By Terri Langford
Houston Chronicle
December 1, 2010
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| The Utah Supreme Court on Nov. 23 ruled it would not block the transfer of Warren Jeffs to Texas. |
Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs faced a Texas judge Wednesday more than two years after authorities discovered his followers married underage girls at an Eldorado ranch, prompting the removal of 438 children, the largest child custody case in U.S. history.
A wan Jeffs, 54, appeared before state District Judge Barbara Walther in San Angelo where he was arraigned on three charges involving two underage brides, unidentified girls who were 12 and 14 at the time of the alleged crimes.
He's accused of sexually assaulting one girl in 2005 and committing bigamy and aggravated sexual assault with the other girl in 2006.
If Jeffs, the self-appointed leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect, is convicted on any one of the three charges, he could face as little as five years or as much as life in prison.
"This is a crime that occurred in the state of Texas and will be adjudicated here," said Jerry Strickland, spokesman for Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott, whose office has so far prosecuted seven FLDS men.
An overturned Utah conviction for Jeffs, who had been serving a sentence of rape for his role in forcing two underage girls to marry there, opened the door for Abbott's office to move on indictments filed here against Jeffs in 2008, the year of the Texas raid.
Jeffs was transported from Utah by members of the Texas Rangers and an investigator from the Texas Attorney General's Office late Tuesday. He arrived at the Reagan County Jail on Tuesday night and was presented at the Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo for arraignment Wednesday morning.
For decades, the practice of underage marriages among the FLDS faithful had been tolerated in Arizona, the FLDS' home base, following a failed and similar raid there in 1953. But recent scrutiny and attempts to prosecute followers forced hundreds of them to move to Texas, where they bought a 1,700 acre ranch in 2003.
When Texas authorities raided the ranch in 2008, they found that many of the nearly 500 children had been born to the FLDS members in the past four years.
Texas Department of Family and Protective Services officials removed 438 children after they found a dozen girls had been married or given birth to children.
However, the Texas Supreme Court found the agency could have taken other actions besides removing the children and all of them were eventually returned to their parents, but not before a year of court proceedings and more than $14 million were spent transferring them into foster care.
Authorities in the Texas child custody case provided evidence that Jeffs had married one girl when she was 12 years old.
Contact: terri.langford@chron.com
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