Polygamist leader's attorney seeks hearing to suppress raid evidence
 
By JIM SECKLER
Mohave Daily News
 
KINGMAN - The attorney for Warren Steed Jeffs, the convicted leader of a Colorado City polygamist church, is asking a Mohave County Superior Court judge to hold a hearing to suppress evidence found at a Texas raid.

In a motion filed last week, Jeffs' defense attorney, Mike Piccarreta said his client is entitled to a hearing in Mohave County to suppress evidence found by Texas law enforcement officers at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas. Jeffs is the leader of the FLDS church in Colorado City.

The Texas officers were involved in the April raid at the compound in which they collected tainted evidence that was allegedly seized illegally during the raid.

A phone call that triggered the Texas raid was a hoax and officers used the hoax to obtain a warrant to search each house at the compound, Piccarreta said.

The Tucson attorney said that Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith is denying his client his right to a hearing, calling it a "Texas two step."

He also spoke of Smith's attempt to obstruct the "truth-finding process" about the "illegal" raid.

Texas authorities were also aware that the two phones calls to a crisis hotline in Texas were from phone numbers outside of Texas and that the Colorado woman made numerous false reports of sexual abuse to police agencies, Piccarreta said.

Smith previously said he does not plan to use any of the evidence seized in the Texas raid at Jeffs' upcoming trial in Mohave County. The prosecutor opposes a hearing to suppress evidence saying he would be afraid if the Texas officers testified at the trial in Mohave County, it could jeopardize the Texas case.

At a prior hearing, Superior Court Judge Steven Conn said he preferred not to rule on the search warrant that triggered the Texas raid calling it the most highly publicized search warrant in the country in recent years.

Jeffs, 52, is charged in Mohave County with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor in two 2007 cases involving two underage girls. The crimes allegedly took place in the summers of 2002 and 2003.

Jeffs is also charged with felony sexual assault of a child under 17 and aggravated sexual assault in Schleicher County, Texas.

Jeffs was convicted in 2007 in St. George, Utah on two counts of rape as an accomplice and was sentenced in November 2007 to 10 years in a Utah prison.
 
MohaveDailyNews.com
Originally published Monday, January 19, 2009
 
Back