Polygamist leader convicted of sex charges

ST. GEORGE, Utah ­-- The leader of a polygamous Mormon splinter group was convicted Tuesday of being an accomplice to rape for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her 19-year-old cousin.

Warren Jeffs, 51, could get life in prison after a trial that threw a spotlight on a renegade community along the Arizona-Utah line where as many as 10,000 of Jeffs' followers practice plural marriage and revere him as a mighty prophet with dominion over their salvation.

Jeffs stood and, like his 15 followers in the courtroom, wore a stoic look as the verdict was read.

Prosecutors said Jeffs, who performed the ceremony, forced the girl into marriage and sex against her will. Jurors said they agreed Jeffs rejected the girl's pleas and refused to release her from the marriage.

"He was pretty much her only ticket out of the relationship," said juror Jerry Munk, 36.

Defense attorney Wally Bugden, who told jurors that Jeffs was a victim of religious persecution, declined to comment.

The jury deliberated about 16 hours over three days. On Tuesday morning, the judge replaced a juror with an alternate for undisclosed reasons.

Members of the jury said the deliberations went fairly quickly with the new juror. She told other members of the jury what she was thinking about the case, then talks resumed, they said. Fellow jurors credited her with raising some new points that helped move the group toward a decision.

While polygamy itself was not on trial ­-- the couple were monogamous -- the case focused attention on the practice of polygamy in Utah, where it has generally been tolerated in the half-century since a government raid in 1953 proved a public relations disaster, with children photographed being torn from their mothers' arms.

"This trial has not been about religion or vendetta. It was simply about child abuse and preventing abuse," the victim, now 21, said in prepared remarks after the verdict.

"The easy thing would have been to do nothing, but I have followed my heart and spoken the truth," she said, declining to take questions from reporters.

The Associated Press generally does not name those who allege sexual abuse.

For reasons prosecutors have never explained, her former husband, Allen Steed, 26, has not been charged with a crime.

The mainstream Mormon Church, or 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 to the FLDS church.

Jeffs is also charged in Arizona with being an accomplice to both incest and sexual misconduct with a minor for arranging marriages between two underage girls and relatives of theirs. In addition, Jeffs is under federal indictment in Utah on charges of fleeing to avoid prosecution.