Mormon Sect Members Sent To Jail For Child Assault

SAN ANTONIO (April 15) - Two members of a polygamist sect were sentenced to prison Thursday on bigamy charges, the first legal finding of multiple marriages in a community that has mostly dodged questions about the practice.

Lehi Barlow Jeffs pleaded no contest to bigamy and sexual assault of a child in San Angelo, avoiding a trial that had been set for April 26. State District Judge Barbara Walther found that he committed the crimes and sentenced him to eight years in prison.

Walther found that Michael George Emack, who also pleaded no contest, committed bigamy. He was given a seven-year prison term that will run concurrently with a seven-year sentence he received in January for sexual assault of a child.
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Both men belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which teaches that plural marriage brings glorification in heaven. Members have been reluctant to talk publicly about such unions, in part because Texas' bigamy statute makes it illegal to even purport to marry more than one person. Many of the FLDS unions are only church-sanctioned, not legally documented, marriages.

Since the raid, five men have been sentenced to prison for sexual assault of a child, all on charges related to underage brides. Seven men, including FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, still face charges ranging from sexual assault to failure to report child abuse.