Report: Jeffs married underage daughter to adult

HOUSTON (AP) - Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs married his daughter to the 34-year-old son of his chief deputy the day after her 15th birthday, according to photos, diaries and a marriage record kept by his sect and obtained Friday by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News.

The documents were part of a report filed Friday by the girl's guardian, Court-Appointed Special Advocates, in a San Angelo court, the newspapers reported. The report contradicts interviews given by the girl and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints denying that she was ever put in a "spiritual marriage" with an adult church member.

"Based on the information in the attachments, CASA feels that (the girl) would be at risk for continued sexual abuse," the CASA report states.

Jeffs' daughter, now 16 and in her mother's custody, is involved in a legal fight between the FLDS, the Texas attorney general, who is presenting a criminal case against the sect to grand jurors next week, and her own court-appointed attorneys.

She was one of the children taken from the FLDS' Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, about 400 miles northwest of Houston, after Texas Child Protective Services determined that all the children were subjected to either physical or sexual abuse. She has been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury.

Records attached to the report filed in San Angelo include photos of the girl, apparently from a scrapbook kept by FLDS women, in which she is seen kissing her new adult husband. An excerpt from the girl's diary includes a recollection of the marriage to Raymond Jessop, which appears to have taken place July 26, 2006, at the "Home of President Warren Jeffs," the newspapers reported.

In a Dec. 27, 2006 entry, the girl wrote "The Lord blessed me to go forward in marriage July 27, 2006, the day after I turned 15 years old."

Members of the FLDS, a breakaway sect from the Mormon church, lived for generations along the Arizona-Utah border mostly ignored by law enforcement until recently, when allegations of underage girls forced into marriages surfaced.

Jeffs awaits trial in Arizona on charges of being an accomplice to sexual conduct with a minor for allegedly arranging marriages between underage girls and adult men. He was convicted in Utah last year of two counts of felony rape as an accomplice in the marriage of a girl there.

The Texas raid brought further scrutiny when child protective workers removed more than 400 children from the YFZ Ranch in western Texas and placed them in foster care, alleging they were being abused because of underage marriages in the sect.

Appellate courts found the removals unjustified in all but a handful of cases, and the children were returned to their parents in early June.

No criminal charges have been filed, though a grand jury in Eldorado is hearing testimony. Jurors meet Tuesday for a second time to consider the FLDS case.