JAIL FOR POLYGAMOUS COUPLE.
Former couple took girl to U.S. to marry leader
CRANBROOK, B.C. •Aformer husband and wife from the polygamous community of Bountiful, B.C., are going to jail for taking a 13-yearold girl into the United States to marry the now-imprisoned leader of their sect.
The girl’s 71-year-old father, Brandon Blackmore, was sentenced Friday to 12 months in jail, while his ex-wife, Gail Blackmore, was handed a term of seven months.
Both have been ordered to serve 18 months’ probation.
The pair were found guilty in February of the charge of taking a child under the age of 16 out of Canada for sexual purposes.
Both parents also must provide DNA samples. They will be placed on the sex offender registry for 10 years and must comply with a long list of conditions.
The ruling marks the first time a fundamentalist Mormon woman has been convicted and jailed for her role in the polygamous marriage of her under-aged daughter.
Their crime was delivering their daughter to Colorado City, Ariz., in February 2004 where she was married in a religious ceremony to Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Soon after her 14th birthday, Jeffs sexually touched her. The tape recording of that encounter formed part of the evidence.
Gail’s sentence stunned members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who were in the courtroom. One of her daughters ran out of the courtroom and was heard weeping in the hallway.
There was no such reaction to Brandon’s sentence, which was read out just before his former wife’s. Justice Paul Pearlman found that Brandon was more culpable because he initiated the removal after receiving a phone call from FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs and didn’t express any remorse for taking the girl to the United States to marry a man who was 49 years old at the time.
While Pearlman noted that fundamentalist Mormon girls are taught from birth that they must obey their fathers, husbands and the male priesthood authorities, it didn’t excuse Gail Blackmore’s actions.
She went with her husband and daughter across the border, went to an interview with Jeffs before the meeting and attended the marriage ceremony.
Beyond that, not only did she express no remorse when she was interviewed for the sentencing report, the judge said she was noncommittal when asked if she would aid in the removal of another child for the same purpose.
“I can’t talk about that,” she said. “I decline to provide any more information.”
The judge also took another unusual step.
He accepted the evidence of another of the Blackmore’s daughters who was 16 when she was whisked across the border and married a few months after her sister’s marriage at 13.
Instead of laying new charges and holding another trial, he found that to be an aggravating circumstance and based the pair’s sentences what they did to the second daughter as well.
Both daughters’ names are protected under a publication ban.
On Friday, the 13-year-old, who is now 24, was in court. She stood up as the judge was reading out her mother’s sentence and was told by sheriffs to sit down.
She rose again when the judge was finished and asked to speak. He initially seemed nonplussed, but then said: “In my view, it is not appropriate to hear from (her).”
Outside the court, the young woman was overheard saying that she had wanted to offer to serve both jail sentences for her parents.
In his reasons, the judge emphasized that deterrence was important and that sending the message to others that children must be protected was essential.
Brandon Seth Blackmore, who testified against his father and stepmother, said he hadn’t wanted to see his father jailed.
“It’s tough,” he said. “I don’t want see Dad go to jail, but ... I very much respect the law and I want to see it (what the FLDS is doing) stopped.”
Brandon Seth went on to say that had he and some of his brothers realized what was happening to his 13-yearold sister, “We would have gone and got her ourselves.”