Lawyer says polygamist leader Jeffs has mental breakdown

SALT LAKE CITY – Imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs 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 Utah-Arizona 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.