B.C. woman asks court to reverse verdict for taking girl across border for sex
VANCOUVER — A woman convicted of taking a 13-year-old girl across the border for a sexual purpose likely didn’t know the reason for the trip because she was expected to follow orders from her husband in their secluded British Columbia religious community, an appeal court has heard.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge found Emily Blackmore and her estranged husband Brandon Blackmore guilty last year of bringing the girl to the United States to marry polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs in 2004.
But there’s no proof that Emily Blackmore, also known by her middle name Gail, communicated with her husband, the girl or Jeffs about why they were headed to the U.S., her lawyer Greg DelBigio argued at a B.C. Court of Appeal hearing on Wednesday.
Wives are subordinate to their husbands in the Blackmores’ polygamous sect in Bountiful, B.C., and the trial judge was wrong to infer that Brandon Blackmore told his wife about the planned marriage, DelBigio said.