Polygamist leader Jeffs in custody of Arizona authorities

PHOENIX " Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was handed over to Arizona authorities Tuesday to face charges alleging he arranged the marriages of two teenage girls to older men. He already has been convicted in Utah.

Deputies from the Mohave County Sheriff's Office took custody of Jeffs from Utah officials, sheriff's spokeswoman Trish Carter said.

Jeffs, the former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is scheduled to make an appearance in court on Wednesday. The appearance comes 2 1/2 years after prosecutors in the northwestern Arizona county filed charges against him and he went into hiding.

Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts of incest and four counts of sexual contact with a minor in an indictment handed up last year.

Jeffs was arrested in August 2006 and was convicted last year in Utah of rape as an accomplice in the arranged marriage of a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.

He was sentenced in Utah to serve two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison there.

Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith has said that if Jeffs is convicted in Arizona he would have to finish his Utah sentence before doing time here.

Jeffs, 52, will enter a not guilty plea to the Arizona charges at Wednesday's hearing, said defense attorney Mike Piccarreta.

Piccarreta plans to ask the judge for a change of venue, saying Kingman is too close to St. George, Utah, the site of Jeffs' first trial, for him to get a fair trial here.

"If people want to give Mr. Jeffs a fair trial, we have to hold it in an area as far away as practical from the other case in Utah," he said. "And that case to me is an example of what occurs when you don't take the case away from people that have lots of knowledge and local publicity that has tainted the jury panel."

Smith said the trial, which will be months from now, should be held in Mohave County because that's where the alleged crimes occurred.

Jeffs was a fugitive for nearly two years and was on the FBI's Most Wanted list when he was arrested during a traffic stop outside Las Vegas.

Jeffs was named president, or prophet, of the FLDS church in 2002. Members of the church live in the twin border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

The mainstream Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, renounced polygamy more than a century ago, excommunicates members who engage in the practice and disavows any connection with the FLDS church.