” marriages. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close MenuĬRANBROOK, British Columbia - Two former leaders of an isolated polygamous community in Canada were convicted Monday of practicing polygamy after a decades-long legal fight, setting up another potential court battle over the constitutionality of Canada’s polygamy laws. ![]()
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