SALT LAKE CITY — In a new court filing, lawyers for Fundamentalist LDS Church bishop Lyle Jeffs and others charged in a massive welfare fraud scheme indicate they will push forward with claims of a religious right to hand over food stamps to the polygamous church.
Defense lawyers said they just need more time to articulate their arguments, pointing out there are 42 terabytes of data the federal government claims it has as evidence against the 11 FLDS members charged in the food stamp fraud case. So far, the defense said it has received maybe 10 percent of the overall discovery materials it is entitled to.
“The questions of whether or not the defense should be entitled to present a constitutional challenge to the statutes and regulations cited by the government or whether facts or arguments relating to the religious practices of the defendants will be relevant at trial in this matter cannot be considered in a vacuum. Such questions are intrinsically connected to the facts of the case, which have yet to be fully disclosed by the government or explored by the defense,” Jeffs’ defense attorney Kathryn Nester wrote in a motion obtained by FOX 13.
Federal prosecutors charged 11 people, including FLDS leaders Lyle Jeffs and Seth Jeffs (brothers to imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs). They are accused of ordering FLDS members on Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to hand over their benefits to church leaders to do with as they wished. Prosecutors have claimed the scheme bilked taxpayers out of more than $12 million.