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A group of Mormon cult leaders is being charged with organizing sexual religious rituals with underage girls and threatening them with damnation if they did not participate, according to court documents filed in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Wednesday.

HILDALE, Utah (ABC4 Utah) A catastrophic earthquake is predicted to hit Utah and much of the US this month, if you believe recent warnings from Fundamentalist LDS Prophet Warren Jeffs. "Whenever there is trouble coming to the FLDS people, especially to the leadership, the first thing that Warren begins to predict is gloom and doom," Dowayne Barlow said, former assistant to the FLDS bishop. Insiders say Jeffs made his most recent apocalyptic prediction before the FBI raided Hildale, UT and Colorado City, AZ. Eleven FLDS leaders and members are accused of a $12 million federal welfare fraud and money laundering...

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — A decade after the arrest of polygamous prophet Warren Jeffs, insiders say his church has literally become a place of feast or famine, of haves and have-nots. Prison has done little to loosen Jeffs’ hold on many of his followers, even if he is now a convicted child-sex offender serving a life sentence. They still await his revelations and follow his directives, both difficult and bizarre. But some members are leaving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — and disobeying their prophet’s longstanding orders to avoid law enforcement and “answer them nothing.”...

A new documentary screening this month at Sundance sheds some light on Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints community. The film “Prophet’s Prey” from Academy Award nominated director Amy Berg delves into the influence that Jeffs had and has over the FLDS faithful. The film includes audio recordings of Jeff’s instructions to his followers along with footage filmed at Alta Academy in Salt Lake City. The film has five more showings this month at Sundance.

In the US, polygamy seems to be most commonly associated with Mormons. TV shows like Big Love, Sister Wives, and My Five Wives offer looks at polygamy, but only from a specific viewpoint. For some Americans, TLC’s reality series Sister Wives, which centers on a fundamentalist Mormon family, may even teach them all they know about polygamy. But the practice of polygamy hasn’t been sanctioned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which is the official name of the Mormon church) since 1890 when Church President Wilford Woodruff ended the practice. The Mormon church has actually denounced the...

FULL TITLE: Revealed: Harrowing ordeal of child bride forced to marry her stepbrother who escaped Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect with her six young children Ruby Jessop was just 14-years-old when she was deemed 'sexually mature' by polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs and forced to marry her second cousin and step-brother and have sex with different men. She was held against her will at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for the next 12 years, in which time she bore six children and lived under the iron fist of the pervert leader. Ruby Jessop, now 26, managed...

FULL TITLE: Warren Jeffs tells followers to 'prepare for end of the world' by January 1 as experts warn it could mean something sinister for the sect loyal to a convicted sex offender Followers of cult leader, Warren Jeffs, who is behind bars for sexually assaulting young girls, are reportedly preparing for the end of the world tomorrow, after their former leader warned of Armageddon before midnight. The only supermarket and major meeting point of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints community across the movement's key sites - Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah - has...

Would you accept an ad from a religious sect touting a divine revelation given to a convicted sex abuser of two girls under 16? That's what the Star Tribune did Friday morning, running two ads from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One (on page A5 of my Minneapolis edition), simply says, "Jesus Christ, Son Ahman." The second, on A6, proclaimes "Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ Given to President Warren Jeffs," and offers serveral writings for sale. Jeffs, the president of the polygamist sect, was convicted in 2011 of molesting two "child brides" aged 12 and...

HILDALE, Washington County — As the year comes to an end and the followers of Warren Jeffs await the apocalypse he has predicted, they're living under a challenging edict: they're forbidden to have sex until Jeffs is sprung from a Texas prison. "He has predicted that the walls in the prison where he's at will fall and crumble," said Joni Holm, who has many relatives in the polygamous FLDS faith. According to Holm, Fundamentalist LDS Church members also face their faith's most severe punishment, excommunication, if they conceive a child. It's one of the strangest edicts in a season full...

Imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has reportedly issued an edict to his followers with a deadline -- renew allegiances to the Fundamentalist LDS Church or be excommunicated. With a Dec. 31 deadline looming, non-profit groups who help those leaving Utah's polygamous communities say an ongoing exodus from the FLDS Church is turning into a "humanitarian crisis," with people walking away with no place to go. "You've got new control where you have to give everything," James Barlow told FOX 13. "And I mean everything." Barlow left the FLDS Church last month after refusing to give his allegiance to Jeffs. Barlow,...

SALT LAKE CITY - Imprisoned polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs has released a series of so-called revelations in which he says a succession of natural disasters will strike the U.S. The 55-year-old Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison this year for sexually assaulting two girls whom he took as wives when they were 12 and 14 years old. He released his apocalyptic predictions to the Utah attorney general's office on Monday. Jeffs' apparent prophecies included tsunamis on the East Coast and in Seattle and earthquakes and volcanoes in Utah and Arizona. He also says that Idaho "shall be as...

Warren Jeffs' Wife Escapes Polygamist Community By JOHN QUINONES and KEVIN DOLAK | Good Morning America One of the wives of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, who is currently serving a life sentence for child sexual assault, has escaped the confines of the isolated Arizona community where his 85 other wives live. Arizona authorities have said that the 25-year-old woman who fled the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which was led by Jeffs, is now undergoing counseling and psychiatric care at a women's shelter. She was reportedly barefoot when she was found. The secluded community of the church...

OUR OPINION: Jeffs trial reveals gaps in government response to crimes Along with appalling evidence of Warren Jeffs' apparent repeated sexual abuse of children, the trial of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader revealed new areas that need to be addressed by state and federal lawmakers. Perhaps most frustrating has been the revelation that case workers have not been on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Schleicher County in two years. That's despite the removal of more than 400 children from the ranch in 2008 in perhaps the largest child custody case in U.S. history....

Sect member loses appeal By Matthew Waller Updated Friday, August 26, 2011 SAN ANGELO, Texas — The latest round in the legal fight over the imprisonment of polygamist sect members went to the state, but the fight may not be over. The Texas Third Court of Appeals in an opinion issued Friday upheld the conviction of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member Michael Emack on a charge of child sexual assault that came from evidence from the Yearning for Zion Ranch raid in April 2008. In the next few weeks, the case could go to the...

FLDS officials indicted # By Dave Hawkins Special to the Standard-Times # San Angelo Standard Times # Posted August 16, 2011 at 5:06 p.m. SAN ANGELO, Texas — While polygamous sect prophet Warren Jeffs settles into his life prison sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting two underage girls, law enforcement officials continue applying pressure against alleged corruption in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah, where the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is based. A 30-count criminal indictment returned by a Mohave County Superior Court Jury Aug. 4 in Kingman, Ariz., alleges misappropriation of public funds by Colorado...

FLDS Plans to Build Giant Monument of Warren Jeffs By R. Leigh Coleman | Christian Post Reporter A flock of devoted followers within the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints are shunning the fact their leader was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting underage “wives.” The sect is reportedly making plans to construct a three-story statue in honor of the now convicted felon, which will tower over their isolated desert compound. FLDS members say they plan to erect a huge metal monument to reflect the likeness of their imprisoned leader, Warren Jeffs, an anonymous source tells The Daily...

Last week, a Texas jury convicted Warren Jeffs, leader of the polygamist FLDS Church, of two counts of child sexual assault...For Americans who are increasingly interested in the religion of the two Mormons running for president, Jeffs' conviction raises what could appear to be difficult questions about modern Mormonism. There is no formal connection between Jeffs' FLDS Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints... From 1852 until 1890, however, the Mormon Church did publically teach and practice polygamy... Given that history, many Americans ask themselves whether Jeffs' cocktail of religious authority, polygamy and child sex represents some...

JEFFS TRIAL: Juror: Sentence not a difficult decision * By Matthew Waller * San Angelo Standard Times * Posted August 10, 2011 at 4:26 p.m., updated August 10, 2011 at 8:16 p.m. SAN ANGELO, Texas — Mary Harris didn't want to talk about her experience as a juror when she got home. Her husband, Dan Harris, said that when she returned after the 13-day trial of Warren Jeffs, she didn't say a word about it. "She was out in the garden all day," he said. Nor did her daughter Nina Reid hear much about the jury experience, other than her...

Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Mormon church that practises polygamy, is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars after he was given the maximum sentence for taking girls as young as 12 to be his brides. SNIP ...a Texas jury took just 40 minutes to hand him the toughest sentence open to them – life in prison for aggravated sexual assault and 20 years in prison for sexual assault of a child... SNIP The polygamist Mormons, under Jeffs's leadership, refused to renounce plural marriages and now have about 10,000 followers. The jury heard that Jeffs...

Fox 13 has obtained dozens of photographs of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs and many of his so-called "brides." -SNIP-The pictures were seized by law enforcement during the raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' YFZ ranch in Eldorado, Texas in 2008. In all, lawyers connected to the case have estimated that approximately 1.7 billion pages of evidence was taken in the raid.Combined with diaries, audio recordings and dictations, Texas prosecutors painted a damning portrait of the FLDS leader that they showed to the jury."If the world knew what I was doing they would hang...