Prophet's Prey (35 page)

Another revelation contained in the petition had been allegedly received in Warren's jail cell in Big Lake, Texas, on February 5, 2011. This prophecy is even more stern and says that the president and the “people's [
sic
] of the earth” are going to suffer for not heeding Jeffs's warnings. In it he says that he is going to specifically target President Obama's home state: “Thus shall I cause a great destruction in the land of Illinois, to the loss of life and to your awakening …” The petition consists of 956 pages and contains signatures of FLDS members as young as eight years old.

These so-called revelations echo the violent history of fundamentalist Mormonism. While also in prison, in the 1980s, another self-proclaimed polygamous prophet, Ervil LeBaron, wrote similar prophetic revelations, also calling for divine retribution, which resulted in the execution-style deaths of an estimated twenty-five people.

As Warren began to once again savor his intoxicating power over his flock, he enacted another sweeping away of the FLDS leadership, this one even larger in scope than the expulsion of twenty-one men he had “handled” in 2004 when first taking over as prophet and solidifying his authority. Issuing orders from jail, he destroyed almost everyone close to him and expelled more than fifty men from the church by the end of April 2011.

First Counselor Wendell Nielsen was expelled, and he signed over his position as president of the church's corporation back to Warren. That meant Jeffs regained the FLDS treasury for himself. Second Counselor Merril Jessop, who had been the point man during the YFZ Ranch raid, was also thrown out. Warren had previously given him permission to go on the run if the law decided to interrogate him about turning over his twelve-year-old daughter, Merrianne, to the prophet as a child bride. Now that the top men have lost their positions, the question arises of who is going to pay their legal bills to defend the criminal indictments against them. Perhaps it will finally be their turn to hide out, all alone, with no home, no money, and no family support.

Warren also ousted Bill Shapley, the father of Candi Shapley and a frequent yes man, even though Bill had repeatedly proven his loyalty by donating his daughters to the priesthood. Then, surprisingly, Big Willie Jessop was expelled. So were the mayors of both Hildale and Colorado City, along with Jim Oler, the bishop in Canada. It was a major bloodletting. Everyone in the FLDS walked a razor's edge as their irrational leader ranted on. There would be no more guessing about who was calling the shots. Warren was clearly still in control, and he was tightening his grip.

His intransigent little brother Lyle survived the initial cut by becoming Warren's man on the outside, although the prophet has demonstrated that his trust could evaporate in a flash.

I did not care a whit that the prophet was ravaging his own creation, and I shed no tears when men like Big Willie and Merril Jessop were dealt the same painful fate that had befallen so many others. They deserved it, and much more.

But then, far from Jeffs's West Texas jail cell, came still another of those thunderclaps that forever seemed to stalk this long investigation. On February 23, 2011, U.S. District Court judge Dee Vance Benson in Salt Lake City reversed the decisions of Third District Court judge Denise Lindberg and the Utah Supreme Court, which had wrested control of the United Effort Plan Trust from Warren Jeffs. The UEP was back in his hands. It made no sense at all, and it left me reeling.

The FLDS lawyers, after their initial loss due to Warren's unwillingness to defend the trust himself, had let several years pass before taking steps to regain control of the UEP. The effort was dismissed outright. They later tried again, this time bringing their case to the Utah Supreme Court, and again their motions were denied. Then, in a last-ditch effort to retake the trust, they filed a motion for an injunction to hamstring the attorney general's control of the trust in federal court before Judge Benson. The judge was a “distinguished alumnus” of the 125-year-old Utah law firm of Snow, Christensen and Martineau in Salt Lake—coincidentally, the law firm of FLDS apologist Rod Parker, who was arguing the case before Judge Benson.

The federal judge ruled that the state's control of the FLDS trust was unconstitutional and ventured into “forbidden territory” by intruding on the religious beliefs of trust members. Rather than address the rampant child abuse and other crimes financed by the UEP, Benson said that such excesses by Warren Jeffs and other FLDS men did not justify the State of Utah intervening to reorganize the trust.

The UEP is currently valued at about $110 million, with Warren, as church president, in charge of it all. As always, Warren had a plan and he wasted no time in reasserting his authority. On the same evening that Benson issued his order, a gang of bullies in Short Creek descended on the home of David Jeffs, the prophet's wheelchair-bound brother. David had been among the twenty-one men who had been cast out in January 2004, at the start of my investigation. He eventually had been allowed back in, and then Warren had decided to excommunicate him once again. The mob evicted David and left him in his wheelchair at the home of a relative in St. George.

I considered Benson's ruling to be a misuse of authority which carried with it the implication that any trust set up for any reason, including the organization and funding of criminal activity, can be off-limits to state sanctions as long as it is established under the auspices of religion. For example: If a certain terrorist group decided to establish a trust for the purpose of funding, planning, training, and carrying out the hijacking of commercial aircraft for the purpose of being flown into skyscrapers, that trust would be off-limits to any government or law-enforcement intervention as long as it is formed by a group claiming sincere religious beliefs. The list of possible abuses of such a trust is endless, and under the Benson ruling the prophet would have even more leverage over the people if they failed to do as instructed.

But on April 8, state district court judge Denise Lindberg countered Judge Benson's decision, reprimanding him for intervening in her jurisdiction. For years Judge Lindberg had overseen the affairs of the trust and experienced blatant FLDS disregard for the law and lack of respect for the courts. She knew exactly what the church leadership was capable of and feared that if the trust was given back to Warren Jeffs, even for a short period of time, the UEP's assets would immediately be plundered by the outlaw prophet and his henchmen.

Benson lost his temper. In an unprecedented response to Lindberg's attempt to preserve the trust, he threatened to have the U.S. marshals drag her before his court to answer charges of contempt for her ruling countermanding his decision. Along with Judge Lindberg, the attorneys general of Utah and Arizona as well as our legal team shot off motions to state and federal appeals courts to block the seemingly irrational actions of Judge Benson. Fortunately the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in and reversed Benson's decisions, including his attempt to charge Judge Lindberg, and put the entire UEP issue back on track to work its way through the appropriate legal process.

But before the federal appeals court could make their decision, a great deal of damage had already been done. The FLDS and their leadership were emboldened by Benson's ruling, and just chalked up the appeals court intervention to more gentile persecution. In fact, a few weeks after Judge Benson's ruling, unknown intruders broke into an old schoolhouse on UEP property where former FLDS member Stephanie Colgrove was storing thousands of books in anticipation of opening a new library in town. Less than a block from the marshal's office, a massive bonfire twenty feet in diameter was ignited and thousands of books as well as family artifacts and other personal property were burned. When it was discovered that it would take days to burn all of the volumes, twelve pallet loads of books were distributed to various thrift shops or dumped throughout southern Utah. There was a precedent for this activity. Years ago, Warren had ordered the only other library in town to be dismantled and its contents destroyed or discarded.

This is only a sampling of the potential for unrest and violence. Lines are being drawn in the red sands of Short Creek as the town and culture begin to fracture. Gangs of young ruffians roam the streets and harass strangers with impunity, and the society has seen an increase in brother-against-brother confrontations.

And there were continuing power struggles too. Big Willie Jessop was scrambling to salvage what he could of his business and the life that had been suddenly jerked out from under him. Ironically, it was the same fate that he had inflicted on so many others, including Winston Blackmore, while acting in the capacity of the prophet's stooge. One day, Willie had been one of the ultimate insiders: a goon for the prophet, the feared enforcer, and the recognized public face for the entire religion, and the next day he was an outcast who had lost everything. All fifty of the workers at his construction company had walked off the job. Willie claims that shortly thereafter, Bishop Lyle Jeffs gave the order for some of his former employees to break into his business and steal all his computers and any other documentation or evidence that could be incriminating to Warren or the church. (Lyle Jeffs has not yet responded to these charges.) Quite unexpectedly, Willie began to sample some of the emotion that had driven one of his own little brothers to hang himself with an electric cord in the closet of his apartment after experiencing a similar banishment from the sect.

Suddenly, Willie had grown a conscience. He recalled that on the day in 2007 when Warren had broken down in jail and announced that he was not really the prophet, he had added the pronouncement that the actual prophet was one “William E. Jessop”—the same William E. (Timpson) Jessop who had been named the bishop of Short Creek upon the disappearance of Uncle Fred. But now, William (Timpson) Jessop had been defrocked as bishop (replaced by Lyle) and had established himself in Colorado. Big Willie found him, and the former bishop soon filed paperwork with the Utah Division of Corporations claiming that he, not Warren Jeffs, was the rightful president of the FLDS. Like so many other FLDS power struggles, this one too seems headed for the courts.

Meanwhile, Big Willie went public, stating that he had been misled and deceived by Warren Jeffs and that he was shocked to learn that Jeffs was involved with child abuse, rape, and other morally and criminally reprehensible acts. Warren was a “mad dog,” and Willie was just another unsuspecting victim of the prophet's cruelty. After a lifetime in the midst of the action, few believed him. Nevertheless, William E. (Timpson) Jessop now holds religious services of his own in Short Creek, with Willie as the gatekeeper, and a small splinter group of about 150 people have been attending on a regular basis.

The various power struggles within the FLDS have always been a historical eventuality, but staging a coup against Warren will always be risky business, even if he is in prison. Warren is a master of spreading out the culpability for his crimes among his followers. He has successfully been able to secure the loyalty of many in his flock through their fear that the part they played in his criminal enterprise will be exposed. That fear, on some level, touches every FLDS family and subtly keeps their loyalties directed toward Warren.

As of this writing, investigations involving Mann Act violations and financial crimes are ongoing, but have yet to be charged against the FLDS and its leadership.

Still, after many years of ups and downs, I feel a sense of pride in all of us who have worked so hard to expose FLDS atrocities and abuse.

We did what we set out to do: We exposed the mastermind behind the madness and put him behind bars. Warren Jeffs is now a shell of a man wasting away in a jail cell. His records and dictations, in his own unmistakable droning voice etched in countless recordings, and documents are now available as proof of his unspeakable crimes.

The scores of law enforcement and legal professionals who have been exposed to that evidence are as outraged as I am about the abuse against innocent boys and girls. If even a few children can be spared such treatment in the future, our efforts will have been worthwhile.

In most cases, it is not the troops in the trenches that have to be won over in order to stop child abuse within the FLDS, it is our elected government officials, who sit behind a desk and have yet to be awakened to the kind of systemic abuse that is taking place among their own constituents. They need to pay attention to what has happened and what is happening today within that cloistered organization hidden along a desert patch of ground known as the Arizona Strip and at a temple in West Texas. For every horrible crime I have described, a hundred others equally as ghastly remain untold.

For instance, newly discovered documents report that on September 27, 2004, Warren admitted his plan to put together “a quorum of wives” who would do anything for him, including “assist me against the time of needed blood atonement … a sacrifice required for the redemption of Zion to go forward and perhaps given many times.” A million words would do no more than scratch the surface in exposing the depravity of Warren Jeffs and his henchmen—and women.

We live in a country in which the practice of illegal, arranged incestuous marriage, the sexual exploitation of women and children as part of religious rituals, the trafficking of children across interstate and international boundaries, and the tyranny of breaking families apart has never been tolerated. There is no question that great strides have been made in this worthwhile cause, and I have faith in the ultimate outcome; but the lasting changes needed to provide for the safety and security of thousands of children have yet to be achieved. Until the FLDS hierarchy, whoever that may eventually be, finds the human decency to stand before the world and accept responsibility for their criminal actions, and sincerely apologize to their many victims with a commitment to never again abuse or neglect another child, it will never truly be over. Until that day, I will remain vigilant.