Thursday, March 4, 2021 | 3:56 p.m.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah polygamist Tom Green, who spent six years in prison after being convicted of child rape in a case that garnered widespread attention, has died. He was 72.
Green died Sunday and is survived by three wives, 34 children and 54 grandchildren, according to an obituary posted by his family. No cause of death was given.
Before his trial, Green appeared with five wives on several national television shows, including “Jerry Springer” and “Dateline NBC,” to argue his lifestyle was a constitutional right.
The appearances proved to be his undoing, however, as he caught the attention of a prosecutor in Utah who charged him with bigamy in a rare use of a state law.
In 2001, Green was convicted of bigamy and criminal nonsupport involving the thousands of dollars in state payments made to support his children. The next year he was convicted of child rape for having sex with his first wife when she was 13 and he was in his 30s.
Green contended he was persecuted for his religious beliefs and singled out because he embarrassed The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Early members of the Utah-based faith that is widely known as the Mormon church practiced polygamy in the 1800s at the instruction of founder Joseph Smith, but the church disavowed it in 1890 and today condemns the practice.
A handful of splinter groups still practice plural marriage, with the most well-known being a community on the Utah-Arizona border known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS. It used to be run by Warren Jeffs, who is now serving a life sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting girls he considered brides.
Green said he didn't belong to any organized polygamous group, saying his beliefs were “original Mormonism.”
He was released from prison in 2007 and stayed out of the public spotlight until his death while living in the Salt Lake City area.
Prior to being sent to prison, Green and his wives lived in a trailer compound in the Utah desert near the Nevada border.
“His extensive family relished his love, gratitude, faith, joy, wisdom, and dedication to God and his religion,” the family wrote in the obituary. “Tom lived a rich and full life with his large family."
His death was first reported by FOX 13.
