Polygamist's Brother Indicted By Grand Jury

Associated Press in CBS4Denver/November 16, 2005

Denver -- A federal grand jury indicted the brother of fugitive polygamist sect leader Warren Steed Jeffs on a charge of concealing him, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The one-count indictment against Seth Steed Jeffs, 32, of Hildale, Utah, formalizes a charge prosecutors filed Oct. 31, said Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Denver.

Seth Jeffs was arrested after a traffic stop Oct. 28 in Pueblo County. Authorities said he had nearly $142,000 in cash, about $7,000 worth of prepaid debit and phone cards and Warren Jeffs' personal papers in his SUV.

Prosecutors accused Seth Jeffs of providing the means for Warren Jeffs, 49, to remain on the run.

Seth Jeffs is free on $25,000 bond and scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate judge in Denver on Thursday, Dorschner said. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to an arrest affidavit, Seth Jeffs told officers he didn't know where his brother was but wouldn't tell them if he did.

Warren Jeffs was indicted in June in Arizona on charges of arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a married man. The FBI added a charge of unlawful flight.

A passenger in Seth Jeffs' SUV at the time of the traffic stop, identified by authorities as Nathaniel Steed Allred, told Pueblo County sheriff's deputies that Jeffs had hired him for sexual companionship, Dorschner said.

Jeffs and Allred, whose age was not released, were arrested for investigation on state charges of prostitution and solicitation for prostitution.

Pueblo County prosecutors did not immediately return a call Wednesday.

Warren Jeffs is the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a group that split from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early part of the 20th century.