Dale Barlow expected to take stand at FLDS-related trial
 
Dave Hawkins, Special to the Standard-Times
San Angelo Standard-Times
 
Dale Barlow, who was the target of the bogus allegations upon which the Texas YFZ search was based, was the only Arizona witness expected to testify in the suppression hearing that started Wednesday morning in San Angelo.

Barlow, 51, is a resident of Colorado City, the northern Arizona community that, along with neighboring Hildale, in southern Utah, is where the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is based.

Late Tuesday, Barlow appeared before Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steve Conn in Kingman, Ariz. Barlow told the court he had no objection and would cooperate with the subpoena to appear as a witness in the Texas suppression hearing at the Tom Green County courthouse.

Barlow remains on probation for an Arizona sex offense conviction, but Conn waived an out-of-state travel prohibition to let Barlow attend the proceedings in San Angelo.

Barlow pleaded guilty in August 2007 to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith said Barlow was legally married to another woman when he engaged in sexual relations with an underage girl who was assigned to him as a "spiritual wife" as part of the FLDS polygamous practice and custom.

Smith said the girl was 16 or 17 years old and could not legally consent to sexual relations when she and Barlow conceived a child together. Barlow was sentenced to three years’ probation and 45 days in county jail.

Barlow’s trip to Texas was likely an exhausting odyssey. He made a five-hour drive to his Mohave County Superior Court appearance Tuesday, then had to drive two hours to Las Vegas, Nev., where he was to catch a flight to Dallas, then to San Angelo.

Smith said Arizona authorities will watch the San Angelo hearings with interest because the outcome will affect a case against 52-year-old Warren Jeffs, the FLDS spiritual leader who is now in prison and facing further prosecution.

Jeff’s defense attorney, Michael Piccarreta, filed a motion in September to suppress any evidence from the YFZ raid and prevent its introduction and use in Jeffs’ legal proceedings in Arizona. Piccarreta has alleged that the Texas raid and search were illegal and that nothing gathered as evidence at the YFZ ranch can be used against Jeffs in Arizona.

Smith said the question will be moot if the suppression motion is granted in Texas.

Otherwise, Smith said, litigation of the suppression matter will be the next significant event in Arizona pretrial proceedings for Jeffs. The FLDS prophet is charged in Arizona with two counts each of sexual conduct with a minor for separate instances in which he allegedly arranged spiritual unions resulting in illegal sex between two underage girls and their male adult relatives.

One of those relationships resulted in convictions of Jeffs in Utah on rape-as-an-accomplice charges, for which he was sentenced to five years to life in prison.
 
gosanangelo.com
Originally published Wednesday, May 13, 2009
 
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