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	Evidence in Warren Jeffs" Texas Trial Being Sought by Utah Authorities By Ben Winslow Fox 13 July 29, 2011 http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-warren-jeffs-evidence-in-warren-jeffs-texas-trial-being-sought-by-utah-authorities-20110729,0,3523155.story Texas authorities have seized hundreds of boxes of evidence from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Some of that evidence is being used by prosecutors in FLDS leader Warren Jeffs' trial on child sex assault. Fox 13 News has learned Utah prosecutors also want to see the massive collection of evidence -- to see if there is any sign of criminal activity by Jeffs or other FLDS members. "We've been trying for 11 years to get evidence from these guys," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said Friday. "We were down (in Hildale) trying to serve search warrants for church records in 2001 and facing troubles with that." Shurtleff told Fox 13 he has asked Texas authorities to share their evidence with Utah investigators and they have agreed -- after the Texas Attorney General's Office finishes its trials of a dozen FLDS members on charges related to underage marriages and bigamy. In court filings, lawyers have said there are more than 1.7 billion pages of evidence seized in the 2008 raid on the FLDS Church's Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. Among the evidence: pictures, marriage records and diaries penned by Jeffs himself. "He likes his journals. He likes to record things," Shurtleff said. "I knew that was all somewhere, someplace." Shurtleff acknowledged his office has had no evidence of so-called child bride marriages taking place in Utah since 2004, when the state made child bigamy a second-degree felony. However, he said the evidence that Texas has obtained may point to other crimes. "We do believe that crimes were committed here from financial crimes and tax evasion and other types of fraud," the attorney general said. "We know there were child bride marriages way back when. We haven't had the evidence to prove that in court beyond a reasonable doubt." The evidence seized in the YFZ raid has been repeatedly challenged in court. A phone call from someone purporting to be an underage girl on the ranch is believed to have been a hoax. Lawyers for FLDS members have sought to have the evidence suppressed, but the judge overseeing the cases has repeatedly rejected their motions. The woman at the center of Utah's criminal prosecution of Jeffs told Fox 13 on Friday that the evidence seized in Texas will "shock the world." "It really will," Elissa Wall said in an interview. "And I think that people will have a different perspective of Jeffs." Wall was in Texas in the early days of the 2008 raid. In an interview with Fox 13, she refused to divulge what evidence she may have been privvy to. Wall was the star witness in Utah's rape as an accomplice case against Jeffs, which was overturned by the Utah Supreme Court. Wall said she is willing to endure a re-trial. Shurtleff said Washington County prosecutors are prepared to try Jeffs again, if they decide to. "As hard as it would be, I do support one because I do feel we have to do the right thing here in Utah," Wall said. In Texas, Jeffs has jettisoned his attorneys and on Friday spoke in court for more than an hour, delivering a sermon-like address that defended polygamy. He also read a statement he claimed was revealed to him by God, warning those involved in his trial that if they did not halt it, they would be "humbled by sickness and death." Wall said she believed a jury would find Jeffs guilty of child sex assault, where he is accused of participating in underage marriages. But she added that a guilty verdict may be seen as another test of FLDS members' faith. "By design, I believe that Warren wants to be a martyr," she said. "He wants to be akin to (Mormon Church founder) Joseph Smith." The FLDS Church is a breakaway sect from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which no longer practices polygamy and excommunicates those who do.
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