Polygamist Leader Warren Jeffs Hospitalized In Las Vegas

By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was taken from jail in Arizona to a Las Vegas hospital after he was found weak, feverish and “convulsive” in his cell, a jail official said Wednesday.

The 52-year-old president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was brought about 100 miles to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas by helicopter Tuesday.

He had been found “in a weakened state of health, acting in a convulsive manner, shaking, and running a fever,” said Trish Carter, spokeswoman for Mohave County, Ariz., Sheriff Tom Sheahan.

The sect leader was convicted of Utah last year and then brought to Kingman, Ariz., in February to await another trial there. He has had several health complications in custody, including a trip to a Utah prison infirmary in early 2007 because of a self-imposed fast.

Jeffs also attempted suicide last year and was seen throwing himself against the walls and banging his head, authorities said.

Carter said Jeffs had “sporadic eating habits” since he arrived in Kingman, but she didn’t know whether he had been fasting.

Officers from Mohave County were keeping him under heavy guard in Las Vegas, the sheriff said.

Mike Piccarreta, a lawyer for Jeffs, acknowledged that he was hospitalized, but refused to discuss his medical condition.

“I think anyone that was being incarcerated as a result of persecution for his religious beliefs would not be in good health,” Piccarreta said.

Hospital spokesman Dan Davidson said he had no patient listed under Jeffs’ name, and said he could provide no further information.

The FLDS is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. The group, which has nearly 6,000 followers, practices polygamy in arranged marriages that have sometimes involved underage girls.

One of their ranches was raided in west Texas in April, setting off a lengthy legal battle over the custody of hundreds of children.

Jeffs was convicted by a Utah jury last year on two counts of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice for his role in the 2001 marriage of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison.

Jeffs is charged in Arizona as an accomplice with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor stemming from the marriages of two girls. He had also been charged with four counts of incest as an accomplice, but those charges were thrown out last month.

In dropping the accomplice to incest charges last month, Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven Conn found that state incest law does not apply to the arranged marriages of two teenage girls and their older male relatives.

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Associated Press writers Bob Christie in Phoenix and Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)