Jeffs' pre-trial hearing scheduled for today
 Leader of breakaway church accused of sex assault, bigamy
 
By Matthew Waller
San Angelo Standard-Times
 
SAN ANGELO, Texas — Warren Jeffs, the leader of the FLDS, is scheduled for a pretrial hearing today as his trial date for sexual assault is less than a month from now.

Jeffs is charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child and bigamy.

"Pretrial motions will be heard beginning at 9 a.m. in preparation for trial scheduled for Feb. 21," said Jerry Strickland, spokesman for the state attorney general's office.

The venue of the trial has not been determined.

Jeffs has undergone five pretrial hearings since November, when he arrived to Texas.

During those hearings, Jeffs searched for legal counsel, each week saying that he would have counsel the next week.

Jeffs said his confinement in the Big Lake Jail prohibited him from adequately searching.

During his most recent pretrial hearing Jan. 5, 51st District Judge Barbara Walther appointed Jeffs legal counsel after he dismissed counsel who made his first appearance for Jeffs on the same day.

Before then, Jeffs had been getting legal help from a Nevada attorney.

After dismissing his counsel, Jeffs gave a long, impromptu speech about his special needsand pleaded with the judge to let him keep looking for an attorney.

Walther appointed Fred Brigman, a San Angelo attorney, to Jeffs' case.

Walther has said Jeffs had ample time to search for legal counsel while he was in Utah awaiting the results of an extradition process.

Jeffs had been fighting the extradition in Utah. His attorneys in Utah said he had a constitutional right to be retried since his conviction there was overturned by the Utah Supreme Court.

Jeffs had been convicted in 2007 of accomplice to rape because of his alleged involvement in an underage marriage.

He then was sent to Arizona for charges relating to allegedly performing an underage marriage, but during summer 2010, Arizona dropped the charges so he could be prosecuted in Texas for more-serious offenses.

The sexual assault charges against him include one count of aggravated sexual assault against a minor younger than 14 and another charge of sexual assault against a minor younger than 17.

The first count is a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years or life in prison and up to a $10,000 fine, and the second count is a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.

Jeffs will be the eighth of 12 men to be prosecuted because of alleged evidence found at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Yearning for Zion Ranch.

The raid in April 2008 occurred after a hoax phone call from a woman claiming sexual abuse at the ranch. Law enforcement officers took trailers allegedly full of evidence, and they removed more than 400 children, though an appellate court ordered the children returned to their families.

Jeffs is now in a jail in Big Lake, and though he reportedly gave trouble to authorities while in jail in Arizona with such things as health-debilitating fasting, the sheriff's office of Reagan County reports no problems.

"He may skip a tray now and then, but he hasn't been any trouble," said Reagan County Sheriff Jeff Garner.
 
gosanangelo.com
Originally published January 30, 2011
 
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