Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was en route to a Texas state prison Tuesday night following his discharge from a hospital at another prison where he was treated after becoming sick while fasting, a state official said.
The San Angelo Standard-Times says
Jeffs, who is serving a life plus 20 year sentence for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old girl, fasted too much and had other medical complications that required him to be hospitalized Aug. 28.
The 55-year-old head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is in the process of being moved from a hospital in Galveston to a prison in East Texas.
“It’s a continuation of his treatment,” said Jason Clark, a spokesman with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “Inmate Warren Jeffs has been discharged from Hospital Galveston and is in transit to a prison in East Texas. Jeffs will continue his recovery at the prison infirmary until he is well enough to transfer back to his unit of assignment at a later date. I cannot disclose the specific prison until he arrives, for security reasons.”
According to KCSG TV Texas Department of Criminal Justice public information officer Michelle Lyons says Jeffs was never in a medically-induced coma. She told the station that it was a false rumor that circulated when he was first hospitalized and was sedated.
The Associated Press writes that
Earlier this month, Jeffs filed a handwritten motion seeking a new trial. He alleged that his religious freedoms were violated by the courts — an argument he also tried to make while defending himself during his trial.
Jeffs, 55, is scheduled to go on trial on bigamy charges in February in San Angelo.
Warren Jeffs has been placed in protective custody, isolated from other inmates for his own protection.
Earlier damaging fasts happened from 2008 to 2010, when he was jailed in Arizona on charges related to sexual crimes.