PRINGLE, S.D. (AP) — A compound in South Dakota‘s Black Hills held by a secretive polygamous sect is for sale after the group defaulted on a $1.6 million loan, according to a local sheriff.
Court documents show the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ property near Pringle in Custer County is in foreclosure, KELO-TV reported.
In practicing polygamy, the FLDS sect is denounced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as of 1890 by then-Church President Wilford Woodruff in the 1890 Manifesto. Practicing polygamists are no longer considered members of the Salt Lake City-based faith but are apostates from the Church.
Seth Jeffs, who authorities have said led the FLDS compound in South Dakota, is the brother of Warren Jeffs, who is considered by the group to be a prophet who speaks for God. Warren Jeffs is serving a life sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered to be his brides.
In recent years, the group has lost hundreds of members and control of the sister cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, amid a major leadership void started by Warren Jeffs’ imprisonment.
Seth Jeffs took a plea deal in a multimillion-dollar food-stamp fraud case in 2016. His brother Lyle Jeffs was sentenced in 2017 to prison for his role in carrying out the scheme.
