SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A polygamous sect leader captured after nearly a year on the run is due back in a federal courtroom in Utah on Monday.
Lyle Jeffs is set to be arraigned on a felony charge connected to his time as a fugitive that was filed on top of charges he’s facing in a suspected multimillion-dollar food-stamp fraud scheme.
Many of the other 10 defendants accused in the food-stamp scheme struck plea deals with federal prosecutors, but U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber has said Jeffs’ case will be different.
Jeffs could face up to 10 years in prison on a failure-to-appear charge. He’s also charged with conspiracy to commit food-stamp fraud, which carries a sentence of up to five years, and money laundering, which could bring up to 10 years in prison.
Jeffs was awaiting trial in the food-stamp fraud case in June 2016 when he used olive oil to slip out of his ankle monitor and escape home confinement in Salt Lake City.
He was apparently living out of a pickup truck in the area of the small South Dakota town of Yankton, near the Nebraska state line. He was arrested June 14 when a pawn shop employee looked online and discovered the man who had just sold him two pairs of Leatherman pliers was wanted by the FBI.
He had been in the area for about two weeks, was running low on resources and was struggling without the help of fellow sect members, the FBI has said. Investigators say he’d recently fallen out with his brother Warren Jeffs, who runs the group and is serving a life prison sentence in Texas for sexual assault of underage brides.
Their group, known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is based in a small community on the Utah-Arizona border. Members of the sect believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven.
The group is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism, which disavowed polygamy more than 100 years ago.
Lyle Jeffs was the last of the defendants in the food stamp fraud case still behind bars when U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart reversed an earlier decision and granted his release to home confinement last year.
Prosecutors say Jeffs and the other defendants diverted at least $12 million in food stamps to buy tractors, trucks and other items.
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