She Was 14 When Warren Jeffs Married Her to Her 19-Year-Old Cousin Over Her Objections. Twelve Years After She Sued, a Utah Judge Entered $16 Million Against Him and His Church.
After trial: A default judgment, entered September 5, 2017, because neither Warren Jeffs nor the FLDS Church appeared to defend a case filed in 2005. Nothing was reduced and no appeal is recorded. Utah Code 78B-8-201(3)(a) sends half of any punitive award above $50,000 to the state; no source says whether it was applied to the $12,000,000 punitive component, and the figure here is the full judgment. The 2016 settlement with the United Effort Plan trust for $2,750,000 in cash and property is a separate recovery and is not added here. Collectability: Jeffs has been incarcerated since 2006 and is serving life plus 20 years in Texas; counsel described pursuing church assets across several states and two countries, and no payment has been reported. The figure is what the court ordered, not what the plaintiff has received.
Won by Dewsnup King Olsen Worel Havas.
A girl of 14 was married to her 19-year-old cousin in a ceremony Warren Jeffs arranged and performed himself, over her objections, and then pressured to bear children. She sued Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 2005 under the initials MJ. Neither defended. On September 5, 2017 Judge Keith Kelly entered a $16,000,000 default judgment: $4,000,000 in damages and $12,000,000 in punitive damages. Jeffs is serving life plus 20 years in Texas.
What happened
The plaintiff sued under the initials MJ, and this page keeps it that way.
She was 14 and a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when Warren Jeffs, who controlled the church, arranged her "spiritual marriage" to a 19-year-old cousin. She objected. Jeffs performed the ceremony anyway, and afterward pressured her to have children with the husband he had assigned her. Miscarriages and a stillbirth followed. She later testified to lasting damage to her ability to trust.
She filed suit in 2005. Jeffs has been in custody since 2006; he is serving life plus 20 years in Texas for sexually abusing two girls he took as plural wives. Her testimony had helped convict him in Utah as well.
Neither Jeffs nor the church appeared to defend the civil case. On September 5, 2017, in the Third District Court in Salt Lake City, Judge Keith Kelly entered a default judgment for $16,000,000: $4,000,000 in damages and $12,000,000 in punitive damages. The judge found that Jeffs held absolute control, power and authority over her life, used it to require her, as a young girl, to enter an unlawful marriage, and then pressured her into childbearing.
Alan Mortensen, then of Dewsnup King Olsen, represented her. Asked about the punitive figure he said the point was that the church should feel the pain of what its doctrine had done to young girls, and that the judgment could be enforced against FLDS assets in several states and in Mexico and Canada. Mortensen later left to found Mortensen & Milne.
The $16,000,000 sits alongside a separate recovery. In 2016 she settled with the United Effort Plan trust, which holds FLDS property in Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona, for $2,750,000 in cash and property. That settlement is a distinct matter and is not part of this figure. A later $152,000,000 judgment entered for a group of other former FLDS members against Jeffs is a different case again.
Utah takes a share of punitive awards: under Utah Code 78B-8-201(3)(a), half of any punitive damages above $50,000 goes to the state. Applied to $12,000,000 that would leave the plaintiff roughly $6,000,000 of the punitive component. No source says whether it was applied.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.The Salt Lake Tribune, 5 September 2017 (Nate Carlisle), as reproduced by the Cult Education Institute: Judge Keith Kelly of the Third District Court entering $16 million, being $4 million in damages and $12 million in punitive damages, on default; the 2005 filing; the judge's findings on Jeffs's control over the plaintiff's life, the arranged marriage at 14 and the pressure to bear children; Jeffs's incarceration since 2006 and his Texas sentence; the 2016 United Effort Plan settlement of $2.75 million; and plaintiff's counsel Alan Mortensen and his statements on enforcement
- 2.FOX 13: the separate, later $152 million judgment for a group of other former FLDS members, cited here only to show it is a different case
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