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ST. GEORGE — The red Cadillac Escalade Warren Jeffs was riding in when he was arrested in 2006, plus its contents, sold for $80,000 at a short auction in St. George Monday.
R&W Excavating, the company owned by Jeffs' former bodyguard and spokesman Willie Jessop, paid $30,000 for the vehicle and $50,000 for its contents. The vehicle is currently in the possession of the FBI.
Jessop said he was skeptical of evidence brought against Jeffs after his arrest, but that researching the vehicle and its contents exposed the Fundamentalist LDS Church leader’s double life. He said the contents of the vehicle, which is said to include about $54,000 worth of cash, gift cards and other items, revealed Jeffs was secretly living a promiscuous lifestyle.
Jessop said the information contained in the vehicle led to his decision to leave the FLDS Church. He plans to store the Cadillac in the garage of the bed and breakfast he owns — which was formerly Jeffs’ compound — so others have the chance to see it for themselves.
“Even though the vehicle was stopped in 2006, even now most people haven’t had any access to what is inside that vehicle,” Jessop said. “But when we researched what was in it, believing the evidence against him was being altered or fabricated in Texas, that vehicle is basically what we used to establish that a lot of the accusations they made against him in Texas were true and validated.”
Jessop’s company won the vehicle and its contents on a credit bid, meaning the funds will come from settlement money. In 2012, Jessop was awarded nearly $30 million in a lawsuit against the church claiming its leaders harassed him and damaged his company.
“I think (the vehicle) brings a lot of closure for a lot of people who want to have the experience I did, which is to try to understand what he did,” Jessop said. “It really sheds a real insight as to the double life he was living at the expense of a lot of people who have lost their personal assets and people (who have) lost a lot of confidence in religion and a lot of things.
“There are a lot of victims behind this thing and there’s thousands more than just me,” he continued. “I think some of the contents will be used to allow people to bring closure to it, to understand it enough to close the chapter. We hope to do that.”
Previously, Jessop won the FLDS Church's 6.1-acre compound near Hildale for $3.6 million at an auction in 2013.
