ST. GEORGE — "Jane Doe IV" cried on her wedding day.
Not tears of joy but of despair over her situation. The 14-year-old girl was wed to her 19-year-old cousin in a quickie ceremony in a Caliente, Nev., motel that was presided over by Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs.
"This was the darkest time of my entire life," the woman, now 20, testified during Jeffs' preliminary hearing here Tuesday.
After a day's worth of testimony in 5th District Court, the judge continued the hearing until Dec. 14, when two defense witnesses are expected to be called. Jeffs, 50, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Defense lawyers criticized the case against Jeffs as "religious persecution."
"Regardless of how one feels about arranged marriages or plural marriages, there was no rape in this case, and we believe Mr. Jeffs will be acquitted of these charges," lawyer Wally Bugden Jr. said outside of court.
In heartbreaking testimony, the woman described her whirlwind nuptials, the intense pressure by FLDS leaders on her to marry and her attempts to get out of the arranged marriage to her first cousin.
"I felt completely defeated and trapped," she said, sobbing.
Speaking with a shaking voice at times, the woman admitted to being "very, very nervous." She is also pregnant, acknowledging she is two weeks away from giving birth. Since leaving the FLDS Church, she has remarried.
The Deseret Morning News does not name sexual assault victims, nor is the newspaper disclosing the identity of the woman's purported husband in the case to avoid identifying her.
Throughout her testimony Tuesday, she made it clear she disliked her first husband, although she admitted she told police she didn't want anything to happen to him.
Arranged marriage
Growing up in Salt Lake City, the woman said she attended Alta Academy, a now-defunct FLDS school at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. It was run by Warren Jeffs, a man she described as an "authority figure" throughout her life. The FLDS Church has about 10,000 members and is based in the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
Washington County prosecutors spent some time focusing on some of Jeffs' teachings to girls in home economics classes about arranged marriages. Some of those lessons have been obtained by the Deseret Morning News, and in them Jeffs instructs girls to prepare themselves to be given to a husband.
In April 2001, the girl said she was living in Hildale when she was told she would be married in a union arranged by the prophet. She insisted she was too young, and the girl claims Warren Jeffs told her it was "God's calling."
A few days later at a family gathering, "Jane Doe IV" said she found out the groom would be her 19-year-old cousin when he sat down in an empty chair next to her. She ran to her mother's room and cried.
She went to Warren Jeffs' father, Rulon, who was the leader of the FLDS Church at the time, and raised her objections.
"He said, 'You follow your heart, sweetheart. Follow your heart,"' she said. "In my mind, that was to do what's best for me."
Warren Jeffs interpreted it differently.
"He said, 'Well, your heart is in the wrong place. The prophet has revealed this is your mission and duty and what you need to do,"' she testified.
Rebecca Musser, the sister of the alleged victim, said she helped make the wedding dress for the ceremony.
"She was crying and saying, 'I don't want to be married,"' Musser said.
On the witness stand, Musser described Jeffs' rise to power from principal of Alta Academy to leader of the FLDS Church, even taking over duties for his father, who had suffered a stroke. Musser was one of Rulon Jeffs' wives, marrying him when she was 19 and he was 83.
The ceremony
"Jane Doe IV" said she was whisked off to the motel in Caliente, Nev., with a group of other girls who were getting married.
"I said, 'I don't know if I can do this.' One girl looked at me and said, 'I cannot believe you are defying the prophet and God's will,"' she testified.
When it came to saying "I do," the alleged rape victim testified she couldn't say anything.
"The silence became unbearable. I finally said, 'OK, I do,"' she said, adding that Jeffs was glaring at her.
"He was drilling a hole in me with his eyes," she said. "He said, 'You may kiss the bride.' I gave him a peck and it was over."
After the ceremony, she said Jeffs took the couple's hands and urged them to "go forward, multiply and replenish the Earth with good priesthood children."
The girl said she locked herself in a motel bathroom and sobbed.
She said she did not have sex on her wedding night and could not stand to have her husband touch her.
"I couldn't stand to be within five feet of him," she testified.
Weeks later, she said her husband told her, "It's time for us to do our responsibility and for you to be a wife" and forced himself upon her.
The young woman said she went back to Jeffs in the years after her wedding and asked to be released from her marriage. Each time, she said, she was told to give herself "mind, body and soul" to her husband.
"I didn't love (him). I didn't like him touching me, and I didn't want to be his wife," she said.
Jeffs encouraged her to have children, saying she would grow to love her husband.
Her marriage became so bad, she told the court, that she took to sleeping in her truck so she wouldn't have to see her husband.
In 2004, the woman said she met someone else and "fell in love with him" — a man considered an apostate. She was brought before church leaders when her husband found out. The meeting with Jeffs was not in person. He was on a speakerphone.
She said Jeffs accused her of adultery and forbade her from speaking to her mother or going to Hildale again.
"I was very sad. I realized I would never see my mother again," she said, coming to tears. "He had enough control to take everything away from me, when all I tried to do was everything he told me to do."
She left the polygamous community.
Cross examination
Throughout the hearing, Jeffs sat stoically in his seat. He showed little emotion, occasionally turning during court recesses to acknowledge the 10 followers who came to court to see him. They would stand during breaks in an obvious sign of respect, and Washington County sheriff's deputies ordered them to leave the courtroom.
Security inside and outside the courthouse was beefed up, with the St. George Police Department's SWAT team sharpshooters on the redrock hills nearby.
Upon cross-examination, defense attorneys countered the woman's claims of a miserable marriage. Defense lawyer Tara Isaacson read love notes and cards sent by the woman's husband and showed photos of a happy, smiling couple.
"You were miserable, but you're holding his hand and smiling?" Isaacson asked.
The woman acknowledged under Isaacson's questioning that Warren Jeffs never explicitly ordered her to have sex and suggested she was never clear with her religious leaders that she was a victim of marital rape.
"He told me to submit," the witness said.
"Submit doesn't mean go have intercourse. That may have been your interpretation but that is not what he said," Isaacson replied.
"Jane Doe IV" is also known as "M.J." and she has filed a multimillion dollar civil lawsuit against Jeffs, the FLDS Church and its financial arm, the $110 million United Effort Plan Trust. Isaacson noted that the alleged victim filed the civil lawsuit before going to police and reporting any crime.
The woman maintains she is doing this for other girls within the FLDS Church, including two of her sisters.
"My worst nightmare is my sisters will go through what I went through," she said. "That they have no choice."
Ex-FLDS members packed the courtroom to see her testimony.
"Utah and Arizona have been pretty patient with the FLDS society as a whole," said Ezra Draper, whose sister is married to Jeffs. "If Warren continues to do these underage marriages, I think this is a pretty vital trial."
Gary Engels, an investigator with the Mohave County Attorney's Office in Arizona, is investigating Jeffs and the FLDS Church. He told the Deseret Morning News that the girl's story represents others still within the polygamous sect.
"Married at a young age, not knowing any better, not knowing what's right or wrong, not knowing what options are," he said Tuesday. "Just believing with all her heart that this is what she's supposed to do and not question anything about it."
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com