Investigation Links Phaze Construction to FLDS Church Funding in Colorado City, Arizona

A construction company operating across the Southwest, including in Nevada, is a major backer of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to a new investigation by the Salt Lake Tribune. The FLDS Church is based in Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. The Tribune’s investigation also says the company underpays its employees, many of whom are teenagers.

The FLDS Church is a conservative offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It teaches that polygamy is central to spiritual life. The church’s current prophet, Warren Jeffs, is serving a sentence of life plus 20 years in prison after taking multiple underage girls as brides.

Nate Carlisle of the Salt Lake Tribune investigated the connection and wrote the story. Carlisle told KNPR’s State of Nevada that for years there had been questions about how the FLDS Church made its money, and that Phaze Construction had been part of that discussion. He said he spent seven months investigating, finding former employees and business records for the company, which had merged with Jack Daniel’s Construction.

According to Carlisle’s article, at one point the head of Phaze Construction was donating $100,000 a month to the church in Texas, where Jeffs committed the crimes for which he is imprisoned. “They weren’t hiding it but they weren’t promoting it either,” Carlisle said. “Based on the interviews and the records I’ve seen it looks like it’s tough to separate the two.”

Phaze has never been charged with a crime and has been cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration only for minor safety violations. Carlisle said the company maintains that it does not break any laws. “They don’t necessarily deny some of the more specific questions but they’re very adamant that they don’t break any laws,” he said.

One former employee told Carlisle that he worked for the company as a teenager, sometimes for 13 hours a day. He said the company took half of his paycheck and sent it directly to the FLDS Church, the reporter said. Carlisle said he was not sure whether regulators had examined those specific allegations, but that the U.S. Department of Labor had investigated the company for possibly violating child labor laws and had not been able to substantiate the claims. “It always comes down to witnesses and documentation and that’s very tough to find in the FLDS,” Carlisle said. Protecting young workers from exploitation is a concern the record here puts squarely before the public (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Carlisle said many employees who were paid very low wages, or who had their paychecks diverted to the church, agreed to it because they believed the money was being used to build up the priesthood, which they consider God’s authority on earth. “They believe their salvation is tied to holding the priesthood and Warren Jeffs and his brothers have the power to take away that salvation,” Carlisle said. Employees also did not want to lose their families, and the FLDS Church has a reputation for expelling men and teenage boys.

Source: Read the original report