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Judge Hits Green With a Ruling: He Can Be Tried for Child Rape

By Michael Vigh
Originally published by The Salt Lake Tribune, June 18, 2002

A judge has ordered Tom Green to stand trial on a charge of first-degree felony child rape for impregnating one of his wives when she was 13 years old.

The ruling Monday by 4th District Judge Donald J. Eyre is a major blow to the avowed polygamist, because Green has acknowledged he had sexual intercourse with “head wife” Linda Kunz when she was a teen-ager. The charge carries a possible life sentence.

“We admitted to the conduct in open court,” said John Bucher, Green’s attorney, who instead challenged Eyre’s jurisdiction over the case. The couple claimed they had sex only in Mexico until Kunz was 14.

“I really expected to win,” Bucher said. “We’re very disappointed by this ruling.”

He did not rule out an appeal.

In his nine-page ruling, Eyre also remarked about the “unusual” nature of the case, saying “it was rare that both parties to a criminal action agree that a crime had been committed [and] that the defendant committed it.”

Kunz testified in April that while on her honeymoon with Green in Mexico in 1986, she conceived their first child, Melvin.

Juab County Attorney David Leavitt says that Melvin’s birth certificate—he was born four months after Kunz’s 14th birthday—proves that Green had illicit sex with the girl.

Bucher had argued no illegal intercourse ever occurred in Utah.

But Eyre ruled that Green could be tried in Utah because Green and Linda’s mother, Beth Kunz, had hatched a “criminal conspiracy” while in the state to commit child rape. The judge said Beth Kunz’s approval of her daughter’s informal marriage to Green probably occurred in Utah.

“Even if the conspiracy began elsewhere, the conspiracy continued while [Green and Kunz] lived in Utah during 1985, and was still in place when [they] left Utah in December 1985 to go to Mexico,” the judge wrote.

Green, who already is serving up to 5 years in Utah State Prison for his convictions last year on four counts of bigamy and one count of criminal nonsupport, is scheduled to stand trial on the child-rape charge June 24.

Linda Kunz said Monday that Green’s four other wives and almost three dozen children are afraid that their patriarch could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

“The thought of him being away for the rest of his life scares the hell out of us,” Kunz said. “This is not what we wanted to hear.”

Leavitt said he hopes the trial will be a brief formality because Green has acknowledged he impregnated the teen. “But you never know. Stranger things have happened,” Leavitt said.

Bucher earlier claimed that Green should not face trial on the charge because the statute of limitations expired long ago. But Eyre said evidence showed that the alleged crime was not quickly reported and that authorities did not know about it until the late 1990s.