Warren Jeffs, the leader of a breakaway fundamentalist Mormon sect of Colorado City, AZ, was arrested yesterday during a traffic stop near Las Vegas, Nevada. Jeffs was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for child abuse and faces felony charges on multiple counts of rape and sexual conduct with minors in Utah and Arizona. He will also be charged as an accomplice in the rape of a minor for forcing underage girls to marry older men.
Sordid as Jeffs criminal sexual activities are, religious and social practices prevalent in his and other similar polygamist sects are equally disturbing. Alarming stories of mind control, lack of education, physical and mental abuse in the guise of religion within secretive and isolated communities of fundamentalist Mormons have been heard from time to time by outsiders, usually reported by those who have managed to escape. Members are also involved in bilking the federal government for hundreds of thousands of welfare dollars. The polygamists co-habit with multiple women but declare only one of them as a lawful wife to the government. The rest of the "wives" collect federal Welfare money as single women with children.
"…. The sect follows the original fundamental teachings of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, which include the practice of polygamy. The Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints left polygamy behind in 1890 and now excommunicates members who practice it.
While on the run from the law for more than a year, Jeffs told his followers that authorities would never capture him, because God was protecting him. Members of the church believed him; after all, he was their prophet — the "speaker of God’s will." But on Monday night, Jeffs’ faith bumped into the law, when a Las Vegas trooper pulled over a burgundy Escalade on a routine traffic stop. Sitting in the back was Jeffs, who has been on the FBI’s Most Wanted List since May with a $100,000 reward for any tips leading to his capture. One of his estimated 40 wives, Naomi Jeffs, and his brother Isaac Steed Jeffs were with him as well as a number of on-the-run travel essentials, including: several wigs, $67,500 in cash, 14 cell phones, a radar detector, two GPS systems, seven sets of keys, a photograph of Jeffs and his father, and a Bible and a Book of Mormon.
It is estimated, that Jeffs now has 80 wives, some 250 children and millions of dollars at his disposal.
"Money, sex, and power is what fundamentalist polygamy is about and that is what Warren Jeffs represents," says John Llewelln, who points out that Jeffs is the leader of the largest and most secretive of the fundamentalist polygamy groups. Llewelln has authored four books on polygamy and is a former polygamist himself; he also worked as Salt Lake County’s deputy sheriff, specializing in sex crimes investigations. "From the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist point of view, Jeffs is the quintessential Mormon polygamist because he does not hold himself accountable to any government or societal rules — only his religion. His followers view him as having done nothing wrong except to live his religion and do what a prophet does."
An informative and chilling book on fundamentalist Mormon polygamists, their history and current status, is Jon Krakauer’s "Under the Banner of Heaven", in which Krakauer investigates Warren Jeffs, his father Rulon and several other polygamists in the US and Canada.
Accidental Blogger 