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John Hollenhorst Reporting Mesquite, Nevada authorities deny an Internet rumor they missed an opportunity to catch fugitive polygamist leader Warren Jeffs. But they do agree many of Jeffs' followers work in Mesquite. And those jobs may help fuel Jeff's financial empire while he's on the run.
Mesquite is one of many places in Southern Nevada and Utah where Jeffs followers work in construction trades. At least one investigator believes Jeffs himself has been here, and possibly even performed marriages while a fugitive.
Mesquite is booming. It's doubled in population in the last half decade. And Top Ten Fugitive Warren Jeffs has apparently profited from the boom.
Sam Brower/ Private Investigator: "Well, certainly in the millions."
Private eye Sam Brower says the Jeffs group has had numerous construction companies for years.
Sam Brower/ Private Investigator: "They're everywhere. They're large companies."
In Mesquite, Brower has linked several construction companies to key followers of Jeffs.
Reporter: "Is your company one of those?" Worker: "I won't have anything to say." Reporter: "Okay, thank you."
Workers at one project seemed defensive.
Worker: "So what's this story all about?" Reporter: "Well, we're just doing a story that kind of points at where some of the money comes from for Warren Jeffs." Worker: "Is there a problem with that?"
Police estimates of the number of Jeffs followers working in Mesquite range from a few dozen to several hundred. And the chief says they are not a law enforcement problem.
Chief Douglas Law/ Mesquite Police Dept.: "They've gone by the book in terms of permits and license. The way they run their operation we've not had any reports that would concern us."
But a general contractor complained to us off-camera that the Jeffs companies underbid everyone else by using young underpaid workers. Brower agrees.
Sam Brower/ Private Investigator: "Endless supply of slave labor. Kids start at eight years old and younger, starting to do construction and work on jobs."
Brower believes Jeffs has sneaked into Mesquite to perform marriages. Police acknowledge they heard intelligence reports to that effect a year or more ago.
Chief Douglas Law/ Mesquite Police: "But no one ever saw him here. It just came from other sources that suspected that."
The deputy chief told us they once heard rumors that Jeffs was actually living here, and drove by followers' houses looking for him. Like most cops, they'd love to catch Jeffs, now that he's made the FBI's dubious Honor Roll, the Ten Most Wanted List.
A couple other notes about Warren Jeffs.
Utah attorney general Mark Shurtliff tells the Deseret Morning News his office is conducting an organized crime investigation into Jeffs and the FLDS Church.
And tomorrow morning, companies linked to that church and a school district in polygamous border towns will appear at a Salt Lake District court. Prosecutors want to see financial records.
