-- The FBI says fugitive polygamist Mormon sect leader Warren Steed Jeffs has been arrested in Las Vegas, The Associated Press reports.

This should be good, there's a lot of potential for a great story when you have not only a fugitive, but that fugitive is a polygamist Mormon who happens to be a sect leader.

Just typing the thread title was fun.

Damn polygamists.

Clearly this is a conservative move against gay marriage.

Also, its worth restating that the dude's middle name is Steed.

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/LAW/08/29/polygamist.arrest.ap/newt1.jeffs.tue.02.fbi.jpg


FBI: Fugitive polygamist arrested near Las Vegas

POSTED: 10:33 a.m. EDT, August 29, 2006

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- The fugitive leader of a polygamist sect has been arrested in southern Nevada, the FBI said Tuesday.

Warren Steed Jeffs, 50, was taken into custody after he and two other people were pulled over late Monday by a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper on Interstate 15 just north of Las Vegas, FBI spokesman David Staretz said.

The leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was wanted in Utah and Arizona on suspicion of sexual misconduct for allegedly arranging marriages between underage girls and older men.

Since May, Jeffs has been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, with a $100,000 reward offered for information leading to his capture.

The other two people in the vehicle were identified as one of Warren Jeffs' wives, Naomi Jeffs, and a brother, Isaac Steve Jeffs, both 32, Staretz said. They were being interviewed by the FBI in Las Vegas but were not arrested.

Jeffs was in federal custody in Las Vegas pending a court hearing on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, Staretz said. It was not immediately clear if Jeffs would face extradition to Arizona or Utah.

Jeffs was indicted in June on an Arizona charge of arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a married man, and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

He is charged in Utah with two felony counts of rape as an accomplice, for allegedly arranging the marriage of a teenage girl to an older man in Nevada.

The FLDS Church split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the mainstream Mormon Church disavowed plural marriage more than 100 years ago.

So dude is like a twisted Chuck Woolery for polygamists?

Maybe he'll be out in "two and two" years.

http://www.shopsonymusic.ca/assets/images/052133cvr.jpg

good. ive seen a lot about this guy and he sounds like a sick fuck.

I get the whole underage arranged marriage issues and some of the child endangerment stuff with this creep, but one thing I have never understood who cares about polygamists who have multiple wives that know about each other?

If Some chick doesn't mind sharing the dude with a half dozen other women why should we ? I get the issues with a dude marrying 5 women who don't know he is married to anyone else.

Do you want the moral answer, the social answer, or the economic answer?

Do you want the moral answer, the social answer, or the economic answer?

I get them all, I understand that interms of insurance, death etc.. Religion, social conformity, I guess my point is this dude was top 10 on the FBI most wanted seems a bit high to be honest considering all the USA scum that rises to the top.

I can understand that, but I'd imagine they wanted him more for the binding of children into sexual servitude rather than for being a good mormon.

its because the girls are molested at a young age, abused, beaten, not sent to school, and forced to marry by about 13 years old. the elders molest them so they are ready for a husband. its nothing like that show on HBO, its scary abusive shit that shouldnt happen to anyone. then as said, tax fraud n all sorts of stuff too. i saw a couple hour special on A&E or something where they interviewed women who escaped, yes escaped not left, and they are traumatized for life and unable to have a normal relationship with a guy now.

its because the girls are molested at a young age, abused, beaten, not sent to school, and forced to marry by about 13 years old. the elders molest them so they are ready for a husband. its nothing like that show on HBO, its scary abusive shit that shouldnt happen to anyone. then as said, tax fraud n all sorts of stuff too. i saw a couple hour special on A&E or something where they interviewed women who escaped, yes escaped not left, and they are traumatized for life and unable to have a normal relationship with a guy now.

Case in point (torn from today's headlines): http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/08/29/austria.kidnap.ap/index.html

More details. As suspected, this is good stuff.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060830/ap_on_re_us/polygamist_arrested


Arrest won't weaken polygamist's power

By JENNIFER DOBNER, Associated Press Writer
55 minutes ago

HILDALE, Utah - In his two years as a fugitive, polygamist church leader Warren Jeffs never loosened his grip on his 10,000 congregants, and people close to the sect say his arrest this week won't change that.

"I think there's a structure in place that if Warren got caught they'll still carry out his word, and they'll figure out how to keep communicating with him," said Andrew Chatwin, a former church member who moved back to Hildale last year.

Jeffs, 50, was caught by chance when a Cadillac Escalade in which he was riding was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol for having a temporary Colorado license tag that was hard to read, FBI and Nevada Highway Patrol officials said.

When Trooper Eddie Dutchover walked up to the vehicle, something seemed amiss. Jeffs said the group had stayed in Las Vegas for a night, but they had too much luggage, Dutchover told The Associated Press. Jeffs also offered a contact lens receipt from Florida with the name John Findley as identification, the trooper said.

"Something was obviously wrong," Dutchover said. "I even told him, 'You're making me nervous. Is everything OK?'"

"Once the FBI got there ... he gave his full name, Warren Jeffs, and kind of gave a sigh," the trooper said.

No weapons were found in the vehicle, but authorities said they found three wigs, 15 cell phones, letters to "President Warren Jeffs," $54,000 in cash and $10,000 in gift cards.

Jeffs' brother, Isaac Jeffs, who was driving, and one of Jeffs' many wives were with him but released and will not be charged, said FBI Agent Steven Martinez in Las Vegas.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told KTAR-AM of Phoenix that Warren Jeffs' arrest marks "the beginning of the end of ... the tyrannical rule of a small group of people over the practically 10,000 followers of the FLDS sect."

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with congregants mostly in Hildale and neighboring Colorado City, Ariz., split from the mainstream Mormon Church when the Mormons disavowed polygamy more than 100 years ago.

Jeffs, who took over the renegade sect in 2002 after the death of his 98-year-old father, has been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list since May, charged in Utah and Arizona with felony sex crimes that include alleged arranged marriages between underage girls and older men.

Federal and state law enforcement agencies will now determine whether he goes first to Utah or Arizona, said Steve Sorenson, a federal prosecutor in Salt Lake City. Utah's charges are more serious.

The insular communities Jeffs leads are expressing quiet sadness as they learn of the arrest, said Salt Lake City attorney Rod Parker, who has defended the FLDS church and some of its members in the past.

"I would say they were a little shocked," Parker said. "Shocked to the point that they didn't really even know how to respond."

Polygamy has been practiced here for more than 100 years, and FLDS members have survived wave after wave of persecution, Parker said.

Jeff's arrest, he said, "It's just sort of reinforcing that this is their burden ... and I think it may make them stronger and more insular as a group."

In Hildale on Tuesday, women with plaited hair and long dresses hoed gardens under the late summer sun, a few kids rode bikes or played basketball at the local school and men in pickup trucks drove through town casting wary looks to outsiders.

"They'll stay loyal," Chatwin said. "Warren's not dead yet."

He said the arrest might provide a window of opportunity for some members who have silently questioned the state of the FLDS church. It also might shock fiercely loyal members who consider Jeffs an untouchable prophet of God.

"It will shake people's testimony," Chatwin said. "It will make some stronger and it will make some weaker."

Jeffs' capture is also unlikely to affect the work of Bruce Wisan, a Salt Lake City accountant appointed by a Utah judge last year to manage the church's United Effort Plan Trust. The $100 million trust holds most of the property in Colorado City and Hildale and was placed under Wisan's guardianship to prevent Jeffs and other church leaders from using its assets for personal gain.

In the past, the trust had been used to punish disobedient members by forcing them out of their homes.

"I don't think it (Jeff's arrest) will change much in town," Wisan said. "Warren has controlled them from afar and I think he'll still be able to control them from jail."

We live in a culture that has statutory rape laws, but glamorizes Romeo and Juliet, Elvis and Priscilla, etc. Underaged sex is verboten, yet more a rite of passage now than ever before. Sexual maturity is distanced from practical Western-societal maturity to more of a degree now than it's ever been, and reasonable people (the few that seem to remain these days) disagree about how to really address this crap. <sigh>

though i have no beef with polygamy. underaged arranged marriages are sick. and even sicker to arrange it with older men.

I can understand that, but I'd imagine they wanted him more for the binding of children into sexual servitude rather than for being a good mormon.
thats what i figured.

though i have no beef with polygamy. underaged arranged marriages are sick. and even sicker to arrange it with older men.
Most legal underaged marriages involve someone who's a good deal older giving permission, encouraging, or even arranging that path -- the parents. A mom or dad giving permission for their 15 year old to marry is fucked up in some way or other. The fact that one party may be much older than the other doesn't bug me quite as much by comparison.

Of course, our cultural ideas on "underaged" have been fairly fluid. Look at how minimum age limits for marriage vary by state. In 1960, the U.S. Census says the median age for a woman to get married was 20 years old -- in other words, about half were teenagers. What does "underaged" mean to you?

The window of "childhood" and being dependent on parents keeps getting longer with every generation. With parents burning up their own retirement nest egg supporting kids well into their mid-20s now, it's no wonder that 15 seems scandalously underaged.

Not that I dispute that there are plenty of slacker 20+ leeches out there, but the amount of knowledge and ability needed to function in the world at a marginally close level to the level your parents have raised you in is rising as well.

I mean, at one time knowing how to sew and cook meant your daughter wasn't a child anymore and so 15 seemed old enough to send off. Pa can't just give you 40 acres off the back of his land and the spare horse in the barn and have you set up to do as well or better than him anymore.

I agree, it's definitely not just the slacker types in that situation. Even college graduates who picked areas of study that weren't a slam dunk for a good job or got nailed by shifting seas in the job market can find themselves struggling mightily to get established.

It's not just about aptitudes and life skills, but laws, finances, expectations, attitudes, etc. In 1900, the average lifespan for a child born in the U.S. was just under 50 years old. Today, it's nearly 80 years old. That's HUGE! The reasons for / consequences associated with that lifespan change have led to a progressive stretching out of the lifecycle. Driving is veering from an age 16 privilege to an age 18 one. Gambling, drinking, many gun laws went from 18 to 21. "four year" degrees increasingly take five years to complete, even for the diligent. "under 25" simply meant you couldn't be a Congresscritter, but now it's a way to prejudice against the young in new ways.

The one thing that hasn't trended upward in all this is puberty. No, contrary to everything else going on, it's now starting at an earlier age than ever, and most especially if you're a black girl. Why is that? There's been lots of folks speculating on the matter -- perhaps kids are overfed, overstimulated, maybe underexercised, maybe it's DDT and other environmental factors, etc. No one seems to have a good handle on the matter AFAICT, but it's scary as hell and relatively underreported, compared to titilating stories of 14 year olds who are hot for teacher.

And on a lighter note from Dr. Science:


Dear Doctor Science,
Why do women find me attractive only when I already have a girlfriend?

-- Arnold Stang from Kansas City, MO

Women are essentially polygamous, and nothing turns them on more than
the idea of at least a willing threesome. Hugh Hefner and his
magazine's readers know this, but most women would insist otherwise,
and that's the cause of their essentially conflicted natures. This is
why so many women are in therapy. Men, with their essentially
monogamous natures, could be happy with one special someone, but those
ravenous females, searching for group sex and the trouble that goes
with it, just won't leave well enough alone. So the next time a woman
throws herself at you, don't take it personally. Just politely
recommend she seek therapy and keep walking.

its because the girls are molested at a young age, abused, beaten, not sent to school, and forced to marry by about 13 years old. the elders molest them so they are ready for a husband. its nothing like that show on HBO, its scary abusive shit that shouldnt happen to anyone. then as said, tax fraud n all sorts of stuff too. i saw a couple hour special on A&E or something where they interviewed women who escaped, yes escaped not left, and they are traumatized for life and unable to have a normal relationship with a guy now.


So, basically, 85% of all women?

its because the girls are molested at a young age, abused, beaten, not sent to school, and forced to marry by about 13 years old. the elders molest them so they are ready for a husband. its nothing like that show on HBO, its scary abusive shit that shouldnt happen to anyone. then as said, tax fraud n all sorts of stuff too. i saw a couple hour special on A&E or something where they interviewed women who escaped, yes escaped not left, and they are traumatized for life and unable to have a normal relationship with a guy now.


So, basically, 85% of all women?

god youre dumb