A polygamist sect leader’s daughter was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge relating to the shotgun killings in Texas of an 8-year-old girl and three sect members who had left the church, U.S. Attorney Jose Angel Moreno said Thursday.
Jacqueline LeBaron, the daughter of Utah polygamist Ervil LeBaron, was originally indicted in 1992 but was a fugitive for almost 20 years before being arrested last year in Honduras. She had faced 14 counts, including murder, and could have faced life in prison.
But she pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to obstruct religious beliefs as part of an agreement with prosecutors. LeBaron, 46, faced up to five years in prison but received a lesser sentence from U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake, Moreno said in a news release.
Before entering her plea in June, she expressed remorse, telling Lake: “I’m very sorry this happened.”
Jacqueline LeBaron was among six family members charged in the killings. Authorities say she and her family were following their sect‘s doctrine of blood atonement, in which defectors were killed. The U.S. attorney’s office has said that Jacqueline LeBaron assisted her siblings in the plot by giving them travel money. […]
Ervil LeBaron died in prison in 1981, but his orders were preached after his death.
This May 2010 report by Arizona’s Channel 3 provides some background on the case: