Attorneys argue rape case
 
By Kevin Jenkins
kevin@thespectrum.com
 
ST. GEORGE - Attorneys have filed memorandums arguing whether a rape case should be dismissed against Allen Glade Steed who is charged with raping his cousin in an arranged marriage performed by Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs.

Steed's attorney, Jim Bradshaw, filed documents in 5th District Court last month requesting an end to the prosecution of Steed on the grounds that the four-year statute of limitations has run out on the charges.

Washington County Attorney Brock Belnap filed the state's response Monday, arguing that a change to the statute in 2005 allows charges to be filed within eight years to prosecute rape cases such as Steed's, so long as the initial reporting occurred within four years of the alleged event.

Bradshaw said Thursday a reply to the county attorney's filing will be completed next week, after which Judge G. Rand Beacham will set a hearing date to decide on the motions.

At the heart of the argument is whether the statute is being complied with properly.

"My client, Mr. Steed, is charged with conduct alleged to have taken place over eight years ago," Bradshaw said. It is fundamentally unfair to charge him with a crime that long after the fact and expect that witnesses will be available and and that evidence won't be compromised."

Steed was charged in 2007, more than six years after his April 2001 marriage to Elissa Wall when she was 14 and he was 19. Both were members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a religion based near the Utah-Arizona border communities of Hildale and Colorado City that practices arranged marriages and polygamous marriage.

The Spectrum does not generally identify people who say they were sexually assaulted, but Wall has published a nationally distributed book, "Stolen Innocence," which chronicles her marriage to Steed, and she has spoken publicly about the accusations.

Wall and Steed were "released" from the arranged marriage in November 2004 by FLDS leaders after it was learned that Wall had become pregnant by another man and Wall was asked to leave the community.

Court documents filed by Bradshaw argue that Wall was for years reluctant to talk with law enforcement officers about the arranged marriage while she was a teen, and only did so in January 2006, nearly five years after the marriage and a month after she filed a civil lawsuit seeking financial damages.

Jeffs was tried and found guilty of being an accomplice to the alleged rape in 2007, and Steed was charged after offering testimony on Jeffs' behalf.

The Washington County Attorney's response states the alleged rape was first reported in January 2005, when Wall's boyfriend sat down to breakfast with a Mohave County (Arizona) Attorney's Office investigator at a Hurricane restaurant and informed him of the allegations.

The investigator described the meeting in the restaurant as an unexpected event, and Bradshaw's filing argues the discussion should not be considered a formal report.

Bradshaw also argues the investigator is not post certified or deputized as a law enforcement officer.

"Does an investigator for the Mohave County Attorney's Office constitute a law enforcement agency (for reporting purposes)? The judge will have to decide that," Belnap said following a July hearing.

Belnap's filing argues the statute of limitations also was extended, however, because Steed and Wall took several trips to Canada and moved to Arizona during the course of the marriage, and Utah law doesn't apply the statute of limitations to periods in which a suspect is out of the state.
 
TheSpectrum.com
Originally published September 4, 2009
 
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