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Warren Jeffs, polygamist sect leader, gets life in jail | Warren Jeffs, polygamist sect leader, gets life in jail |
(40 minutes later) | |
Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs has been sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting two underage followers he took as brides. | Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs has been sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting two underage followers he took as brides. |
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader was handed the maximum sentence possible. | The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader was handed the maximum sentence possible. |
Last Thursday, the 55-year-old was found guilty of forcing two girls into "spiritual marriages" and fathering a child with one of them. | Last Thursday, the 55-year-old was found guilty of forcing two girls into "spiritual marriages" and fathering a child with one of them. |
The charges followed a raid on a remote west Texas ranch in 2008. | |
Jeffs stood quietly in a Texas court on Tuesday as the jury's decision, which only took 30 minutes, was read. | |
Pregnant underage girls | |
Jeffs had referred to himself as a prophet, and the Mormon breakaway sect he leads believes polygamy is the path to heaven. | |
During the trial, prosecutors presented DNA evidence to show Jeffs had fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl, and an audio recording of him sexually assaulting a 12-year-old. | |
Throughout the trial, prosecuting lawyers played other tapes during which Jeffs was heard instructing his young wives on how to satisfy him sexually, which he said would please God. | |
Jeffs, who insisted on acting as his own legal defence during the earlier part of the trial, argued he had been prosecuted because of his religious beliefs. | |
The sect leader refused to speak during the sentencing portion of the trial, with a defence lawyer telling the judge his client had instructed his legal team not to speak for him. | |
Jeffs, who stood expressionless and silent before the jury for nearly half hour during his closing arguments, called only one defence witness to the stand - a man who read from Mormon scripture. | |
Prosecutors said the religious head had spent years travelling around North America and avoiding arrest, ultimately landing on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. | |
An FBI agent said during the trial that fathers who handed over their daughters to Jeffs were rewarded with young brides of their own. | |
"If the world knew what I was doing, they would hang me from the highest tree," Jeffs wrote in notes, seized from his Texas ranch. | |
When police raided the Texas ranch they found women dressed in frontier-style dresses and underage girls who were clearly pregnant. | |
The 10,000-strong sect, which dominates the towns of Colorado City in Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, split from the mainstream Mormon church more than a century ago. |