Story Created:
Feb 8, 2010 at 4:47 PM MST
Story Updated:
Feb 8, 2010 at 4:52 PM MST
(Kingman, AZ) - Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven Conn has granted a defense request to bar evidence seized in the raid of a polygamous sect in Texas from being used in polygamist leader Warren Jeffs' trial in Arizona. The decision means a February 17 hearing on the request has been vacated.
Prosecutor Matt Smith and Jeffs' attorneys agreed in documents released Monday that no evidence from the April 2008 raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas, will be used directly or indirectly in the Arizona case.
Conn says he believed the issue had been a major obstacle in resolving the case.
Jeffs is awaiting trial in Arizona on four counts of being an accomplice to sexual conduct with a minor, charges filed in 2007. He was moved to Kingman from the Utah State Prison in February 2008.
In September 2007, a Utah jury convicted Jeffs of two counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in the 2001 marriage of an underage follower to her husband. He was sentenced to two consecutive prison terms of five years to life.