Criminal trial against accused polygamist to begin

CRANBROOK — A decades-long legal battle culminates today with the start of a trial for a breakaway Mormon leader charged with polygamy.

Winston Blackmore of Bountiful is accused of having two dozen wives over a 25-year period. James Oler will face trial alongside Blackmore for allegedly marrying four women between 1993 and 2009.

None of the allegations has been proven in court and the case is being heard by judge alone.

Oler was appointed to lead Bountiful after Blackmore’s excommunication from the Mormon splinter group in 2002 by Warren Jeffs, head prophet of U.S.-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints.

Last week, Justice Sheri Ann Donegan of the B.C. Supreme Court dismissed a request from Blackmore’s lawyer, Blair Suffredine, to hold separate trials for Blackmore and Oler.

Donegan is expected to give her full reasons today.

The trial in Cranbrook is expected to last several weeks.

Suffredine said in an interview the question is not about the validity of Canada’s polygamy laws, but rather whether his client is entitled to an exemption for religious reasons. “If you went out and slept with 20 women and made kids with each one of them, but then ran away and didn’t pay for them, you would not have committed any crime,” he said. “But if you go through a ceremony where you promise to live with her or look after her and the children all your life, now you’ve committed a crime.”

Oler doesn’t have a lawyer for the trial. An adviser has been appointed to assist the court. —