| Warren Jeffs' brother files lawsuit claiming FLDS leader 'a fraud' | |
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Reported by: Brent Hunsaker Contributor: Dan Metcalf Jr. ABC 4 News | |
ST. GEORGE, Utah (ABC 4 News) - Jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has been served with court papers in Texas, after his own half-brother filed a lawsuit against him. The suit, filed Tuesday afternoon in St. George's 5th Circuit Court accuses Jeffs of fraud against the members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS.) It claims that Warren Jeffs knows he's not a legitimate leader, but the he and other top leaders have conspired to cover it up to maintain power over their people, to further his aggressive practice of spiritually marrying large numbers of minor girls and women to select FLDS men. The suit alleges that Warren Jeffs has used his absolute power as the FLDS prophet to expel or encourage out thousands of boys and to expel hundreds of FLDS men from their families and homes so that their wives and children could be reassigned to other men and command the illegal marriages of scores of increasingly younger underage girls. Though he is one of Warren's half brothers, Wallace has been expelled from the group and he says his children have been hidden from him. One part of the complaint reads: "Based on the evidence of crimes he has seen, Wallace Jeffs is concerned that his minor children are in eminent danger -- his daughters are at high risk of being required to enter into underage marriages and sexual relations with spiritual husbands and his sons are at risk of being abused by expulsion from their family." Warren Jeffs is currently sitting in a Texas prison waiting trial on sex abuse of a child charges. "I am here to protect children," said Wallace Jeffs to ABC 4 on Tuesday. "To protect all the children, not just mine, but all children." Wallace Jeffs says in the years since he was kicked out, his family has been put into hiding, but recently, he discovered they'd been moved back to Hildale, Utah. Stay tuned to ABC 4 News and ABC4.com for more on this story. | |
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ABC4.com Originally broadcast July 12, 2011 | |
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