KINGMAN – Attorneys for polygamist leader Warren Jeffs are asking an Arizona judge to force Texas authorities to fully answer questions about a raid at a sect compound.
Jeffs lawyer Mike Piccarreta of Tucson wants to question Texas authorities about when they discovered that a phone call that triggered the April 2008 raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas, was a fake.
Texas authorities refused to allow Piccarreta to ask three officers details about the investigation of the YFZ Ranch.
If they don’t, Piccarreta told a judge in Mohave County on Monday, he wants Texas prosecutors to admit the call was phony and he wants any evidence collected there barred from trial.
Jeffs is jailed in Mohave County awaiting trial on four counts of being an accomplice to sexual conduct with a minor.
The charges filed in 2007 are related to marriages he allegedly performed between older men and underage girls.
He’s already been convicted in Utah of two felony counts of rape by accomplice and faces similar charges in Texas.
Piccarreta is trying to show that the Texas raid, reportedly set off by a hoax phone call from a Colorado woman, shows that authorities acted in reckless disregard of the truth.
Piccarreta acknowledged his efforts are mostly a symbolic gesture borne out of frustration with Texas authorities.
“The affidavit for the (Texas) search warrants is a lie,” Piccarreta said.