FBI beefs up search for Jeffs More agents assigned to polygamist leader's case

By Ben Winslow Deseret Morning News

Warren Jeffs With a fugitive like Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, more case agents have been assigned to deal with tips, leads and whereabouts of the polygamist leader. FBI agents in Salt Lake City declined to comment on the specific number of agents assigned to the Jeffs case but said additional resources are being freed up to deal with the high-profile fugitive. "You couldn't expect one person to handle all this work," FBI Special Agent Patrick Kiernan said. "The leads have continued to come in, and we continue to keep personnel and the FBI very busy." As of early May, there were 2,698 people facing federal charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Putting Jeffs in the top 10 of that long list enables any FBI agent anywhere in the world to drop almost anything to assist in the manhunt. Traditionally, a fugitive sighting goes through a number of channels and eventually trickles down to a case agent. "They could get to it tomorrow or maybe next week, depending on what else they had going," Kiernan said. "Now, if we request either personnel resources or equipment resources of any kind to the FBI, they're not likely to be turned down." Jeffs shares the list with the likes of accused terrorists, mobsters, murderers, pedophiles and drug cartel leaders. They include: Terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, behind the 9/11 terror attacks that killed thousands at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. He is also wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed more than 200. The FBI says bin Laden, born in 1957, is a suspect in other terror attacks worldwide. Reputed mobster James "Whitey" Bulger, who is wanted for more than a dozen murders committed in the 1970s and 1980s in connection with his role as the leader of a Boston-based organized crime ring. Bulger is facing charges on racketeering, murder, extortion, drugs and money laundering. At 76, he is the oldest person on the list. Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez, 48, reputed to be one of the principal leaders of the Colombian North Valley drug cartel, one of the most powerful and violent in that country. The FBI wants Sanchez in connection with the manufacture and distribution of tons of cocaine in the United States. Richard Steve Goldberg, 60, wanted in Long Beach, Calif., for allegedly having sex with several girls under the age of 10 in 2001. The FBI said images of the sex acts were found on his computer. Donald Eugene Webb, 74, wanted in connection with the murder of a Pennsylvania-area police chief, who was shot twice after being beaten. Webb has been on the list since 1981, making him the person to be there the longest. The person on the list for the least amount of time was Billie Austin Bryant. Accused of killing two FBI agents in Washington, D.C., after a bank robbery, he was placed on the list Jan. 8, 1969. "He was put on at 5 p.m. and captured at 7 p.m.," Kiernan said. Jeffs — a revered and reviled religious leader with bookworm glasses and a schoolteacher's smile — stands out from the photographs of rough-looking convicts and killers. However, the FBI believes that the added pressure and publicity will help lead to his capture. Jeffs is wanted in Utah and Arizona on charges that he arranged polygamous marriages between teenage girls and older men. Federal prosecutors have charged him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Utah's attorney general confirmed to the Deseret Morning News his office has been conducting an organized crime investigation, and a federal grand jury in Arizona is reportedly investigating Jeffs and the FLDS Church. "We have had 482 people on the list, and 452 have been apprehended or located," Kiernan said. "That gives you a 94 percent apprehension rate." Close to 150 of those were apprehended because of citizen tips, he added. A $100,000 bounty is being offered for information leading to Jeffs' arrest. While that may sound like a lot of cash, consider that bin Laden has a $25 million bounty and wanted bank robber Victor Manuel Gerena has a $1 million bounty. The FBI's Ten Most Wanted list was created in 1950 by then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover after a reporter asked the FBI for the names of the "toughest guys" the agency wanted to capture. Since then, the list has put some of America's most notorious criminals in a white-hot public spotlight. They include: Ted Bundy, the rapist and serial killer who confessed to killing about 30 women in five Western states, including Utah. The one-time University of Utah law student is believed to have killed many more young women from 1974-78. Many of them have never been found. He was executed in 1989. Eric Rudolph, who was convicted of the deadly bombings at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, 1997 bombings at an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub in Atlanta, and a 1998 bombing at a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic. Rudolph was captured in 2003 outside a North Carolina grocery store scrounging through garbage. He has been sentenced to multiple life terms in prison. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, convicted of involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Six people died in the attack and more than 1,000 were injured. Yousef, serving a sentence of life without parole since 1996, is believed to be a member of the terrorist group al-Qaida. Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. He is serving a life sentence in prison. According to the FBI's Web site, the Criminal Investigative Division (CID) calls upon all 56 field offices to submit candidates for the Ten Most Wanted list. After reviewing them, the "selection of the 'proposed' candidate(s) is forwarded to the Aassistant Ddirector of the CID for his/her approval then to the FBI's Ddeputy Ddirector for final approval." To make it on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, agents said the individual has to have a lengthy criminal record or be considered a "menace to society." Authorities must also believe the added publicity will be helpful in capturing the fugitive. E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com

Deseret Morning News graphic

deseretnews.com Originally published Tuesday, May 30, 2006

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