Polygamist prophet is now a criminal defendant (CNN) [View All]

By Amanda Townsend and Ann O'Neill
CNN

ARIZONA-UTAH BORDER (CNN) -- After 115 days on the FBI's most-wanted list and a year in solitary confinement in a jail called Purgatory, the leader of the nation's largest polygamist sect is going on trial in St. George, Utah.

Warren Steed Jeffs, 51, is the president and prophet, seer and revelator of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as the FLDS. He stands accused of being an accomplice to rape. The trial is in its fourth day of jury selection.

The charges stem from Jeffs' alleged practice of arranging marriages between adult male followers and underage brides.

The young accuser at the center of the trial is under police protection. "Jane Doe," as she is known in court documents, was 14 at the time she says Jeffs forced her into a "spiritual marriage" with a 19-year-old first cousin.
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She told authorities her husband's demands for sex made her uncomfortable. But when she sought the advice of the prophet, she says he told her it was her spiritual duty to submit to her husband, who is her "priesthood head and leader." If she didn't, he warned, she'd lose her "salvation," according to an affidavit.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/12/jeffs.walkup/index.html