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	Victims Relieved after Jeffs" Sentencing By Kiah Collier San Angelo Standard-Times August 9, 2011 http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2011/aug/09/victims-relieved-after-jeffs-verdict/ A blank-faced Warren Jeffs was met with jeers outside the Tom Green County Courthouse on Tuesday after a jury sentenced him to life in prison. "Where are your followers now, Mr. Jeffs?" reporter Mike Watkiss asked the 55-year-old polygamist leader as he was escorted out the east entrance to an awaiting vehicle. Watkiss has been covering abuse in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for about 30 years. "Bubba's waiting!" San Angelo resident Llano Coleman yelled at Jeffs. Coleman and his wife, Alicia, who attended the proceedings for a week, said, "It's been a long, tedious time." The couple wore red clothing and accessories on Tuesday, which they said symbolized their opposition to Jeffs. A former FLDS member testified during Saturday's proceedings that the so-called prophet of the FLDS grew increasingly tyrannical after he took over the church from his father, Rulon Jeffs, in 2002 and had banned the color red for clothing and decor in FLDS communities. The fundamentalist Mormon sect has about 10,000 members in the U.S. who live in communities in Texas, Utah and Arizona. The church believes that polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. It took the jury roughly half an hour to agree on a sentence, which they delivered to the court 40 minutes after the court had recessed so they could deliberate. After the sentence was announced, reporters and the few dozen residents who had been regularly attending the trial flocked around the courthouse to talk to former FLDS members and await the exit of Jeffs and the prosecution and defense teams. Surrounded by a crowd of reporters and trial observers, former FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop, who has faced a steady level of scrutiny for claiming he was unaware of the sexual abuse, said the church should accept some culpability and that he would return to the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado only on certain conditions. "We have to take some responsibility," Jessop said. Asked if he would return to the ranch, Jessop said he had never lived there but would "go back long enough to make sure those guard towers come down and that people are there because they want to be there." Secrecy, he said, was never a necessity. Members of the crowd hooted and applauded. "I want to make sure that every mom down there has their cellphones and that they have Internet and that they have choices, the same choice that I enjoy and you enjoy as an American," Jessop continued. "And if those choices are removed by some totalitarian authority that's going on here today, yeah, I'll be back." Two of Warren Jeffs' relatives, older half sister Elaine Jeffs and nephew Brent Jeffs, who testified that his uncle raped him in a bathroom in Utah when he was 5 years old, breathed a sigh of relief when they spoke to reporters and observers. "I was a victim of him, but now I can stand 10 feet tall and say, 'You are where you belong,' and I am able to let go of all this and move on with my life," Brent Jeffs said as he broke into tears. On the other side of the courthouse, Elaine Jeffs, who left the FLDS in 1984 after her father, Rulon Jeffs, claimed his absolute rule over the sect, told reporters the trial helped give a "face to lots of victims" and provided her with "therapeutic" closure. She said hearing the numerous sexually explicit audiotapes played during the trial was "devastating." "He's a pervert, and the crazy thing is, he perverted his own religion," she said of her half brother, adding that the outcome of the trial may not have much impact on the FLDS because members are not hearing information about it. However, she offered an optimistic take. "These people are gradually going to be able to see and hear the truth," she said. When the prosecution team exited the courthouse, they were met with applause and shouts of "Good job." "The focus of this case needs to be on the victims," said Eric Nichols, the lead prosecutor, reading from a written statement. Texas Ranger Brooks Long, who coordinated the controversial, weeklong raid on the YFZ Ranch, said he hopes the trial served to dispel any criticism of the raid, which led to the temporary removal of more than 400 children. "Those folks who were casting aspersions early on about the negativity of our investigation and the focus of our investigation, we hope that the fruits that were presented to you in court now answer your questions," he said. In her first-ever public statement, Rebecca Musser, who had been a spiritual wife to Warren Jeffs' father and escaped the FLDS when Jeffs tried to take her as his own wife, said the evidence recovered during the raid that she helped the state "interpret" compelled her to devote her time to helping the state make its case. "I have been testifying against the sexual atrocities in the FLDS under Warren Jeffs' leadership since 2006 and have sacrificed much to maintain credibility as a witness," she said. "Despite many requests for interviews, I have chosen to remain silent. ... However, because of the nature and importance of the final outcome of this trial, I am choosing to give this statement." McKinney-based criminal defense attorney Deric Walpole, who Jeffs fired as his lead counsel, reappointed during the sentencing phase of the trial and then released on Tuesday, said little to reporters. "We respect the jury's verdict," he said. "Any case is a challenge."
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