Fugitive polygamist leader Jeffs caught at traffic stop

LAS VEGAS – After more than a year on the run and three months on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, the charismatic leader of a polygamous sect was captured during a routine traffic stop and now faces charges he arranged marriages between underage girls and older men.

Warren Steed Jeffs, 50, was arrested without incident just outside Las Vegas late Monday, the FBI said Tuesday. No weapons were found, but the 2007 red Cadillac Escalade he was riding in was filled with items including three wigs, 15 cell phones, $54,000 in cash and $10,000 in gift cards, authorities said.

Jeffs leads the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a group that broke away from the Mormon church a century ago. He is said to have at least 40 wives and nearly 60 children.

Church dissidents say that underage marriages – some involving girls as young as 13 – escalated into the hundreds under his leadership, and that he broke apart families by casting out married men and reassigning their women and children to others.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told KTAR-AM of Phoenix that Jeffs’ arrest marks “the beginning of the end of … the tyrannical rule of a small group of people over the practically 10,000 followers of the FLDS sect.” He predicted it will lead more people to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse.

Most of the church’s members live in Hildale, Utah, and adjoining Colorado City, Ariz., but authorities have said they believe Jeffs had “safe houses” in four other states – including Nevada – and Canada.

Jeffs’ vehicle was stopped on Interstate 15 for having a temporary Colorado license tag that wasn’t easily readable, FBI and Nevada Highway Patrol officials said.

State Trooper Eddie Dutchover told the Associated Press he felt something was amiss.

“Something was obviously wrong,” Dutchover said. “I even told him, ‘You’re making me nervous. Is everything OK?’

“He said, ‘Everything’s fine,’ ” Dutchover said. “He just stared straight ahead.”

Jeffs identified himself as John Findley, using a contact lens receipt from Florida as identification.

“Once the FBI got there,” Dutchover said, “he gave his full name, Warren Jeffs, and kind of gave a sigh.”

Jeffs would not tell investigators where he had been hiding, but he did say “that he was being subject to what he termed religious prosecutions,” said FBI agent John E. Lewis.

Items inside the vehicle also included four laptop computers, a GPS device, a police scanner, and numerous unopened envelopes that were thought to contain more cash, Lewis said.

Jeffs was being held Tuesday in Clark County jail awaiting a court hearing Thursday on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

The two people traveling with him, wife Naomi Jeffs and a brother, Isaac Steed Jeffs, both 32, were released and will not be charged, FBI agent Steven Martinez said.

Jeffs is wanted in Utah and Arizona on charges of arranging two marriages between underage girls and older men. The charges include two counts of rape as an accomplice in Utah, with each count punishable by up to life in prison.