Polygamist leader in coma after fasting

August 30, 2011|Associated Press

HOUSTON - Imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was in a coma yesterday in a Texas hospital after complications from fasting.

A person familiar with Jeffs’s condition said the 55-year-old prisoner’s coma was medically induced and he is expected to survive. The person requested anonymity and was not authorized to discuss Jeffs’s condition publicly.

Jeffs’s attorney Emily Detoto said her client was taken to East Texas Medical Center in Tyler on Sunday night.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons says Jeffs hasn’t been eating or drinking enough since being sentenced this month to life in prison for sexually assaulting underage followers. Lyons says Jeffs is in critical but stable condition. It is not clear how long he’ll be hospitalized.

During Jeffs’s trial, prosecutors used DNA evidence to show he fathered a child with a 15-year-old and played an audio recording of what they said was him sexually assaulting a 12-year-old.

Both were among 24 underage wives whom prosecutors said Jeffs collected.

In Texas, Jeffs has been in protective custody, which is among the most restrictive forms of imprisonment in the state. He was to be alone in his cell daily, not be involved in any work programs, and to be out of his cell only to shower and for recreation by himself.

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