Witness depositions sought in Jeffs case
 
By JIM SECKLER
Mohave Daily News
 
KINGMAN - A Phoenix attorney is asking to interview two witnesses in the upcoming criminal case of Warren Steed Jeffs, the convicted leader of a Colorado City polygamist church.

Jeffs' defense attorney, Mike Piccarreta, is asking Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven Conn to order a deposition for Sam Brower and Rebecca Musser. Brower is a private investigator who works with Mohave County Attorney Office's investigator Gary Engels; Musser is a prosecution witness who once was married to Jeffs' late father, Rulon Jeffs.

Jeffs succeeded his father as the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Northern Mohave County community.

The defense attorney claims that Brower has been employed by the Diversity Foundation, which recruits former FLDS members to sue the church and Jeffs. Brower also allegedly knows and provided benefits to the victims in Jeffs' two Mohave County cases.

Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith argued that Brower is not a state witness and would not testify at Jeffs' upcoming trial. Information about benefits to witnesses in Jeffs' case was already disclosed to the defense attorneys.

Piccarreta also said after a December interview that Musser refused to talk about the Texas law enforcement officers' raid on the FLDS compound in Eldorado, Texas. The Texas officers allegedly 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 the compound, Piccarreta added.

At the time of the December interview, Musser was told by the Texas Attorney General's Office not to discuss the ongoing grand jury investigation into the search warrant on the FLDS compound in Texas. The restrictions have since been lifted and Musser can now be interviewed about the Texas search warrants and a deposition is not needed, Smith argued.

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, February 9, 2009
 
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