Nearly three years after Canada’s polygamy law was ruled to be constitutional, charges were laid Wednesday against four people from the Kootenay polygamous community of Bountiful.

Canada’s most notorious polygamist, Winston Blackmore, was charged with one count of polygamy. Listed in the indictment against the former bishop are the names of 24 women who were in “a form of polygamy or practised a kind of conjugal union.”

Among the women listed, 10 were under the age of 18. However, special prosecutor Peter Wilson did not approve any criminal charges for sexual exploitation.

“(Wilson) did so after determining that the standard for approving charges, set out in branch policy, was not met in relation to these offences,” according to a news release Wednesday by the Criminal Justice branch of the Attorney General’s Ministry.

James Marion Oler was charged with one count of polygamy and one of child sex trafficking, in June 2004, for allegedly taking a person under the age of 16 out of Canada to facilitate sexual interference or sexual touching.

Oler, Blackmore’s brother-in-law, succeeded Blackmore as bishop of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after Blackmore was excommunicated.

Blackmore’s brother, Brandon Blackmore and Brandon’s wife, Emily Ruth Gail Crossfield, are also charged with child sex trafficking, which is alleged to have taken place in February 2004.

The maximum penalty for both offences — polygamy and unlawful removal — is up to five years in prison.

All four are expected to make their first appearance on the charges on Oct. 9 in Creston provincial court.

The charges come more than two and a half years after special prosecutor Peter Wilson was appointed and more than a year after Wilson asked RCMP to gather more evidence.

His appointment came only after a lengthy constitutional reference case brought by the B.C. attorney general that concluded the polygamy section of the Criminal Code did not contravene the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Audrey Vance, a longtime activist from Creston, was surprised that charges had finally been laid — more than 60 years after the Blackmore and Oler families arrived in the Creston Valley and began to practise polygamy as self-styled fundamentalist Mormons.

“I didn’t think this would happen in my lifetime, to be honest,” Vance said. “I really hadn’t been too optimistic.”

Another longtime activist, Jancis Andrews, was also pleased that some charges had been laid. But she questioned why there weren’t more against Winston Blackmore, who has on a number of occasions admitted to having “married” girls as young as 15.

His most recent admission was in March during a deposition under oath for a civil case in Utah. Under questioning, Blackmore said that 10 of his 22 wives had been under the age of 18. But he insisted, “I never touched anybody before they were 16 … I never had any conjugal relationship. I mean I held a hand, but I would not touch anybody before they were [16].”

The Utah attorney general’s office has confirmed that its investigation launched after Blackmore’s deposition is continuing.

The charges of unlawful removal of a child against Oler, Brandon Blackmore and Crossfield are based on information that was used in the Texas trial of FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs, including his diaries and church marriage records.

Jeffs was convicted of two counts of child sexual assault involving a 12-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl, while seven other FLDS men were convicted of other charges related to sex with under-aged girls.

Some of the evidence from that Texas trial was submitted to the constitutional reference case in B.C. That evidence listed 31 girls aged 12 to 17, who over a 10-year period were alleged to have been transported by their parents between Canada and the United States for religious marriages.

In the diaries, Jeffs detailed how some Bountiful men snuck their often unsuspecting daughters and sisters into the U.S. for arranged marriages and how many of the men returned with teenage American brides — with no consideration of either country’s immigration laws.

According to documents filed by the B.C. attorney-general in the reference case, Oler allegedly delivered his two underage sisters to Jeffs in 2004.

And, in 2005, minutes after witnessing the marriage of his 15-year-old daughter in Nevada, the 41-year-old Oler collected a 15-year-old bride of his own and took her home to Bountiful.

The Attorney General’s Ministry also filed documents confirming that a 13-year-old girl and two 12-year-olds from Bountiful became Jeffs’s brides after their parents — including Brandon Blackmore and Crossfield — delivered them to him in 2004 and 2005.

This is the second time that Blackmore and Oler have been charged with one count each of polygamy. In 2009, both were arrested and charged. But those charges were dropped because a judge ruled that the special prosecutor in the case had been improperly hired.

Back in 1991, after a 13-month investigation, the RCMP recommended charges against Blackmore and Oler’s father, Dalmon. But no charges were laid because the Attorney General’s Ministry had legal opinion suggesting that the polygamy law was unconstitutional.

dbramham@vancouversun.com

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