Aug 30, 2006 11:04 am US/Central
Polygamist Warren Jeffs Made Officer 'Nervous'
LAS VEGAS (CBS News) ―
After three months on the FBI's Most Wanted List and two years on the lam, the fugitive life of the leader of a polygamist religious sect ended with a routine traffic stop.
Warren Steed Jeffs, 50, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was wanted in Utah and Arizona on charges of arranging two marriages between underage girls and older men. He was in a Cadillac Escalade that was pulled over Monday night by the Nevada Highway Patrol, authorities said.
"Once the FBI got there ... he gave his full name, Warren Jeffs, and kind of gave a sigh," said Eddie Dutchover, the trooper who stopped the sport utility vehicle with Jeffs, his brother and one of his many wives inside.
When he was arrested, Jeffs' SUV was found stocked for survival on the lam, CBS News correspondent Sandra Hughes reports. No weapons were found in the vehicle, but authorities said they found three wigs, 15 cell phones, letters to "President Warren Jeffs," $54,000 in cash and $10,000 in gift cards.
Jeffs is said to have at least 40 wives and nearly 60 children. Authorities said he claimed to be invincible, protected by God from capture, with bodyguards who promised to fight to the death for him.
Within his sect, Jeffs is said to have encouraged church members to marry young girls. Church dissidents say that underage marriages — some involving girls as young as 13 — escalated into the hundreds under his leadership, and that he broke apart families by casting out married men and reassigning their women and children to others.
His followers live in compounds along the Arizona-Utah border, Hughes reports.
There is "probably a lot of shock and anger" among those communities, Laurie Allen, who was born and raised in a polygamist community but escaped at age 30, told The Early Show.
"These people have been taught, they believe that Warren Jeffs is protected by God and is that he would — they didn't think he would ever get caught," Allen said. Watch the full interview.
The vehicle Jeffs was riding in Monday night was stopped on Interstate 15 for having a temporary Colorado license tag that wasn't easily readable, FBI and Nevada Highway Patrol officials said.
Dutchover told The Associated Press he felt something was amiss. Jeffs said the group had stayed in Las Vegas for a night, but they had too much luggage, he said.
Jeffs, sitting in the back seat, at first refused to give his name and offered a contact lens receipt from Florida with the name John Findley as identification, the trooper said.
"Something was obviously wrong," Dutchover said. "I even told him, 'You're making me nervous. Is everything OK?'
For 90 minutes, until an FBI agent arrived and took Jeffs into custody late Monday, the religious leader sat silently and avoided eye contact, Dutchover said.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told KTAR-AM of Phoenix that Jeffs' arrest marks "the beginning of the end of ... the tyrannical rule of a small group of people over the practically 10,000 followers of the FLDS sect."
Naomi Jeffs, who was also traveling the vehicle, and Isaac Jeffs were released and will not be charged, said FBI special agent in charge Steven Martinez in Las Vegas.
Federal and state law enforcement agencies will determine whether Jeffs, who was in custody at the Clark County jail, should be sent first to Utah or Arizona, said Steve Sorenson, a federal prosecutor in Salt Lake City. Utah's charges are more serious.
The FLDS Church split from the mainstream Mormon Church when the Mormons disavowed polygamy more than 100 years ago. Warren Jeffs took over the renegade sect in 2002 after the death of his 98-year-old father, Rulon Jeffs, who was said to have had 65 children by several women. Warren Jeffs took nearly all his father's widows as his own wives. It was unclear what would happen to the leadership of the church while Jeffs was behind bars.
The insular communities Jeffs leads are expressing quiet sadness as they learn of the arrest, said Salt Lake City attorney Rod Parker, who has defended the FLDS church and some of its members in the past.
"I would say they were a little shocked," Parker said. "Shocked to the point that they didn't really even know how to respond."
Polygamy has been practiced here for more than 100 years, and FLDS members have survived wave after wave of persecution, Parker said.
"It's just sort of reinforcing that this is their burden ... and I think it may make them stronger and more insular as a group," he said of Jeffs' arrest.
In Hildale, Utah, on Tuesday, women with plaited hair and long dresses hoed gardens under the late summer sun, a few kids rode bikes or played basketball at the local school and men in pickup trucks drove through town casting wary looks to outsiders.
"They'll stay loyal," Chatwin said. "Warren's not dead yet."
He said the arrest might provide a window of opportunity for some members who have silently questioned the state of the FLDS church. It also might shock fiercely loyal members who consider Jeffs an untouchable prophet of God.
"It will shake people's testimony," Chatwin said. "It will make some stronger and it will make some weaker."
Jeffs' capture is also unlikely to affect the work of Bruce Wisan, a Salt Lake City accountant appointed by a Utah judge last year to manage the church's United Effort Plan Trust. The $100 million trust holds most of the property in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale and was placed under Wisan's guardianship to prevent Jeffs and other church leaders from using its assets for personal gain.
In the past, the trust had been used to punish disobedient members by forcing them out of their homes.
"I don't think it (Jeffs' arrest) will change much in town," Wisan said. "Warren has controlled them from afar, and I think he'll still be able to control them from jail."
Meanwhile, a sexual assault trial in Arizona in which Jeffs was named as a co-defendant was thrown into disarray Tuesday when a woman, who at age 16 was married to an FLDS member, refused to testify.
Candi Shapley, whose grand jury testimony led to an indictment against Jeffs and several other men, was held in contempt of court. A prosecutor said her testimony was crucial to the case.
"I have to have her testimony to convict Warren Jeffs," County Attorney Matt Smith told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
