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Jury selected for Jeffs trial

Warren Steed Jeffs, the fugitive leader of a polygamist Mormon sect and one of the FBI's 10 most wanted, was arrested in a traffic stop outside Las Vegas, the Nevada Highway Patrol said on August 29, 2006. (UPI Photo/FBI/HO)
Warren Steed Jeffs, the fugitive leader of a polygamist Mormon sect and one of the FBI's 10 most wanted, was arrested in a traffic stop outside Las Vegas, the Nevada Highway Patrol said on August 29, 2006. (UPI Photo/FBI/HO) | License Photo

SAN ANGELO, Texas, July 26 (UPI) -- Jury selection was completed Tuesday in the child sexual assault trial of polygamist Warren Jeffs in San Angelo, Texas.

The San Angelo Standard-Times reported jury selection was completed about 8 p.m. but the panel had not yet been sworn in.

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When the trial resumes Wednesday, a hearing will be held on which evidence prosecutors will be allowed to enter against Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints -- a Mormon splinter sect -- who is charged with sexual assault of a child in 2005 and aggravated sexual assault of a child in 2006. Jeffs, who is charged with first- and second-degree felonies, could face 119 years in prison.

The aggravated sexual assault count asserts that he married a 12-year-old girl and fathered a child with her. Under Texas law, a girl that age doesn't have the legal right to give consent for sex.

Jeffs' West Texas compound was raided by authorities in 2008. Prosecutors will likely use evidence from that raid in Jeffs' current trial, the Standard-Times said.

The Salt Lake Tribune said Jeffs, 55, has received thousands of letters from followers since his incarceration.

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