San Angelo, USA - Warren Jeffs' practices will likely continue even though he's behind bars, according to Flora Jessop, who escaped from his polygamist sect when she was just 16 years old.
On Thursday, Jeffs was convicted after less than four hours of jury deliberations of sexually assaulting two underage girls in Texas. He faces the possibility of life in prison.
Warren Jeffs wants to be martyr: Ex-FLDS member
But Jessop says there are several people "waiting in the wings" to fill Jeffs' leader role in the fringe Mormon sect, including his brother, Lyle Jeffs.
Jessop says Lyle Jeffs will likely take the helm of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) -- and says he will to continue Warren Jeffs' practices if he's not stopped.
"This is not a practice that's going to go away," Jessop said. "I want the American people to understand that this is not the only polygamist group out there, and if we don't stand up and demand accountability from these groups, then it's building. It's growing. It's going to be moving into a neighborhood next to you."
Jessop says more people need to be held accountable in this case to deter others.
She says not only Warren Jeffs' wives should be prosecuted, but the mothers and fathers who turned their children over to Jeffs.
Jessop said, "The 12-year-old that was on the tape we listened to in that courtroom, her father is the one who performed the ceremony, giving her to Warren Jeffs."
Jeffs was convicted of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl and fathered a child with a 15-year-old he'd taken as a wife, CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker reported.
In 2008, Whitaker reported, police raided the FLDS compound Mormon sect According to prosecutors, Warren Jeffs had 78 celestial wives -- 24 of them under the age of 17. Several sect members were convicted of arranging marriages of underage children, and Jeffs was charged with two counts of sexual assault.
In the FLDS sect today, Jessop said, the people have probably been told that Jeffs is going to jail, but that God will deliver him.
"That just kind of got shot out the window," she said. "But, you know, they're still victims, they're still paying the price, still being abused and we need to remember that."