Warren Jeffs Convicted of Child Sex Abuse

Published on August 17th, 2011
Written by Public Record Finder Staff

Warren Jeffs' flock of fundamentalist followers is likely in shock as their leader and prophet was convicted on August 4. According to reports, they had an exact replica of his jail cell built, complete with plywood cutouts of Jeffs himself, and placed it strategically near the entrance of the church so that all the congregants had to walk past it on their way to the service.

It's the congregants who feel the guilt for Jeffs conviction, believing that they weren't faithful enough, so he remains in jail despite constant claims that God would 'deliver' him.

It took only three and a half hours for a jury of 10 women and two men to find the prophet guilty of raping two children, one 12 years old, and the other 15. The prosecution promises it will prove that the 55-year-old Jeffs took two dozen child brides. Over the next two days during the penalty phase, the information is scheduled to be revealed.

This news would normally be a field day for the press, but because of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' (FLDS) practice of maintaining 'celestial marriages' without traditional legal records, reporters won't be able to find much information that they aren't told directly by the community members. Prosecutors also claim that Jeffs destroyed over 300 families, taking wives from 'disobedient' men who refused to follow his rules and giving them to men who followed him more stringently. Many of the allegedly disobedient men still have no idea what they did wrong.

The members of Jeffs' FLDS church are still largely in denial, believing that the "jail bars will open," freeing Jeffs from a legal system that they don't believe in. Sources say that Jeffs' frequent prophecies of doom and Armageddon keep his followers in a constant state of fear, allowing him to rule them entirely. Many of the members of the church live below the poverty line, working from "sunup to sundown" to fill church coffers and make their tithes. Failing to make tithes is a crime ensuring the label 'unworthy,' as well as being grounds for expulsion from the church.

Luckily, the FLDS church does not believe in suicide, alleviating law enforcement fears of a Jim Jones-style end to the fundamentalist sect. Instead the followers will wait for their prophet to return by miracle or Armageddon.