Las Vegas, USA - The leader of a polygamist sect said Thursday he would not fight extradition to Utah on charges he arranged marriages between underage girls and older men.
Warren Jeffs made his first court appearance since he was arrested Monday after more than a year on the run. The charismatic religious leader with an estimated 10,000 followers spoke almost inaudibly, and his blue prison jumpsuit hung loosely off his bony frame.
Jeffs, who was not represented by a lawyer, nodded when a Las Vegas justice of the peace asked whether he would be extradited to Utah. He is charged there with two counts of rape by accomplice and could get life in prison if convicted.
"What would you like to do?" Justice of the Peace James Bixler asked. Jeffs replied, "Go ahead and be extradited."
The 50-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints _ a sect that broke away from the Mormon church more than a century ago and has been disavowed by the Mormons _ was arrested after a traffic stop outside Las Vegas.
The manhunt had lasted more than a year and placed him on the FBI's Most Wanted List. The 2007 Cadillac Escalade in which Jeffs rode was carrying three wigs, 15 cell phones, several laptop computers and $54,000, police said.
Gary Engels, an investigator with Arizona's Mohave County attorney's office who has tracked Jeffs for years, surmised the fugitive may have just picked up the money before he was arrested.
"I have no doubt they had couriers running money to him," Engels said of Jeffs' followers.
Engels said he thought Jeffs might have been in southern Nevada to visit sect members who moved in recent years from Hildale, Utah, and neighboring Colorado City, Ariz.
He said the SUV was owned by John Wayman, a sect official who manages a company that recently moved from Hildale to Las Vegas and changed its name.
Engels had seen only photo and video images of Jeffs until Thursday's court hearing.
"He looked very thin, very gaunt," Engels said. "He looked like a man who's been on the run, a man under a lot of stress."
Two prosecutors from the Washington County attorney's office in Utah were in court, as was Jeffs' brother, Isaac Jeffs, 32, who was driving when they were stopped. Isaac Jeffs did not speak with reporters.
The prosecutors, Jerry Jaeger and Ryan Shaum, said Jeffs would be moved within several days. He is to be jailed at the Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane, Utah.
The federal warrant on which Jeffs had been held, accusing him of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, remained active Thursday, said Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Salt Lake City.
"We're waiting to see if it is needed," Rydalch said of the charge, which carries a possible penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison.
Jeffs faces criminal charges in Arizona as well, but Utah will prosecute him first because it has a stronger case and its charges are more serious.
Prosecutors hope the arrest will break Jeffs' hold on his followers and lead them to speak out about their lives within the sect and the arranged marriages of young girls there, some just 13 years old.
In past attempts to prosecute polygamists within the sect, victims have faced powerful pressure to stay quiet from family members and their insular communities along the Utah-Arizona line, where Jeffs is regarded as a prophet.
"They pretty much have to renounce their entire heritage to go against the prophet," said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. "That has got to be hard to do."
Jeffs has refused jailhouse interviews this week.