In his appeal, Abram Harker Jeffs claimed that the state had insufficient evidence to prove that a sexual relationship had occurred between him and his wife, whom he married when she was 14 years old.
He was one of 12 men indicted after a 2008 law enforcement raid on the sect’s Texas-based ranch.
Abram Harker Jeffs was found guilty Tuesday of assaulting a girl with whom he was in an FLDS “spiritual” or “celestial” marriage on May 12, 2006, when Jeffs was 34 and already legally married and when the girl was 15.
He was sentenced to 17 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Abram Harker Jeffs is the latest in a series of men from the YFZ Ranch, an FLDS community near Eldorado, to be prosecuted on child sexual assault charges since the state raided the ranch two years ago.
The state alleged that Jeffs assaulted a girl with whom he was in an FLDS “spiritual” or “celestial” marriage on May 12, 2006, when Jeffs was 34 and already legally married and when the girl was 15.
Attorneys made their choice of jury members Monday evening and plan to seat the jury this morning in the trial of Abram Harker Jeffs.
Jeffs is the sixth member of the FLDS to undergo legal proceedings for sexual assault of a child. Evidence against the sect members was seized in an April 2008 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch.
Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints found themselves unexpectedly put on the spot when they answered a call for jury selection Thursday on the second day of the trial of fellow sect member Abram Harker Jeffs.
Willie Jessop, an FLDS spokesman, said the FLDS potential jurors were given subpoenas outside the makeshift courthouse in Eldorado to testify before a pending Schleicher County grand jury.
Abram Harker Jeffs, 39, a member of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, goes to trial today on charges of sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years or life in prison.
Jeffs is among 12 FLDS members who have been indicted and the sixth to face prosecution to date. Four more men have trials scheduled through December.