Warren Jeffs Court Documents Unsealed, KUTV, October 31, 2007

Warren Jeffs Court Documents Unsealed

KUTV
October 31, 2007

http://www.kutv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=79b583c5-2854-4ae2-beca-a25c4bd50093

Details of the Warrens Jeffs case kept secret during the trial were made public Tuesday. The state unsealed court documents and they're now open for all to see.

There are many details about Warren Jeffs' health - like the fact that he lost 30 pounds in jail, his private conversations with family, and his own doubts about being prophet of the FLDS Church.

Warren Jeffs

During his trial, Warren Jeffs appeared sickly and seemed to fall asleep. But recently unsealed court papers reveal while Jeffs was in jail he became so sick, he went to the hospital. Doctors said he was depressed.

In January, right before he went to the hospital, the documents say Jeffs called family and church members and told them, "When he was 20 years old, he had been immoral with a sister and a daughter."

During those phone calls, he "renounced his role as the prophet" because "the lord revealed to him that he was a wicked man and has not held the priesthood since he was 20 years old."

Jeff's attorney, Walter Bugden, later asked the judge to keep that information out of the trial, because the state would use it to depict Jeffs as "a wicked and immoral man." The judge agreed.

The court papers say a month after Jeffs renounced his role as prophet; he talked to family on the phone again and retracted his renouncement of the prophecy, saying he'd just been through a great spiritual test.

Two months after that, Jeffs tried to pass a note to the judge in court.

The Deseret Morning News had it digitally enhanced by an expert. Who said the note said "I have not been a prophet and am not the prophet." The judge refused to take that note from Jeffs.

These court papers also reveal that the key witness in the trial, the victim Elissa Wall, and her husband Israel Lamont Barlow have new identities.

They used their old names during the trial because the state wanted to make sure they weren't tracked down by media or Warren Jeffs.

If you want to see these documents visit: State of Utah v. Warren Steed Jeffs Court Documents. New documents released October 30, 2007 as well as all other court documents.