How many followers warren jeffs

With establishment of the United Order, the old Phelps elementary school in Hildale, which closed in after the prophet ordered all FLDS children home-schooled, was rebranded as Jeffs Academy. Here, followers turned in all their wordly goods for "consecration" in the bishop's storehouse across the street.

They attended "trainings" to learn how to be worthy of eternal salvation and emerged rebaptized as members of the United Order. Sometimes the mass baptisms lasted until the wee hours. One early recruit recalled attending a ceremony in which 26 followers were baptized.

But not everyone was worthy. Those who didn't make the cut were considered "conditional members"; they could still hand over everything they owned, but they couldn't live under the same roof as family members in good standing. The documents reveal in painful detail how families were shattered as men and women were exiled or left. Children were shuffled between families and between FLDS compounds.

As one mother told the FBI, "You don't get to choose where your child goes or who gets to be their caretaker.

They just disappear. The United Order rewarded elites while the rank and file faced severe deprivation. Husbands and wives were prohibited from having sex; foods such as milk and cold cereal were outlawed; movies, television and the Internet were off limits. Anyone who defied these restrictions faced losing everything.

Establishment of the United Order created a highly stratified and hierarchical society of elites, regular priesthood holders, people "on restoral" who are trying to earn their way back in, and apostates. Adults were caught in a cycle of falling in and out of the prophet's favor. And, according to more than one witness, women and girls were driven to secret FLDS compounds around the country in trailers equipped with portable toilets. Some FLDS children may not even know who their biological parents are.

As one witness told the FBI: Jeffs "has so torn apart the meaning of families and marriage that many young men in the community no longer have a desire to be married. Amos Guiora, a professor at the University of Utah law school, has spoken to dozens of women and teens who fled the FLDS over the years, and has written extensively about them.

He said their "powerful and compelling" stories show what can happen when "crimes are committed in the name of religion. He said he believes the former FLDS members opened up to him hoping their stories would find their way to somebody in authority.

And so they have. Heavenly comfort. For a while, even the cell bars couldn't keep Prophet Warren Jeffs from engaging in the practices that caused him to run afoul of the law in the first place: sexual encounters with multiple wives, some under the legal age of consent. From prison, Jeffs would listen in over the telephone as some of his 80 or more "spiritual wives" engaged in nightly group sex rituals, Jeffs family caretaker Roy Allred told the FBI.

The prophet called these "heavenly comfort sessions" sanctioned by the sect's "Higher Law of Sarah. An audiotape of Warren Jeffs having sex with this year-old "bride" was played at his Texas trial.

Allred handled Jeffs' secure phone lines, and happened to listen in one day. He told the FBI what he overheard left him reeling in shock. The prophet asked the women "if they were together and had prepared themselves. Allred said he could hear heavy breathing and some of the wives whispered they wished Jeffs were with them. The prophet encouraged them, exhorting, "Go after it" and "Go all the way.

This is so special. Allred told the FBI he heard the women initiate an inexperienced newcomer into the group. As she responded to what the other wives were doing to her, Allred said, Jeffs told her, "You are affecting me.

The heavenly comfort sessions went on nightly, for months, according to Allred. They continued long after Jeffs was arrested and locked up. Sex in the FLDS is meant for only one purpose -- to produce children. It is sinful for a priesthood holder to derive pleasure from the sex act.

Sex with multiple partners or someone of the same sex is strictly forbidden. As he listened in, Allred said, he heard Jeffs say that "for any other man to be involved in what I'm doing, they will lose the priesthood, their family and their priesthood blessings, and they will be sent away.

Kathryn Nester, a federal public defender who represents lead defendant Lyle Jeffs in the food stamp case, called the statements about Warren Jeffs and sex "salacious. But, the government countered, the prophet's words betray a simple truth about today's FLDS: The elite live by different rules. Scallops and seed bearers. Both men have, at different times, enjoyed status as the bishop of Short Creek. But by the time they reached the top, their first wives had been pushed to the sidelines, no longer deemed "worthy.

Charlene Jeffs, ex-wife of Bishop Lyle Jeffs, learned to make scallops for their large family. She testified in Phoenix, and her statements also are being used in the food stamp case. Wayman, whose husband was among the FLDS leaders arrested and jailed last month, apparently has not yet left the sect, although her days in the FLDS may surely be numbered once her statement is known to sect leaders.

For years, the existence of "Seed Bearers," an elite group of FLDS men tasked with impregnating the women, was just a rumor, a disturbing sign of how twisted things were getting inside the FLDS. The word was that the prophet planned to create a master race of spiritually superior children to greet the Lord on the day the world ends. Charlene Jeffs first exposed the existence of the "Seed Bearers" during her divorce and custody battle. They are a group of about 15 men, hand-picked by the prophet.

A visit from this spiritually superior stud team begins when a woman receives word from church leaders that "the time was right" for motherhood. One advised he was there to have sex with the wife and attempt to conceive a child.

The husband was invited to participate, but only as a spectator. Wayman told the FBI that her friend pulled off the seed bearer's hood, and refused to have sex with him. Not long afterward, she gathered up her children and left home for good. He had the habit of having his wives write down all of his activities. He kept journals and made audiotapes, as well. A tape of the assault on the year-old girl was played during the trial, and excerpts from his records were read aloud.

Serving as his own attorney, Jeffs mounted a weak defense. He rambled on in court, reading at length from the Book of Mormon, and he used most of the half-hour allotted for his closing argument to stand before the jury in silence. It was revealed during the proceedings that he had more than 70 illegal marriages, as many as a third of which were with underage girls. In the end, Jeffs was found guilty on both counts of sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison.

He is currently serving his sentence at Powledge prison near Palestine, Texas. Far from the model prisoner, he has gone on hunger strikes and attempted suicide. Despite these self-destructive activities, Jeffs still controls the FLDS and its members from behind bars. Additionally, Lifetime aired an original movie on the subject with 's Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

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By the time Rulon Jeffs took leadership, it had ceased to exist, leaving him no longer needing to gain consensus for his decisions. We have seen throughout this article what that kind of power can lead to. Without a doubt, Warren Jeffs has done enormous harm to the religious community he seized control of. My longtime personal experience with the FLDS people has taught me that they are, on the whole, good, decent, and hardworking.

Warren Jeffs and his inner circle are in no way representative of them. It saddens me that they have been victimized by Jeffs. Isolation During his time in California, Jim Jones began psychologically isolating his followers from the outside world, even though the majority of them lived in and around urban areas like San Francisco.

Disruption of Families Jones imposed his socialist ideals onto the family structure within his community, including the idea of children being raised by communities instead of nuclear families.

Hereinafter Lives. Rulon Jeffs was born 6 December and died 8 September He was ordained a high priest apostle and placed on the fundamentalist Mormon Priesthood Council on 19 April In , with the death of Leroy S.

Johnson, he assumed leadership of what became the FLDS. Hereinafter Escape. Born in to Fundamentalist Mormon leader John Y. Barlow and his third wife Martha Jessop, Dan Barlow was appointed mayor of Colorado City shortly after the city was incorporated on 17 September Benjamin G. Hereinafter Polygamists.

Barlow was excommunicated by Warren Jeffs for no apparent reason on 12 January and now lives with a son in St. George, Utah. Full disclosure, Dan and I have been good friends since Hereinafter Stolen. Stolen , It was District Court case no. Lives , I do not subscribe to the delusion that everything on the Internet is reliable. Lives , 92— While in jail, Jeffs attempted to hang himself in , and subsequently to kill himself by banging his head into his cell wall, and starve himself.

A Utah trial judge ordered a competency evaluation by state mental health experts. On disruption of family relationships see Lives at 41, 87, , , — Lives, Note an autobiographical account of placement marriage at year-old girl at Elissa Wall in Stolen.

See Brent W. Lives , 24,