Jeffs' lawyers want Arizona indictment dismissed

In new court motions seeking to remand the indictments, Jeffs' lawyers argue that the massive pre-trial publicity surrounding the FLDS leader's case hurt his chances before the grand jury. Jeffs earlier underwent a Utah trial last year and was convicted of two counts of rape as an accomplice and was sentenced to serve up to life in prison for the marriage between a then-14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. He also is facing a federal grand jury indictment in Salt Lake City charging him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, related to a period of time when he was on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

The defense attorneys also accuse Mohave County prosecutors of not doing enough to ensure that jurors were impartial.

Most seriously, Jeffs' defense team accuses prosecutors and law enforcement of making misleading statements to the grand jury to secure the indictment.

In the case involving a young girl and a man named Leonard Barlow, the defense said prosecutors went into great detail about meetings that occurred between the couple and Jeffs.

"The state went so far as to present evidence that (the alleged victim) claimed that, at one of these meetings, Mr. Jeffs wanted her and Leonard to have sex right then and there," the attorneys wrote.

"However, the state conveniently neglected to inform the grand jury of (the alleged victim's) statements about what happened next, i.e., her claim that she opened a window, cut the screen, climbed out, threw a rock through Warren Jeffs' office window, and hid out in the woods for three days."

The attorneys noted that the window was 15 to 20 feet above the ground, questioning the accuracy of her story.

The defense team attacks the state's theory that Jeffs' word is absolute among his followers. In the case involving Elissa Wall and Allen Steed (the couple named in the Utah case) they say that Jeffs is charged as an accomplice strictly because of his position in the church.

"Mr. Jeffs assisted his father, Rulon Jeffs, in performing a marriage between (the alleged victim) and Allen Steed that took place with parental consent and the consent of all concerned parties," the attorneys wrote.

"After the marriage, Warren Jeffs counseled the couple, in accordance with FLDS religious teachings, that married couples should have children."

Steed now is charged in St. George's 5th District Court with rape stemming from his 2001 marriage to Wall, who was the star witness in Utah's criminal case against Jeffs.

Wall, who is also a witness in one of the Arizona cases, has filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffs and the FLDS Church and recently released her autobiography, titled "Stolen Innocence." Since its release on Tuesday, the book is ranked 29th on Amazon.com's bestseller list.

Defense attorneys accuse prosecutors of eliciting hearsay from ex-FLDS members presented as "experts on all things FLDS."

"The prosecutor also gratuitously injected Mr. Jeffs' statements to his brother wherein he apparently had a temporary crisis of faith about his position in the church," they wrote, referring to taped conversations Jeffs had with his brother, Nephi, while Warren Jeffs was incarcerated in Hurricane's Purgatory Jail.