Imprisoned FLDS Leader Warren Jeffs Reportedly Had Mental Breakdown, Trust’s Lawyers Say

A lawyer for a community trust says imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has suffered a mental breakdown and is not fit to give a deposition in a sex abuse lawsuit against him. The claim appears in a recent court filing. The lawyers, representing a trust that once belonged to a polygamous sect Jeffs led on the Utah-Arizona border, call forcing him to testify “futile.”

The trust and Jeffs were sued in 2017 by a woman identified in court papers only as “R.H.,” who says she was sexually abused by Jeffs when she was a child. According to CBS affiliate KUTV, R.H. accuses Jeffs and other leaders of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) of carrying out a “calculated plan” to sexually abuse underage girls as part of “religious rituals.” She is seeking physical and emotional damages and has asked for a jury trial. These are allegations in a civil case, and they have not been proven in court.

In a July 8 filing, attorney Zachary Shields wrote that the trust had received reports that Jeffs had suffered a mental breakdown and that there was “a high likelihood” he was not mentally competent to give admissible testimony. Shields said he was not trying to shield Jeffs, whom he described as having done many awful things, but did not want attorneys to spend time and money traveling to the Texas prison where Jeffs is held until his competence is determined. Jeffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment made through a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman, who declined to discuss Jeffs’ mental health, citing privacy rules.

R.H.’s attorney, Alan Mortensen, responded in a July 15 filing that there was no evidence to support the claim that Jeffs was not mentally competent. He said the trust was “understandably very fearful” about Jeffs’ testimony because the trust is liable for the actions of Jeffs, who was the group’s past president.

The trust’s history is central to the dispute. The state of Utah took control of it in 2005, and a court oversaw it for more than a decade before a judge recently transferred it to a board of community members, most of them former sect members. Shields said the trust, which holds more than 700 homes and properties valued at about $100 million, should not be liable for all of Jeffs’ actions. Many people who benefit from homes being resold at discounted rates, he said, are women and children who are former members and suffered under Jeffs’ leadership. If R.H. is awarded monetary damages, the trust may have to draw on its account. In this instance, protecting people harmed under Jeffs’ rule is a concrete concern for the trust, as Proverbs 31:8-9 shows.

A judge has set an Aug. 27 court date in St. George, Utah, to consider whether Jeffs will be ordered to testify. Jeffs, who is 63, is serving a life sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting girls he considered brides. This is not the first time questions about his health have arisen. He tried to hang himself in a Utah jail in 2007, was force-fed at an Arizona jail in 2009, and was placed in a medically induced coma in 2011 after fasting in the Texas prison.

Members of the FLDS still regard Jeffs as their leader and prophet, even though he has been jailed in Utah or Texas continuously since 2006. Followers consider him a prophet who speaks to God and who was wrongly convicted. In recent years the group has lost hundreds of members and control of the sister cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona. The loss followed a major leadership vacuum caused by Jeffs’ imprisonment, worsened by the conviction of his brother, Lyle Jeffs, on food stamp fraud charges.

Polygamy traces back to early teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the mainstream church abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly prohibits it.

Source: Read the original report