Crown appeals acquittal of man charged in Bountiful polygamy case

B.C.’s criminal justice branch is appealing the acquittal of a man linked to the polygamous community of Bountiful for unlawfully taking a girl across the border for a sexual purpose in 2004.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Pearlman had ruled Feb. 3 that the estranged husband and wife, Brandon and Gail Blackmore, were guilty of the charge, but also ruled that James Marion Oler was not guilty of the same charge.

Pearlman said that the prosecution didn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Oler crossed the border with a 15-year-old girl who was later married to another member of the polygamous church. Oler was a one-time leader in Bountiful in southeastern B.C.

On Wednesday, however, the justice branch said that it would ask the B.C. Court of Appeal to set aside the not-guilty verdict because there were errors of law, and that “the public interest requires an appeal.”

The trial in Cranbrook last year heard about the polygamous beliefs and practices in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The three, who are or have been members of the church, are connected to the community of Bountiful, where the judge was told plural marriage was practised.

The charges against the Blackmores centred on records that show that the 13-year-old girl was married to Warren Jeffs, the church prophet now serving a life sentence in Texas. He was 48 years old when he married the girl.

Among other things, the justice branch — which is seeking a ruling that the acquittal be set aside, Oler be convicted of the original charge or a new trial — said Wednesday that Pearlman erred by saying that Oler “may not have been in Canada at the time of the commission of offence, despite the fact there was no evidence supporting this inference.”

The Blackmores will be sentenced April 13.

By   bmorton@postmedia.com

Source  vancouversun.com