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FLDS Member Gets 17 Years For Sexual Assault of Minor In Celestial Marriage

By Howard M. Friedman

A Texas trial court judge yesterday sentenced FLDS member Abram Harker Jeffs to 17 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for sexual assault of a child. Jeffs was convicted of assaulting a 15-year old with whom he had entered a "spiritual" or "celestial" marriage while he was legally married to another woman. Jeff has three other wives and children in other states. Yesterday's San Angelo Standard Times reports that Jeffs could have received up to life in prison, and that the sentence he received is the lowest first-degree felony sentence yet for a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Much of the evidence in Jeffs' trial was seized in the high-profile April 2008 raid of the FLDS Yearning for Zion Ranch.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on June 24, 2010 (boomark / email).