Polygamist fugitive Jeffs arrested with cash, cell phones, wigs
 
By Ken Ritter
The Associated Press
Las Vegas Sun
 
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A fugitive polygamist leader who was on the FBI's Most Wanted List was found with cell phones, laptop computers, wigs and more than $50,000 in cash when he was arrested in Nevada, authorities said Tuesday.

Warren Steed Jeffs, 50, was arrested without incident and no weapons were found when he and two others were pulled over on a routine traffic stop and taken into custody late Monday, said FBI special agent in charge Steven Martinez.

Jeffs, who was not driving, was stopped in a 2007 red Cadillac Escalade by a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper on Interstate 15 just north of Las Vegas.

He was being held as a fugitive in the Clark County jail. He faces sexual misconduct charges in Utah and Arizona for allegedly arranging marriages between underage girls and older men. It was not immediately clear if Jeffs would face extradition to Arizona or Utah.

"The inventory search is not complete. No weapons were found in the car, thus far, or at the scene," Martinez told reporters in Las Vegas.

Martinez said Jeffs initially used an alias, but Martinez would not disclose the name.

The two people traveling with Jeffs, one of Warren Jeffs' wives, Naomi Jeffs, and a brother, Isaac Steed Jeffs, both 32, were interviewed and released, Martinez said.

After consulting with authorities in Utah and Arizona, "it was determined they would not be charged for harboring or any other offenses," he said. "They are now on the street."

"Needless to say I'm extremely proud of our Department of Public Safety state troopers," said George Togliatti, director of the Nevada Department of Public Safety. "Our trooper did a fantastic job."

Isaac Jeffs was driving the SUV, which was stopped for having no visible registration, Togliatti said.

An FBI agent was summoned to confirm Jeffs' identity, authorities said.

Jeffs was indicted in June 2005 on an Arizona charge of arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a married man, and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He is charged in Utah with two felony counts of rape as an accomplice, for allegedly arranging the marriage of a teenage girl to an older man in Nevada.

The FLDS Church split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the mainstream Mormon Church disavowed plural marriage more than 100 years ago.

Most of the church's estimated 10,000 members live in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard called news of Jeffs' arrest important in showing Jeffs' followers that he would be prosecuted, and said he expected more alleged victims of sexual abuse would come forward.

"I think it is the beginning of the end of ... the tyrannical rule of a small group of people over the practically 10,000 followers of the FLDS sect," Goddard told radio station KTAR in Phoenix. "That, I think, is the important part of this story."

Goddard said it had not been decided whether Jeffs would be tried first in Arizona or Utah, although he said the charges in Utah were more serious.

Jeffs has been called a religious zealot and dangerous extremist by those familiar with his church.

He assumed leadership of the sect in 2002 after the death of his 98-year-old father, Rulon Jeffs, who had 65 children by several women. Jeffs took nearly all of his father's widows as his own wives. He is said to have at least 40 wives and nearly 60 children.

The sect has long practiced the custom of arranged marriages, but dissidents say young girls were rarely married off until Jeffs came to power.

He exercised extraordinary control over 10,000 or so followers. During his four-year rule, the number of underage marriages - some involving girls as young as 13 - escalated into the hundreds, church dissidents said.

People expelled from the community said young men were sent away to avoid competition for brides. Older men were cast out for alleged disobedience, and their wives and children were reassigned by Jeffs to new husbands and fathers, the former members said.

Ward Jeffs, an older half brother of Warren, said he was delighted by the news of the arrests because it will likely bring an end to his brother's rule over the FLDS church, which Ward Jeffs has called destructive.

Since Warren Jeffs took over the church, dozens of families have been fractured after Jeffs deemed some men "unworthy," casting them out of the community and assigning their wives to new husbands.

"If this will bring an end to that, that will be a good thing," Ward Jeffs said. "We're excited for the people down there, but we're very concerned about who might step up and take the leadership role."

It remained unclear Tuesday what would happen to the leadership of the church while Jeffs was incarcerated.

Church members and affiliated businesses had reportedly been migrating to southern Nevada to escape the spotlight placed on Hildale and Colorado City. In May, a manager at a construction company with operations in Las Vegas told the Las Vegas Sun newspaper the company had ties to the sect. JNJ Engineering Construction President Jacob Jessop did not return a call for comment Tuesday.

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Associated Press writers Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.
 
LasVegasSun.com
Originally published August 29, 2006
 
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