Polygamist leader ends fight over traffic stop
Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs has dropped a Nevada federal court fight to prevent prosecutors from getting items seized from the vehicle he was in when he was arrested last year.
A lawyer for the jailed leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints refers to the matter as “moot” in documents filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. The lawyer, Richard Wright, did not respond Monday to messages.
The declaration was filed June 27, nearly 10 months to the day after Jeffs was arrested on Interstate 15 north of Las Vegas, and the FBI seized documents, computers, cash, debit cards and several electronic devices from a Cadillac Escalade driven by Jeffs’ brother, Isaac.
Warren Jeffs, 51, is in jail awaiting trial Sept. 10 in St. George, Utah, on state charges of rape as an accomplice. He is accused of arranging a 2001 spiritual marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.
U.S. attorney’s office spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch in Salt Lake City said Monday that the Las Vegas case was made part of a separate federal case in Utah.
Rydalch did not dispute earlier reports that the FBI confiscated $54,000 in cash, 15 cell phones, portable radios, wigs, four laptop computers, and papers, letters and electronic documents.
A federal grand jury in Salt Lake City indicted Jeffs in March on a charge of fleeing Utah to avoid prosecution on criminal charges.
The one-count indictment covers a five-month period in 2006, although Jeffs is believed to have been in hiding since late 2003.