Pentagon paid $1.7 million to firms of polygamy bosses

[stefan]

Pentagon paid $1.7 million to firms of polygamy bosses
By Randi Kaye
CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The U.S. government paid more than $1.7 million in defense contracts over the last decade to companies owned by leaders of Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect -- with tens of thousands allegedly winding its way back to Jeffs and his church.

The Pentagon had contracts with three companies with ties to Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect.

In fact, some of the deals were made after Jeffs was named to the FBI's "Most-Wanted List" and remained in place while he was on the run.

CNN has learned that between 1998 and 2007 the United States Air Force and Defense Logistics Agency purchased more than $1.7 million worth of airplane parts from three companies owned by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which practices polygamy.

Those companies are Utah Tool and Die, Western Precision and NewEra Manufacturing. Today, the companies all operate under the name NewEra Manufacturing, a company based in Las Vegas, Nevada, that says it supplies precision components "for the aerospace, military, medical, recreational and other commercial entities."

"It was my understanding that Western Precision was paying roughly $50,000 a week into the coffers of the church," former sect member Richard Holm told CNN. "It would have been close to $200,000 a month."

Holm said he helped build Western Precision.

A court affidavit signed by a man whose father was the president of Western Precision makes similar allegations.

"During 2003, the amount being sent to the storehouse and the FLDS was around $100,000 per month," said John Nielsen in the October 26, 2005, affidavit. "I have personal knowledge that checks sent to the FLDS Church/Warren Jeffs by [Western Precision] are payable to the FLDS Church and/or Warren Jeffs."

Private investigator Sam Brower, who monitors the sect, said money earned through business dealings with the U.S. government was used to build Jeffs' compounds around the country, including the one recently raided in El Dorado, Texas.

More than 400 children, including teenage girls, were removed from that ranch amid claims of child abuse and forced marriage and motherhood. Video Watch a mom plead: 'We need our children'

[denaliguide]

so what? one has nothing to do with the other.

[Sombeech]

It was for all the wives to come and clean the offices.

[DiscGo]

If the Government were to enforce a program that said you have to obey the laws to receive government contracts, there would be very few componenten businesses left.