A Texas judge on Wednesday entered not guilty pleas on behalf of Warren Jeffs after the polygamist sect leader remained silent when prosecutors read bigamy and sexual assault charges against him.
The court entered entered not guilty pleas for Jeffs on three felony charges: sexual assault of a child, aggravated sexual assault of a child, and bigamy, the Texas Attorney General’s Office said.
District Judge Barbara Walther set a pretrial hearing for January 5 in the case, followed by a preliminary trial date of January 24.
The trial is expected to be postponed because Jeffs (55) has no formal legal representation in Texas. He told Walther during the brief hearing that he was finalising arrangements with a law firm in the state.
An attorney who represented Jeffs in criminal cases in Utah and Arizona was in court for the hearing but is not licensed to practice law in Texas and could not stand with Jeffs at the defence table.
New trial
In November the Utah Supreme Court ruled Jeffs could be extradited to Texas, rejecting his 11th-hour appeal.
In September 2007 a jury in St George, Utah, found Jeffs guilty of being an accomplice to rape for performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. He was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison.
But the Utah Supreme Court overturned that conviction in July of this year, ordering a new trial because the trial judge gave faulty instructions to jurors.
He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List for months before he was captured in a routine traffic stop outside Las Vegas in August 2006.
Jeffs is considered the spiritual leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, a breakaway sect of Mormonism which believes marriages between older men and young girls is the key to spirituality. – Reuters