As the previous article explained, Pedophile Prophet, Warren Jeffs, had been exposed to leading Mormon politicians like Orrin Hatch and Mark Shurtleff. In fact, many believe that Utah's Mormon Attorney General ran interference for Warren Jeffs and the FLDS Church. In this letter to Mark Shurtleff we read:
"Did you not hold a “polygamy summit” in 2003 in St. George, Utah? At that summit, did you not tell the audience that you would not prosecute a “religious belief?” In spite of you and your courts knowing that the FLDS terrorizes its members with threats of hellfire; and, that they force women and underage girls to become concubines in FLDS harems, which is rape, and that young men are thrown out in order to cater to “polygamy math” you persist in calling the FLDS a religion. No bona fide religion breaks the law, denies the civil rights of its members, and rapes its women and girls. The FLDS is not a religion. It is a cult. Paragraph 52 of your high court’s ruling makes no sense—not only did Jeffs transport Elissa Wall across state lines to perform the illegal marriage, the only reason for marriage in the FLDS is to procreate, so Jeffs knew that Ms. Wall would unwillingly go to a marriage bed with a man she detested.
Did you not use some of the $750,000 federal resource money given to the State of Utah to “deal with the problem of polygamy” to set up a Safety Net Committee? When interested parties gathered around the table for discussion, did you not tell those opposing polygamy not to speak at this meeting? I have first-hand accounts saying that you gave no voice to anti-polygamy groups and/or persons.
You wrote a “Primer” for social service providers. Did that “Primer” not support polygamy while going after its abuses? Polygamy is abuse, Mr. Shurtleff. It is abuse of the rights of women and children.
When the YFZ raid happened, did you not spend thousands of dollars to send two women who are pro-polygamists (neither of whom lives in a polygamous relationship!) to Texas to teach social service providers there how to deal with polygamy?" (Source)
This had nothing to do with religion my friends, it had everything to do with money and politics. The FLDS Church, with its 10,000 members, was a very strong political force in Southern Utah. They also had numerous businesses and a Trust that was valued at $200 million dollars. The FLDS Church was able to produce votes for Shurtleff, Hatch and others, as well as reportedly donating money to their campaigns. There is even a Bush connection:
"You've got Rodney Parker, FLDS's registered agent for the FLDS corporations. He's a former Bush I Associate Deputy Attorney General who was on the immediate staff of the Deputy Attorney General of the US from 1988-989. Parker's now an attorney with the Utah law firm Snow, Christensen and Martineau, which represents the state of Utah.
..... Everything is so closely tangled in the state of Utah. All the families know each other. And all the friends have gone to school with each other. There's just been a conspiracy of silence about the whole issue.
..... You think campaign contributions have been going to Hatch and Bennett, also on the other side of the border to McCain and Kyl? They're not much on record about the polygamy issue, I've noticed." (Source)
Meanwhile, Jeffs victims continued to come forward....
"In July 2004, Warren Jeffs' nephew, Brent Jeffs, filed a lawsuit against him alleging that in the late 1980s his uncle sodomized him in the Salt Lake Valley compound then owned by the FLDS Church. Brent Jeffs said he was five or six years old at the time, and that Warren Jeffs' brothers, also named in the lawsuit, watched and participated in the abuse. Two of Warren Jeffs' other nephews also made similar abuse claims against him. One of the alleged victims, Clayne Jeffs, committed suicide with a firearm after accusing Warren Jeffs of sexually assaulting him as a child. (Source)
There was no prosecution for the above alleged crimes. Utah's Child Protective Services, which falls under the direction of Utah's Attorney General (Mark Shurtleff), also reportedly did nothing to protect the victims of pedophilia in the FLDS Church, this in-spite of the fact that members of the community were receiving state benefits, and would have been assigned caseworkers as a result. (Source)
In fact, Washington county's attorney, where the FLDS Church was located, apparently had a "hands-off" attitude towards Warren Jeffs and his community:
"It turns out that the prosecuting attorney, Eric Ludlow, in his 13 years in office prosecuted 28,000 cases by his own admission. But not a single case in a polygamous situation. They would never do anything to upset that. It's just a ridiculous case of selective enforcement.
And Ludlow said, well the sheriff never brought me any cases. And the sheriff, Kirk Smith, said, well I'm just simply not going to go after the polygamists. I have more important things to do. So consequently, they are their own foreign country out there within the US. They have their own laws, their own systems." (Source)
Ludlow was then promoted to judge:
"Governor Mike Leavitt nominated or chose Ludlow to fill that vacant 5th District Court spot. And I went up to the capital and pointed out how can this be? To elevate somebody to a position of real power where he's going to be making a decision on people's lives and he's still going to be practicing selective enforcement from the bench?
And at that time AG Mark Shurtleff testified on Ludlow's behalf." (Ibid.)
