Federal authorities say polygamist religious leader Lyle Jeffs has been captured, almost exactly one year after he escaped from home confinement while he was accused in a multimillion-dollar food-stamp fraud scheme.
Jeffs, who fled from federal custody last summer in Utah, was arrested Wednesday night without incident at a marina near Yankton, South Dakota, the FBI said.
"Know this - when you flee a federal indictment, the long arm of the law will eventually catch up with you and bring you back to justice," U.S. Attorney John Huber said Thursday at a news conference.
Huber said Jeffs' flight "will play a significant part in the prosecution." Jeffs, the leader of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will likely face another felony charge over his conduct the past year, according to the government.
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Following a tip about someone matching his description, an off-duty Yankton police detective spotted Jeffs' vehicle at the marina, called for backup and conducted a traffic stop, authorities said.
Jeffs then confirmed his identity to the authorities and was taken into custody. He was being held without bond on a Federal Marshals Service hold in South Dakota's Minnehaha County, according to booking records. His initial court appearance was scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
Investigators believe he had been in the area for at least two weeks, living out of a Ford pickup truck. There is currently no evidence that anyone was helping him, authorities said, but they are still investigating.
Jeffs assumed the role of leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known as FLDS) after his brother, Warren Jeffs, was sentenced in 2011 to life in prison for child rape.
The sect emerged when Mormon leaders suspended the practice of polygamy in the late 1800s, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which calls the group "a white supremacist, homophobic, anti-government, totalitarian cult." FLDS, which is not connected to the Mormon Church, branched off and continues to practice polygamy in small towns along the Utah-Arizona border.
In 2016, Jeffs and other leaders were indicted for money laundering and using government welfare benefits for FLDS expenses.
"This indictment is not about religion; this indictment is about fraud," U.S. Attorney John W. Huber said at the time. The government, Huber said in 2016, was charging "a sophisticated group of individuals . . . who conspired to defraud a program intended to help low-income individuals and families purchase food."
While awaiting trial last June, he was released from jail. But he "was confined to his Salt Lake County home with few exceptions, told he couldn't contact various people affiliated with the sect, and made to wear a GPS monitoring device."
Less than two weeks later, he disappeared.
Investigators believed at the time that Jeffs used olive oil to remove his ankle monitor June 18, 2016, because federal agents were in touch with him earlier in the day but lost contact during the evening hours, according to local reports.
"He used a substance which may have been olive oil to lubricate the GPS tracking band and slip it off his ankle," FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Barnhart told a Fox affiliate at the time.
Jeffs' attorney later came up with an unusual explanation for the religious leader's disappearance, arguing in court documents Jeffs may have been raptured.
Last August, Jeffs' public defender, Kathryn Nester, filed court documents requesting a continuance because the religious leader was still nowhere to be found, The Washington Post's Cleve Wootson reported.
In the filing, Nester offered a theory for his disappearance: a miracle:
"As this Court is well aware, Mr. Jeffs is currently not available to inform his counsel whether or not he agrees to the Continuance. Whether his absence is based on absconding, as oft alleged by the Government in their filings, or whether he was taken and secreted against his will, or whether he experienced the miracle of rapture is unknown to counsel. However, his absence prevents counsel from obtaining his approval and thus further prevents counsel from filing a joinder with the Motion to Continue Current Trial Date in compliance with the local rules."
It's unclear who is currently representing Jeffs. Nester could not immediately be reached for comment following the most recent arrest.
Washington Post