Jeff's Dark Background Read For Sentencing

Life took a dramatically dark turn for the FLDS polygamous
sect after Warren Jeffs took control, a former member testified Saturday during
the penalty phase of the convicted child-bride rapist’s trial.

"The festivals, the parades, it all came to an end," Ezra Draper told a Texas
District Court jury. "Movies were banned."

The jury is considering whether Jeffs, 55, should spent up to life in prison.
The panel had convicted Jeffs on Thursday of one count of aggravated sexual
abuse of a child and one count of sexual abuse of a child. Prosecutors were
introducing evidence of so-called other "bad acts" committed by Jeffs since at
least 1989.

Among those "acts" are the moves Jeffs’ ordered to impose strict rules on his
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ followers and his
expulsions of any men who disobeyed them.

Jeffs officially became president and prophet of the FLDS after his father Rulon
Jeffs’ death in 2002. Draper left the FLDS in 2003, but continues to live in
Hildale, Utah, which along with its sister town of Colorado City, Ariz.,
comprises the primary FLDS community.

Rulon Jeffs was an agreeable, open man, Draper testified. But when Rulon Jeffs’
health began deteriorating in the early 1990’s, he began delegating more
authority to Warren Jeffs, and the younger Jeffs took his own dictatorial
initiatives, in his father’s name.

Among the changes was ending the annual Pioneer Day parade in Hildale and
Colorado City as well as ending the towns fall harvest festival, Draper said.
Warren Jeffs also ordered televisions removed from homes, forbade people from
installing Internet connections and even prohibited magazines as benign as
"Motor Trend," Draper testified.

Texas courts are not normally open on weekends, but District Court Judge Barbara
Walther decided to hold court Saturday. The Jeffs trial has already completed 10
days, and the prosecutors still have evidence to present at sentencing. Then it
will be the defense team’s turn to present.

Jeffs was not in the courtroom Saturday. On Friday, he told Walther he did not
want to be present for the proceedings and did not want an attorney to represent
him. Walther allowed Jeffs’ absence but said Texas court rules do not allow a
defendant to be unrepresented.

Jeffs had been acting as his own attorney but his standby lawyers assumed his
place Friday. See Chick's LISA.