Jeffs, 55, is the ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He was sentenced to life in prison in August on charges of sexually assaulting two of his underage brides.
The Utah case charged Jeffs with arranging an underaged marriage involving Elissa Wall, who later wrote a book about her experience. Jeffs, who had been accused of presiding over the marriage, faced two felony charges of rape by accomplice after sexual encounters between Wall and a husband she said she did not want to marry.
The husband, Allen Steed, pleaded guilty in February to solemnization of a prohibited marriage - Wall was 14 at the time - and is serving 36 months’ probation, Filter said.
Jeffs faces no other charges in Utah.
The decision to drop the case was made with the consent of the victim and Utah’s attorney general, Mark Shurtleff.
The Utah Supreme Court provided no guidance that would make another trial possible, Shurtleff spokesman Paul Murphy said. But given that Jeffs is serving life in Texas, Murphy said, there was little to gain by pursuing the Utah case.
Earlier this week in Texas, another high-ranking member of the church was convicted of presiding over Jeff’s marriage to a 12-year-old girl.
That case grew out of a raid at the sect’s Yearning for Zion ranch in 2008. Authorities gathered a trove of evidence they used to bring charges against the church member, Fredrick Merril Jessop, Jeffs, and 10 other church followers.
Jeffs was sentenced to life imprisonment in August after prosecutors used DNA evidence to show that he had fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl prosecutors say he took as one of his spiritual wives.
In September, Jeffs filed a handwritten motion seeking a new trial. He alleged that his religious freedoms were violated, and argument he has used before.
