A man accused of hiding his fugitive polygamist brother from authorities was expected to be freed this afternoon after he posted a $25,000 property bond in Colorado U.S. District Court.
Seth Jeffs, 32, of Hildale, Utah, posted the bond hours after a morning hearing at which his lawyer, Ed Pluss, and Colorado U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer said they expected paperwork delays to postpone Jeffs’ release for several days.
Prosecutors had asked Shaffer last week to keep Jeffs behind bars while the case is pending against him, but Shaffer declined.
Jeffs’ older brother, Warren Jeffs, is the leader of a polygamist sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The sect split from the traditional Mormon church in the late 1890s after Mormons renounced polygamy.
Warren Jeffs is wanted in Arizona on charges of felony sexual abuse of a child. He allegedly arranged a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and an older married man. Authorities do not know where Warren Jeffs is.
Seth Jeffs was arrested last week in Pueblo County after a traffic stop. Sheriff’s deputies found $142,000 in cash, prepaid credit cards and phone cards, seven cellular telephones, letters to Warren Jeffs from church leaders.
Seth Jeffs told authorities he didn’t know his brothers’ whereabouts, but was delivering the money and other items to a bishop of the sect in Texas for his brother.