Brother of Warren Jeffs pressured to drop lawsuit
 
Reported by: Brent Hunsaker
ABC 4 News
 
HILDALE, Utah (ABC 4 News) - Incredible pressure is being put on Warren Jeff’s half brother to drop his lawsuit. That word comes from people familiar with the FLDS group and close to Wallace Jeffs.

They say when Wallace Jeffs was kicked out, it was expected that he would go away quietly; the FLDS call it "repenting from afar." Few ever return from that repentance, even fewer are restored to their families.

Instead of going quietly, Jeffs has done the unthinkable. He filed suit claiming his half brother and FLDS prophet, Warren Jeffs, is a fraud.

Wallace Jeffs’ suit was filed Tuesday, July 12, in 5th District Court in St George. It asks that he be given custody of his children.

He believes his brothers are ready to resume marrying child brides to older men with another half brother, Lyle Jeffs, leading the way.

Wallace Jeffs has seven daughters who are now living with Lyle in Hildale, Utah.

Wallace Jeffs’ lawsuit is a threat to those in power within the FLDS group. It’s not just that he wants his children back, but he’s calling out Warren Jeffs who Wallace believes has already admitted that he’s not the legitimate leader of the largest polygamist group in North America.

The lawsuit claims there is a conspiracy among Lyle Jeffs and other key leaders to keep the truth from their followers.

As evidence, Wallace Jeffs point to a letter that Warren Jeffs tried to make public back in 2007 during a hearing in his Utah criminal case. That letter contained the admission that he was not a prophet. It was suppressed.

Then there was a verbal confession caught on tape during a jailhouse visit between Warren and another brother, Nephi Jeffs. Though released by the Washington County Sheriff’s office after Warren Jeffs' conviction, FLDS leaders kept it from their people.

So, is it any wonder that since Wallace filed that suit, the FLDS community has ratcheted up the pressure on him to drop it?

"They will go to whatever lengths are necessary to try and coerce and coax this person into changing their mind or doing something else," said Sam Brower who has had several conversations with Wallace Jeffs over the last two weeks. Brower is the author of a soon-to-be published, seven-year investigation of the inner workings of the FLDS leadership.

"We find it hard in our own lives to change," Brower explained. "But what if your family was wiped out by say, a plane crash. You had no more family, and not only that, you had no more home to go to, no more life, no more livelihood. Everything is gone. You are left completely alone and destitute in the world. And that’s what he’s … going through."

Brower believes the pressure is coming from former family and friends and can take the form of either promises or threats. All of it, he says, is under the direction of their leaders.

Put the pressure together with the sudden, total separation from the only life he has known, and Brower says Wallace Jeffs has to have an overwhelming feeling of isolation, even as he tries to save his family and his people from a prophet he believes has led them far astray.
 
ABC4.com
Originally broadcast July 13, 2011
 
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