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What the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints prophet told his congregation and what his brother drove are relevant to the fraud case against 11 church followers, federal prosecutors say in new court briefs.
Prosecutors on Thursday filed a motion saying they intend to show Judge Ted Stewart a spreadsheet found on an FLDS computer. The spreadsheet is a list of cars, trucks and other vehicles possessed by members of the sect.
Prosecutors highlighted 11 vehicles to which they say defendant Lyle Jeffs, the former bishop in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., and the brother of imprisoned FLDS prophet and President Warren Jeffs, had access. The cars include three Infiniti sports utility vehicles, a motor home and a Lincoln Navigator.
The spreadsheet is to be entered as evidence in a hearing scheduled for Oct. 4. The defendants are charged each with two counts of conspiracy in what prosecutors describe as a scheme to misuse food stamp benefits. At the hearing, defense attorneys will ask Stewart to dismiss the indictments on the grounds the FLDS members had a religious right to donate the benefits to their church. Prosecutors want to show the benefits were used to provide the sect with cash, and they believe Lyle Jeffs' cars demonstrate that.
Then, on Friday, prosecutors filed a motion for trial jurors to hear some of Warren Jeffs' recorded sermons. The sermons begin in 2011, when Warren Jeffs was awaiting trial in Texas on charges related to sexually abusing two underage girls he married as plural wives. Warren Jeffs would call church meetings from jail or prison.
Prosecutors say the sermons show the inmate establishing the United Order, the FLDS' elite subset, and ordering people to consecrate their belongings to the church or face excommunication. Government attorneys contend that led to members giving the groceries they purchased with food stamps or giving the government-issued debit cards themselves to church leaders.
Warren Jeffs is not charged in the fraud case. He is serving a sentence of life plus 20 years in Texas. The government motion says some of the recordings in its possession were made by jail or prison monitoring systems, and others were recorded by someone in the church meeting.
Defense attorneys have not yet filed a response to either motion. All 11 defendants are scheduled for trial on Jan. 30.
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