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Phoenix • The marshals in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., participated in drills to simulate a law enforcement raid on Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints leaders, a witness testified Tuesday in the federal civil rights trial against the two polygamous towns.

Willie Jessop, who was part of FLDS security off and on from the mid-1980s until his separation from the church in 2011, told jurors that he would accompany marshals to police trainings. Jessop would then take what he learned in those training and teach the skills to church security. In one example, the marshals arranged for Jessop to accompany them to a sniper training in Kingman, Ariz., which was offered only to law enforcement and military.

The marshals also helped make plans for what to do if the FBI or other law enforcement raided the FLDS meetinghouse in Colorado City. Jessop said the marshals drilled with church security and played the role of the raiders. Marshals also cordoned part of the parking lot near the meetinghouse so there were clear escape routes.

The FLDS was ready in 2006 when the FBI and Mohave Count, Ariz., investigators arrived at the meetinghouse to serve subpoenas on about 30 men, including Lyle Jeffs, brother of FLDS President Warren Jeffs.

Security was able to slow agents long enough for Lyle Jeffs to run to an ATV hidden in a basement furnace room. Jessop testified he was driving the ATV for Lyle Jeffs when they went up a ramp and into the dry wash of Short Creek, from which the two towns take their joint name, and drove to a pickup point.

Warren Jeffs was captured later that year, but the FBI never managed to serve his brother.

Jessop also testified Tuesday that he received perhaps 100 letters from Warren Jeffs that were written in code from one of his jail or prison cells. Warren Jeffs, Jessop said, would send the letters through attorneys or mail them to family. Jessop would then deliver them to one of three of Warren Jeffs' wives who had the decoder. The letters would contain instructions, Jessop said.

"This is the way letters were done for years," Jessop testified.

Jessop spent much of Tuesday morning describing meetings that took place at his excavating business in Hildale. He described them as legal strategy sessions that included Lyle Jeffs and other church leaders as well as elected officials in the towns and the towns' marshals.

In those meetings, Jessop testified, discussions were held about how to resist the state of Utah's takeover of a trust that holds much of the real estate in the towns. It was decided, Jessop said, that the towns would deny applications to subdivide property so the trust could not liquidate the holdings.

It eventually took a ruling from the Utah Supreme Court to force Hildale to subdivide the town. Colorado City has not been subdivided — entire town blocks sit as one parcel at the county recorder's office — and there is a pending lawsuit in the Arizona courts over the issue.

Jessop sobbed as he described coming to the realization in 2011 that Warren Jeffs raped a 12-year-old girl in the temple on the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. Jessop said he learned it was true after being shown evidence from Texas authorities and confirming the allegations with other FLDS girls who were present for the rape. Jessop said he vomited after getting the confirmation.

Warren Jeffs is serving a life sentence in Texas after being convicted in 2011 of sexually assaulting girls he considered brides.

Jessop also testified that:

— Church security used a network of prepaid cell phones to communicate with Warren Jeffs when the FBI was pursuing him. When an employee of a phone company told Jessop the FBI had bugged Short Creek's lone cell tower, FLDS were instructed to drive to Interstate 15 — about 45 minutes away — to call Warren Jeffs.

— Multiple marshals rode with Jessop to I-15 to make such phone calls.

— One contingency to protect Warren Jeffs called for flying him away. Church security coordinated with the airport run by Colorado City so one of Warren Jeffs' brothers with a pilot's license could quickly fly in and out with him.

— The Hildale city council was once in a closed meeting pondering whether to settle a lawsuit filed by Ron and Jinjer Cooke, who had been denied water and utility connections. The city manager called during the meeting as Jessop was meeting with Lyle Jeffs. Lyle Jeffs told the town not to settle. A federal jury later awarded the Cookes $5.2 million. Only then did Hildale and Colorado City settle for $3 million.

— After learning of Warren Jeffs sex crimes, Jessop began showing evidence to other FLDS. Church members later burglarized Jessop's business to retrieve that evidence. Jessop watched the burglary, but didn't try to stop it, and saw a marshal driving in circles around the building while the burglary was in process.

Under cross examination from Hildale attorney Blake Hamilton, Jessop acknowledged that a number of people who helped protect the Jeffs brothers a decade ago no longer work for the marshals office or the towns.

Jessop said it was distasteful to look back on his time serving the Jeffs family, but said that at the time he and other people who have since left the FLDS believed in their prophet.

"We had a feeling of protecting our leader and that we were under attack," Jessop said.

Jessop has been know over the years as "Willie the Thug" for the way he protected FLDS leaders.

The Justice Department alleges the towns and their police collude with the FLDS Church to discriminate against nonmembers. Neither Jeffs nor the church is a party in the lawsuit.

In the afternoon, the Justice Department called Gary Wilbanks, an investigator for the Texas prison system, to testify. He said Warren Jeffs receives special protection from other inmates because of his high profile and the crimes he committed.

When he receives visitors, Warren Jeffs is placed in a special cage in the visitation room to protect him from other inmates, Wilbanks said. Some inmates are allowed to be in the same room with their visitors, but not Warren Jeffs due to some conduct violations.

The prison in Palestine, Texas, began recording Warren Jeffs visitor conversations at least by December of 2012, Wilbanks testified. In a four-minute clip played in court, he is heard rambling to his brother Isaac Jeffs about the sanctity of his writings and orations, which he calls his priesthood record. The imprisoned Jeffs also complains that his followers have been violating his commandment to keep men and women separated.

Under cross-examination, Wilbanks acknowledged that no one in elected or appointed positions with Hildale or Colorado City has come to visit Warren Jeffs, nor are there recordings where the inmate is giving orders to the towns.

Twitter: @natecarlisle