At a church meeting presided over by Warren Jeffs, the Fundamentalist LDS Church leader stood and declared his faith was "under attack."
"There is a combined effort — the state of Utah and the state of Arizona — to come against our prophet and this people — trying to stop the word of God," he said in a transcript of a tape recording from April 2002 published in court papers.
"I'll call on Brother Sam Barlow to give this report with any instructions he feels impressed to give," Jeffs said.
It's former Colorado City town marshal Sam Barlow's tape-recorded comments that Washington County prosecutors want to use against Jeffs in next month's trial. In court papers filed today in St. George's 5th District Court, they urge a judge to allow the statements to be used during the trial.
"The evidence is offered to show that Warren Jeffs knew and intended that sexual intercourse involving minors was contemplated within 'the principle of marriage by revelation,"' Washington County Attorney Brock Belnap wrote in the memorandum.
Jeffs, 51, is charged with first-degree felony rape as an accomplice. He is accused of performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. Jeffs was briefly on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list until his capture in August 2006.
According to the transcript filed in the court papers, Barlow laid out what prosecutors in Utah and Arizona were planning to do about "the principle of marriage by revelation."
"If a baby is born, then that baby become (sic) evidence," he told FLDS members. "If a father and mother have registered the birth of that baby, it shows that age of the mother, who the father is, and that a baby was born. And the deduction is that there was some sort of sexual activity previous to that time. That's fairly good logic."
Barlow said prosecutors would then pressure the mothers to reveal who prompted them to enter into the marriage, noting that both Utah and Arizona had passed laws against child-bride marriages.
"If they can prove this, which they feel like their facts are such that they can, then they'd like to expand it into who's aiding and abetting the commission of this so-called crime. And then they'd like to go after the religious leaders for facilitating it," Barlow said.
Prosecutors pointed out in the transcripts that Barlow was told by attorneys to stop underage marriages, or face prosecution.
"And I'm aware of that," Barlow said. "But we were born to this conflict, and we will have to endure equal pressure to what the saints were under then."
He urged FLDS members in the meeting to "stand faithful and proud." Belnap wrote that after Barlow finished speaking, Jeffs did not renounce or disavow the statements, and therefore, Barlow's own words should be used in court.
The push by prosecutors comes after Jeffs' defense team said it is seeking to have the word "amen" tossed from court. Jeffs made the utterance at a church meeting after anti-government statements were made. Defense lawyers claim the religious utterance has no bearing on the rape as an accomplice charge and is merely meant to inflame a jury against the FLDS leader.
"The focus will become whether Jeffs is the type of person who would commit rape versus the proper focus: whether Jeffs actually committed rape," defense attorney Wally Bugden wrote in court papers filed Tuesday.
Jeffs' trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 10.
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com