Threats, intimidation dogged Jeffs probe
 
By TONY RAAP
Today's News-Herald - Lake Havasu City
 
Gary Engels remembers the time when he was nearly run off the road by a group of cars with tinted windows. He recalls the stacks of threatening letters that poured into his office, one of which was a bomb threat.

The story of Engels' probe of polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs is filled with intimidation, corruption and uncooperative witnesses, yet Engels is hoping for a happy ending.

He is the investigator credited with infiltrating Jeffs' isolated sect, peeling back the secrets that eventually led to the polygamous leader's undoing. Engels, an independent investigator for the Mohave County Attorney's Office, spoke Monday at a forum hosted by the London Bridge Republican Women's Club.

"(Jeffs' followers) will not cooperate with outside law enforcement," he told the crowd of about 45 people. "I knew I could not use them, that I could not trust them. I knew that going in."

Jeffs pleaded not guilty last week in Mohave County Superior Court to charges of arranging marriages between teenage girls and older men. His trial is expected to begin in roughly six to eight months.

Jeffs, 52, is the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, based in Colorado City, Ariz., and nearby Hildale, Utah. The isolated sect practices plural marriage as a central tenet of its faith.

Engels said he was able to break open the case by getting women who had been thrown out of FLDS to testify against Jeffs. Many victims, however, refused to talk. In some cases, he had to rely on marriage certificates.

There were other obstacles, too. During his nine-month investigation, Engels was harassed almost daily by Jeffs' followers, receiving hate mail and even death threats.

"They’ll use anything they can to keep people from talking," Engels said. "It’s a theocracy. The church controls everything. There’s nothing it doesn’t control."

If convicted on all charges, Jeffs could get anything from probation to 27 years in prison. He was convicted last year in Utah of rape as an accomplice in the arranged marriage of a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.

If convicted and sentenced to prison time in Arizona, Jeffs would first have to finish out his Utah sentence of two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison. That would be fine by Engels.

"How does an ant eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That’s the way we go about this one — one bite at a time," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. You may contact the reporter at raap@havasunews.com.
 
HavasuNews.com
Originally published Monday, March 3, 2008
 
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