SALT LAKE CITY — Federal prosecutors painted polygamous community leader Lyle Steed Jeffs on Wednesday as a man who openly defies the law and doesn't recognize civil authority.

Assistant U.S. attorney Rob Lund argued in court that Jeffs carries out the dictates of his imprisoned brother Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the Fundamentalist LDS Church, including circulating a recent revelation advocating the overthrow of laws that conflict with tenets of the faith.

Lund described how Warren Jeffs continues to give revelations to the church, which his family members secretly record while visiting him in prison.

The prosecutor told U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart that Lyle Jeffs would use his "substantial influence" as a bishop in the church to obstruct justice and interfere with witnesses in the welfare fraud case against him and 10 others if he were released from jail.

Lund recounted how Jeffs sent a church member on a "repentance mission" to remove him from his family and could wield the same power with potential witnesses.

Stewart didn't make a decision during the hearing attended by two dozen Jeffs' family members who filled up half the courtroom. The judge didn't say when he would rule.

Lyle Jeffs, 56, has been behind bars since federal agents arrested him Feb. 23 on charges of conspiracy to commit Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps) benefits fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Judges have released the other defendants pending trial.

Federal public defender Kathryn Nester argued that prosecutors have "got every piece of dirt" they could on Jeffs but no evidence that he would not show up for court or intimidate witnesses. She contends prosecutors want to keep Jeffs locked up merely because he's a church leader.

"The government needs more than a guess or a strong hunch that Lyle would do something wrong in the future," she told the judge.

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Nester noted that prosecutors have collected thousands of pages of witness statements in the case. "Clearly, the government is not having a problem with witnesses," she said.

The defense attorney suggested the judge allow Jeffs to be released with a GPS tracking device or allowed to live in a home in Provo to lessen any concern of intimidation in the FLDS community in southern Utah.

At one point during the hearing, Stewart paused to allow Jeffs and FLDS members to leave the courtroom while attorneys talked about issues that they said would be a violation of their faith to hear.

Lund then told the court that Lyle Jeffs has taken underage brides and acted as a witness in underage marriages. He said in 2004, Lyle Jeffs asked Warren Jeffs if he should a start a family with a 16-year-old wife. Lund said Warren Jeffs told him to "live the law now" but be careful about who knows.

Nester contends prosecutors don't know if Lyle Jeffs had sex with the girl and if he had, they would have charged him with a crime.

Some of the documents prosecutors cited were a decade old and the relationship between polygamists and government authorities has changed, Nester said.

"These writings are stale. They're hearsay," she said.

Lund said Warren Jeffs ordered the SNAP fraud to occur and that church members should avoid detection. He said it could not have happened without ecclesiastical leaders like Lyle Jeffs. When Lyle Jeffs' son asked why they were doing it, he told him not to worry because they were "10 steps ahead of the government," Lund said.

Alleging $191,000 in fraud, prosecutors say church members' food stamp proceeds were diverted from authorized beneficiaries to leaders of the church to use as they saw fit, or the people were instructed to swipe their SNAP cards as if making purchases in church-owned businesses but left empty-handed.

Warren Jeffs is serving a life prison sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting two underage polygamous brides. Prosecutors assert that Lyle Jeffs and other defendants in the food stamp fraud case took extensive and deliberate steps to help Warren Jeffs evade the charges against him in 2006.

With the help of his family members, Warren Jeffs still directs the affairs of the FLDS Church from his prison cell, prosecutors say. They surreptitiously record his verbal instructions and transcribe them to disseminate to the church, Lund said. A daughter had a recording device fashioned into a watch, he said.

In a February revelation, Warren Jeffs says the church is being persecuted for living divine principles, Lund said.

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