By Paul Bentley And Rachel Quigley
Daily Mail
August 9, 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023887/Warren-Jeffs-trial-Twisted-tape-sexual-instructions-polygamist-gave-child-brides.html
Jurors at the Warren Jeffs trial broke down in court today as they were played a chilling tape of the notorious polygamist instructing his child brides how to service him sexually and threatening that God would 'reject them' if they refused to have sex with him.
Softly telling five girls to 'set aside all your inhibitions', the convicted paedophile was heard giving the young girls detailed pointers during a graphic ten-minute tape played for the Texas jury.
The audiotape from 2004 was played before another, made within hours of the first, in which prosecutors say Jeffs can be heard having sex with all the girls at the same time.
In one tape, he is heard telling the girls they 'need to be excited'. Jurors also heard him tell the girls that if they refused him in what he has dubbed the 'heavenly sessions', they would be 'rejected by God'.
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| Chained: Warren Jeffs arriving at court today, where a twisted tape of sexual instructions he gave his child brides was played to shocked jurors |
The children are said to have included a 14-year-old girl, her two sisters and one half sister.
Several jurors squirmed or wiped away tears during the sometimes-scratchy recording.
Jeffs faces up to 119 years in prison after being convicted by the same jury last week of sexually assaulting two of his brides, who were 12 and 15. The sentencing phase of his trial is expected to finish early this week.
Prosecutors also displayed a page from one of Jeffs' journals. 'If the world knew what I was doing, they would hang me from the highest tree,' he wrote in 2005, according to one of thousands of pages of notes seized from his Texas ranch.
To finish off their presentation, prosecutors reverted to numbers to push home their case and try to high light the full extent of his crimes.
Using summary documents, they told the Tom Green County jurors Jeffs was involved in 550 bigamous marriages, including 67 that involved under-age girls.
Jeffs, they said, has 78 unlawful wives, of whom 24 were under age at the time of the marriage. Of his wives, 29 had previous been his stepmothers, 56 were sisters to each other, and 35 had been students at Alta Academy in Salt Lake City, where Jeffs had been a teacher and principal for 22 years.
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| Pictures taken by Nevada Highway Patrol of Warren Jeffs during his arrest near Las Vegas on August 28, 2006 | ||
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| Arrest photo: A number of documents were seized from his car when he was arrested by Nevada Highway Patrol including sunglasses, wigs, cellphones and money |
The under-age wives were as young as 12 at the time of marriage, and the jury heard and saw documentation of many of the individual girls.
The jury were also shown photos of the polygamist leader riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and wearing novelty T-shirts and a baseball cap with a Guinness beer logo.
The photos shown today during the sentencing phase of Jeffs' child sex assault trial were a contrast to the modest, conservative attired favoured by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, of which the 55-year-old is the head of.
Other pictures introduced into evidence at the beginning of today's session showed stacks of $100 bills, sunglasses, wigs and cellphones.
The materials came from the Cadillac Escalade in which the 55-year-old FLDS leader was captured in 2006, Broadway testified.
Closing arguments begin tomorrow at 9.30pm.
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| Stash: Police photographed the contents of Warren Jeffs' Escalade when they arrested him in Nevada in August 2006 which included stacks of money, cellphones, wigs and sunglasses |
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| Nothing to say?: As the polygamist religious leader arrives at the Tom Green County Courthouse, his yellow legal pad is completely empty |
Jeffs boycotted his sentencing phase for a third straight day, but made a brief courtroom appearance after being summoned by state District Judge Barbara Walther.
She told Jeffs's attorney, Deric Walpole, that she wanted to make sure Jeffs hadn't changed his mind.
Wearing a charcoal suit and carrying a blank legal yellow legal pad, Jeffs walked back into court but never spoke. Walpole said Jeffs wanted to stay outside, and he was escorted back to another room in the courthouse.
Soon after, prosecutors played the tapes. Jeffs is heard telling the girls that what 'the five of you are about to do is important'.
The recording ends with him asking the girls if his instructions are detailed enough. The voices of at least two girls responded: 'Yes'.
Last week, jurors heard a tape of what prosecutors said was Jeffs sexually assaulting the 12-year-old victim.
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| Sickening: Jeffs is seen embracing one of his child brides as he smiles at the camera | ||
Prosecutors suggested that the polygamist leader told the girls they needed to have sex with him - in what Jeffs called 'heavenly' or 'celestial' sessions - in order to atone for sins in his community.
Several times in his journals, Jeffs wrote of God telling him to take more and more young girls as brides 'who can be worked with and easily taught'.
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| Testimony: Rebecca Musser arriving at court today. Musser was Jeffs's stepmother, being one of the child wives of his father, Rulon Jeffs. She left the sect in 2002. |
FBI agent John Broadway testified that fathers who gave their young daughters to Jeffs - their supposed prophet - were rewarded with young brides of their own.
Girls who proved reluctant to have sex with Jeffs were sent away, according to excerpts from Jeffs's journals that prosecutors showed to the jury.
'If they wanted to not be rejected by God, then the new laws [Jeffs] was introducing was requiring them to participate in these sessions,' agent Broadway said.
The recording was played after the court heard over the weekend from one of Jeffs's nephews, who told the jury his uncle sexually abused him when he was just five years old - warning him that no one could be told because 'this is between me, you and God'.
Warren Jeffs was never charged with sexually assaulting his nephew, but Brent Jeffs says he and his uncle reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed in 2003.
The news came as shocking pictures emerged showing Jeffs holding and passionately kissing an underage female church member.
As the court began to consider punishment for Jeffs, prosecutors warned the jury to expect more sickening revelations, including the fact he had 24 underage 'wives'.
Other pictures revealed to the court today showed beds where ritual sex sessions were carried out in front of a church audience.
State witness Rebecca Musser - a former FLDS member who was married as a young girl to Jeffs' father, former FLDS prophet Rulon Jeffs, told the court she had received training about how beds in the temple were to be used in sexual rituals before it was built.
Miss Musser said beds inside the temple were arranged so that witnesses could see the abuse and that a special seat was placed for someone to record the sexual acts.
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| Abuser: These are just some of the shocking images that show convicted child sex cult leader Warren Jeffs with one of his child 'wives' |
Also called to testify was Utah psychologist Larry Beall who described Jeffs' grooming of the underage girls as being 'like a peadophile'.
Mr Beall, who has worked with FLDS victims, said some of the abused girls may not even recognise they have been sexually assaulted - such was their 'mental conditioning'
The recordings and journals were seized during a 2008 raid on an FLDS ranch in rural West Texas. That raid led to the charges against Jeffs and several of his followers.
Jeffs spent years evading arrest — crisscrossing the country as a fugitive who eventually made the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list before his capture in 2006.
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| Worship: Temple of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in El Dorado, Texas, where the 'heavenly sessions' with the young girls took place |
Jeffs also allegedly excommunicated 60 church members he saw as a threat to his leadership, breaking up 300 families while stripping them of property and 'reassigning' wives and children.
Mr Walpole, Jeffs's attorney, has declined to say whether he'll call witnesses during the sentencing phase.
He has indicated that his plea for leniency will focus on Jeffs being a product of his environment and a culture that hasn't changed for centuries.
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