Warrant out for polygamist leader
 
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Tri-State News Network
 
COLORADO CITY, Ariz. – A warrant for the arrest of Warren Jeffs, the leader of the polygamy-endorsing church in Colorado City, Ariz. and the neighboring border town of Hilldale, Utah, has been issued by a Mohave County Superior Court Judge in Kingman, following the indictment of Jeffs and another man on sex offense charges.

Jeffs, 49, is charged with sexual conduct with a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor in a five-count indictment handed up Thursday by a grand jury in Kingman. The other three counts charge an unidentified man with sex offenses involving the same alleged victim, according to Mohave County attorney Matt Smith.

Smith said he cannot detail the other counts or identify the other man because the defendant has not been served the indictment or been arrested, though an arrest warrant has issued in his case as well. He said Judge Steven F. Conn made in exception in the case of Jeffs.

Judge Conn granted a prosecution motion Friday allowing the state to disclose the indictment and warrant involving Jeffs in an effort to locate and arrest him. "The only hope to execute the warrant is with public input," the motion said.

"It is very difficult to find him," Smith said of Jeffs during a Friday interview. "He is not readily available and he has not been seen for quite some time in Colorado City."

Smith said Jeffs is charged under a theory involving conspiracy and facilitation for performing a ceremonial marriage involving a 16 year-old girl on March 28, 2002, fully knowing that her partner, the second individual named in the indictment, would engage in illegal sexual activity with the minor.

Smith said Jeffs knew the girl was under the age of 18 when he performed the church ceremony; a marriage and union of the pair not recorded by law, and encouraged them "to go forth and multiply and replenish the earth."

Smith said the victim is now 19 years of age and is no longer living in the Colorado City-Hilldale area. He would not disclose her whereabouts.

Critics and opponents of the polygamous lifestyles in the border communities have long complained of alleged sex abuses occurring through marriages of minors arranged by Jeffs and his predecessor leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). The legal logic employed in this week's indictment could lead to more victims and cases Jeffs.

"It's certainly possible. I think some people that were afraid to come forward might realize they're not alone, there are people coming forward and discussing what's happened to them and they're not happy with what's happened to them," Smith said.

Salt Lake City attorney Rodney Parker has represented the church on various legal matters in civil court in the past. He was not available for comment in the new case against Jeffs.
 
Tri-State News Network
Originally published June 13, 2005
 
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