Child-Raping Church Leader Warren Jeffs Being Force-Fed

By: Miranda Neubauer
Topics: Daily Blotter

(AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)

BEAVER, Utah (CBS/AP) Warren Jeffs, the polygamous sect leader who is used to getting his way with little girls, is learning what it's like to be forced beyond his will. The 53-year-old is now being being force-fed in jail for the second time in less than a week after again refusing to eat, officials said Tuesday.

A former fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted list, Jeffs was arrested in August 2006 during a traffic stop near Las Vegas. While in a southern Utah jail awaiting trial, he suffered from depression, dropped as much as 30 pounds and was hospitalized after an attempted suicide in January 2007.

Jeffs is the head of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He is jailed awaiting trial on charges related to alleged underage marriages involving sect girls.

Mohave County sheriff's spokeswoman Trish Carter said force feeding of Jeffs started Friday at the Kingman, Arizona, jail after it was found he was not eating. Jeffs subsequently started eating on his own again and continued doing so until Monday night, she said.

But on Tuesday, Jeffs again refused to eat and is now being force-fed via a tube down his throat that delivers liquid nutrition, Carter said.

"Mr. Jeffs is closely being watched 24 hours a day," a statement from Carter said.

In a letter filed with the Mohave Superior Court on Friday, the jail's medical director said Jeffs had been refusing food and was no longer urinating. Medical Director Kirsten Mortenson said Jeffs' vital signs were worsening and he was suffering peripheral edema - the swelling of extremities like hands, feet and legs - brought on by "protein/calorie malnutrition."

"This deterioration will continue to accelerate and become harder to reverse the longer it persists," Mortenson wrote in a letter to Judge Steven F. Conn. "His death could be imminent without immediate medical intervention."

Contacted by cellphone Tuesday by The Associated Press, Mortenson said federal privacy laws prevented her from making any comment.

"I can't even tell you if I've seen him," she said.

Jeffs was moved to Kingman from the Utah State Prison in February 2008. In September 2007, a Utah jury convicted Jeffs of two counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in the 2001 marriage of an underage follower to her husband. He was sentenced to two consecutive prison terms of five years to life.

On Tuesday, Jeffs' Tucson, Arizona, attorney Michael Piccarreta said he did not know the status of his client's medical condition, but that the situation was not unusual.

"Mr. Jeffs is a deeply religious man and sometimes engages in lengthy religious practices while in jail. When he does, he declines food and beverages and this sometimes occurs," he said. "If you look at other religious and political people who have been wrongly incarcerated, you'll see others have gone through this."

Piccarreta, who represents Jeffs in two pending criminal cases, said he believed Mohave County handled the situation appropriately. Jeffs is more than 6 feet tall and has always been slight, Piccarreta noted.

"There's not a lot of extra pounds," he said.

Throughout his incarceration Jeffs has been known to fast and spend long periods on his knees in prayer.

Earlier this year, Mohave County's deputy jail director Bruce Brown told the AP that Jeffs had not had any significant health problems. Jeffs had been eating three meals a day and maintaining his weight, Brown said.

Jeffs is also facing criminal charges of bigamy and sexual assault of a child in Texas. The charges stem from information gathered by authorities during a raid on a church ranch near Eldorado last year.

The FLDS tie their religious roots to the early teachings of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and practice polygamy in arranged marriages. The Mormon church renounced plural marriages in 1890 as part of Utah's push for statehood. Self-described Mormon fundamentalists such as the FLDS believe polygamy will bring glorification in heaven.

Jeffs, who is revered as a prophet who communicates with God, commands a flock roughly 12,000 strong despite his incarceration. Church members live mostly in the twin border towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona. The faith also has small enclaves in Texas, Colorado, South Dakota and near Bountiful, British Columbia.

33 Comments Have Your Say
Email Story Send to a Friend
Share This Tell Your Friends
Tweet This Tweet This
More Share It

Add a Comment

See all 33 Comments


by UncleStavros August 11, 2009 11:11 PM EDT: Warren Jeffs has done everyone--young, old, immediate family:

"Weeks after the Sept. 25 verdict, the judge unsealed court documents that disclosed a suicide attempt by Jeffs in jail. He apparently attempted to hang himself in January, months before trial. Authorities have declined to discuss the events, although Jeffs was taken to a hospital for just a few hours.

The documents also included selected jail transcripts of phone calls and visits between Jeffs and members of his church. Although he has been president, or prophet, since 2002, following the death of his father, Rulon, Jeffs said in jail that he had not been worthy of the "priesthood" for decades.

"I was immoral with a sister and a daughter when I was younger, so the Lord showed me I'm one of the most wicked men on the face of the Earth since father Adam's time," Jeffs said.

He never elaborated on the immoral acts."

What a twisted, pathetic monster.; Reply to this comment


by UncleStavros August 11, 2009 11:05 PM EDT: "Last July a nephew of Warren Jeffs filed a civil claim against the FLDS prophet alleging that Jeffs "repeatedly sodomized and otherwise sexually abused" him when the nephew was a five-year-old student at the Alta Academy?a private FLDS school in Sandy Utah that is no longer in existence. Warren Jeffs was the principal of the school at the time. The abuse was said to have occurred in a basement lavatory during Sunday church services. The nephew was told that the abuse was "God?s work," and that if he ever mentioned the abuse to anyone he would be damned by God for eternity. Warren Jeffs has been in hiding ever since this lawsuit was filed."

What a sick S.O.B.; Reply to this comment

by UncleStavros August 11, 2009 11:00 PM EDT

Warren Jeffs sodomized his nephew! When his nephew was a little boy!

Reply to this comment


by PhDAAA August 12, 2009 10:12 AM EDT: Yes, he was accused of this, but he was never been found guilty.

Once again, do you believe in innocent until proven guilty, or do you think a lynch mob is the way to deal with Jeffs?

by UncleStavros August 11, 2009 10:57 PM EDT

"In his new book, "Lost Boy," Brent Jeffs opens up about his life in the FLDS community and how he helped bring down his uncle, Warren Jeffs.

Brent grew up in a polygamist family with three mothers and over 20 brothers and sisters. He recounts hours of brain-washing church services, the strict rules on what you could wear, and how you could and could not act. He reveals that they would even receive death threats that God would strike them down if anyone didn't follow the prophet's decrease.

But although the crimes against young girls and women were exposed after his conviction, the history of the FLDS, quote, "lost boys" stayed underground. In the book, Brent Jeffs opens up about his molestation, starting at the age of 5, at the hands of his own uncle, a ritual that he would later come to finds out was performed on many boys in the church.

Confusion and rage followed Brent through much of his adolescent years. At the age of 14 he found himself kicked out of the church and out on the street, just like hundreds of other boys. Warren Jeffs would routinely push out the teenage boys, so he would have access to all the young brides that he wanted."

Yeah, sounds like a child raper all right.

Reply to this comment


by PhDAAA August 12, 2009 10:11 AM EDT: The book Lost Boys was written by Brent W. Jeffs AND Maia Szalavitz.

This is for those who like facts over conjecture.

by UncleStavros August 11, 2009 10:52 PM EDT

Looks like a child-raper to me:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0527081flds1.html

Reply to this comment


by PhDAAA August 12, 2009 10:02 AM EDT: Yes this is a disturbing photo. But in the United States we have a rule of law called innocent until proven guilty. Of course there are some people who don't believe in that.

How about you do you believe in innocent until proven guilty UncleStarvros?


by UncleStavros August 11, 2009 10:51 PM EDT: The Kiss Of Jeffs
Creepy photos of jailed FLDS sect leader released in custody battle
MAY 27--In what may be the creepiest court exhibits ever, Texas officials have released photos of imprisoned polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs in intimate clinches with two underage girls. The photos, which you'll find on the following pages, were introduced Friday at a child custody hearing stemming from last month's raid at a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compund. Jeffs, the former FLDS leader, was convicted last year of rape as an accomplice for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry--and have sex against her will with--her 19-year-old cousin. As seen below, Jeffs is pictured with a girl named Loretta in three photos, which were snapped in January 2005 and recorded the couple's "First Anniversary." Six other images show Jeffs, now 52, in July 2006 photos with a girl named Merrianne, who was 12 at the time. In the photos, Jeffs is passionately kissing both girls. The so-called prophet lived in a home on the YFZ Ranch, from which hundreds of children were removed last month by Child Protective Services investigators. (3 pages); Reply to this comment

by UncleStavros August 11, 2009 7:15 PM EDT

PdDAAA, who are you? Are you Willie Jessop and you've finally put the turkey leg down long enough to type?

Reply to this comment


by PhDAAA August 12, 2009 10:00 AM EDT: No I'm not, are you ready to answer my question?

Or do you want us to blindly believe what you say.

I read the Houston Chronicle,and they did NOT say what you said they did in any of their numerous articles.

They certainly reported some people had said the FLDS was guilty of welfare fraud, but they did NOT say it was true.

So show us the article, I showed you real links to articles which an honest person could look up. Why don't you?

by neilkatz2000 August 10, 2009 5:05 PM EDT

To Farver4girls:

Warren Jeffs was convicted in 2007 of being an accomplice to rape, in that particular case, by marrying a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin, allegedly one of many underage marriages performed by Jeffs.

Can the girls in FLDS refuse? Do they have choice? That's a much debated topic. Certainly a jury didn't think so, neither does the law.

Also, we have seen photographs of Jeffs kissing a 12-year-old girl he reportedly married. We interviewed the girl's brother, who, though he was a member of FLDS, was quite disturbed by the photo of his prophet kissing his young sibling.

Do we have proof Jeffs had sex with his own child brides? No, but he was certainly convicted of helping others rape theirs.

--Neil Katz, Producer CBS News

Reply to this comment


by PhDAAA August 11, 2009 5:40 PM EDT: Then Neil, answer this, wouldn't a responsible journalist describe him as an alleged child rapist?

There were a number of other online articles from newspapers, and I only saw yours describe him as a "child-raping" church leader.

Dan Rather made unsubstantiated claims and got the axe, maybe Katz should be next to go.

Or maybe you want to go the Fox Network route, and give up on objectivity.


by TxBluesMan August 12, 2009 5:43 PM EDT: PhDAAA,

No, you don't use the term 'alleged' when the subject has in fact been convicted of two counts of rape and sentenced to two consecutive terms of 5 to life.

Jeffs was tried and convicted of two counts of the rape of a child (as an accomplice). He was presumed innocent, but was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of his peers. He is now a convicted felon, a registered sex offender, and a rapist.

by Farver4girls August 10, 2009 1:09 AM EDT

Do you have any proof that Warren Jeffs had sex with the 12 year olds he spiritually married? I would feel more comfortable if you have evidence to support your headlines.

Reply to this comment


by UncleStavros August 11, 2009 11:12 PM EDT: Warren Jeffs has done everyone--young, old, immediate family:

"Weeks after the Sept. 25 verdict, the judge unsealed court documents that disclosed a suicide attempt by Jeffs in jail. He apparently attempted to hang himself in January, months before trial. Authorities have declined to discuss the events, although Jeffs was taken to a hospital for just a few hours.

The documents also included selected jail transcripts of phone calls and visits between Jeffs and members of his church. Although he has been president, or prophet, since 2002, following the death of his father, Rulon, Jeffs said in jail that he had not been worthy of the "priesthood" for decades.

"I was immoral with a sister and a daughter when I was younger, so the Lord showed me I'm one of the most wicked men on the face of the Earth since father Adam's time," Jeffs said.

He never elaborated on the immoral acts."

What a twisted, pathetic monster.