BREAKING NEWS

photo courtesty Jerel Harris
The Spectrum

Law enforcement officers and officials from the Arizona Attorney General’s office descended Tuesday on the Colorado City, AZ, where they served a search warrant on the offices of the Colorado City Unified School District. The lawmen spent the better part of the day carrying out boxes of records and impounding the school’s computers, which were then loaded into a large U-haul truck parked near the school.
School Superintendent Alvin Barlow and administrators Oliver Barlow and Jeffery Jessop stood outside the administration building and watched helplessly as the school’s records were rounded up and carted away.

The C-City Unified School District has been under intense scrutiny in recent months, prompted in large part by the investigative reporting of John Dougherty of the Phoenix New Times, who uncovered evidence of mismanagement within the district.

All of the members of the CCUSD school board and administration are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamous sect that broke away from the mainstream Mormon Church more than a century ago. Most of the school’s support staff, many of whom are reported to earn more than the district’s certified teachers, are also members of the FLDS Church. The school even lists a chef on its staff. On the other hand, few of the school’s teachers are FLDS members.

Strangely, the group that runs the school does not send their children to school there. Most, if not all, FLDS children were removed from the school by their parents, reportedly on order from FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs.

Dougherty, whose investigative reports for the New Times attracted the attention of Arizona lawmakers, alleges that CCUSD funds are funneled from the school to FLDS leaders. Recently Arizona legislators enacted a law that will allow the state to step in and take over the district, a move that was not expected until August.

But the Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard’s action on Tuesday will serve to protect the district’s records until such time as a state receiver can be appointed.

Goddard released a statement late in the day in which he advised that a criminal search warrant had been served on the school and that boxes of financial records, other documents and computer equipment had been taken into custody.

“For the past two years, my office has been investigating reports of possible financial mismanagement in the Colorado City School District,” Attorney General Terry Goddard said. “We executed the search warrant today in an effort to be sure the records are not at risk of being destroyed, removed or altered if the district is placed in receivership and to help determine if any wrongdoing has occurred.”

The search warrant and its related documents are sealed by the Superior Court and remain confidential.

Goddard noted that his office is preparing a petition to present to the State Board of Education to put the school district in receivership. The Arizona State Legislature recently passed a law allowing the board to place school districts in receivership if they are being financially mismanaged. The new law will take effect Aug. 12, 2005.

News of the raid reached Eldorado mid afternoon on Tuesday (about noon Arizona time) and contact was made with Gary Engels, special investigator for the Mohave County Arizona District Attorney’s office, who confirmed that a warrant was being served.

While Engels declined to provide specific details about the warrant, his confirmation matched reports from other sources in Colorado City, prompting the Success to post the first news of the raid on its Internet website.

Action in Arizona is of interest here in Texas since the school system is controlled by the Fundamentalist Chruch of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the group that is actively building a new community on the outskirts of Eldorado.