Polygamist leader Jeffs sentenced to life in prison

SAN ANGELO, Texas - Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for sexually assaulting an underage follower he took as a bride in what his church deemed a "spiritual marriage."

The head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints also drew a 20-year sentence for the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl.

Jeffs, 55, stood quietly as the jury decision was read, giving him the maximum sentence on both counts. They are to be served consecutively. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said Jeffs would be eligible for parole in 35 years.

Prosecutors had asked the jury for the life sentence after presenting their painstaking and sometimes graphic case, and rejected Jeffs' contention that he was being persecuted for his religious beliefs.

"The evidence in this case shows that this isn't a prosecution of a people," prosecutor Eric Nichols said in his closing argument. "This is a prosecution to protect people."

Prosecutors used DNA evidence to show Jeffs fathered a child with the 15-year-old and played an audio recording of what they said was him sexually assaulting the 12-year-old.

Jeffs, who had insisted on acting as his own attorney in the earlier part of the trial, was convicted Thursday.

Jeffs' church, a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism that believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven, has more than 10,000 followers who consider him to be God's spokesman on Earth.

He spent years as a fugitive who eventually made the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list before his 2006 capture, Nichols said.

Police raided the group's West Texas ranch, Yearning for Zion, in 2008, finding women dressed in frontier-style dresses as well as seeing clearly pregnant underage girls. The call to an abuse hotline that spurred the raid turned out to be a hoax, and more than 400 children who had been placed in protective custody were eventually returned to their families.