Polygamous​ Group Leader Pleads Not Guilty To Fugitive-Related Charges

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — A leader of a polygamous community on the Arizona-Utah border pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from when he was a fugitive for nearly a year after escaping home confinement on federal food-stamp fraud allegations.

Lyle Jeffs pleaded not guilty Monday and faces up to a decade in prison if convicted on a felony charge associated with being a fugitive. He's also charged with helping mastermind a multimillion-dollar food-stamp fraud scheme in the polygamous community.

Jeffs and the other defendants diverted at least $12 million in food stamps to buy tractors, trucks and other items, prosecutors say. Defense attorneys have said that they have a religious belief in communal living and were simply sharing benefits. (For more Across America news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

The group, known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. The group is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism, which disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells ordered Jeffs to remain jailed as he awaits trial. He appeared thinner than in previous court hearings.

He was apparently living out of a pickup truck when he was arrested last month near the small South Dakota town of Yankton, near the Nebraska state line. A pawn shop worker looked online and discovered the man who had just sold him two pairs of Leatherman pliers was wanted by the FBI.

Jeffs was in the area for about two weeks, was running low on resources and was struggling without the help of fellow sect members, the FBI said.

Many of the other 10 defendants in the food-stamp scheme struck plea deals with federal prosecutors, but authorities consider Lyle Jeffs to more culpable than others, prosecutor Robert Lund said.

Defense attorney Kathyrn Nester didn't comment after the hearing.

Former group member Brenda Nicholson said Monday that she wished Jeffs was facing more charges.

"He has spent years living like royalty. He had the best of everything," she said.

Jeffs, 57, is charged with conspiracy to commit food-stamp fraud, which carries a sentence of up to five years, and money laundering, which could bring up to 10 years in prison.

He was awaiting trial in the fraud case in June 2016 when he used olive oil to slip out of his ankle monitor and escape home confinement in Salt Lake City.

Investigators say he had recently fallen out with his brother Warren Jeffs, who runs the polygamous group from prison in Texas, where he is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides.

By Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press

Photos credit: Tooele County Sheriffs Office, via AP; Rick Bowmer, Associated Press; FBI Salt Lake City Division via AP