Salt Lake City, USA - A nephew of fugitive Warren Jeffs has been jailed on contempt charges in Arizona _ the sixth person connected to the exiled polygamist church leader to refuse to answer questions before a federal grand jury.
Officials at the Central Arizona Detention Facility in Florence said Thursday that Benjamin Jeffs Nielsen, 25, was booked there July 14.
Patrick Schneider, chief of the criminal investigations division for the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix, said he could not discuss whether Nielsen was among those subpoenaed by federal authorities over the past seven months. Grand jury proceedings are secret, so the scope of the investigation by federal prosecutors is unclear.
It could not be immediately determined whether Nielsen had an attorney.
Nielsen is a nephew of Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is wanted in Utah and Arizona on suspicion of sexual misconduct for arranging marriages between underage girls and older men.
Since May, Jeffs has been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, with a $100,000 reward offered for information leading to his capture.
Subpoenas were first served in January on a handful of Jeffs supporters at an FLDS meeting in Colorado City, Ariz., which with its twin border town of Hildale, Utah, is home to most church members.
So far, six men have been charged with civil contempt of court for refusing to appear or answer questions before the grand jury.
Until recently, Nielsen had been living in Mancos, Colo., serving as the caretaker of a pair of properties owned there by an associate of Warren Jeffs.