Prof_Pretorius wrote:
Is this chap one of those polygamous Mormons, then? Was he their leader? Pretending to be a Prophet, so as to marry sixteen year old virgins?
There's actually a number of these polygamous sects around here. Most of them are underground and only involve consenting adults. Occasionally, one of the polygs will go on Jerry Springer and admit to Welfare fraud. His name was Tom Greene. Some sects are into waste management and behave in Utah the way that the Mafia behaves in other areas in the U.S. They're called the Kingston Clan. Mostly they don't break laws (other than those pesky polygamy laws) and don't cause many societal problems, so the state looks the other way.
Warren Jeffs has caused enough social ills that the state has stopped looking the other way. First, in order to satisfy the appetites of all the pedophile 60-somethings, he recognized that competition with young boys was dangerous for the old men. All tween and teen boys were subsequently thrown out of the polygamist compound and became a social problem for Utah. Then there were a few headstrong young girls who escaped the compound rather than sleeping with old men. This resulted in some legal wranglings that made law abiding (other than the pesky polygamy laws) Utahns uncomfortable. It's always troubling for law abiding (other than those pesky polygamy laws) citizens to realize that the government's unspoken policy of nonprosecustion can change in a heart-beat.
And then there was the fraud... All of this flock had to sign over their worldly property to Poppa Jeffs. Since this included houses, men with hot wives and hot daughters were promptly evicted, and their hot wives and daughters "reassigned" to less desirable men over the age of 60 who held positions of power. Some of these men became vocal critics of Poppa Jeffs, and demanded the return of their wives and houses. More social problems that made the law abiding (other than those pesky polygamy laws) Utahns uncomfortable ensued.
So, the state decided that Poppa Jeffs had abused his position as the manager of the trust that held all these people's houses and money. One thing led to another, the state and federal governments assigned bean-counters to administer the trust, and Poppa Jeffs was on the run. While all this was going on, he was also charged with "rape as an acomplice" for all those hot young girls (it was their fault - strutting around those 60-year-olds with those bonnets and ankle-length skirts - and then complaining to the authorities about being married to their uncles). This very quickly put him on the top-10 FBI fugitive list.
He was subsequently caught while committing a minor traffic infraction in Nevada while wearing a wig and glasses. No astro-diaper, though. The rest, as they say, is history.
27 Mar 2007, 2:24 pm
