Ping to the fLDS trial—if you want on or off the pinglist, please let me know.
His followers call him a prophet who is God's spokesman on Earth. Prosecutors say he's a bigamist who sexually assaulted two underage girls he duped into "spiritual marriages."
Whether he's a holy man or a criminal, it's hard to find many people who don't have an opinion on Warren Jeffs in this remote, cotton-growing corner of West Texas oil and gas country.
That will be the key challenge when jury selection begins Monday in the case of the 55-year-old ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the Mormon church that believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven — and should be protected under U.S. religious freedoms.
Excerpt--more at link (click on headline)
Just shoot them and let the devil sort them out.
ELDORADO, Texas - Before there was the police raid, the 439 children seized from mothers in frontier-style dresses and 19th century hairdos, and tails of underage sex and bigamy — there was a man from Utah with blood in the back of his pickup.
William B. Johnson was pulled over along a lonely stretch of West Texas highway in February 2004 for having an obstructed license plate and was asked about the blood-spattered bed of his white Ford. The Hildale, Utah-native said he'd been hunting, and reluctantly led Texas game warden Marco Alvizo onto a secretive religious compound to prove it.
It was authorities' first glimpse of the "Yearning For Zion" ranch, their first hint that members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism that believes polygamy is the key to heaven — were in town. A raid four years later left the church's ecclesiastical head, Warren Jeffs, and 11 other sect members facing charges including sexual assault and bigamy. Jury selection in Jeffs' trial begins Monday.
(Excerpt: worth clicking the link to read the rest.
none of this would be happening had he been muslim.
SAN ANGELO, Texas — Starting Monday, polygamy-sanctioning sect leader Warren Jeffs will join the ranks of fellow members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who have been prosecuted by the state.
Jeffs will be on trial in two counts of sexual assault of a child.
Seven FLDS members have undergone criminal prosecution, with two having taken plea bargains and five having gone to trial.
Raymond Merril Jessop was the first FLDS member to go to trial in October 2009 in Eldorado. He was convicted of sexual assault of a child as a second-degree felony and sentenced to 10 years in prison and an $8,000 fine on Nov. 10, 2009.
His case is ready to be set for oral arguments in the Texas Third Court of Appeals.
Allan Eugene Keate was convicted of first-degree felony sexual assault of a child and sentenced to 33 years in prison on Dec. 17, 2009, in Eldorado.
A reply brief was due for him this week.
(Excerpt--for the rest of the rogues gallery, click here.)
Obviously not a religion but a cult cooked up to provide dirty old men easy access to sex with teenage girls...and to impregnate them so they have more descendants. The dirty old dudes would drive away the teenage boys and young men. Kick their competition off the ranch
All the other cult stuff is secondary