This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated.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 Wednesday ordered two of Warren Jeffs' brothers to answer questions about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and a southern Utah pecan harvest that used women and children as laborers.
But the brothers, Lyle and Nephi Jeffs, will not have to answer certain questions about the actions they took or the orders they gave to execute the harvest, U.S. District Court Judge David Sam ruled.
The ruling capped a day of testimony, motions and arguments for the Jeffs clan, who rule the FLDS and rarely appear in public.
In the morning, Nephi and then Lyle Jeffs took the witness stand to testify they have "sincerely held religious beliefs," presenting a roadblock to the U.S. Department of Labor's efforts to extract information from them and the FLDS about a December 2012 nut harvest at the Southern Utah Pecan Ranch near Hurricane. Lyle and Nephi Jeffs refused to answer many questions in earlier depositions.
Lyle and Nephi Jeffs' attorney, Jim Bradshaw, has maintained the FLDS church has a tenet forbidding discussion of the church with outsiders and followers should not have to answer questions about the workings of the church. Bradshaw also has argued that since the government believes a violation of law occurred, his clients have a Fifth Amendment right to not answer questions.
Nephi Jeffs, 45, was asked by Bradshaw what his beliefs were.
"I believe that I must live all of the laws Heavenly Father has established," replied Nephi Jeffs, who, the Labor Department alleges, receives Warren Jeffs' messages and instructions from a Texas prison. "I need to earn my eternal salvation."
Later in his testimony, Nephi Jeffs offered to provide copies of FLDS doctrine.
During cross-examination by Labor Department attorney Karen Bobela, she asked who authored the doctrines followed by the FLDS. "Heavenly Father through the prophets," Nephi Jeffs replied.
Bobela asked if that included Warren Jeffs, who is the current FLDS president. That spurred an objection from Bradshaw and a back and forth between the attorneys and the judge. Sam eventually said the witness didn't need to answer the question about his infamous older brother.
"Whether it comes from Heavenly Father or Warren Jeffs, [the doctrines] are published and will be made available to the court, and that's all I need to know," Sam said.
Like their older brother, both Lyle and Nephi Jeffs spoke in a soft monotone. At one point, the court reporter had to ask Lyle Jeffs to pull the microphone closer to him so she could hear his testimony. Both men also did not answer some questions right away, prompting Bradshaw to end the silence by jumping in with an objection.
Bobela asked Lyle Jeffs, 55, who's believed to be the bishop of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, if he could identify a specific church tenet prohibiting him from answering questions about the FLDS.
Lyle Jeffs said, "Not specifically, other than we just can't discuss our religion."
Bobela went through a list of items with each brother and asked whether he could answer questions about them. Nephi and Lyle Jeffs each said they could not answer questions about profits from FLDS commercial interests, the sales of goods, commercial records, commercial supplies and names of church leaders.
Both men said they could answer questions about criminal activities within the church, but claimed not to know of any criminal activities.
For almost two years, the Department of Labor has sought the name, age and contact information for everyone who participated in the December 2012 nut harvest. The Labor Department has gone to court to obtain testimony and records from Paragon Contractors, the company that provided labor to the Southern Utah Pecan Ranch from the FLDS.
Paragon and the ranch are owned by members of the FLDS. Labor Department investigators, according to court documents, believe that as many as 1,400 school-age children and their parents participated in the harvest.
The Labor Department has countered that First Amendment rights do not permit law-breaking and the government has a compelling interest in obtaining the information.
Sam gave Bradshaw two weeks to provide the FLDS doctrines to the Labor Department. Bradshaw told the judge the texts will be a mix of "conventional LDS doctrine and supplements from the FLDS."
Polygamy was only discussed in the afternoon hearing when lawyers raised the topic of a 2008 U.S. Senate hearing on the FLDS and argued whether the labor accusations could amount to criminal prosecutions that deserve Fifth Amendment protections. The FLDS believe in polygamy as a religious tenet. Warren Jeffs is serving a prison sentence in Texas on charges related to taking two underage girls as brides.
Later in the afternoon, Sam ruled that some of the questions posed in the depositions posed no First or Fifth amendment issues and ordered the brothers to answer them in new depositions to be scheduled later. Sam and the attorneys went line by line through earlier depositions to identify questions that will be allowed and questions that won't.
For example, Nephi and Lyle Jeffs must answer, "Who in the FLDS church has the authority to act on behalf of the FLDS church?"
They do not have to answer, "Did you direct anyone to drive tractors for the harvest?"
Bradshaw told Sam his clients still might not answer the questions. Sam warned him that could lead to contempt of court.
The Labor Department suffered a setback in September when Sam ruled that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in last year's Hobby Lobby case meant that another man named Vergel Steed did not need to answer questions about the workings of the FLDS Church.
Steed, it is implied in the court documents, works for the FLDS Church. Bobela wanted to force Steed and other church employees to answer questions about whether the church was an employer during the pecan harvest and about its labor practices.
The Southern Utah Pecan Ranch sells the nuts and 70 percent of gross proceeds go to Paragon, under the contract between the two, according to a filing in U.S. District Court. A filing from a Labor Department office in Salt Lake City says FLDS families were not paid for their services. Instead, they kept half the nuts and the other half remained with the ranch.
The Labor Department also has a copy of a voice mail sent to FLDS faithful prior to the work.
"Good afternoon, this is a message from the Bishop's Office," a transcript of the message reads. "This is a call for all schools to take the rest of the week off of school to help with the nut harvest."
Sam ruled Nephi and Lyle Jeffs have to answer questions about who is authorized to send such a voice message.
Twitter: @natecarlisle