Polygamist leader arrested after nearly a year on the run

(Image credit: George Frey/Getty Images)

last updated 16 June 2017

Lyle Jeffs, a leader of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was arrested without incident Wednesday night in South Dakota after being on the lam for close to a year.

Jeffs, 57, was one of 11 members of the Mormon offshoot sect charged last year with felony conspiracy to defraud the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and felony conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors say the men demanded that FLDS members hand over their SNAP cards, or use them at stores controlled by the FLDS so the benefits could be converted to cash. A tipster led police to a marina in Yankton, South Dakota, where Jeffs was living out of a Ford F-150 truck, the FBI said. Earlier this week, Jeffs came into a local pawn shop and made $37 by pawning two pairs of pliers; the owner told The Associated Press that Jeffs showed his ID, went by the name Jeffs Lyle Steed, and appeared to be nervous and "acting like a freak."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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