Polygamist convicted of child sex
Source: Agencies |
August 6, 2011, Saturday
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AMERICAN polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, who heads a breakaway Mormon sect, has been found guilty of child sexual assault for his "spiritual marriages" to two underage girls.
A Texas jury convicted the 55-year-old Jeffs on Thursday of child sexual assault and aggravated child sexual assault over his relationships with the girls, ages 12 and 14, at his sect's Texas ranch. He faces up to 119 years in prison.
Jeffs is considered the spiritual leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and has argued in outbursts that the Texas court was trampling on his religious rights by trying the case.
The polygamist sect, which experts estimate has 10,000 followers in North America, has been assailed by the mainstream Mormon Church and is accused of promoting marriages between older men and girls.
"This is taking down the head of the snake," former sect member Flora Jessop said of the verdict, handed down after about three hours of deliberations.
Throughout his trial Jeffs repeatedly said that his religion was being attacked, a notion rejected by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose office prosecuted the case.
"What was on trial here wasn't anybody's faith, wasn't a church, wasn't a concept," Abbott told reporters after the verdict outside the county courthouse in San Angelo.
Abbott said he expected the punishment phase of Jeffs' trial to take several days.
Assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols took seven days to put together a case against the self-proclaimed "prophet and elect of God" of his FLDS sect, which says plural marriage is the pathway to heaven.
Among the evidence used to convict Jeffs was a picture of him passionately kissing the younger girl, and DNA evidence that he fathered a child with the 14-year-old.
Jeffs, in what was to have been his closing argument, simply stood silently in the courtroom for more than 20 minutes before quietly saying: "I am at peace." And then sat down.
A Texas jury convicted the 55-year-old Jeffs on Thursday of child sexual assault and aggravated child sexual assault over his relationships with the girls, ages 12 and 14, at his sect's Texas ranch. He faces up to 119 years in prison.
Jeffs is considered the spiritual leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and has argued in outbursts that the Texas court was trampling on his religious rights by trying the case.
The polygamist sect, which experts estimate has 10,000 followers in North America, has been assailed by the mainstream Mormon Church and is accused of promoting marriages between older men and girls.
"This is taking down the head of the snake," former sect member Flora Jessop said of the verdict, handed down after about three hours of deliberations.
Throughout his trial Jeffs repeatedly said that his religion was being attacked, a notion rejected by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose office prosecuted the case.
"What was on trial here wasn't anybody's faith, wasn't a church, wasn't a concept," Abbott told reporters after the verdict outside the county courthouse in San Angelo.
Abbott said he expected the punishment phase of Jeffs' trial to take several days.
Assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols took seven days to put together a case against the self-proclaimed "prophet and elect of God" of his FLDS sect, which says plural marriage is the pathway to heaven.
Among the evidence used to convict Jeffs was a picture of him passionately kissing the younger girl, and DNA evidence that he fathered a child with the 14-year-old.
Jeffs, in what was to have been his closing argument, simply stood silently in the courtroom for more than 20 minutes before quietly saying: "I am at peace." And then sat down.
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