Jeffs arraigned in Arizona

KINGMAN, Ariz. -- Polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs made an initial court appearance on sex offense charges under heavy security and the watch of supporters and news media Wednesday morning.

Jeffs, 52, pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of being an accomplice to incest and sexual conduct with a minor in assigning three underage girls as spiritual brides to male adults.

Jeffs heads the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose members subscribe to a multiple-wife lifestyle in the northern Arizona community of Colorado City and the neighboring border town of Hildale, Utah.

The mainstream Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, renounced polygamy more than a century ago, excommunicates members who engage in the practice and disavows any connection with the FLDS church.

"To have a jury verdict of guilty would be vindication for what we've done and show that these cases are not about religious persecution or polygamy," Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith said, referring to other prosecutions of FLDS members on similar charges.

"They have to do with underage sex practices involving men that are much older than the girls involved," he said.

Jeffs already is serving two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison in Utah, where he was convicted of rape as an accomplice for arranging the union of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin.

If convicted and sentenced to prison time in Arizona, Jeffs would first have to finish out his Utah sentence.

Jeffs was a fugitive and was on the FBI's Most Wanted list when he was arrested during a traffic stop outside Las Vegas in August 2006.

He was flown from Salt Lake City to Arizona on Tuesday and spent his first night in the Mohave County jail in downtown Kingman.

The Mohave County Sheriff's Office used a decoy vehicle to divert media attention during the shuttle of Jeffs from the airport to the jail.

Officers lined Pine Street on Wednesday morning as he was driven about 75 yards from the jail to the courthouse, entering while officers held up boards to obscure his view.

"Our job is his care, his custody and his control," Sheriff's Capt. Gregg Smith said Tuesday. He said the department had no indication of escape plots or threats but would exercise every preventive precaution.

About a dozen Jeffs followers, neatly dressed in black suits and ties, watched him being escorted into the courthouse handcuffed and shackled. Jeffs wore an orange and white striped jail jumpsuit.

He mumbled in the affirmative when Superior Court Judge Steve Conn asked if he was Jeffs.

In court were defense counsel Mike Piccarreta of Tucson and Richard Wright of Las Vegas, and the prosecution team of county attorney Smith and Tim Linnins of the Arizona attorney general's office.

Conn said each of the four incest counts is punishable by up to 33/4 years in prison while the sexual conduct with a minor charges can bring up to two years in prison. He said each is a probational offense.

The incest charges allege Jeffs arranged marriages between relatives -- a 14-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man in one case, and a 16-year-old girl and a 51-year-old man in another.

A separate indictment alleges sex offenses were the product of a union Jeffs arranged involving a 16-year-old girl and a 29-year-old man.

Jeffs is being held without bond.

A case management hearing will be held March 19.

The defense team is asking that Jeffs be allowed to appear in court in regular clothes. It is also seeking a change of venue because of what it calls prejudicial pretrial publicity.

Smith and Linnins expect several months of motion litigation, with the trial probably starting in late summer or fall.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.