Wanted fugitive polygamist has valley ties, raking in valley tax dollars Part 1 - A wanted polygamist with ties to Las Vegas

By Darcy Spears KVBC News 3 - Las Vegas

Two and a half hours north of Las Vegas lie two sleepy towns that exist as one: Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has long dominated the twin towns. This religious sect practices polygamy, believing the more wives and children you have, the better off you are when you reach heaven. It's also home base for FBI Fugitive Warren Jeffs. News 3 Investigator Darcy Spears traveled to the border towns to talk with residents about their lifestyle, their leader, and their link to Las Vegas. Warren Jeffs is wanted by the FBI for having sex with a minor and as an accomplice to rape. He took over the FLDS in 2002 after his father died. Although he's on the run, his followers continue to practice his preachings, except for those who have been exiled or escaped. "You're not allowed to watch television. You're not allowed to have the internet in your home here. You're not allowed to read the newspaper. Warren wants them totally ignorant of what's going on in the outside world." That's how 40-year-old Isaac Wyler says the FLDS leader Warren Jeffs has gained absolute power. Flora Jessop was raised alongside Wyler but escaped what she calls a culture of abuse of women and children. "A practice of the FLDS. One of the things that they have declared is that God finds crying babies offensive, so they teach their babies not to cry between 6 and 15 months of age. They do this one of two ways: They repeatedly slap the faces of their crying babies or they hold their faces under running water. When you take away the voice of a baby, of a child, the only means of communicating that it is hungry, sick, hurting, any of those things, you own that child." It's something Flora says lasts into adulthood for the women in particular. "The women's dress style. Their colors of clothes they can wear. The styles of hair is all dictated by the prophet. That's how controlling the environment is with these people." And the prophet chooses who's in and who's out. Wyler, himself a former polygamist, was kicked out by Jeffs in 2004 along with 20 other men. "He just got up and said God gave him a list of sins that we'd committed, wouldn't tell us what. He says so you men leave home, leave here, don't take your wives, don't talk to your wives." Many of those wives were reassigned, something Isaac says is common practice. "Wives around here in the last five years have literally become a commodity. They are a commodity. Women are shuffled around from husband to husband." And as for the children, Isaac says that the kids don't even know who their fathers are now. And although he's been ex-communicated, or executed as they call it, Isaac does keep in contact with his family. Isaac helps support them by renting out a home he owns in Las Vegas. He says things have gotten weird, even criminal, since Warren Jeffs took over and started arranging underage marriages with girls as young as 14. These young girls are then expected to have children right away. That's what got eight FLDS members indicted after being charged with sex offenses. There are actually crimes committed against children in the community. Isaac was in an arranged marriage at 27, his wife 25, what some in his faith would call old. "There's no reason why they have to marry these girls so young. The biggest reason is so they can train them how they want them and not let them be old enough to make a choice." When the News 3 Investigators tried to talk to some of the families, most ran away. When we sat down at the local park to talk with Isaac one group of kids took off so fast they left behind their shoes and socks. "They've been told that the government's gonna come and steal all the kids," said Issac. "They see anybody and they run. In fact, I've got a sister who hasn't been out of her house, or the kids in almost six weeks." Those who weren't hiding tried to intimidate us. We were followed everywhere we went by cars with dark tinted windows. Isaac says that is church security. A cell phone tree was even used to keep tabs on us all day. Some boys turned on the sprinklers to interrupt our interview with Isaac and a teenager on an ATV rode circles around our car trying to spray us with mud. Flora compares this community to the Taliban, "One of the things that the people of the U.S. need to wake up to is that this is the American Taliban. We have 15,000 members of this community that have taken an oath to kill and die to protect Warren Jeffs from being taken into custody." One of the best ways the polygamists have to protect Jeffs is to send him money. Something Jeff requires all FLDS individuals and businesses to do. Millions of dollars to fund his continued flight from the law are coming out of Las Vegas. Warren Jeffs was put on the FBI's Most Wanted List two months ago.

KVBC.com Originally broadcast July 26, 2006

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