Warren Jeffs sentenced to 2 five to life terms for child-bride marriage

ST. GEORGE — Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs has been sentenced to two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison for performing a child-bride marriage.

The sentence was handed down this afternoon here in 5th District Court by Judge James Shumate.

Jeffs is expected to next go to the Utah State Prison, where state corrections officials said he will undergo a five-week orientation course that determines where he will be placed at Point of the Mountain. Prison officials have told the Deseret Morning News they believe Jeffs will ultimately end up in the maximum security unit for his own protection.

The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole will ultimately determine how long Jeffs spends in prison. He will automatically be given a parole hearing in 2010, but that does not mean he will be immediately released.

Jeffs, 51, was convicted in September of two counts of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice, stemming from a marriage he performed between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin at a Nevada motel room back in 2001.

The victim, Elissa Wall, objected to the union but was told by Jeffs to go back and give herself "mind, body and soul" to her husband. Wall eventually left the marriage when she became pregnant with another man's child. She has also filed a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit against Jeffs and the FLDS Church.

Wall told Shumate that she had thought about this day for a very long time and how it would go.

"Warren Jeffs and his influence over me as a 14-year-old girl affected me and my family in so many ways," Wall said. "I am so grateful for the justice system that you would see the truth and believe in me."

Before Shumate sentenced Jeffs, the judge told Wall, "I know whatever I do today you live a under life sentence. Your courage for continuing on is laudable. but you don't have to do it alone."

Wall's former husband, Allen Steed, testified for Jeffs during his trial and the day after the FLDS leader was convicted, was himself charged with rape. Steed's lawyer's are seeking to have the case dismissed.

Jeffs' defense lawyers have also said they will appeal his case.

Shumate denied a request by Jeffs' defense attorneys to set aside the jury's guilty verdicts, arguing that "a reasonable juror could not have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt from the state's purely circumstantial evidence that Jeffs encouraged another to rape Elissa Wall."

In response, Washington County prosecutors said the evidence to convict was "ample on each and every element of the crimes charged."

The FLDS leader is next scheduled to face criminal charges in Arizona, where he is accused of performing more child-bride marriages.

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