Attorney attacks rape claim

ST. GEORGE, Utah -- A defense attorney on Monday picked over the testimony of a key witness in the trial of the leader of a polygamous sect, looking for discrepancies in her story about being under pressure to marry an older cousin when she was 14.

During cross-examination, the woman, now 21, was put through yes-or-no questions about many issues, from her civil lawsuit against Warren Jeffs to whether she told her mother about unwanted sex.

"I never told anyone," the woman replied when asked whether she talked about her belief that she was being raped by the 19-year-old cousin.

Jeffs, president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice.

Prosecutors contend Jeffs, 51, used his influence to push the girl into a ceremonial marriage with the cousin in 2001 and force her to have sex.

Jurors last week heard two days of testimony from the woman, who said she sobbed through the wedding in a Nevada motel and had to be coaxed by Jeffs and her mother when asked to say "I do."

But defense attorney Tara Isaacson challenged the allegation that the woman had sex under duress during a marriage of more than three years.

"Isn't it true you said you had to sugar-up the situation to get things you wanted?" Isaacson asked.

The woman said she began to use sex to extract privileges from her husband, including money, visits to see family and other trips.

Isaacson portrayed the older cousin as a loving husband who was trying to make the marriage work, giving his teen bride love notes and flowers. He has not been charged.

In photos from the wedding and the honeymoon, she is smiling with her arms around the man whom she has referred to as a "devil with a pitchfork."

One of the pictures shows the marriage bed decorated with candy in the shape of a heart. The woman's sisters said in testimony Monday that the room had been decorated as a "honeymoon hide-out" to encourage the new couple's happiness.

Defense attorney Wally Bugden asked one of the sisters, Rebecca Musser, whether she believed the family's enthusiasm was encouraging the rape of the victim.

"Not in those words, no," said Musser, who is 10 years older than the bride.

Musser said most in the family opposed the marriage but were powerless to stop it, especially after the teenage bride's plea to then-church prophet Rulon Jeffs, Warren Jeffs' father, was ignored. None of the women could have intervened without suffering dire social consequences, Musser said.

"If we wanted to fall out of the good graces of our priesthood heads, we could have, but we would have been severely reprimanded," Musser said.

She said the marriage was not by arranged by Rulon and Warren Jeffs but by Fred Jessop, the church's third-ranking leader who was married to the teenage bride's mother. His request was honored because of his standing in the church.

Failing to go through with the marriage would have brought dishonor and embarrassment to the family, she said.

Isaacson noted a journal entry from 2001 in which the woman wrote about "pleading with the Lord" to place her with a good man who could lead her in the principles of the FLDS faith.

In counseling her about marriage, Jeffs never directed her to have "sex" with her husband and instead encouraged her to pray, spend time with and love her husband, she testified.

The woman has recalled her attempts to avoid sex for weeks after the marriage but said she no longer could deny her husband when he told her it was "time for you to be a wife and do your duty."

She left her marriage and the FLDS church in 2004 after becoming pregnant with another man's child.

Jeffs has been president of the church since 2002. Followers see him as a prophet who communicates with God and holds dominion over their salvation.

Ex-church members said he reigns with an iron fist, demanding perfect obedience from followers.

In 2005, before speaking to police, the woman filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffs, seeking money and property from a church-held trust for pain and suffering from her marriage.