Attorney for Warren Jeffs says religion is really on trial
ST. GEORGE, UTAH — – A polygamous sect’s leader on trial here is a scapegoat charged with an inflated offense for political reasons, his defense attorney said Friday.
Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is charged with being an accomplice to rape of a 14-year-old girl because he purportedly forced her to marry her 19-year-old cousin.
During closing arguments in Jeffs’ trial, attorney Walter F. Bugden Jr. pointed at the more than two dozen reporters in the courtroom and noted that the Utah attorney general himself had attended the trial one day. “This is no small case,” Bugden said. “The state has gone crazy for political reasons.
“The state can say Warren Steed Jeffs is on trial, but it’s his . . . church, his religious beliefs that is on trial here, dressed up as a crime called rape,” he said.
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Technorati Tags: Warren Jeffs, FLDS, LDS, polygamy, plural marriage, religionnewsblog
Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is charged with being an accomplice to rape of a 14-year-old girl because he purportedly forced her to marry her 19-year-old cousin.
During closing arguments in Jeffs’ trial, attorney Walter F. Bugden Jr. pointed at the more than two dozen reporters in the courtroom and noted that the Utah attorney general himself had attended the trial one day. “This is no small case,” Bugden said. “The state has gone crazy for political reasons.
“The state can say Warren Steed Jeffs is on trial, but it’s his . . . church, his religious beliefs that is on trial here, dressed up as a crime called rape,” he said.
Full Story
Technorati Tags: Warren Jeffs, FLDS, LDS, polygamy, plural marriage, religionnewsblog
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