Tom Green, 52, has been charged with four counts of bigamy and one count of failure to pay child support in a case that has put the spotlight on Utah where the taking of multiple wives was once a bedrock of an area settled by Mormons, but is now forbidden.

„Tom Green knows he was married and knows he is married and continues to cohabit with four other women and that he does so publicly, knowingly and without regard to Utah law,“ Leavitt, the Utah Governor, said after the day‘s session. On Wednesday, two of Green‘s five wives were quizzed about child welfare payments they received while living with him. „What did you do with the food stamps?“ Leavitt asked Shirley Beagley, 31, and the mother of six children. „To buy food,“ she snapped back. „I wouldn‘t have applied for food stamps if I wouldn‘t have needed them to buy food,“ she said, looking very upset. She also caused a minor drama in the courtroom when she tried to take the witness stand holding her severely handicapped child, a move the prosecutor called a „cheap trick seeking sympathy“ from the jury.

Children kept out of courtroom By prior arrangement, no children under nine were to be allowed in the courtroom. Some of the children — Green has fathered 29 in all — play and draw pictures outside the courtroom during the trial. Green maintains he practices polygamy as part of his religion, which should enjoy protection of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion. Beagley also told the court about the marriage to Green. „I entered into an eternal ceremony with Tom,“ she said. Asked if she considered herself married, Beagley responded, „Yes.“

Green argues that he is carrying out the original principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is formally known. The Utah-based church in the late 19th century banned the practice of taking plural wives and ex-communicates members who practice polygamy. However, the state has argued that Green marries and divorces very young women as part of a scheme that allows him to continue living with them while they collect welfare.

„Tom Geen has a duty to support his children. He‘s let that duty slide to the state and the state of Utah is owed a tremendous amount for supporting Tom Green‘s life style,“ Leavitt, the brother of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, said outside the courtroom.

Earlier in the day, an investigator who specializes in crimes within closed societies testified that Utah had paid $54,420 in child support to the Greens for a period covering August 1995 to June 1999.

Green was also charged with first-degree felony rape of a child for allegedly having sexual relations in 1986 with a 13-year-old girl, whom he married, an offense that carries a prison term of five years to life. No trial date has been set for the rape charge. REUTERS