Girl’s Courage Is Praised in Utah Incest Case

PHOENIX —  Prosecutors in Utah on Wednesday praised the bravery of a teenage girl who came forward to testify of having been forced to marry her uncle, becoming his 15th wife. The case in Salt Lake City is being viewed as a rare opportunity to prosecute an alleged polygamist in a state where the practice of multiple marriages is all but legally ignored.

David Ortell Kingston has been charged with two counts of incest and one count of sexual conduct with a minor, both third-degree felonies. Kingston, 32, turned himself in and posted bond Tuesday afternoon, and is expected to be arraigned today.

The girl, who turned 17 this week, is being held in protective custody at an undisclosed location. She told authorities that her father forced her into the marriage last year. Among Kingston’s other purported wives are a half sister and another niece.

The girl’s father, John Daniel Kingston, 43, is awaiting trial in rural Box Elder County for felony child abuse after allegedly beating his daughter after she ran away from David Kingston.

Bud Ellett, chief deputy district attorney in Salt Lake City, said it took immense courage for the girl to break a code of silence.

“I’ve been practicing law in the state of Utah for 45 years and I can’t get people to testify in a civil case regarding polygamy, let alone a criminal case,” he said. “The code of silence is too strong. There are repercussions.”

The case comes at a time when the sensitive issue is being newly debated in Utah. Gov. Mike Leavitt, himself a descendant of polygamists, came under fire recently for suggesting that plural marriage may be constitutionally protected as a form of religious expression.

A group of women who have left plural marriages, known as Tapestry of Polygamy, called on Leavitt to either enforce the bigamy laws or get them off the books.

According to county prosecutor Jon Bunderson, John Daniel Kingston allegedly drove his daughter to a remote family ranch early on May 23 and beat her with a belt as punishment for running away from her marriage for the second time.

The girl--who had deep bruises and welts on her body--walked two miles along a dirt road to a gas station and called 911, Bunderson said.

The Kingstons are part of a large and prominent family that reportedly runs a $150-million business empire that spans Utah and Nevada. The men’s father, John Ortell Kingston, left his $70-million estate to the Mormon church.

Utah outlawed polygamy more than a century ago as a condition of statehood. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints formally forbade the practice in 1890. But some estimates put the number of polygamists in the state in the tens of thousands and many say the bigamy law is Utah’s least-enforced statute. No one has been prosecuted for polygamy in Utah in more than 40 years.