Utah Woman Wins $16M Case Against Polygamous Sect After Marriage To Cousin

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, oversaw a ceremony in which Elissa Wall was married to Wall's cousin when she was 14 years old. On Wednesday, Wall's lawyer said she won a $16 million lawsuit against the polygamous sect, and the decision allows attorneys to investigate the secretive group's bank accounts and property held in states nationwide.

"This is hopefully to continue the attack on illegal and criminal conduct so they'll comport their doctrines to what's permissible under the U.S. Constitution," said Wall's attorney Alan Mortensen.

Judge Keith Kelly said in his ruling that the behavior of Jeffs and the religious sect "was so extreme that it went beyond all possible bound of decency and is regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized society." (For more information on the religious group and other Salt Lake City stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Wall plans to use the money to help people leaving the group, which is based along the Utah-Arizona border and has a compound in South Dakota.

"I can now close these chapters in my life and focus on building a better future for myself and my children," Wall said in a statement. The state of Utah is also entitled to half the punitive damages in the case, up to $6 million, under state law, Mortensen said.

Last year, Wall agreed to a $2.75-million settlement with the group's communal property trust, but her case against Jeffs and the group continued until Tuesday. Neither Jeffs nor his group got a lawyer or defended themselves in the case.

Her testimony about the 2001 marriage helped convict Jeffs in Utah of being an accomplice to rape, though the verdict was overturned on a technicality. He's now serving a life prison sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting girls he considered wives.

His group does not have a spokesman or a phone listing where leaders can be contacted.

The Associated Press doesn't generally identify victims of sexual assault, but Wall has spoken publicly and written a book about her experiences.

The federal government has also gone after the group on multiple fronts, winning child labor cases in Utah and recapturing high-ranking leader Lyle Jeffs, who fled home confinement in a food-stamp fraud case.

An Arizona jury found last year that the border towns that form the town's home base denied nonbelievers police protection, building permits and water hookups on the basis of religion.

The communities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona, are now under court supervision for the next decade as punishment.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

Photo credit: Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP