Arizonans prepare for Jeffs

KINGMAN, Ariz. -- Law enforcement officials and community leaders in northwest Arizona were celebrating the Utah sex crime convictions of Warren Jeffs this week as they prepared their own prosecution of the polygamist leader.

Jeffs' next destination is Kingman, where he has been indicted on charges stemming from four criminal cases pending in Mohave County Superior Court.

The 51-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints commands thousands of followers in the border towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz.

About 40 government officials were attending a conference in Kingman on Tuesday afternoon when news of the verdicts from St. George briefly interrupted the meeting.

"Guilty on both counts," announced a beaming Mohave County Sheriff Tom Sheahan to applause.

A couple of miles away, Matt Smith, the Mohave County attorney who will handle the Arizona prosecution of Jeffs, was jubilant.

"It's great news and I'm very happy with the verdicts," Smith said from his office. "All the attention and credit should go to the Washington County Attorney's Office."

Smith said he plans to prosecute Jeffs even if the polygamist receives a potential life prison sentence in Utah because of his conviction there on two counts of being an accomplice to rape. The Utah jury held Jeffs responsible for exercising his authority as church prophet to order the 14-year-old victim into a domestic and sexual union with her 19-year-old cousin that she told the jury she protested.

In Mohave County, Jeffs is charged with two counts each of sexual conduct with a minor and incest in two separate cases, one involving a 16-year-old girl and a 51 year-old man, the other involving a 14-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man.

"There are a lot of parallels" between the Arizona and Utah cases, Smith said.

Smith declined to provide further specifics, indicating the strategy behind his prosecution will evolve through pleadings, hearings and trials.

Smith previously obtained an indictment against Jeffs in two other cases. But prosecution was hampered by problems associated with his witnesses, females he alleged were sexually victimized after Jeffs assigned them to spiritual and sexual unions to male adults from Colorado City. Each of the women are adults, though they were underage girls when sexual activity first occurred.

Smith was forced to dismiss charges he brought against the men to whom the girls were "sealed" or assigned by Jeffs in unions recognized as marriages by their church but not under Arizona law.

Smith dropped charges against Randy Barlow, 34, when Candi Shapley, 21, refused to take the witness stand against him at trial after she first incriminated Barlow before a grand jury.

Smith also dropped charges in the case against Rodney Holm, 41, when credibility questions surfaced as the prosecutor learned his victim/witness, Ruth Stubbs, 25, had been involved in an extortion plot.

Jeffs is the co-defendant in the dismissed Barlow and Holm cases. Smith said it's unclear whether the cases can prosecuted in light of the trouble surrounding Shapley and Stubbs.

Smith said representatives of the U.S. Attorney's office have indicated they'll shelve a federal fugitive case against Jeffs, allowing his Arizona prosecution to follow sentencing in Utah. Smith believes Jeffs will be sentenced and transferred and make his first Kingman court appearance before the end of this year.

Sheahan said Jeffs will be held in solitary confinement and segregated from the general population of the county jail. Jeffs will be allowed to leave his cell for up to an hour a day to shower, exercise or use the telephone.

Resolution of the Utah case will likely decrease some of the media interest in Jeffs' Arizona cases, officials said.

"I think at this point with the convictions that we will not necessarily see the media frenzy that they (Utah) did," Kingman Police Chief Bob Devries said. "I think had he been found not guilty then we probably would have."

Devries said some of the national and international interest in Jeffs will wane, while regional, state and local media attention will remain focused on the legal proceedings in Arizona.