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Robert Lee, Texas • Jury selection is under way in the trial of a former bishop accused of marrying an underage girl to polygamous group leader Warren Jeffs.
Frederick Merril Jessop, 75, is accused of marrying the girl to Jeffs at the remote Yearning for Zion Ranch in 2006. About half of the people in the 100-person jury pool in Coke County, Texas, said they had already formed an opinion about the case, the San Angelo Standard-Times is reporting.
The trial was moved from San Angelo, the venue for Jeffs' trial and those of other FLDS men, due to publicity. The trial could take a week to 10 days, according to the paper.
Judge Barbara Walther also considered a flurry of Monday filings by Jessop's San Angelo-based defense attorney, Rae Leifeste. She denied his request that the prosecution refrain from mentioning Jeffs' name during the defense portion of his trial.
"I don't see how the state can try this case and never mention his name," Walther said, according to the Standard-Times.
But she partially conceded Leifeste's motion to leave out the reasons for a massive 2008 raid on the YFZ Ranch. Though the raid was sparked by a hoax call from a Colorado woman pretending to be an abused underage plural wife, authorities saw other pregnant females who appeared to be underage when they entered the ranch.
The reasons for the raid have to do with sexual assault, Leifeste argued, not an offense his client is facing. Walther decided attorneys will need to approach the judge before bringing up the reasons for the raid.
Nearly all the evidence against 12 FLDS men charged with crimes related to underage marriages was gathered in the raid. All who have come to trial so far have been convicted, including Jeffs, who was sentenced to life in prison in Texas for sexually assaulting two girls, ages 12 and 15, whom he took as plural wives.
Jessop was a longtime FLDS bishop and senior church leader in charge of running the daily operations at the YFZ ranch until January, when he was reportedly excommunicated from the faith.
One of Jessop's wives, Carolyn, fled the FLDS community on the Arizona-Utah line with her children in 2003 and wrote a best-selling book, "Escape."
Last year, a Texas judge ordered Jessop to pay his former wife $148,000 for seven years of back child support.
He faces single felony charge of performing a ceremony prohibited by law, a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.