Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
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omalaatuinen kroatialainen
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Croatia
Posts: 8,742
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Warren Jeffs set to enter plea in Arizona
Quote:
Warren Jeffs set to enter plea in Arizona
By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer
KINGMAN, Ariz. - Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs has already been sentenced in Utah to two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison. Now Arizona prosecutors get their shot at the Mormon fundamentalist.
Jeffs was scheduled to make his first court appearance in Arizona on Wednesday, where his lawyer says he'll plead not guilty to sex charges stemming from the arranged marriages of two teenage girls to older men.
Arizona prosecutors filed charges against Jeffs even before he faced charges in Utah, where he was convicted last year of rape as an accomplice in the arranged marriage of a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said it was a tough call whether Jeffs would be tried in Utah or Arizona first.
"Because the sentence that was possible was greater in Utah than in Arizona, we deferred to them for the first trial," Goddard said. "Now it's our turn."
Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged in Arizona as an accomplice with four counts of incest and four counts of sexual contact with a minor in an indictment handed up last year.
Sheriff's department Capt. Greg Smith said Jeffs was booked Tuesday on six counts of sexual conduct with a minor, four counts of incest and one count of conspiracy to conduct sexual conduct with a minor, but couldn't explain the discrepancy. The prosecutor, Matt Smith, couldn't be reached for comment.
Jeffs was flown from Utah to Kingman and was booked into the Mohave County jail, where he will be kept separate from other inmates.
He will have to finish out his Utah sentences before he does any time in Arizona if convicted here, Matt Smith has said.
Defense attorney Mike Piccarreta said Jeffs will enter a not guilty plea to the Arizona charges at Wednesday's hearing in Kingman in northwestern Arizona.
Piccarreta plans to ask the judge for a change of venue, saying Kingman is too close to St. George, Utah, the site of Jeffs' first trial, for him to get a fair trial. The cities, separated by the Grand Canyon, are a more than 200-mile drive apart.
Jeffs was a fugitive for nearly two years and was on the FBI's Most Wanted list when he was arrested during a traffic stop outside Las Vegas.
Jeffs was named president, or prophet, of the FLDS church in 2002. Members of the church live in the twin border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
The mainstream Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, renounced polygamy more than a century ago, excommunicates members who engage in the practice and disavows any connection with the FLDS church.
The Arizona charges stem from the arranged marriages of a man in his early 50s to his 17-year-old relative and a marriage between a 19-year-old man and his 14-year-old cousin — the same marriage that led to the Utah conviction.
Prosecutors in Arizona say that doesn't preclude them from bringing charges here.
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