| Alleged rape victim, 14, actually initiated sex, cousin testifies | |
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By Petti Fong WESTERN CANADA BUREAU CHIEF Toronto Star | |
ST. GEORGE, Utah–The husband of a woman who accuses polygamist leader Warren Jeffs of arranging her unwanted marriage at age 14 said yesterday he never forced the teen bride to have sex. The man, who was 19 when he married his first cousin, testified she was the one who initiated sexual contact and the couple had sex a few weeks after they married. At times breaking into tears, the cousin softly told jurors how she approached him after he fell asleep in his clothes following a 12-hour day at work. "I told her I loved her, she curled up close to me and she asked me to scratch her back and one thing led to the next until I felt myself being guided up on high and we had sexual intercourse," he said. He also said: "I thought it was okay. I didn't know very much, didn't know how to make a girl like me." That version varies wildly from the testimony the accuser gave on the stand earlier this week. The woman, now 21, who has left the church and remarried, described that incident as so traumatic that her whole body was shaking because she was scared. After it was over, she went to the bathroom, contemplated suicide with Ibuprofen and Tylenol pills and vomited, she has said. Her cousin was the final defence witness as the presentation of evidence wrapped up yesterday. Jeffs, president of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is on trial for two counts of being an accomplice to rape for arranging the 2001 marriage between the two. The teen bride has testified that her objections to the marriage and her cousin's subsequent sexual advances were ignored by church leaders. The cousin testified he knew the teenager didn't like him at first, but within their faith, couples learn to love each other after the ceremony. He has never been charged with rape and, before his testimony yesterday, his lawyer asked if he knew what he said in court could be used to lay charges against him. The man said he understood. "I believe every story has two sides and I want the truth to come out," he said. As the defendant looked on without emotion, he continued: "I don't believe Warren Jeffs has ever done anything wrong." He said that, a couple of weeks after the wedding ceremony, which the accuser has said she went to weeping and then refused to say "I do," the couple began sleeping in bed without their long underwear on. In a bid to encourage intimacy, after the two of them had gone on a drive to a park one night, the man said he exposed himself to his new bride as they sat together in tall, green grass. She rebuffed him and was offended and upset, he testified. But she forgave him a couple of days later, he said, and eventually initiated the sexual contact. The couple married in Caliente, Nev., in a ceremony with two other couples conducted by Jeffs on April 23, 2001. The man testified he did not know the marriage was not legally sanctioned. Under cross examination, prosecutor Craig Barlow asked him if he knew it was illegal to marry a 14-year-old. "Not according to God's law," the man said, adding he thought it was acceptable. "I don't know the government's laws that way." The final witness called yesterday, Jane Blackmore, a midwife from Bountiful, B.C., testified for the prosecution that the accuser came to see her during a stay in Canada in December 2002. The woman, who was pregnant at the time, was very distressed and told her she had been forced into marriage by her mother, stepfather and Jeffs, and her husband would not stop forcing her into sexual intercourse, Blackmore testified. She said she had suffered two miscarriages and her husband did not know about the pregnancies, Blackmore testified. The accuser has filed a civil suit against Jeffs and the church and has asked for a settlement in land and cash. Lawyers for the defence and prosecution are to give final arguments tomorrow, followed by jury deliberations. | |
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TheStar.com Originally published September 20, 2007 | |
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