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John Hollenhorst ReportingA judge in St. George feels there is enough evidence to put Warren Jeffs on trial as an accomplice in the rape of a child. The ruling climaxed a preliminary hearing that exposed the inner workings and marriage rituals of Jeffs' secretive polygamy group.
The Judge set a trial date of April 23rd. A big challenge will be finding unbiased jurors in a county where unusual religious beliefs have drawn relentless attention from the media. A phalanx of news cameras and reporters, many from out of state, staked out the courthouse. Polygamist supporters of Warren Jeffs avoided cameras. His critics sought them out.
Anonymous: "He needs to go to prison for a good 10 or 15 years, let him sit there and think about what he's done."
The only defense witness was a detective who interviewed the teenage victim. She said the victim told her Jeffs pressured the girl when she was 14 to marry and have sex with her own first cousin. But the detective admitted the victim never specifically discussed sex with Jeffs, in so many words
Defense Attorney: "The most specific she got was to say that her husband touched her in places that made her uncomfortable, is that correct?" Detective: "That's correct, yes."
Testimony indicates the girl repeatedly begged and pleaded with Jeffs to undo the marriage. The judge ruled that by encouraging her to submit and have children, Jeffs probably enticed her to have sex.
Judge James Shumate: "The court specifically finds that Mr. Jeffs' conduct was at a minimum 'reckless' as to the commission of the offense of rape."
But defense attorneys say Jeffs merely did what religious leaders do in patriarchal faiths.
Walter Bugden, Jeffs' Attorney: "He counseled the wife to be loving, respectful and obedient to her husband. Mr. Jeffs never told the young lady to have sexual intercourse."
Critics contend that rape is only part of a pattern of abuse in the FLDS faith.
Ross Chatwin, Former FLDS member: "Taking families away, destroying families. That's the real hurt and crime that Warren has done."
Jeffs faces up to life in prison if he's convicted. One long-time member of the polygamist community told us he fears Jeffs will now become a martyr to his followers. He predicts the trial will tighten them up, drive them further underground and strengthen their beliefs.
Jeffs' FLDS sect traces its roots to early Mormon theology, which promoted plural marriage. The modern Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disavows polygamy and renounced the practice in 1890 as a condition of Utah's statehood.
FLDS members, however, consider themselves "fundamentalist Mormons" who continue to believe polygamy will bring glory in heaven. They also consider Jeffs a prophet of God with dominion over their salvation.
The church has 10,000 members mostly living in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, on the Utah-Arizona border.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
