Pueblo, USA - The brother of fugitive polygamist leader Warren Steed Jeffs is in federal custody after a traffic stop near Pueblo, accused of hiding Jeffs from authorities.
In the car with Seth Steed Jeffs, 32, younger brother of Warren Jeffs, was about $142,000 in cash, seven cell phones, many letters addressed to "The Prophet" or "Warren Jeffs" and a glass container fashioned into a donation jar, with Warren Jeffs' photograph and a label reading "Pennies for the Prophet," court documents said.
The jar contained cash, prepaid credit cards and prepaid cell-phone cards, documents said.
Seth Jeffs was stopped about 3 a.m. Friday, traveling south on Interstate 25 at U.S. 50 after a citizen telephoned the sheriff's office to report a suspected drunken driver traveling in a car straddling two lanes, according to Pueblo sheriff's spokesman Steve Bryant.
A deputy responding to the tip spotted the car going slowly through a stop sign and coming almost to a stop on U.S. 50, Bryant said. The deputy thought the driver might be lost.
The two men in the car - Seth Jeffs in the passenger seat and Nathaniel Steed Allred driving - told the deputy conflicting stories about where they were going, Bryant said.
"During a subsequent investigation, Allred told the deputy that the vehicle in which they were traveling belongs to (Seth) Jeffs and that (Seth) Jeffs had hired him for sexual companionship," court documents said. "Allred told the Deputy that (Seth) Jeffs paid him $5,000 for his sexual services."
A dog trained to smell narcotics indicated the presence of drugs in the car, Bryant said, so investigators impounded the car, arrested Allred and Seth Jeffs on charges of prostitution and solicitation for prostitution and released them with a summons, Bryant said. No drugs were found.
Later in the day when Jeffs arrived at the sheriff's department to talk about retrieving his car, the FBI arrested him.
He appeared in federal court in Denver on Monday and is charged with harboring a fugitive.
Warren Jeffs is president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which split from the traditional Mormon church in the late 1890s after Mormons renounced polygamy.
A grand jury in Mohave County, Ariz., indicted Warren Jeffs in June on felony child sexual abuse charges. He allegedly arranged a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and an older married man in 2002.
Authorities have not been able to find Warren Jeffs.
Asked his brother's whereabouts, Seth Jeffs replied that he didn't know and said, "It would be stupid to tell anyone where he is because he would get caught," according to documents filed in federal court.
In an interview with FBI agents Friday afternoon, "(Seth) Jeffs explained that he is a 'messenger' for the church. Jeffs advised that he was delivering the aforementioned documents and currency from a church headquarters in Hildale, Utah, to another church headquarters in Texas," court documents said.Jeffs' sect, long headquartered in the twin communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., has in recent years established communities in southwestern Colorado's Montezuma County and in Eldorado, Texas.
"Jeffs acknowledged that the items addressed to 'The Prophet' and 'Warren Jeffs' were, in fact, intended for the wanted fugitive Warren Steed Jeffs," the documents said.
"Jeffs advised that the envelopes contained gifts and 'well-wishes' for the 'prophet,' Warren Steed Jeffs, and were being delivered to a Bishop at the church headquarters in Texas," they said.