Officers’ Letters of Support for Fugitive FLDS Leader Warren Jeffs Presented in Phoenix, Arizona, Court

Officers in the twin communities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, wrote letters declaring their love and loyalty to Warren Jeffs while he was a fugitive from child sexual abuse charges, according to testimony presented in federal court in Phoenix. FBI Agent Robert Foster testified about the letters on Thursday. Jeffs is the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, known within the church as the Prophet. The FLDS practices polygamy and broke away from the Mormon church in the late 19th century.

In 2005, Jeffs was charged with sexually assaulting a minor and arranging underage marriages within the church. He fled and was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. He was convicted of related crimes in 2011 and is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison.

Foster testified that while Jeffs was still at large, Colorado City-Hildale Marshal Fred Barlow affirmed his love for Jeffs and invited Jeffs to give him advice: “I hope to hear any direction that you have for me.” Another marshal, Mica Barlow, wrote, “I want to be an extension of you in the police department or whatever you would have me be.” Richard Allred, the Colorado City mayor at the time, wrote, “I humbly submit to do your will in everything,” and said he welcomed instructions and guidance in his life, family and work.

Foster told the jury the letters were among items found in a car driven by Seth Jeffs, a brother of Warren Jeffs, who was arrested in Colorado in October 2005. Agents also recovered phones, laptops, a mason jar labeled “Pennies for the Prophet” with a picture of Warren Jeffs, and $200,000 in cash and checks. Foster said he had asked Colorado City marshals for help locating Warren Jeffs before the letters were discovered, and that the officers never disclosed that they had a means of communicating with the fugitive. He said Mica Barlow had told him, “If I knew where he was I would help you.”

The testimony came in a civil rights trial brought by the U.S. Department of Justice against the towns of Colorado City and Hildale, which began that week. The Justice Department alleges that the towns are controlled by the FLDS and discriminate against people outside the church by denying them housing, utilities and fair policing. The defense had not yet cross-examined Foster. In its opening statement, the defense said problems in the mid-2000s had since been fixed, and it noted that the marshals who wrote the letters are no longer on the force.

Dowayne Barlow, a former FLDS member, also testified for the Justice Department. He described backroom meetings he attended as an assistant to Bishop Lyle Jeffs, another brother of Warren Jeffs. He said church leaders told Colorado City and Hildale officials what to do and decided who should hold office and who should serve as police. He also described church policies that allowed leaders to separate men from their wives and children and reassign the families to others. Testimony about those separations, which he said prompted him to leave the church, points to the duty to protect the vulnerable (Psalm 82:3). Barlow now describes himself as a devout Fundamentalist Mormon.

“The co-mingling of the church and the cities, there is no line between,” Dowayne Barlow said in an interview with KJZZ after he testified. “There is no city office appointed, there is no city council there is no city marshal, there is no city clerk, there is no head of a department that is not a church appointment and calling.” He added, “Everything the Jeffs has brought has been control, animosity, hurt, harm.”

Source: Read the original report