Denver, USA - A man accused of hiding his brother, the fugitive leader of a polygamist sect, from authorities will be set free today if he posts a $25,000 bond secured by property, a federal magistrate judge ruled Thursday.
Ed Pluss, attorney for Seth Jeffs, said he talked to another brother of his client and believes bond likely will be posted today.
That brother, Lyle Jeffs, declined to comment after the hearing.
Prosecutors have charged Seth Jeffs with harboring a fugitive, a federal felony. They had asked Colorado U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer to order him kept behind bars.
"It would be very easy for him to just disappear," prosecutor Phil Brimmer said.
Shaffer ruled today that enough evidence exists to try Seth Jeffs, 32.
He is accused of hiding his older brother, Warren Jeffs, president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The sect split from the traditional Mormon church in the late 1890s after Mormons renounced polygamy.
Warren Jeffs is wanted in Arizona on charges of felony sexual child abuse for allegedly arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and an older married man in 2002.
Pluss said his client has stable and significant family ties in Hilldale, Utah, where he has lived all his life.
"He has wives - he has a wife, brothers, many children," Pluss said.
Seth Jeffs was arrested Friday in Pueblo County after a traffic stop. FBI agents took him into custody after Pueblo sheriff's deputies searched his Ford Excursion and found $142,000 in cash, seven cellular phones, about $7,000 in untraceable prepaid debit cards, untraceable prepaid phone cards carrying 800 minutes, letters addressed to Warren Jeffs about church business, Warren Jeffs' personal tax documents and a glass donation jar bearing Warren Jeffs' photograph and the label, "Pennies for the Prophet."
Seth Jeffs told authorities he was a messenger for the religious group led by his brother and was carrying items intended for Warren Jeffs to a bishop of the sect in Texas, according to court documents.
But he first said he was traveling to Walsenburg to see someone named "Johnny" whose last name he said he didn't know, according to testimony in court Thursday.
FBI Special Agent James Andrew Stearns also testified that Seth Jeffs' Ford Excursion was registered to a business called Fleetwood International Logistics at an address in Utah, but that Pueblo sheriff's investigators found no such business at that address and that, in fact, the address didn't exist.
Pluss said the property securing Seth Jeffs' bond may not be his own. Shaffer said that would be another reason to trust him to appear in court.
"He may think twice if he's putting somebody else's property at risk," Shaffer said.
The property could be forfeited to the government if Seth Jeffs failed to appear in court.
If Seth Jeffs is freed today, Shaffer ordered, he must have no contact, directly or indirectly, with anyone wanted for any crime.
He also would be required to stay in Utah, except for appearances in court in Colorado, surrender his passport and maintain full-time employment.