Jail visitation logs for Jeffs show visits by his followers, legal team

Some of Warren Jeffs' most loyal followers and his legal team have been visiting the Fundamentalist LDS Church leader frequently in jail.

Recently released visitor logs from the Purgatory Jail in Hurricane reveal who has been visiting Jeffs. The Washington County Sheriff's Office released the logs Thursday after a series of requests by the Deseret Morning News and other news media outlets under the Government Records Access Management Act. They show Jeffs' visitors from the weeks of Sept. 4 to Oct. 30.

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Among the 17 people visiting Jeffs was his brother, Nephi, and Lindsay Barlow — both active members of the FLDS Church.

"I just saw them sitting there taking notes furiously," a source who witnessed the visits told the Deseret Morning News in October. "Nephi was sitting there with his notebook in his lap. Whatever he's saying is of intense interest to the people that were there."

Jeffs has also been visited every week by members of his defense team, Salt Lake City-based attorneys Wally Bugden and Tara Isaacson, and his Las Vegas counsel, Richard Wright.

Jeffs appears to continue to exercise his authority as FLDS leader from jail. A law enforcement source told the Deseret Morning News earlier this month that Jeffs has been making phone calls to his followers.

"He makes a call to a group of people waiting to hear from their prophet," the source familiar with the calls said. "They sing songs to him, and he goes into his dissertations, his prophetic utterances."

The calls are being monitored by officials at the Purgatory Jail. However, the source said there is nothing threatening or inflammatory that Jeffs is saying.

Jeffs, 50, is charged in St. George's 5th District Court with rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony. He is accused of forcing a 14-year-old girl into a marriage with her 19-year-old first cousin. The alleged victim, "Jane Doe IV," testified in a preliminary hearing that Jeffs threatened her "eternal salvation" when she objected to the union.

Jeffs' defense team has called Washington County's prosecution of the polygamist leader "religious persecution." The preliminary hearing is scheduled to resume on Dec. 14.

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E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com