FLDS leader hospitalized in Vegas
 
By JIM SECKLER
Mohave Daily News
 
KINGMAN - The jailed prophet of the polygamist sect in Colorado City was taken Tuesday afternoon to a Las Vegas hospital.

Warren Steed Jeffs appeared lethargic and suffered from convulsions, a weakened state and signs of a high fever when he was taken to Kingman Regional Medical Center around noon Tuesday. Later that afternoon, he was airlifted to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas, Mohave County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Trish Carter said.

Sunrise Hospital spokeswoman Ashley Seymour would not comment on Jeffs' condition.

Jeffs, 52, the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is charged in two 2007 cases involving two underage victims. He is charged with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor and has been held in Mohave County Jail since Feb. 26.

The first case charges him with two counts of sexual conduct with a minor involving an underage girl between May 1 and June 30, 2002, and between Aug. 15 and Sept. 15, 2002. The second case also charges him with two counts of sexual conduct with a minor involving another underage girl on Aug. 31, 2003, and in September 2003. Jeffs allegedly arranged marriages between older men and their teenage relatives.

Last Month, a Mohave County Superior Court judge dismissed four other counts of incest. Jeffs was convicted last year in St. George, Utah, of two counts of rape as an accomplice and was sentenced in November to 10 years in a Utah prison. While in the Utah jail, Jeffs attempted suicide and went on a hunger strike. However, his current stay at the Mohave County Jail has been uneventful, Carter said.

The sect leader was convicted of Utah last year and then brought to Kingman in February to await another trial there. He has had several health complications in custody, including a trip to a Utah prison infirmary in early 2007 because of a self-imposed fast.

Jeffs also attempted suicide last year and was seen throwing himself against the walls and banging his head, authorities said.

Carter said Jeffs had "sporadic eating habits" since he arrived in Kingman, but she didn't know whether he had been fasting.

Officers from Mohave County were keeping him under heavy guard in Las Vegas, the sheriff said.

Mike Piccarreta, a lawyer for Jeffs, acknowledged that he was hospitalized, but refused to discuss his medical condition.

"I think anyone that was being incarcerated as a result of persecution for his religious beliefs would not be in good health," Piccarreta said.

The FLDS is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. The group, which has nearly 6,000 followers, practices polygamy in arranged marriages that have sometimes involved underage girls.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 
MohaveDailyNews.com
Originally published Thursday, July 10, 2008
 
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