COLORADO CITY, AZ (ABC 4 News) - Polygamist prophet Warren Jeffs of the FLDS Church is sending "A Warning to the Nation" that catastrophe awaits unless he is freed and the FLDS people get back control of the land in the United Effort Plan Trust.
600 Packets
This warning reportedly targets members of Congress and the Obama Administration.
Several sources in Colorado City, Arizona say Jeffs' followers mailed more than 600 packets to Washington D. C. The packets contained not only the Jeffs' warning, but also a 900 page petition signed by approximately 13,500 followers of Warren Jeffs.
Of Utah's congressional delegation, so far only the office of Congressman Jason Chaffetz has acknowledged receipt of the warning and petition.
ABC 4 News obtained a copy of the warning from private investigator Sam Brower. We also received the first couple pages of the petition. On the two pages reviewed by ABC 4 News, six of the 30 signatures were from children under the age of ten.
Revelation
Jeffs claims the warning is actually two revelations from God. He recorded the first revelation October 7, 2010 while he was held at the Utah State Prison at Point of the Mountain. The second was dated just a month ago, February 5, 2011, after his transfer to Big Lake, Texas.
In the revelations, God is speaking directly to "the honorable President of the United States of America." He instructs the President to "cause that the prosecutors, now cease their attack upon my servant Warren Jeffs."
He also demands "that this nation now restore to my people the consecrated land taken from them."
If President Obama doesn't comply, Jeffs, writing for God, states, "... I shall cause a great destruction in the land of Illinois, to the loss of life and to your awakening." Illinois is the President's home state.
The warning also seems to take credit for severe weather in the United States in recent years. It reads, "I shall send forth a great storm in the land crippling thy nation again, which I have been sending in increasing power since you allowed an unjust judge to confine my servant... (sic)"
At times Jeffs rambles in run-on sentences that seem to be plagued by incomplete thoughts and omitted words: "Let my people go! or you shall reap a whirlwind of judgments in near future sending, such as you have not seen, for I am God, and I speak from the heavens through him whom I have anointed. (sic)"
Background to the warning
Since his capture in August of 2006 on I-15 north of Las Vegas, Jeffs has been bouncing from jails in Utah, Arizona and Texas. He's currently jailed in Texas awaiting trial on charges of sexual assault of a child and bigamy.
Also, the United Effort Plan Trust was taken away from Warren Jeffs in 2005. The trust is supposedly modeled after an early Mormon plan. The UEP controls just about all the land in the polygamous communities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona as well as land in Texas, Colorado and even Canada.
The Utah Attorney General's Office asked the courts to freeze the assets of the UEP Trust. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff claimed Warren Jeffs was bleeding the trust dry. Utah District Judge Denise Lindberg turned over management of the trust to a court appointed "special fiduciary."
Creating an uproar?
The proclamation references Joseph Smith Junior, the founder of the Mormon faith and borrows phrases from well-known Mormon scripture.
In the past, the publication of polygamist manifestos have attracted national attention and have fed the confusion among Americans over what constitutes a "Mormon."
Following the raid on the FLDS ranch outside of Eldorado, Texas, the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints launched an ad campaign in the state portraying its members as normal Texans. In essence, it was saying of the FLDS, "We're not them."
Directing this latest warning to national leaders seems designed to attract additional media attention.
