Warren Jeffs Pesters SD Counties From Prison

BELLE FOURCHE, S.D. -- A polygamist who's in prison for sexual assault has been pestering South Dakota county officials with letters and boxes of books.
Butte County officials tell the Rapid City Journal the material is coming from Warren Jeffs and his supporters.
Jeffs is leader of a sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Jeffs is serving a life term, plus 20 years, in a Texas prison for sexually assaulting two young girls he claimed as his wives.
A group affiliated with Jeffs owns land in western South Dakota's Custer County.
But auditor Elaine Jensen says there's no record of Jeffs' church having any presence in Butte County.
The materials include a letter from Jeffs in which he claims "keyholding power of authority on Earth.


The letters, which contain some dire jailhouse prophecies from Jeffs, were promptly rejected by the Butte County Commission. But the packages continued arriving.


"By the third time I'd received them, I realized that I had a pattern. That's when I contacted the Butte County Sheriff," Jensen said.


"It isn't being ignored by us. We're aware that it's there. We're dealing with it but it's not anything that we're interested in or buying into," Butte County Sheriff Fred Lamphere said.


And Butte County officials say that Warren Jeffs is not a pen pal they're interested in having.


"If I receive any more I'm just supposed to refuse them," Jensen said.


"I don't know if they will get sent back directly to the sender, but we do not have to receive them as a mail article," Lamphere said.


County officials aren't sure why the church has been reaching out them. The nearest FLDS compound is close to 100 miles away near Pringle.


"We haven't had any indication that there are any extremists, religious or otherwise, that are developing a core within our community," Lamphere said.


Still, the packages keep coming.


"Last week I received two more packages on Thursday and another on Friday," Jensen said.


Meaning that Jensen likely hasn't seen the last of the phrase, "return to sender."


Officials from Harding, Custer and Marshall counties have also received mailings from Jeffs. They are sent from the FLDS sect in Colorado City, AZ.