Mr. Jeffs is the leader of a polygamous sect known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and is considered a "prophet" by his estimated 10,000 followers.
The F.B.I. posting put up before the capture said Mr. Jeffs is 50 years old, was considered armed and dangerous, and may have traveled with loyal and armed bodyguards.
While a fugitive, Mr. Jeffs was still believed to have run the compound in Arizona from afar, and was said by ex-church members to have 70 wives. The community, closed to outsiders, is one in which civil government and religious authority are one and the same, and young men are forced out to make sure that the old men who run the place have a ready supply of young brides.
In general I'm sympathetic to Mormon polygamists. There are groups out there who aren't perverts; they're following the dictates of their religion under persecution. Their marriages are as close to legal under US law as they can manage without abandoning Celestial Plural Marriage, and they police themselves very well.
But John Taylor never meant his vision to be a green light for incestuous kiddy-diddling and white slavery, let alone the sort of terrorist tactics these loons go in for. Leave the honest polygamists alone, but I'd love to see the FLDS scattered to the four winds. This may make a good start.
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