Jeffs fathered baby with 15-year-old, DNA allegedly shows

San Angelo, Texas • In the midst of Warren Jeffs’ objections and purported proclamations from God, a DNA expert testified Monday that the 55-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints church almost certainly fathered a child with a 15-year-old plural wife.

Amy Smuts, a DNA lab tech at the University of North Texas Laboratory, testified there is a 99.99996 percent probability that Jeffs is the father of the child in question. Jeffs is also accused of having sex with a 12-year-old child bride.

There has been no indication that either alleged victim will testify during Jeffs’ West Texas jury trial. But prosecutors say they have plenty of other evidence, including an audio recording of Jeffs having sex with the 12-year-old.

Monday’s session, the sixth day of Jeffs’ child sex-abuse trial, began with the defendant filing a motion — purportedly dictated to him by God — calling for District Judge Barbara Walther’s removal from the case. "I am to now recuse you from this case," the "Revelation of the Lord Given to President Warren S. Jeffs" states. "Now sign order [sic] to recuse thyself; and allow this proceeding to stop ... " The revelation/recusal motion, which Jeffs says came to him on Sunday, ends with, "I, the Lord, have spoken. Amen."

Jeffs — who last week fired his attorneys and is representing himself — claims in the motion that Walther has a personal bias against him and members of the FLDS. He also claims God has labeled Walther a person of "evil intent." Attached to the motion is a transcript of Jeffs’ revelation from last week, which says God has undertaken Walther’s impending demise.

"Let also Barbara Walthers [sic] be of a humbling to know I have sent a crippling disease upon her which shall take her life soon," the revelation states. Walther contracted polio when she was 15 months old and still wears a brace and strides with a limp.

The recusal motion caused a one-hour halt in the trial, which resumed after a visiting judge denied Jeffs’ claim that Walther is biased against the FLDS Church.

Jeffs is charged with one count each of sexual assault of a child and aggravated sexual assault of a child. The charges stem from a massive raid on the group’s remote Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, three years ago. More than 400 children were taken into protective custody, though they were later returned to their parents.

(Courtesy of http://www.sltrib.com/)