Polygamist leader Jeffs convicted in rape case

By Alexandria Sage

ST. GEORGE, Utah (Reuters) - U.S. polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was convicted on Tuesday of being an accomplice to rape for arranging a marriage between an unwilling 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old first cousin.

Jeffs, the self-described "prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, spent 15 months on the run and was on the FBI's Most Wanted list before his arrest in August, 2006.

Sentencing was set for November 20 and Jeffs, 51, faces five years to life in prison.

Jeffs did not testify during the emotionally wrenching, two-week trial and showed no expression as the verdict was read. Many of his supporters as well as the rape victim, who is now 21, and her family were in court.

The trial has riveted Utah, the western state with a majority Mormon population, and fascinated much of the United States. Jeffs' sect is not associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are called Mormons.

Polygamy was one of the early tenets of the Mormon religion, but was rejected in 1890 as Utah sought statehood.

Prosecutors argued during the two-week trial that Jeffs knew when he arranged and presided over the 2001 marriage, in which the girl was an unwilling partner, that forced sex would follow.

"HE HELD ALL THE KEYS"