LAS VEGAS — Fugitive polygamist leader Warren Jeffs had proclaimed that God was protecting him.

In secretly recorded sermons obtained by the Deseret Morning News, he made reference to a looming showdown with law enforcement.

"In the last moments ... the final preparation ... the storm clouds are gathering against us," Jeffs said in an August 2003 priesthood sermon. "Only the Lord can protect us from the trials ahead."

The Fundamentalist LDS Church leader will face those trials, beginning with a court appearance here on Thursday, where he will face extradition after being arrested Monday night in a simple traffic stop.

Jeffs' capture ends a nationwide manhunt for a man considered a prophet by his faithful followers, a man who was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list on May 6, grouping him with the likes of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Just after 9 p.m. Monday, a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper stopped a red 2007 Cadillac Escalade on I-15 about five miles north of Las Vegas. The temporary tag out of Colorado was partially obscured, and the trooper couldn't read it, said George Togliatti, the director of the Nevada Department of Public Safety.

At the wheel was Jeffs' brother.

'I'm Warren Jeffs'

The trooper thought the man in the passenger seat looked similar to the fugitive polygamist. FBI agents said Jeffs gave an alias, saying his name was "John Findley" and producing a contact lens receipt from Florida as proof of identification.

The trooper called for back-up. A pair of FBI agents were summoned to the scene.

"You know who I am," Jeffs is reported to have said.

"Who are you?" an FBI agent asked.

"I'm Warren Jeffs."

"What did you say?"

"I'm Warren Jeffs."

Authorities said Jeffs was taken into custody without incident. The 50-year-old man was booked into the Clark County Jail in Las Vegas at 5:07 a.m. on a pair of out-of-state warrants issued in Utah and Arizona.

FBI agents said they have tried to question Jeffs, but he has refused to reveal his whereabouts and claimed he was being subject to "religious prosecutions."

"Mr. Jeffs was not all that cooperative," Special Agent Deborah McCarley said from the FBI's office in Phoenix. "He was cordial from what I understand."

After consulting with authorities in Utah and Arizona, FBI agents questioned and released the two people who were in the car with Jeffs.

Isaac Jeffs, 32, is considered one of Warren Jeffs' most loyal brothers.

"Isaac is Warren's full brother, and he's just pretty much been a 'go fetch it' sort of person," said ex-FLDS member Carolyn Jessop, whose stepdaughter is Naomi Jessop Jeffs.