Arizona authorities happy Jeffs got life term

KINGMAN, Ariz. — Top law enforcement officials in northwest Arizona expressed satisfaction Tuesday that their counterparts in Texas successfully prosecuted polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs and that he has begun serving a life sentence.

Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith said he remains disappointed that witness reluctance and other factors forced him last year to dismiss his case against Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Arizona case was based on allegations that Jeffs assigned underage girls to male adults in "spiritual marriages," but Smith noted the Texas case was much stronger in that it focused on Jeffs’ direct sexual involvement with two girls.

Smith said he monitored the Texas trial as best he could, including one disturbing audio recording of a child rape and another recording of Jeffs instructing four girls how to please him sexually. But Smith doesn’t think revelations during the trial in Texas will prompt further investigation or action by his office.

"From what I know right now, I’d say no, but I’m not privy to everything that happened in Texas," Smith said.

He also noted that there’s no guarantee that Jeffs’ convictions will withstand appeal in the Lone Star State.

"There’s one big thing hanging over Texas," Smith said. "And that is the legality of the search."

Smith said higher courts will decide whether evidence used against Jeffs and other FLDS men convicted in Texas was gathered during what some view as unconstitutional searches of the FLDS-held YFZ ranch in spring 2008. Smith said the convictions will be reversed if higher courts disallow the evidence.

EFFECT IN UTAH, ARIZONA UNCLEAR

How Jeffs’ conviction in Texas affects about 6,000 FLDS faithful more than 1,000 miles away is unclear. The sect was established in remote southern Utah and northern Arizona, and its members have a long history of secrecy.

"None of the FLDS are going to talk," said Sam Brower, who has spent six years working special investigations focused on sect activity.

Isaac Wyler, excommunicated by Jeffs several years ago, agrees followers will maintain their culture of privacy. He said he has been able to learn only of local church chatter that the legal proceedings in Texas have been branded a sham.

Chief Deputy Jim McCabe said the Mohave County sheriff’s office continues to maintain a presence in and around Colorado City. He said there’s no reason to expect a power struggle simply because Jeffs has drawn a life prison sentence.

"He’s been in jail for a number of years, and he’s been running that community from within facilities, so is that necessarily going to change? I don’t know," McCabe said.

SOME TRANSFER OF POWER

Wyler and Brower think Jeffs is ceding some of his authority to his younger brother.

"Lyle Jeffs is Warren’s main man," Brower said. "He’s the guy who’s next. He’s going to be taking over. He’s already been taking over."

Brower said Warren Jeffs maintained control of the FLDS in recent years while jailed in Utah, Arizona and Texas because he was afforded broad visitation and telephone communication privileges and other freedoms that will disappear when he enters a prison setting. That necessitates some transfer of power to Jeffs’ brother, Brower said.

"It’s going to start changing to a point where Warren’s input is going to be minimal and Lyle’s is going to be the major input," Brower said. "They’re still going to keep Warren as a figurehead I’m sure, as long as he’s alive, and use him as an icon of gentile persecution."

Brower and Wyler said Jeffs made clear his support and trust of his brother before the start of the Texas trial by excommunicating Wendell Nielsen, who formerly served as his first counselor. Jeffs named Lyle Jeffs his new first counselor and directed him to move into the mansion formerly inhabited by Nielsen, who was ordered to leave.

While Jeffs might be trying to provide for a transition of authority to his brother, an effort to establish a rival FLDS sect is gaining steam. Brower and Wyler have said that Jeffs’ former bodyguard Willie Jessop and former FLDS bishop William Timpson have attracted more than 200 members to their sect.

Smith and McCabe said their offices will continue to look into allegations of corruption and crime, no matter who is in charge of the FLDS in the future.