ARIZONA
Washington Post
Ariz. Attorney General Horne says criminal probe under way into Warren Jeffs polygamous sect
By Associated Press
Published: January 22
PHOENIX — Law enforcement in a town dominated by one of the nation’s largest polygamous sects has been preventing women from leaving, leading to a criminal probe of the church run by its jailed leader Warren Jeffs, Arizona’s attorney general said Tuesday.
Attorney General Tom Horne held a news conference in Phoenix to announce that a 26-year-old woman had been granted temporary custody of her six children and had fled the town of Colorado City, Ariz., the home base of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
He said she was forced by Jeffs to marry her brother-in-law at the age of 14, and had since been virtually held captive in the town on the Utah-Arizona border, along with many other women who want to leave.
“What they do is say, ‘Everybody watch her so she won’t run away.’ Then she can’t leave,” Horne said. “Women who wanted to escape have been forcibly held by the marshals against their will.”
He said a criminal probe of the FLDS and the Marshal’s Office, which serves as a small police force in the twin polygamous towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, is currently under way. He declined to provide details.
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