'Uncle Fred arranged marriage,' sister says at Jeffs trial

ST. GEORGE — Fred Jessop, the stepfather of the woman accusing polygamist leader Warren Jeffs of rape as an accomplice, insisted his daughter marry a cousin she despised, an older sister testified in 5th District Court on Monday.

"Fred put the marriage together, but Warren could have stopped it," Rebecca Musser testified during cross-examination by defense counsel Wally Bugden. "Fred insisted and Warren upheld it."

Jessop, who died in 2005, was the second counselor in the Fundamentalist LDS Church, along with Warren Jeffs, who served as first counselor to his father, Rulon Jeffs, who was the prophet.

Jeffs, 51, is charged with two first-degree felony counts of rape as an accomplice. He is accused of conducting the ceremony that united the then-14-year-old girl with a cousin that she testified earlier she hated, and of counseling the girl to submit to her husband, "mind, body and soul."

Musser, who at 19 married Jeffs' 86-year-old father in 1995, said she was "horrified" to learn her younger sister would undergo an arranged marriage.

"She was only 14, and I asked my mother if it was really true and if Uncle Fred was sure it was going to happen," Musser testified. "She was very emotional, crying, saying she didn't want to do this. I tried to encourage her if she went to the authorities of the church they might help her."

Bugden asked her why she and other family members didn't stop the marriage, especially since Musser was married to the faith's prophet at the time. She has since left the religion and is married to another man.

"Rulon Jeffs did not put that marriage together, he didn't understand," she said. "He had no clue. Uncle Fred arranged the marriage, not the prophet."

Musser testified that Warren Jeffs "was just the errand boy," and that he "wanted to respect Fred's wishes."

"I couldn't stop it. If I was to call anyone, I would have been severely reprimanded," she said. "To stay in the good graces of my priesthood head, I could not stop it."

Musser said she helped make her sister's wedding dress and decorated her room to help "cheer her up" and congratulate her after the wedding at a Nevada motel.

"You did not believe when you decorated the room that you were encouraging the rape of your sister, did you?" Bugden asked her, to which she said, "Not in those words, no."