Steed is booked into jail, will be in court today
 
By Ben Winslow
Deseret Morning News
 
Allen Steed, who testified on behalf of Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs about Steed's failed marriage to a 14-year-old girl, has been booked into the Purgatory Jail on an arrest warrant.

Steed, 26, was booked late Wednesday night by Hildale Town Marshal Helaman Barlow. According to a probable cause statement filed with the jail booking information, Steed contacted Barlow and turned himself in at Hildale town offices.

"I get the sense it was a planned thing because he had the money all ready when he turned himself in," Washington County Sheriff's Lt. Jake Adams told the Deseret Morning News this morning. "He was booked in and paid bail and was released within 30 minutes."

Steed paid $5,000 bond to be released.

"He was booked in exactly the same fashion as anybody else would be," Adams said. "There was no special conditions to his release. He promised to appear in court."

Steed has been charged with rape in connection with his marriage to Elissa Wall, the star witness in the case against Jeffs. She testified that at age 14, she was forced to marry Steed in a ceremony presided over by Jeffs. Steed was 19 at the time, and is her first cousin.

Washington County prosecutors allege Steed had sex with Wall against her will between 2001 and 2004. During his testimony in Jeffs' trial, Steed said he tried to be a good husband to Wall. He wrote her love letters and went to Jeffs for counsel, who told him to patient, kind and loving. Wall testified she tried to kill herself after she first had sex with Steed.

Steed is scheduled to appear in St. George's 5th District Court today.

Jeffs, 51, was convicted of rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 20.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published October 4, 2007
 
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