Polygamist leader convicted in Utah
By JENNIFER DOBNER - Associated Press Writer
Last Updated 3:38 pm PDT Tuesday, September 25, 2007
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Warren Jeffs, left, confers with defense attorney Richard Wright during his trial Monday, Sept. 24, 2007, in St. George, Utah. The jury reported they had a verdict on one count, but were hung on the other. The judge sent them back to deliberate more. Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice for allegedly coercing the marriage and rape of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin in 2001. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
ST. GEORGE, Utah -- The leader of a polygamous Mormon splinter group was convicted Tuesday of being an accomplice to rape for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her 19-year-old cousin.
Warren Jeffs, 51, could get life in prison after a trial that threw a spotlight on a renegade community along the Arizona-Utah line where as many as 10,000 of Jeffs' followers practice plural marriage and revere him as a mighty prophet with dominion over their salvation.
Jeffs stood and, like his 15 followers in the courtroom, wore a stoic look as the verdict was read.
Prosecutors said Jeffs, who performed the ceremony, forced the girl into marriage and sex against her will. Jurors said they agreed Jeffs rejected the girl's pleas and refused to release her from the marriage."He was pretty much her only ticket out of the relationship," said juror Jerry Munk, 36.
Defense attorney Wally Bugden, who told jurors that Jeffs was a victim of religious persecution, declined to comment.
The jury deliberated about 16 hours over three days. On Tuesday morning, the judge replaced a juror with an alternate for undisclosed reasons.
While polygamy itself was not on trial - the couple were monogamous - the case focused attention on the practice of polygamy in Utah, where it has generally been tolerated in the half-century since a government raid in 1953 proved a public relations disaster, with children photographed being torn from their mothers' arms.
Jeffs succeeded his father in 2002 as president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Former members say he rules with an iron fist, demanding perfect obedience from followers and exercising the right to arrange marriages as well as break them up and assign new spouses.
At the trial, widely different versions of the relationship - and Jeffs' influence - were presented by the woman, now 21, and her former husband, Allen Steed, 26.
At their wedding in 2001 at a Nevada motel, the woman said, she cried in despair when pressed by Jeffs to say "I do" and had to be coaxed to kiss her new husband. The woman testified that FLDS girls receive no information about their bodies or reproduction. She said she didn't even know sex was the means by which women had babies.
The woman said the couple were married for at least a month before they had intercourse, her husband telling her it was "time for you to be a wife and do your duty."
"My entire body was shaking. I was so scared," she testified. "He just laid me on the bed and had sex."
Afterward, she slipped into the bathroom, where she downed two bottles of over-the-counter pain reliever and curled up on the floor, she said. "The only thing I wanted to do was die," she said.
But Steed testified that his teenage bride initiated their first sexual encounter, approaching him after he fell asleep in his clothes after a 12-hour day at work.
Under Utah law, a 14-year-old can consent to sex in some circumstances. But sex is not considered consensual if a person under 18 is enticed by someone at least three years older.
For reasons prosecutors have never explained, Steed has not been charged with a crime.
The mainstream Mormon Church, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, renounced polygamy more than a century ago, excommunicates members who engage in the practice, and disavows any connection to the FLDS church.
Jeffs is also charged in Arizona with being an accomplice to both incest and sexual misconduct with a minor for arranging marriages between two underage girls and relatives of theirs. In addition, Jeffs is under federal indictment in Utah on charges of fleeing to avoid prosecution.
The charismatic Jeffs was captured in a traffic stop last year just outside Las Vegas after about 18 months on the run. At the time, he was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, alongside such figures as Osama bin Laden.
Jeffs was in a red Cadillac Escalade in which investigators found more than $57,000, cell phones, prepaid credit cards, wigs and sunglasses.
"Everyone should now know that no one is above the law, religion is not an excuse for abuse and every victim has a right to be heard," said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who had endorsed the prosecution in Washington County.
Since at least the 1920s, members of the FLDS have lived in the twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, where the women wear long prairie dresses and have long braided hair, and the men dress modestly too, often in buttoned-up shirts.
All homes and other property were kept in a trust controlled by Jeffs and other church leaders until a judge in 2005 put an accountant in charge because of allegations of mismanagement.
Prosecutors Brock Belnap, left, and Ryan Shaum wait for the jury to come into the courtroom during Warren Jeffs' trial Monday, Sept. 24, 2007, in St. George, Utah. The jurors reported they had a verdict on one count, but were hung on the other. The judge sent them back to deliberate more. Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice for allegedly coercing the marriage and rape of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin in 2001. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
Prosecutor Brian Filter, center, shakes hands with prosecutor Brock Belnap, left, as prosecutor Ryan Shaum looks on after the verdict in Warren Jeffs' trial Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, in St. George, Utah. Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was found guilty on both counts of rape as an accomplice for allegedly coercing the marriage and rape of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin in 2001. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
Warren Jeffs reacts to the verdicts against him Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, in St. George, Utah. Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was found guilty on both counts of rape as an accomplice for allegedly coercing the marriage and rape of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin in 2001. Defense attorney Richard Wright stands behind him. AP Photo/Jud Burkett, Pool
Warren Jeffs reacts to the verdict against him Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, in St. George, Utah. Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was found guilty on both counts of rape as an accomplice for allegedly coercing the marriage and rape of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin in 2001. AP Photo/Jud Burkett, Pool
Warren Jeffs, left, and council react to the verdict against him Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, in St. George, Utah. Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was found guilty on both counts of rape as an accomplice for allegedly coercing the marriage and rape of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin in 2001. Left to right is Jeffs, defense attorneys Richard Wright, Walter F. Bugden and Tara L. Isaacson, as prosecutors Brock Belnap and Ryan Shaum listen while seated. AP Photo/Jud Burkett, Pool
With law enforcement behind him, Warren Jeffs waits for the jury to reconvene for deliberation in his trial Monday, Sept. 24, 2007, in St. George, Utah. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
Warren Jeffs, left, confers with defense attorney Richard Wright during his trial Monday, Sept. 24, 2007, in St. George, Utah. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
Warren Jeffs watches the jury leave the courtroom to restart their deliberation in his trial Monday, Sept. 24, 2007, in St. George, Utah. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
Prosecutors Brock Belnap, left, and Ryan Shaum wait for the jury to come into the courtroom during Warren Jeffs' trial Monday, Sept. 24, 2007, in St. George, Utah. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
Prosecutors Brock Belnap and prosecutor Ryan Shaum wait for the proceedings to begin in Warren Jeffs' trial Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, in St. George, Utah. One of the jurors was replaced by an alternate, starting the deliberation process anew. Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice for allegedly coercing the marriage and rape of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin in 2001. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
Warren Jeffs, left, heads back to a holding area after the jury reconvened to deliberate in his trial Monday, Sept. 24, 2007, in St. George, Utah. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
Warren Jeffs looks toward the jury in his trial Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, in St. George, Utah. One of the jurors was replaced by an alternate, starting the deliberation process anew. Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice for allegedly coercing the marriage and rape of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin in 2001. AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, Pool
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BS Ranch Perspective:
It is still hard to believe that in today's time that we are still dealing with men and woman getting married, But that isn't the story, the story is that there is a man that lives in of all places Utah, where the Polygamist Relationship was born, back in the mid, 1800's the Mormon's migrated West so that they could go to a place where they could practice their Polygamist relationships in private, and without anymore judgements by any of the other Christian groups in the country. The Mormon's Migrated to California after the Civil War, to a little place that they were going to make into a Place that they modeled after Salt Lake City!! That City was known as San Bernardino California, and the Mormon Trail is still in the mountains above Crest Line today, The trail has been mapped out and they have found pieces of it that you can see where it is and it is great!! As you go up Highway 18 you will see the Historical Landmark to the left as you are on the way up the hill from San Bernardino, and there is a huge pull out to park and hike over to see the trial where they made the trip in a horse and Covered wagon, it is awesome that they did that so long ago!! The trail is still there today!! The only bad thing is that they are practicing the marriage Status of more then one wife today, I know that if one guy is doing it that there are many more out there and there is no way that any man can keep up with that many wives!!
I mean there are medications that are prescribed today for just one man and one woman to keep up with their own love live let alone the love live of one man and two woman!!!
There is just NO WAY THAT ANY MAN CAN KEEP UP WITH ANY SITUATION LIKE THAT!!
BS Ranch
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