SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, June 21, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — Lyle Steed Jeffs now has an FBI wanted poster.
Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, last weekend disappeared from his court-ordered home confinement prior to his trial for conspiracy to commit both fraud and money laundering.
The wanted poster states that leader of the polygamist sect “should be considered armed and dangerous.”
Jeffs, 56, is one of nearly a dozen people in the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, to be charged charged in a case involving the misuse of millions of dollars in food stamp money received by sect members, but allegedly used for church profit.
FBI investigators have said that over a number of years, FLDS officials and members have cheated taxpayers out of more than $12 million.
Some of Jeffs’ family members have speculated that he may have fled the country, or may be hiding closer, in one of a number of “safe houses” set up through the church.
Jeffs had been freed from federal custody June 9 by U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart, and was placed on home confinement despite the objections of federal prosecutors who claimed he was flight risk.
Jeffs is the younger brother of Warren Jeffs, the FLDS prophet who also fled prosecution in connection with the sexual assault of two girls, ages 12 and 15. The elder Jeffs was later captured and sentence to life in prison plus 20 years.
