Husband says girl initiated sex, Jeffs trial hears
 
By Daphne Bramham
Vancouver Sun
 
ST. GEORGE, Utah - It all comes down to credibility in the trial of Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the largest polygamous group in North America.

He is charged with two counts of being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl by her 19-year-old cousin. Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, officiated at their arranged marriage and later gave them marriage counselling.

Her cousin, Allen Steed, who has never been charged with rape, testified Wednesday.

Steed wept on the stand as he talked about how he loved his wife, who CanWest News Service is identifying as Jane Doe to protect her privacy. He denied ever having raped her and that the first time that they had intercourse - which Doe said was the first time she was raped - Doe initiated sex.

"I came home. I was putting in long hours at my job and I was really, really tired," the sturdily-built, soft-spoken Steed said. "I went to sleep in my work clothes and as the night progressed, she woke me up and asked me if I cared about her and I said I loved her. She rolled up close to me and asked me to scratch her back and one thing led to another."

He said he found himself "guided to her" and they had sex.

Under cross-examination, Steed corrected when the first sexual contact happened. Initially he said it was nearly two months after the wedding. But shown a photo of a trip they made to Canada three weeks after the wedding, Steed said the sexual contact was before that time.

He testified that he had been counselled by Doe's stepfather to "take it slowly" with the 14-year-old. One of the few conversations he and his "wife" - they were not legally married - had about sex was in relation to having children. Steed said Doe told him she wanted to wait to have children.

"She said maybe a couple of weeks, couple of months or maybe five years," Steed said.

"So you took the earliest date," prosecutor Craig Barlow asked.

"Wouldn't you?" Steed replied. "Of course I did. I wanted to have a child. I wanted her to know I loved her. I didn't want her frightened."

Barlow asked why she was frightened. Steed said he never thought about why she was frightened, but again denied having forced her to have sex.

Doe testified that Steed had undressed her and then himself, laid her on the bed and had sex with her. While she sobbed and begged him to stop, she said Steed told her "The prophet (Rulon Jeffs, Warren's father) wants us to do this."

Asked by the prosecutor if he recalled Doe bleeding after intercourse, Steed said he could not.

Under cross-examination, Steed said he could not recall if she cried.

Barlow asked Steed if it was his idea of going slowly to have sex within three weeks of his marriage to a 14-year-old who had never been kissed before, never dated, had no idea how babies were created and had told him several times that she hated him and didn't want him touching her?

He said that it had seemed much longer than that to him.

Steed admitted that a few days or weeks earlier he had exposed his genitals one night in a park.

"In my own clumsy way, I tried to make her feel more comfortable to help move things along (sexually)," he said.

At that point Doe, who was crying, writing furiously and passing notes, was asked by the bailiff to leave the courtroom.

Barlow asked if that his idea of "courting" his wife?

"I felt like sometime we had to learn to get familiar with each other."

Steed also admitted under cross-examination that he doesn't believe that state laws setting out the legal age are binding on him or the FLDS; he believes only God's law applies and that God guides the hand of the prophet in arranging marriages.

Steed, who currently doesn't have a wife, agreed that he believes in the FLDS teaching that without several wives he can't get into the highest realm of heaven, and that it is up to Jeffs to arrange those marriages.

Steed said that he believed Jeffs to be infallible and would never ask him to do anything wrong.

"I believe the Lord would take his life first."

Jeffs's lawyer Walter Bugden asked if there were limits to what Steed would do for the Prophet? Steed said he would not lie for Jeffs. "It would be against God's law."

With that, the defence rested its case.

dbramham@png.canwest.com
 
canada.com
Originally published Thursday, September 20, 2007
 
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