Mormon Sect Leader on FBI's '10 Most Wanted' List
By Heather Sells
CBN News Reporter
CBN.com =96 (CBN News) - The FBI has put an extremist Mormon sect leader
on its "10 Most Wanted" list. Warren Jeffs is accused of arranging
marriages between underage girls and older men.
He is considered a menace to society, but the FBI has no idea where
Jeffs is hiding.
Jeffs, 50, is wanted in both Arizona and Utah. Law enforcement
believes he commands as many as 10,000 followers -- followers who
believe Jeffs is a prophet who speaks for God.
A follower proclaimed, "I love Uncle Warren with all my heart, with
all my mind...with all my soul."
Jeffs leads an extreme offshoot of the Mormon church called the
Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. He preaches that polygamy is a holy
duty.
"Teenagers at the age of 14 or 16 are directed that they are to be
married to adult males in their 20s, or 30s, or 40s, and this is done
on Jeffs' order," said John Miller of the FBI.
Jeffs further dominates the lives of his followers by enforcing a
strict dress code and banning radio and TV.
John Llewellyn, author of Polygamy's Rape of Rachel Strong, said,
"It's a mind-control cult. It's an oppressive cult. Women are
oppressed in this group more than [in] any other cult."
Law enforcement officials believe that loyalists are hiding Jeffs in a
remote place -- quite possibly at a safe house in Texas.
"He would be a danger to any law enforcement official that tried to
arrest him because he's got his bodyguards," Llewellyn said. "I don't
think he intends to be taken alive."
Jeffs has not been seen in public since 2004. The FBI is hoping that
his new status on the "10 Most Wanted" list, plus a $100,000 reward,
will generate public awareness and lead to his arrest.
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