Polygamist seeks restraining order

ST. GEORGE, Utah, July 9 (UPI) -- A leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints has asked a Utah judge for a restraining order against a private detective hired by former members.

Willie Jessop, a spokesman for the polygamist group, said that Sam Brower climbed a fence around Jessop's home in Hildale, Utah, in early June with a TV crew, the Houston Chronicle reported.

"Who knows what he's trying to do," Jessop told the newspaper. "He seems to be obsessed."

Brower said that Jessop's claims are not true.

"I fully expected FLDS church leaders and their attorneys to make a desperate attempt to stifle any investigation into their activities," he said.

Brower supplied an affidavit in support of a request in Texas for a restraining order against Jessop. Jessop was formerly a bodyguard to Warren Jeffs, the imprisoned patriarch of the FLDS, and a lawyer representing Jeffs' teenage daughter said he was trying to intimidate her.