Judge sets next hearing on searches of FLDS property
 
By JIM SECKLER
Mohave Daily News
 
KINGMAN - A Mohave County Superior Court judge made several rulings in the criminal case against Warren Steed Jeffs.

Jeffs, 54, is the leader of for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a polygamist church in Colorado City and Hildale, Utah. He is in county jail facing four felony charges in Arizona. He also faces charges in Texas.

Judge Steven Conn denied a motion from Jeffs' attorney, Mike Piccarreta, who asked for a deposition of Sam Brower and Dr. Dan Fischer. Brower and Fischer were previously interviewed and deposed by Piccarreta but refused to answer certain questions. Brower is a private investigator and Fischer is a dentist and former member of the FLDS.

The judge ruled that the questions the two men did not answer, "related to remote, peripheral, tangential issues," were not relevant to the case and they are not subject to further deposition.

Piccarreta asked for Brower and Fischer to answer more questions related to conversations between them and Jeffs' accusers, Elissa Wall and Suzie Barlow. The defense attorney said Fischer and Diversity Foundation have poured millions of dollars into a campaign against his client and the FLDS church.

At a recent hearing, Roger Hoole countered that Fischer is a client representative and is entitled to the attorney-client privilege. Hoole, who represents Brower, also said Diversity Foundation has been above board with disclosing financial information about the group that helps young men and women who have fled the church by providing money for housing, education and food. Brower is investigating the case of child abuse against the FLDS.

Conn also denied a defense motion for the deposition of Carolyn Jessop, a former member and well-known critic of the FLDS. The judge ruled that Piccarreta already interviewed Jessop twice for several hours and Conn did not find Jessop uncooperative. The judge was not asked to order Jessop to disclose tax returns, only to have her questioned further.

Conn did grant a defense motion to disclose evidence of the financial gain by one of the victims, Wall, who wrote a book about the FLDS. The evidence could be used to impeach her accusations against Jeffs.

The judge also ordered another hearing to argue a defense motion to exclude from Jeffs' trial evidence seized during a 2008 raid on a FLDS compound in Texas. Conn set the hearing for Feb. 17.

Conn also ordered Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith to disclose to defense attorneys by Jan. 4, a list of experts Smith plans to call as witnesses at Jeffs' upcoming trial.

Jeffs is charged in Mohave County with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor in two 2007 cases. He is charged with being an accomplice of two men who had sex with two underage girls, which allegedly took place in 2002 and 2003.

Jeffs also is charged with felony sexual assault of a child under 17 and aggravated sexual assault in Schleicher County, Texas, after an April 2008 raid by officers at the FLDS compound in Eldorado, Texas.

Jeffs was convicted in 2007 in 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 Sunday, December 27, 2009
 
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