This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered two men accused of committing food-stamp fraud to benefit the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to remain in jail pending trial.

Seth Jeffs and John Wayman violated the terms of their pre-trial release by meeting with other defendants in the early hours of July 26, wrote U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart.

The meeting was called by another church member on the instructions of the church's imprisoned prophet, Warren Jeffs, Stewart wrote of Seth Jeffs, despite that "defendant surely knew that his violations would be quickly detected [by GPS monitoring]."

Stewart said the conclusion is that "the defendant will follow the dictates of Warren Jeffs, even if they run counter to the orders of the court."

As for Wayman, he met with Seth Jeffs and another defendant, Preston Barlow, "for multiple hours over the course of four days without the approval of the court of the probation office," Stewart wrote.

Seth Jeffs' attorney had argued on Monday that the meeting did not violate the spirit of his release conditions because Jeffs had been told by his supervising probation officer he could ave limited contact with his co-defendants.

But Stewart noted that the defendants had been approved only for "incidental contact with co-defendants during religious services."

Stewart said of Seth Jeffs, " ... the court find that there are no conditions that will assure that defendant will not flee or pose a danger."

Prosecutors said Monday that law enforcement had intercepted communications from Seth Jeffs' brother, Warren Jeffs — the FLDS president who is serving a life sentence in Texas for sexually abusing girls he married as plural wives — directing Seth Jeffs and Wayman to meet so they could receive further messages from the inmate.

Prosecutors have described both Wayman and Seth Jeffs as being near the top of the FLDS hierarchy and possessing access to cash and hideouts across the country. They can abscond the same way another Jeffs brother who is a co-defendant, Lyle Jeffs, absconded in mid-June. He remains at large.

In all, eleven FLDS members are each charged with two count of conspiracy. Prosecutors allege they took food stamp cards from FLDS members and used them to purchase groceries for a storehouse or converted the benefits to cash at FLDS-controlled stores.

The defendants are scheduled for trial Oct. 3, though at least three of them have asked the trial be postponed until at least May in order to sift through what all sides have described as a massive amount of evidence, including undercover audio and video recordings. Stewart has scheduled a conference for Aug. 30 to consider whether to delay the trial.

— KUTV's Jeremy Harris contributed to this report.

Twitter: @natecarlisle