About three weeks after failing to starve himself to death while rotting in a Texas prison, child-raping cult leader Warren Jeffs has been released from the hospital and taken back to the big house.
Jeffs, the former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, is serving his life sentence at a prison in Texas
after getting convicted of sexually assaulting two underage followers of
his breakaway sect of the Mormon Church. He was rushed to a Texas hospital in critical condition after starving himself in prison for about three weeks.
ABC News' rumor department got everyone's hopes up reported at the time that Jeffs was in a coma, and not expected to survive. Turned out, that news was likely just a rumor started by people in Jeffs' camp to boost the street cred of the FLDS' attention-starved prophet.
Prison officials confirmed to New Times that Jeffs was not in a coma and would likely survive. They said the rumor was likely started by people in Jeffs' campaign Check it out here.
Jeffs, prison officials say, was released from the state prison hospital
in Galveston, Texas, Monday night. He's on his way back to a Texas
prison to continue serving his life sentence.
Jeffs, as you're probably aware, is a pretty bad dude. See former New Times staffer John Dougherty's articles on the the
secretive, isolated polygamist Mormon communities that straddle the
Arizona-Utah border here.
The
FLDS' original headquarters was based in Colorado City -- along the
Arizona/Utah border -- but Jeffs moved the Church's headquarters to
Texas after he faced criminal charges in Arizona. He was convicted of
accessory to rape in
Utah in 2007, but the conviction was overturned by the state Supreme
Court. In December he
was extradited to Texas to face charges there.
Prosecutors were able to prove through DNA evidence that Jeffs fathered a
child with a 15-year-old member of the church. They also played audio
recordings at trial of Jeffs sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.
The two girls whom Jeffs has been convicted of sexually abusing are apparently the tip of the iceberg.
In 2004, Jeffs' nephew, Brent Jeffs, filed a lawsuit against his uncle
claiming he sodomized him in the late 1980s. Two of Jeffs' other nephews
also made claims that Jeffs sexually abused them, one of whom, Clayne
Jeffs, committed suicide.
Jeffs is the eighth member of the FLDS church convicted since authorities raided the Yearning For Zion compound near San Angelo, Texas, in 2008 after Child Protective Services received several calls from juveniles claiming they'd been abused.
