Warren's Woes: FLDS honcho's legal troubles mounting

Polygamist prophet Warren Jeffs, leader of the Mormon breakaway sect the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is in a Utah prison awaiting trial on a charge of rape-as-accomplice, has been served with two new arrest warrants from Arizona, charging him with additional felony counts related to his allegedly conducting polygamist marriages between teen girls and older, married men.

Jeffs, once an FBI Most Wanted poster boy, was arrested last August outside Las Vegas, bringing to a close his life on the lam, dodging arrest in Utah and Arizona, as well as a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Since then, Jeffs' home has been the aptly named Purgatory Correctional Facility in Washington Co., Utah, where he faces a felony charge of aiding in the eventual rape of a 14-year-old girl forced to marry her 19-year-old cousin in a ceremony over which Jeffs presided. Jeffs has challenged the charge, arguing through his attorneys that the state lacks enough evidence to prosecute the case and, alternately, that his prosecution should be barred because the definition of "enticement" in Utah law is unconstitutionally vague. Trial Judge James Shumate disagreed, and on July 6, the Utah Supreme Court denied Jeffs' appeals.

Jeffs received more bad news on July 12, when he was served with two new arrest warrants issued by Arizona officials, charging him with eight new felony counts in connection with two new cases involving marriages he allegedly performed, uniting two teenage girls with two men over 50 – in both cases, the men are so closely related to their teen brides the unions also constitute incest. Jeffs is facing four felony charges in connection with both alleged marriages he performed – including two counts each for being an accomplice to unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and being an accomplice to incest, reports The Salt Lake Tribune. The daily also reports that Mohave Co., Ariz., officials allege both marriages took place in the FLDS stronghold of Colorado City, Ariz. (Together with Hilldale, Utah, just across the state line with Colorado City, the twin towns are commonly referred to as Short Creek, an isolated municipality inhabited almost exclusively by fundamentalist Mormons for nearly 100 years.) Arizona officials are preparing to prosecute the two new cases against Jeffs as soon as his Utah trial – slated to begin Sept. 10 – is over. In the meantime, the Tribune reports, both women described in the new charges remain in protective custody; at press time, no charges had been filed against either of their middle-aged husbands.

For more on Jeffs and the FLDS, see, "Meet the New Neighbors," July 29, 2005.