Excommunicated FLDS members strangers in a strange land
 
KVBC News 3 - Las Vegas
lost boys
 
lost boys

Warren Jeffs makes his first court appearance Thursday morning. The leader of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints was arrested late Monday just north of Las Vegas after a routine traffic stop. He's been on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list since May for charges that include sex with a minor and accomplice to rape.

His polygamist sect has been under increasingly intense scrutiny since his arrest. One reason is the growing number of young men being thrust into the Las Vegas community with no funds, no family, and an uncertain future, known as the lost boys.

Clark County's Juvenile Justice Center is unfortunately becoming the new home for some of the young boys forced out of their close knit communities in Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah. One 15-year-old convicted sex offender who's awaiting his release is an example of what can happen when these kids are pushed out into a previously unknown world.

In a community where men can have multiple, sometimes dozens of wives, competition for brides can get complicated. Insiders tell us that that is the reason Warren Jeffs expelled so many young men from the towns he ruled over as prophet.

Sam Icke was one of those young men. He was kicked out and forever ex-communicated from his family and the only life he knew, because he kissed a girl and dared to have opinions.

"I didn't know what to do because I had been taught for the past 12 years of my life that I was going to die if I ran away. That I was going to be sent into eternal hell and that there was no hope for me, so I kind of just started fluttering around, not really knowing what to do."

Icke found his way to the Diversity Foundation in Sandy, Utah. That's a group that helps rescue and rehabilitate the lost boys. That's where we expect the 15-year-old sex offender to go upon his release from our juvenile detention center. We of course will be following this case.

Warren Jeffs will also be going back to Utah but not to rejoin his followers. He'll be prosecuted both there and in Arizona on the charges listed above, as well as conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
 
KVBC.com
Originally broadcast September 1, 2006
 
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