Polygamist who courted publicity sentenced to five years in prison

A Utah judge sentenced a man with 30 children and five wives to five years in prison as punishment for committing serial bigamy as well as failing to support his family.

The sentencing marked the climax of the most important polygamy trial America has seen in 50 years.

About 30,000 people, almost all of them fundamentalist Mormons, are believed to be practising bigamy in the western United States. The majority of these live in remote corners of Utah.

Tom Green, 53, was among the most well known. He frequently appeared on television shows in America to explain his unusual lifestyle. He has been on the Sally Jessy Raphael and Queen Latifah shows. But his eagerness to court popularity eventually brought him down.

The fate of Green suggests that Utah, as it prepares for next year's Winter Olympic Games, is no longer willing to turn a blind eye to the polygamists. Prosecutors have also charged Green with rape because one of his wives was aged only 13 when she conceived her first child with him. He has yet to be tried on that charge.

Green, who said he had been unfairly singled out, has described himself as an "original" Mormon. The church used to encourage polygamy but it disowned the practice in the late 1800s and excommunicates members who practise it. Utah outlawed it at the same time as it sought admission to the Union.

The last time Utah tried to crack down on plural marriages was in 1954, when police staged a disastrous raid on a polygamous community on the Arizona state line. Film footage taken of the raid showed women and children fleeing their homes, which shocked people in the state.

Judge Guy Burningham gave Green five concurrent five-year jail sentences and ordered that he repay $78,000 (£54,000) to the state welfare department. Green's lawyers said they planned to appeal.