CUSTER, S.D. (AP) — A compound in South Dakota’s Black Hills that was owned by a secretive polygamous cult has been sold at auction to three former members who broke with the sect years ago.
Blue Mountain Ranch LLC, representing Patrick Pipkin, Seth Cooke and Andrew Chatwin, paid $750,000 for the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints’ sprawling compound at a Custer County sheriff’s auction Thursday.
Pipkin said he left FLDS about 15 years ago and no longer believes in its teachings. He, Cooke and Chatwin successfully sued the FLDS after alleging they were illegally jailed in Arizona by local authorities who were handpicked by the sect, which they say conspired to illegally arrest and prosecute non-members.
