Bigamy trial’s jury deliberating
Former FLDS leader accused of 3 felonies
By Matthew Waller, San Angelo Standard Times
Posted March 27, 2012 at 7:17 p.m., updated March 27, 2012 at 7:58 p.m.
MIDLAND — The jury is out in the bigamy trial of a former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
On Tuesday, the fifth day of the trial of Wendell Loy Nielsen, jurors were allowed to go home for the evening after about
45 minutes of deliberation.
Nielsen, 71, was a leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He is accused of three counts of felony bigamy, allegedly having married three women, two of them on the same day, in addition to his legal wife.
David Botsford, Nielsen’s Austin defense attorney, did not challenge the premise that “celestial marriages” did occur, but he told the jury those marriages cannot count as the kind of marriage required to violate Texas bigamy statutes.
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