Reid wants task force

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid said Friday he plans to revive a bill that would crack down on polygamy-related crimes and help people seeking to leave polygamist communities.

Reid, D-Nev., said he planned to discuss the issue with Attorney General Eric Holder. While it has not been at the top of his agenda this year, Reid said there is an "obligation" to pursue it.

"I personally believe these people who are doing this, many of them are doing things that are immoral and in many instances illegal," Reid said of polygamist groups.

"There is a lot of welfare fraud that goes on. There is a lot of domestic abuse that goes on. We have an obligation to help these women and children who are being victimized."

The Senate majority leader said he was "ignored by the Bush folks" when he pushed a polygamy crime bill last year.

"Nobody seems to be concerned about (bigamy), but it is against the law in every state," he said.

Reid last year sponsored a bill to establish a federal task force on polygamy-related crimes.

The bill also would have made grants available to local law enforcement agencies, and to social service organizations that help members who flee polygamist groups, sometimes with little more than the clothes on their backs.

The idea of a federal task force drew mixed reaction. It was welcomed by state authorities who said they have been frustrated when investigative targets move freely around the country.

But others questioned whether such a high-profile approach might scare off tipsters and cooperating witnesses in difficult investigations.

While there are a handful of polygamous sects, most attention has been focused on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is based in the adjoining towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

Church leaders have been accused of strong-arming their followers, controlling their finances and forcing young girls into sex and marriage.

Church leader Warren Jeffs was convicted in September 2007 of two counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in arranging marriages between his male followers and underage girls. He was sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.

At a packed Senate Judiciary Committee meeting in July, Reid testified polygamist sects use the cloak of religion to carry out misdeeds. He described them as "a form of organized crime," largely unchecked by authorities.

Reid's role in the issue drew even more attention since he is the most powerful Mormon church member in Washington.

Reid has said his actions are motivated by his personal faith, and not at the behest of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which takes pains to distance itself from such sects.

Spokesmen for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have said Reid is trying to demonize their entire religion for the crimes of a few.

One church officials told the Salt Lake Tribune that new threats of a crackdown were an abuse of power.

Reid "needs to stop using his religion to abuse another religion," spokesman Willie Jessop said in a story posted Friday on the newspaper's Web site.

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@ stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.