Warren Steed Jeffs, the leader of a polygamist sect, was found guilty Tuesday of being an accomplice to rape for using his religious authority to push a 14-year-old girl into a marriage she did not want, CNN reported.
A court in Utah found Warren Jeffs, a self-proclaimed Mormon prophet, guilty of two counts of encouraging the young girl to have sex against her will. The conviction could send Jeffs to prison for the rest of his life. Sentencing was set for November 20.
"When I was young my mother taught me that evil flourishes when good men do nothing," said Elissa Wall, the prosecution's star witness, who was "placed" by Jeffs in an arranged marriage at 14.
She added that the trial "was not about religion or a vendetta, it was simply about child abuse and preventing further abuse."
"The easy thing would have been to do nothing, but I followed my heart," she said, urging other girls and young women who feel trapped by polygamy to come forward.
Prosecutor Brock Belnap praised Wall's courage. "It has been an honor to stand alongside a woman who spoke out to stop a practice of abuse against enormous odds and against enormous power," he said.
Warren Steed Jeffs is head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). The sect split from the Mormon Church after the latter renounced polygamy.