Jury Gives FLDS Member 6 Years

Texas:  Keith Dutson Jr., 25, is the youngest member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to be sentenced out of the seven who have undergone prosecution on evidence seized in the raid on the FLDS-owned Yearning for Zion Ranch in Schleicher County. Dutson was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $10,000 on a conviction for sexual assault of a child.

“Keith believed he was a part of a lawful wedding,” FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop said of the union between Dutson when he was 20 and the victim when she was 15.

Jessop said the state is persecuting religion.

Read More: Keith Dutson Jr

All the criminal trials have been based on allegations that older men who already are married have taken underage girls as “celestial” brides as part of the FLDS practice of polygamy.