Half-brother sues polygamist leader

ST. GEORGE, Utah, July 13 (UPI) -- A half-brother of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has filed a Utah lawsuit saying he fears his teenage daughters will be forced into polygamous marriages.

Wallace Jeffs, in court papers filed Tuesday in St. George, said he has been kept from his children since he was expelled from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. He wants custody of seven girls and two boys who now range in age from 8 to 16.

Warren Jeffs has been convicted in Utah of forcing a 14-year-old girl into a marriage with her 19-year-old cousin. He is awaiting trial in Texas on similar charges.

In the lawsuit, Wallace Jeffs accuses Warren Jeffs and other leaders of conspiring to defraud members and of expelling boys from the church so they would not be in competition for wives, and grown men so their wives and children could be given to others, KTVX-TV, Salt Lake City, said.

Warren is allegedly planning to pass his leadership position to another brother, Lyle Jeffs.

"Our intelligence is that Warren Jeffs is attempting to pass his priesthood keys to Lyle Jeffs so he can continue celestial marriages, and once that is done marriages will happen fast and furious," Wallace Jeffs' lawyer, Roger Hoole, told the Tribune.