Polygamist leader Jeffs has mental breakdown, lawyer says
SALT LAKE CITY — Imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has suffered a mental breakdown and isn’t fit to give a deposition in a sex abuse case against him, according to a recent court filing.
Forcing Jeffs to testify would be “futile,” said lawyers representing a community trust that once belonged to a polygamous sect run by Jeffs on the UtahArizona border.
The trust and Jeffs were sued in 2017 by a woman who says she was sexually abused by Jeffs when she was a child.
“The trust has received reports that Warren Jeffs has suffered a mental breakdown, and there seems to be a high likelihood that Warren Jeffs is not mentally competent to provide admissible testimony,” lawyer Zachary Shields wrote in the July 8 filing.
Shields said Monday that he isn’t trying to cover for Jeffs, who he says has done many awful things, but that he doesn’t want attorneys to waste time and money traveling to the Texas prison where Jeffs is housed until he is determined to be mentally competent.
This is not the first time issues of mental and physical health have emerged regarding Jeffs, who is 63. He is serving a life sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting girls he considered brides. He tried to hang himself in jail in 2007 in Utah, had to be force-fed in 2009 at an Arizona jail and was put in a medically induced coma in 2011 after fasting in the Texas prison.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Robert Hurst declined to comment by email about Jeffs’ mental health, citing privacy rules. Jeffs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment made through Hurst on Monday.
The woman’s attorney, Alan Mortensen, countered in a July 15 filing that there is no evidence to support the claim that Jeffs isn’t mentally competent.
Mortensen accused the trust of being “understandably very fearful” about Jeffs’ testimony because the trust is liable for actions of Jeffs, who was past president of the group known as The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or FLDS.
The state of Utah took over the trust in 2005 and the court oversaw it for more than a decade before a judge recently handed it over to a board of community members who are mostly former sect members.
Shields said the trust, which had more than 700 homes and properties valued at about $100 million, shouldn’t be liable for all of Jeffs’ actions. Many of the people who benefit from the homes being resold at discounted rates are women and children who are former sect members who suffered under Jeffs’ reign, he said. If the alleged victim is granted monetary damages in the case, the trust may have to dip into its account.
“It seems wrong that they would have to pay for Warren’s crimes,” Shields said.
A judge has set a court date on Aug. 27 in the southern Utah city of St. George to discuss if Jeffs will be ordered to give testimony.
The story was first reported by KSTU-TV in Salt Lake City.
Members of the FLDS still consider their leader and prophet to be Jeffs, even though he has been in jail in Utah or Texas continually since 2006. To his followers, he is a prophet who speaks to God who has been wrongly convicted.
In recent years, the group has lost hundreds of members and control of the sister cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, amid a major leadership void started by Jeffs imprisonment and exacerbated by the conviction of his brother Lyle Jeffs on food stamp fraud charges. Editor’s Note: In honor of the 90th anniversary of the first Women’s National Air Derby, the Yuma Sun is revisiting our pages from the past, and reprinting coverage from our archives of the event. This story originally appeared in the Yuma Morning Sun on Aug. 18, 1929:
Acovey of flying females will swoop down on Yuma Monday morning at nine o’clock. They will pause here for one hour and a half and then take wing for Phoenix from Fly Field.
There will be 21 of them, including the most famous of the lady air enthusiasts.
Definite announcement that the Women’s Air Derby would come to Yuma was received yesterday by officials of the Union Oil company who were ordered to have a truck of gas and oil at the field.
Previous reports said that the promoters of the race had decided not to stop at Yuma, but because of the long jump from San Bernardino to Phoenix, the officials made a last minute change in their plans and designated this city as a refueling stop.
In the absence of Everett Johnson, chairman of the Yuma aviation committee, Ned Worthington will serve as official greeter and chairman of the chamber of commerce aviation committee to meet the fliers. Time-keepers, checkers, judges and other officials will
be named today.
The following Yumans will gather at Fly field as members of official reception committee.
Perry Ollman, Sid Fancher, Bud Wilson, Roy Dennis, Don Tromenhauser, Milton Bolasny, Judge E.A. Freeman, County Attorney H.H. Baker, Ernest Bristow, Chief of Police Henry Levy, Deputy County Attorney Ray N. Campbell, Sheriff James Polhamus, Deputy Sheriff J.C. Livingston, Carolina Brunson, Fidney Fisher, James Noonan, J. Homer Smith, Ray Priest, Clarence C. Dunbar, C.C. Sharpensteen, Morris Schwartz, Jack Eastlick, A.L. Verdugo, Sol Friedman, and Dr. John W. Stacey, John Doan and Rollin Reed.
A group of Yuma club-women are being named today to greet the aerial members of their sex. The woman’s committee will be headed by Mrs. Susan Odie, president of the Business and Professional Women’s club, and Mrs. J.W. Longstreth, president of the Delta club.
The O.C. Johnson ambulance will be stationed at the field.
Planes In Two Classes
There will be two classes of planes, heavy and light, and the $8,000 in finish prizes in Cleveland will be divided according to the number in each division.
The third day’s flight, from Phoenix, will be to El Paso, Texas, with mid-day stops at Douglas, Ariz., and Columbus, N.M. On the fourth day Peacock, Texas, will be visited enroute to the night half at El Paso. The fifth day a short stop will be at Abilene, Texas, and the night will be spent at Fort Worth.
On the sixth night the lap will end at Wichita, Kan., after a stop at Tulsa, Okla. The survivors will go into Kansas City, Mo., on the seventh day, enroute to East St. Louis, Ill. The eighth day’s trip will be to Columbus, Ohio, with Terre Haute, Ind., and Cincinnati, Ohio, at pausing points. The women will make the final jump into Cleveland on the ninth afternoon.
List of Entrants
Here are the 21 entrants listed when the books were closed today:
Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean and who is claimed by New York City.
Ruth Elder, Beverly Hills, the girl who tried to fly the Atlantic and broke into the movies.
Marvel Crosson, San Diego, Calif., the young holder of the 23,996 feet altitude record for women.
Louise McPhetridge Thaden, who for a time held the women’s endurance flight record after a flight at Oakland, Calif.
Bobbi Trout, the Los Angeles girl who looks like a boy and pilots an airplane like a man, once holder of the women’s endurance mark.
Thea Rasche, Germany’s star aviatrix.
Mrs. Keith Miller of New Zealand, present holder of the long distance flight record for women, from England to Tasmania.
Clair Fahy of Los Angeles, wife of Lt. Herbert L. Fahy, holder of the world’s solo endurance flight record.
Blanche Wilcox Noyes of Cleveland, just as good a flyer as could be expected to be the wife of Dewey Noyes.
Neva Paris of Great Neck, L.T., prominent eastern aviatrix.
Margaret O’Donnell of Long Beach, Calif., an advocate of “sane flying for everybody.”
Ruth Nichols of Rye, N.Y., a veteran of the air.
Edith Foltz of Portland, Ore., said to be backed by an oil company.
May Haizlys of Tulsa, Okla., one of the few women possessing a transport license.
Phoebe Omile of New York, another transport pilot.
Florence Loew Barnes of San Marino, Calif., a minister’s wife. Mable Waters of Tusla, Okla. Opal Logal Knuz of New York. Mary F. Von Mack, well known flyer of Detroit, Mich.
The race officials chose Yuma for a stopping place instead of an Imperial valley city because of the fine reception accorded the fliers last year in national air races, it was declared.