FLDS Leader Warren Jeffs Pulls Strings from Prison

Copyright Janaury 16, 2012

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by John M. Curtis

(310) 204-8700

               Serving a 20-year-to-life sentence in a Houston, Texas prison, 56-year-old Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs pulls the strings of his 10,000 followers from behind bars.  Gone are the days after his Aug. 9, 2011 conviction for raping his niece and nephew of his “nervous breakdown,” hunger strikes and medically induced coma.  Jeffs now runs the FLDS church from his jail cell, allowing phone calls and visitors to carry away his instructions.  Jeff’s inherited the church in 2002 from his father, Rulon Jeffs, who started the “United Holy Order,” a polygamous group that settled in the ungoverned lands near Colorado City Arizona to recreate the incestuous tribe of early Mormons.  Despite denounced by the Salt Lake City-based Mormon Church, states’ rights advocates believe the federal government should butt out.

             First Amendment’s Freedom of Religion gives cults like the FLDS church un-deserved protections in which to violate state and federal laws protecting children from abuse.  Jeffs, and other FLDS leaders, see nothing wrong with childhood brides, as young as seven years of age, marrying church elders in their 40s and 50s, breeding at the whim of husbands’ arbitrary supreme authority.  While multiple wives are permitted in the FLDS church, young boys are removed from their mothers and abandoned to make more female offspring available to Church elders for marriage and breeding.  “He regulates sex and money on behalf of God,” said Willie Jessop, a former FLDS spokesman no longer affiliated with the group.  Since placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List in 2005, Jeffs went on the lam, eventually captured in his Cadillac Escalade Aug. 28, 2006 after a year-long manhunt

             Apart from having a loyal following, Jeffs, like the late fundamentalist preacher Jim Jones, of Jones Town fame or David Koresch of Waco’s Branch Davidians, ruled by coercion and brainwashing.  “”There are eight questions, before they get there, they ask.  ‘Do you accept Warren Jeffs as God’s mouthpiece and your prophet,’ and if you believe he can rule in all the affairs of your life,” Jessops said, showing the kind of domination and manipulation making Jeffs among the most dangerous psychopaths masquerading as a religious leader.   With the Constitution’s Separation Clause, loonies like Jeffs set their traps, attract weak-mined zealots and recruit the downtrodden with promises of salvation. ”What makes this important is that there has never been a time when people in the community have taken this sort of stand against Warren,” said Jessop, who still considers himself an FLDS member.

             Jessops, like others, are in a state of disillusionment and disbelief now that their fearless leader sits behind bars.  “I think the church is going through a social crisis that is extremely painful, but, in the long term, it’s healthy,” said Jessop, showing he still suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder a year after he left.  Like children molested by their parents, FLDS members lack the autonomy and independent judgment necessary to make sound decisions.  Dressed in attire similar to the Amish, dating back to the Colonial times, FLDS members are easily recognized from a modern crowd, with woman donning long dresses.  FLDS men practice plural marriage or polygamy, a practice banned by the Mormon Church since Utah’s statehood in 1890.  Isolating FLDS church members from the outside world, they live in closely guarded enclaves, like Jeffs’ “Yearning for Zion Ranch” in Eldorado, Texas.

               FLDS members must adhere to strict rules including, no Internet access, no recreation equipment or toys and no spousal sexual relations without Jeffs’ expressed permission.  While no one knows the exact numbers, around 40,000 Mormons in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona practice plural marriage, violating the Mormon Church and state and federal laws.  Opportunities within fundamentalist Mormon churches for polygamy attracts pedophiles and other misanthropes seeking institutional approval for aberrant behavior.  Jeffs’ original charges for violating Utah’s child abuse laws were tossed out June 9. 2010 by a sympathetic Utah judge.  While convicted in Texas, FLDS judges, or at least those sympathetic with the Church, side with fundamentalists seeking a plural lifestyle in the insular communities of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona.

             Charismatic cult leaders like Jeffs give legitimate religions like the Mormon Church a black eye.  With GOP frontrunner former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, running for president, Jeffs being back in the news raises eyebrows.  No organized religion should allow itself to be hijacked by garden variety psychopaths that hide behind the First Amendment.  There’s simply no justification, historic or religious, for pedophilia and the damage it wreaks on innocent children.  No religious order has the right under the Freedom of Religion to violate the nation’s laws protecting children.  Now running the FLDS from prison, Jeffs continues his devious behavior.  Psychopaths and pedophiles should not perpetuate their sickness from prison or any other venue.  Regardless of states’ rights, there can be no safe havens for criminals hiding behind organized religion to practice deviant behavior.

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