GRAND MARAIS, Minn. — The imprisoned leader of a notorious polygamist sect fraudulently transferred $834,000 to his brother in an effort to hide the money from one of his victims.

That was the verdict reached Friday afternoon by a seven-member Cook County jury in a lawsuit brought against the fundamentalist Mormon leaders over a North Shore real estate transaction near Grand Marais several years ago.

The panel ruled in favor of Elissa Wall, who already holds a $10 million judgment against Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Wall says she has yet to collect a cent on the 2017 Utah judgment.

The plaintiff and her attorneys successfully argued that the convicted child sexual abuser funneled assets to his brother, Seth Jeffs, who, in turn, purchased and sold the Cook County property.

Wall, who at 14 was forced to marry her cousin, has spoken out about sexual, physical and emotional abuse suffered within the cult. She is now an author, speaker and advocate for others attempting to leave the FLDS.

“I am deeply grateful to the Cook County jury for their dedication to civic duty,” Wall said in a statement. “This verdict brings a measure of accountability in a long and difficult fight for justice. It marks an important step toward challenging the structures and schemes that have enabled abuse and control within the FLDS for far too long.”

Still, there is likely a long road ahead for Wall in her hopes of collecting funds from Seth Jeffs, 52, as post-trial motions and an appeal are expected.

“I think there are several appealable issues, and that’s what we plan on doing,” said Duluth attorney William Paul, who represents Seth Jeffs.

FILE – In this July 28, 2011 photo, Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs arrives at the Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo, Texas. An internal struggle for control of Jeffs’ polygamous church could soon be settled by Utah commerce officials. In April, William E. Jessop filed papers with the state ousting Jeffs as president of the corporations that comprise the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011 is the deadline set by the Utah Department of Commerce for the sides to provide a resolution, or a court order settling the dispute. Jeffs has led the church since 2002. He’s currently on trial in Texas on sexual assault charges. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

The lawsuit, filed nearly two years ago, stemmed from Seth Jeffs’ controversial purchase and sale of a 40-acre property. Plans to build on the site never materialized, but his presence in the remote community attracted significant public outcry.

Jeffs and his attorney argued he received the funds from the construction work he did through his company, Emerald Industries, primarily at a cabin in Lutsen.

Warren Jeffs, 69, is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison. However, he reportedly continues to exert control over the cult.

Wall said the cult operates “almost exclusively in cash transactions” and that Seth Jeffs “acts as a conduit for funds from Warren Jeffs and his agents.” She claimed Emerald is one of many shell companies that make up a “loosely knit, shadow organization” controlled by Warren Jeffs after FLDS lost control of its financial arm due to a series of lawsuits.

Warren Jeffs was served with the lawsuit in prison but never responded and was ruled in default.

Paul, the attorney for Seth Jeffs, had called the case “weak and frivolous” and said Wall had not provided “a scintilla of evidence” that Warren Jeffs had anything to do with the Cook County transaction. Among other evidence, he cited a $62,000 check Seth Jeffs received for work at the Lutsen property shortly before buying the land for $54,000.

But Wall’s attorneys, Richard Furlong and Tyson Smith, noted Seth Jeffs acknowledged not having a paying job from 2007 to 2016, with any bills covered by the cult, and pointed to old ledgers that showed cash transfers to him.

Private investigator Sam Brower, who has spent 20 years tracking the Jeffs brothers and the FLDS, also alleged that Seth Jeffs is a “trusted courier” for the cult and that leaders were directed to acquire properties around the country as “places of refuge.”

Seth Jeffs sold the Cook County property for $130,000 in July 2023 — just hours before Wall obtained an emergency order from the court in an attempt to prevent the sale. About $60,000 has remained frozen in his bank account pending resolution of the lawsuit.

The FLDS, which has its largest base at the Utah-Arizona border, is well-known for its polygamy — a practice that was abandoned by the mainstream Mormon church in 1890.

FLDS entered the national spotlight two decades ago after a series of allegations were made against Warren, who was charged with several crimes, including Wall’s arranged marriage.

While his Utah conviction was later overturned by a higher court, he was successfully tried in Texas for raping two girls, 15 and 12, and handed a life term plus 20 years.

Seth Jeffs, too, has faced legal troubles, pleading guilty in 2006 to harboring his brother, who was then on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted,” and admitting to his role in a massive food stamp fraud while leading an FLDS compound in South Dakota in 2016.

Wall authored a book, “Stolen Innocence,” about her experience, and the cult has been featured in recent documentary miniseries on Peacock, Netflix and Discovery+.

Seth Jeffs testified pretrial that he had no contact with his brother from 2016 until 2023, when he started writing monthly letters to him in prison. He said he never received a response, but does continue to follow his prophet brother’s “revelations.”

The jury found Warren Jeffs liable for transferring $250,000 worth of assets to Seth Jeffs and $584,000 to Emerald. Both were done with “actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud” Wall, the panel concluded.

“There is still much work ahead to dismantle the grip of FLDS and Warren Jeffs,” Wall said, “but I will keep shining light in dark places and standing with those still finding their voice and the freedom to live life on their own terms.”

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By NICHOLAS RICCARDI

Immigration and administration lawyers on Monday battled over whether President Donald Trump can use an 18th century wartime act against a Venezuelan gang in a case that is likely to ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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The attorneys sparred before a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the latest step in a tangled legal battle over Trump’s March invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 against the Tren de Aragua gang.

The law has only previously been used during World Wars I and II and the War of 1812. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt told the three-judge panel that Trump’s use of it is inappropriate. “This has only been invoked three times in major, major wars, and now it’s being invoked in connection with a gang,” Gelernt said.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign, arguing for the administration, said that courts cannot second-guess a president’s determination that the U.S. faces a threat from abroad and requires extraordinary measures to protect itself. He noted that the only time the high court weighed in on the act was in a case that dates from after fighting in Europe ended in World War II, when the court said it could not second-guess then-President Harry Truman’s assertion that suspected Nazis should still be held under the act because the war was still continuing.

“The president is due the utmost deference” in matters of foreign affairs and security, Ensign said.

Trump’s invocation has already been twice before the nation’s highest court on more technical issues. First, the court found that those accused of being TdA members deserved a “reasonable” amount of time to challenge that designation in court, but that their deportations could only be challenged in the locations they were held. That eliminated a national bar against deportations under the act issued by a federal judge in Washington, who later found the administration possibly committed contempt when it disregarded his orders and continued to fly some held under the AEA to a prison in El Salvador.

Then, after the ACLU and its allies began filing suits all around the country and winning rulings barring deportations under the measure, the high court stepped in a second time. In April it issued an unusual post-midnight ruling stopping the administration from deporting people from a slice of north Texas where there was yet no active ruling against removal.

As multiple lower court judges found the AEA couldn’t be used against a gang, the high court directed the 5th Circuit to consider the issue and how much time those held should have to challenge their designation.

The government, which initially provided minimal notice, now says the standard should be seven days to file an appeal. The ACLU argued for 30 days, the amount of time given to suspected Nazis held during World War II.

The panel that heard Monday’s arguments was comprised of one judge appointed by Trump, one by former President George W. Bush and one by Biden. Whatever it rules can be appealed to either the entire 5th circuit — one of the most conservative federal appeals courts in the country — or directly to the high court.

Trump has argued that TdA is acting at the behest of Venezuela’s government. The Act allows its use to combat either an “invasion” or a “predatory incursion.”

But the ACLU argues that the connection between the gang and the Venezuelan government is tangential at best, and that an assessment by 17 different intelligence agencies found little coordination between TdA and the government in Caracas. Gelernt contended that, by the standards laid out by the administration, the AEA could have been used against the mafia or any other criminal organization with tangential ties to other countries that has operated in the United States over the past 200 years.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday questioned when the Trump administration will try to enforce its birthright citizenship executive order and asked if the government would attempt to deport U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally or temporarily before restrictions on birthright citizenship might take effect in late July.

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Justice Department attorney Brad Rosenberg told U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman that the administration doesn’t intend to deport any children covered by President Donald Trump’s executive while the Supreme Court has suspended its enforcement for 30 days. He called it a “hypothetical” question.

The judge gave Rosenberg until Tuesday to submit a written summary of what the administration believes it “can and can’t do” after last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling. She asked if the government would be “seeking to deport babies” before July 26. The judge said her question referred to children who were born after Feb. 19 and are covered by Trump’s executive order but aren’t plaintiffs in litigation challenging the order.

“No,” Rosenberg said. “I just want to be clear. I am responding to the court’s characterization of what it believes the United States might do after 30 days from the date of the Supreme Court’s decision. But, again, I would note that (federal agencies) have all been tasked with developing guidelines for implementation of the executive order. So I view that as a hypothetical.”

“I take the government at its word that the United States does not intend to do that and it is not doing that,” Boardman said.

Plaintiffs’ attorney William Powell said their clients are experiencing “incredible stress, anxiety and fear” after the Supreme Court’s decision.

“They’re not lawyers. It is confusing to them exactly what these things mean,” Powell told the judge. “We can’t really assure them, ‘Oh, no, the order is fully blocked,’ because it’s not.”

Powell said deportation isn’t the only “irreparable harm” that plaintiffs’ attorneys are concerned about.

“We’re obviously also concerned about other potential ways in which the (executive) order could be enforced to deprive newborns of potential rights,” he said.

Boardman, who sits in Greenbelt, Maryland, isn’t the only district court judge grappling with how to tailor their orders to comply with the Supreme Court decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Judges in Massachusetts and Washington state have issued a a separate orders on birthright citizenship, as has a judge in New Hampshire, though that order applied more narrowly and wasn’t nationwide.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, who along with other states and cities brought a case in Massachusetts federal court, said in a letter Monday he was seeking a hearing on whether a nationwide order blocking the president is warranted. Platkin said the nationwide injunction in New Jersey’s case doesn’t run afoul of the Supreme Court’s recent opinion but added the high court offered “alternative forms of relief” while leaving debate over what those could be to lower courts.

The high court’s majority ruled that federal judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, but the decision left unclear whether Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship could soon take effect in parts of the country.

Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship is applied.

Trump and his supporters have argued that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen.

Associated Press writers Mark Sherman and Mike Catalini contributed to this report.

“Food and housing are absolutely related,” NYC Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Wasow Park tells City Limits. “When people are in a choice between paying for food or paying rent, people are going to naturally choose food. That’s going to put enormous pressure on the affordable housing sector.”

(Photo by Adi Talwar)

This Fourth of July, nearly 3 million New York City residents could find out if they’ll lose access to—or see fewer of—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits that keep food on their tables.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate have been trading notes and edits on Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” a budget reconciliation measure targeting, among other things, the nation’s largest food assistance program. The president has pressed lawmakers to pass it before Independence Day. 

Food stamps have always been primarily funded by the federal government through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But for the first time in history, Republicans want to shift those costs onto states. If approved, the bill would force New York to shoulder $2.1 billion in SNAP-related costs. 

Along with substantial cuts, Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” would impose stricter work requirements on many individuals receiving benefits. For some recipients, failure to record 80 hours of work a month could result in their benefits being revoked, and prohibit them from receiving SNAP for three years. The bill also seeks to lower the age threshold for dependents when it comes to exempting their caregivers from work requirements.

“The One Big Beautiful Bill promotes work, responsibility, and restores SNAP to serve the truly needy,” the White House said this week in defense of the plans.

But the stricter requirements overlook individuals in the gig economy, parents who have caregiving responsibilities, or people living with disabilities, advocates say.

To find out more on the potential impact of the proposal locally, City Limits hopped on a call with the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services, Molly Wasow Park. 

With 1.8 million New Yorkers relying on SNAP—including over 560,000 children and 530,000 older adults—what is the realistic impact of $30 billion in cuts over 10 years on our city’s hunger, health, and housing systems?

Commissioner Molly Wasow Park: I’m deeply worried about what’s going on with SNAP. Both the House and the Senate are looking at very substantial push downs of costs from the federal to the state level. While that doesn’t officially change SNAP eligibility, and SNAP remains an entitlement program, $2 billion could be pushed down to the state. We are going to have to be looking at, what are the major discretionary programs? Where can we move dollars around? And frankly there are terrible options when you’re talking about that. 

Food and housing are absolutely related. When people are in a choice between paying for food or paying rent, people are going to naturally choose food. That’s going to put enormous pressure on the affordable housing sector. We’re absolutely looking at the possibility of increased homelessness and housing instability. 

The other major SNAP change under consideration that is concerning is the changes to the rules for able-bodied adults without dependents. This is a universe of people for whom the most stringent version of work requirements apply—they must be working or they can’t get SNAP. And if they aren’t working, there’s a three month grace period, and they’re locked out for 36 months. 

One of the things that’s really important to understand is that it isn’t sufficient to be working to meet work requirements. You have to have consistent and well-documented work hours to meet work requirements. If you work in the gig economy or you work shifts, that is very difficult to do. 

I was down in Washington, we were at a Senate hearing on SNAP, and one of the people testifying was a health attendant. Her client went into the hospital for a week and she didn’t have any hours that week. So all of a sudden she’s at risk of losing her SNAP benefits. And it’s not just for her, she also had a child. 

I think many people hear work requirements and say, ‘Okay, that’s reasonable, we want to encourage employment,’ but it’s actually designed to be punitive. Both the House and the Senate are scoring reductions based on work requirements, which means they don’t anticipate that people are going to be able to meet them.

Given the high cost of living in New York City, do you believe the current SNAP maximum of $32 a day for a family of four is sufficient? How would further cuts impact lower income families, who seem to be struggling to get by already?

$32 a day actually sounds much higher than what it actually is. SNAP is a baseline funding program. It’s right there in the name, “supplemental,” it’s not intended to take care of everybody’s nutrition needs. It’s a critically important program, but nobody’s riding high off of SNAP. It’s really important to put the cuts that are being contemplated in the context of other topics on the table.

If we think about food, healthcare and housing as people’s baseline needs, all three of those are under assault. There are enormous changes proposed to Medicaid. What is being contemplated is adding work requirements, certification requirements and limiting access to the Affordable Care Act for legal immigrants. Really significant changes that will take primary health care away from people and drive people towards the emergency rooms. 

A shopper uses their EBT benefits at a grocery store. (Flickr/USDA)

They’re also talking about more than 40 percent cuts to Section 8 and to public housing. If you think about a low income household where food, shelter and health care are probably major expenses, and you’re squeezing all of those at one time, you’re going to see enormous ripple effects.

Would these work requirements be putting older adults or people with disabilities to work?

There is language around exemptions for people with disabilities. There’s going to be regulation about how to interpret all of this. It is easy to think about disability using a relatively static criterion. If somebody’s bedridden, they are disabled and they’re going to get disability exemption. But for the person who struggles with something that is episodic or somebody who has surgery and can’t work for three months and maybe loses their job or loses hours, how do you document that? And when you were in that moment of crisis, how do you also deal with the documentation? 

There are people who are going to lose benefits because of the challenges of being able to meet the compliance standards. In New York City we’ve really tried to do a lot to make our programs as user friendly as possible. You apply, recertify and interview online. 90 percent of what we’re doing is done remotely. We try, but there are standards that we must adhere to around what counts as documentation of that disability, and I do worry that people are going to fall off because of the extra barriers that have been put in place.

The bill lowers the age limit for dependent children when considering work exemptions for caregivers. What do you think would be the potential effects of a parent having to leave their school-aged child to go to work, or that parent losing SNAP benefits because they don’t comply with the new work requirements due to caregiving responsibilities? 

It’s a huge issue. This is a place where the House and the Senate are in different places, so we’ll have to see how that plays out. You can’t leave your 8-year-old home alone, and childcare is expensive. A school-age child is actually not in school all that much, there’s long stretches of summer vacation, and school ends at 2:30. So I do think there will absolutely be people who lose benefits because of their caregiving responsibilities. And the person who’s really going to suffer in that instance is the child.

How would removing benefits from lawfully present immigrants affect NYC’s status as a sanctuary city, and its ability to protect vulnerable immigrant populations (survivors of domestic violence, sex trafficking and forced labor)?

You have to have been in the country legally for five years before you’re eligible for SNAP under current regulation—so this idea that immigrants are costing millions of dollars in emergency food aid is not true. Speaking as the Department of Social Services, we take our responsibility to serve all of those in need very seriously, and that includes immigrants. If all of this goes through, we’re going to see a real strain on other parts of the social safety net. Whether that means emergency food pantries who are already over capacity or the shelter system. 

Why do you think these cuts are being proposed? Where does the GOP want to allocate this money?

I think it’s pretty transparent that there’s a desire to do extensive tax cuts that primarily benefit the most wealthy, and in order to make those cuts possible there’s an attack on the social safety nets. There’s concerns that the social safety net is too expansive.

How is the DSS preparing to handle these cuts if they’re approved?

We’re thinking very hard about contingency planning. We’re really focusing on our core values as a city and as an agency. The scale of the cuts are so large that we certainly can’t expect the city or the state to fill them, so there’s going to be really tough choices ahead of us.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Marianad@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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