© The Associated Press / The Canadian Press / Tony GutierrezTexas Attorney General Greg Abbott, second from left, arrives at Tom Green County Courthouse for the sexual assault trial against Polygamist religious leader Warren Jeffs Thursday Aug. 4, 2011, in San Angelo, Texas. Jeffs, 55, is accused of sexually assaulting two girls he took as brides during so-called "spiritual marriages."
Warren Jeffs, the leader of a polygamist sect whose radical private life put him for a brief time on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, was facing the prospect of life imprisonment last night, after a jury in Texas found him guilty of sexually assaulting two under-age girls.
The self-proclaimed prophet, who has entered into "spiritual marriages" with more than 100 women, was convicted of fathering a child with one "wife" who was 15, and of abusing a different girl, who was 12, on a ranch owned by his Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in rural west Texas.
Jeffs, 55, stood silently when the verdict was read out, leaving him facing up to 119 years behind bars. It capped a bizarre trial at which he conducted his own defence, refused to cross-examine prosecution witnesses, and repeatedly told the judge that God intended to punish him with death for the manner in which he was overseeing the case.
Prosecutors used DNA evidence to show that Jeffs was the father of a girl born to a 15-year-old member of his sect, which has roughly 10,000 members. And they played the court in San Angelo several audio recordings in which he instructed young women how to gratify him sexually.
In one of the tapes, which was made by surveillance officers at the Texas ranch, Jeffs made a reference to "drawing close" or "being close", which authorities testified is how church members refer to sex. After two female voices said "OK", he added: "A good wife is trained for her husband and follows the spirit of peace."
Comment: Notice that she is French and it is the French that are behind this trend. Do we wonder why they have recently gone after SOTT and it's founder via the actions of a sexual pervert and pedophile for our exposure of psychopathology in power? The French Connection Redux - Cult Accusations and The Deviant Mind