November hearing is set for polygamy rape case

A 5th District judge set a November hearing for Allen G. Steed, who faces a rape charge after testifying in the trial of polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs.

Judge G. Rand Beacham will set a preliminary hearing date for Steed, 26, on Nov. 2.

Steed, accompanied by attorneys Jim Bradshaw and Mark Moffat, made a brief appearance before Beacham on Thursday morning.

Steed was booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane by Colorado City Town Marshal Helaman Barlow on Wednesday around 5:30 p.m. and released 10 hours later, even though a $5,000 cash bond was posted prior to his arrival.

“It is a 15-minute process,” Bradshaw said. “I think it is a fair conclusion from what occurred that there was some intent associated with the delay.”

But a Washington County sheriff’s spokesman said Steed was treated like anyone else and the delay was due to a high volume of bookings.

“It was unfortunate the timing he was booked in,” said spokesman Lt. Jake Adams. “He was in the midst of 19 bookings and he just had to wait his turn in line.”

Washington County prosecutors had initially sought a $50,000 cash bond, but Beacham lowered the amount after Steed’s attorneys argued the sum was “grossly excessive.”

A jury convicted Jeffs on Sept. 25 of two counts of rape as an accomplice based on a 2001 marriage he conducted between Steed, then 19, and Elissa Wall, who was 14.

Wall testified during the trial that she objected to marrying Steed and that he raped her about three weeks after their marriage.

Steed testified that it was Wall who initiated their first sexual encounter and that he never used force during their marriage. He also said Jeffs merely gave them standard counseling during their troubled marriage.

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