Ex-Husband in Forced Marriage Case Charged With Rape
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SALT LAKE CITY — Prosecutors filed a rape charge yesterday against the ex-husband whose marriage was at the center of polygamous-sect leader Warren Jeffs’s trial.
The charge against Allen Glade Steed came a day after Jeffs, 51, was convicted of rape by accomplice.
Mr. Steed was 19 and his bride — also his first cousin — was 14 when they were married in 2001. He is accused of having sex with the girl against her will after the arranged marriage.
Mr. Steed, now 26, testified at Jeffs’s trial that he did not force himself on the girl and said she initiated their first sexual encounter. He said he believed marrying the 14-year-old was right under “God’s law.”
The rape charge was based on a complaint filed by a sheriff’s investigator, Jake Schultz, who said the trial established that the pair had sex and that the woman, now 21, convinced jurors it was without her consent.
Mr. Schultz said Mr. Steed lives away from Utah most of the time. Prosecutors were negotiating his arrest yesterday with his attorney, Jim Bradshaw, who didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.
