Woman sobs recounting how Jeffs officiated over her wedding as 14-year-old girl
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Posted: 12:44 PM- Jane Doe, the state's key witness in its case against polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs, broke down in sobs Friday morning as she described her wedding day and had to momentarily leave the courtroom.

Doe had stayed up all night "frantically" making a wedding dress with the help of her mother and sisters. On the morning of April 23, 2001, she was picked up by her husband and his parents and made the long drive to the Hot Springs Motel in Caliente, Nev.

The drive took "forever," she said, and she felt "so extremely scared."

Once there, she put on the dress and walked over to a small, stand-alone room where then FLDS prophet Rulon Jeffs, his son Warren, her mother and several other people waited.

As Jeffs performed the ceremony, Doe said she "didn't even comprehend what he was saying" and that she felt "trapped, extremely overwhelmed, immense amounts of pressure and so scared and so upset."

As she described taking her husband's hand and reciting the marriage vows, Doe broke down in sobs.

Fifth District Judge James L. Shumate called a recess to allow Doe to compose herself.

Back on the stand, Doe described how after the ceremony she went to a bathroom and "crumbled on the floor. So overwhelmed, and I started to sob."

She said she returned to Hildale that evening with her new husband and found her bedroom had been set up as a "honeymoon hideout."

Prosecutors showed several photos taken that night and the next day -- several of which showed a smiling Doe and her husband.

But Doe said she felt "numb" and that the photos did not reflect her feelings. Of one photo, which showed her being carried over a threshold by her husband, Doe has her hands over her face.

"I had started to cry," she said. "I was trying to laugh to cover my tears."

Doe, who was 14 at the time, said she felt "complete despair" and "betrayed by the people I trusted most" -- her stepfather, Fred Jessop, and Jeffs.

"He completely overlooked the fact that this was something I didn't want to do or was willing to do," she said.

Doe said she learned only days before the wedding that she was to marry her cousin, who was 19.

Before the court's noon recess, Doe described a four or five-day honeymoon trip the couple took to the Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.

During the honeymoon, Doe said her husband began making sexual advances but they did not have sexual intercourse.

Days after returning to Hildale, he began again to initiate intimacy but she told him to "Please stop" and asked why him to "at least explain to me what he was doing."

Doe said that her husband told her "this is what married people did" and asked whether she wanted to have babies.

"Not with you," she said.

Doe said she spent several nights sleeping in her mother's bedroom during this period.

She will resume testifying this afternoon in Jeffs' rape as an accomplice trial.

Jeffs is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice based on the marriage he conducted between Doe and her former husband and advice he gave them.

The sect leader's attorneys said Thursday that Jeffs had no way of knowing nonconsensual sex would occur after he married the couple.

"Pressure to marry is not pressure to commit rape," attorney Tara Isaacson said in her opening statement.

Earlier today, Shumate allowed Doe to describe her conversation with former FLDS president Rulon Jeffs before the jury.

She said she went to FLDS president Rulon Jeffs days before the wedding and begged for a different husband. She said Rulon Jeffs told her to "follow your heart, sweetie, follow your heart."

But Jeffs later told Doe "her heart was in the wrong place" and she had a duty to go forward with the marriage, she said Friday.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is attending today's session, to "support the team and to support the alleged victim," he said.

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