$10K Reward Offered For Warren Jeffs
 
The Associated Press
KUTV Channel 2
 
The attorneys general for Arizona and Utah on Wednesday announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the reclusive leader of a polygamous church based in communities along the states' common border.

Warren Jeffs, who has not been publicly sighted in months, was charged in Arizona in early June with counts that include conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor.

"I find it hard to believe (Jeffs is) the active leader of 10,000 and no one knows where he is," Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said.

Jeffs is accused of arranging the marriage of a 16-year-old girl to another man. If convicted, he could face up to two years in jail.

Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, are dominated by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that broke away from the Mormon church and practices polygamy.

Capturing the 49-year-old Jeffs is considered to be a key in ending the turmoil in the two towns, where polygamist men marry one wife legally and then take on other women as so-called "spiritual" wives.

"It is because he is the leader. It is because he is the role model for literally thousands of people," Goddard said of the extensive efforts to locate Jeffs. "It is particularly, perhaps uniquely, important that he have to answer these charges before a court of law."

Arizona and Utah are each contributing half of the $10,000 reward.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff added that although Jeffs has only been charged in the one case, authorities believe his influence has hurt others.

"We believe he has victimized hundreds of people," Shurtleff said. "From the boys he's ordered kicked out of the community to the girls he's ordered be married to older men, to the tax evasion. ... the guys is a major criminal."

Messages left with Rod Parker, an attorney who has represented Jeffs and the church in the past, were not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.

Jeffs also is the subject of several other civil complaints filed by residents of Hildale and Colorado City. Shurtleff said his office has tried for weeks to serve Jeffs with a court order showing the state can take temporary control of the church's trust fund.

Goddard said that Jeffs could be in any number of places besides Arizona or Utah, including Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico or Canada.

When Jeffs was indicted last month, he was believed to have been at a compound near Eldorado, Texas, where a four-story temple is being constructed by the FLDS sect.

But officials with Goddard's office said no one had been seen coming in or out of the compound for some time.

When the FBI added Jeffs to its list of wanted people last week, officials said that since his indictment Jeffs was believed to have been in Colorado and at another polygamist community with ties to Colorado City in British Columbia.

On Wednesday, authorities weren't making any claims about his whereabouts.

"He has gone, very efficiently, underground," Goddard said.

Anyone with information about Jeffs' whereabouts is asked to call the Mohave County Sheriff's Office at 1-800-522-4312 or 928-753-2141.
 
KUTV.com
Originally published July 13, 2005
 
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