SALT LAKE CITY -- A federal judge took no action Wednesday to delay a state hearing on the sale of a parcel of land owned by a polygamous church group but currently controlled by the state.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints asked U.S. District Judge Dee Benson to halt a hearing Friday that will decide whether the land can be sold.

But Benson will wait for a report from that hearing in state court in St. George before reviewing the case. He plans at a later unspecified date to have a federal hearing when all parties can argue whether the federal court would have the power to block the land sale.

State-appointed accountant Bruce Wisan manages the FLDS' United Effort Plan Trust and wants to sell the 770-acre parcel of trust land in northern Arizona known as Berry Knoll to pay trust management bills.

"We'd like to sell it as soon as possible," said Zach Shields, who represents Wisan. "We haven't been paid in a year and a half."

Shields contends it's too late for the FLDS to object to Wisan's management of the trust. He said they should have come forward in 2005, when the state first took control of the trust after allegations of mismanagement against church leaders, including Warren Jeffs.

The trust holds an estimated $110 million in communal property. The FLDS consider communal living, or the Holy United Order, an integral part of their faith and see secular management of the trust as a violation of their constitutional right to practice their religion.

On Wisan's watch, legal documents that formed the trust have been retooled. Under the newly formed trust, its beneficiaries, including current and former church members, could seek private ownership of their homes or property either through holding a deed outright, or by placing the assets in a family trust.

The FLDS contend, however that the new trust prevents them from returning the asset to the church.

An estimated 37,000 self-described fundamentalist Mormons continue the practice of polygamy throughout intermountain Western states individually or as part of organized religious groups. Jeffs' sect is based in the neighboring communities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.

The FLDS church believes polygamy brings glorification in heaven. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renounced polygamy more than a century ago.