Charges dropped against polygamous sect doctor - wherever he is
The Salt Lake Tribune/October 9, 2014
By Nate Carlisle
It seems one defendant from the 2008 raid on the Yearning For Zion Ranch has escaped without a conviction. It’s physician Lloyd H. Barlow, 45.
The misdemeanor charges against Barlow, the Utah-educated physician for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, were dismissed in July by a judge in Schleicher County, Texas, according to a newspaper there, The Eldorado Success.
A grand jury indicted Barlow in July 2008 with three misdemeanor counts of failure to report child abuse. Each count carried up to six months in jail.
The grand jury alleged Barlow oversaw births of children to minors at the YFZ Ranch on Oct. 14, 2006; Dec. 20, 2006; and May 20, 2007.
Barlow denied he committed any crimes.
Schleicher County Judge Charlie Bradley told The Eldorado Success that he dismissed the charges because he thought the allegations were that Barlow delivered babies and didn’t report the births, rather than that he failed to report child abuse.
The county prosecutor requested the dismissal. County Attorney Clint Griffin told The Eldorado Success that Barlow met the requirements imposed by the Texas Medical Board after it suspended Barlow’s license in April 2010. The license was reinstated six months later, but has since been cancelled due to failure to pay fees, The Eldorado Success reported.
Griffin also told the newspaper he didn’t know where Barlow was; that his defense attorney claimed to not even know where he resides.
Barlow is still licensed to practice medicine in Arizona, according to state’s medical board. His Utah license expired on Jan. 31 of this year, according to the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing.
The Eldorado Success article about the dismissal includes a suggestion Barlow is in Canada. The FLDS have an enclave in British Columbia, but there’s no listing for Barlow in British Columbia’s database of physicians.
While the Texas Attorney General’s Office aggressively pursued the felony cases against 11 men — including FLDS President Warren Jeffs — on charges related to bigamy and sexual abuse of girls, the Barlow case languished. Since Barlow was charged with misdemeanors, the Barlow case was referred to the Schleicher County court and prosecutor.
The dismissal in July was done with no fanfare. The Eldorado Success learned of it last month by spotting the dismissal on a court docket. (The Eldorado Success places most of its content behind a paywall.)
In the newspaper’s Oct. 2 edition, Eldorado Success Publisher and Editor Randy Mankin lambasted the dismissal.
“Dr. Barlow can offer none of the excuses that the courts have heard from other FLDS defendants — the tired and thread worn arguments about his strict fundamentalist upbringing and a lack of formal education.”
Mankin also questions why, if no one could find Barlow, a warrant wasn’t issued for his arrest or the bondsman who placed his bail back in 2008 wasn’t ordered to produce Barlow.
The evidence Texas Rangers seized from the YFZ Ranch in 2008 list four wives for Barlow. One of his listed wives would have been 16 years old at the time he married her in Utah in 2001, according to court documents and records seized by the rangers.
Barlow had his defenders, including one of his professors when he attended medical school at the University of Utah.
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