The Washington County Sheriff’s Office is preparing for an auction this week to sell a high-profile piece of property: a compound built for polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs.
Jeffs, 57, is serving a life sentence in Texas on convictions of sexually assaulting two underage girls but is still the head prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
A judge ordered the large, multi-acre compound, located in Hildale, Utah, to be sold to help pay a judgment owed to former FLDS member Willie Jessop.
Washington County property records indicate the property has a market value of $2.6 million, but Jessop and his attorneys have not decided on a starting bid amount for the property, according to Jessop’s attorney Mark James.
James said he plans to meet with his client the morning of the auction to set the minimum bid amount for the property, which will be sold in two separate parcels.
The proceeds from the sale will go towards a $30 million default judgment Jessop won in a lawsuit alleging Jeffs and other FLDS leaders destroyed his excavating business.
Jessop, who used to act as Jeffs’ bodyguard, legal defense liaison, and church spokesperson, was awarded the money after Jeffs and other defendants did not show up in court to defend themselves.
Jessop is allowed to bid on the property himself using a “credit bid” against the money owed to him in the judgment. James said Jessop will “most likely” bid on the property but that it will depend on whether there are other bidders.
Jeffs ordered the compound built in 2010 while he was awaiting trial in Texas and has never lived in the mansion. Former FLDS members say they undertook the construction project as a show of belief that Jeffs would be exonerated.
The property up for auction sits on about six acres and encompasses an entire city block. It includes a main mansion and two other homes, a row of about a dozen apartments, a former Washington County public schoolhouse and a large food storage building.
The compound is surrounded by a tall cement wall topped with wrought iron fencing. The homes inside the compound are separated from each other and the rest of the compound with similar walls and steel doors.
“99% of the community has never seen the inner workings of those walls,” Jessop said in an interview last month. “Those walls were to provide the secrecy and the intimidation to keep people out and it was just the perfect breeding ground for some terrible crimes.”
As for what he may do with the compound if he becomes the owner, Jessop hinted at demolishing the imposing walls and letting the public see what’s inside.
“Friends don’t let their friends have their daughters raped and that facility needs its walls down,” he said.
The auction is scheduled for Thursday, at 10 a.m. on the steps of the Fifth Judicial District Courthouse in St. George.
The sheriff’s office reports that they are handing the auction as they would any other judge-ordered sale and that potential bidders do not need to pre-register, according to Chief Deputy Shauna Jones.