Polygamist sect leader Lyle Jeffs captured 1 year after escaping home confinement

Polygamous sect leader Lyle Jeffs was captured Wednesday night in South Dakota after being on the run for nearly a year after escaping from home confinement in Utah pending trial on food stamp fraud charges.

The FBI announced the capture Thursday morning with a Tweet: "(hash)ARRESTED: FLDS leader Lyle Jeffs in custody after nearly a year on the lam."

Authorities had been looking for Jeffs since June 2016, when he slipped out of his GPS ankle monitor and fled from a Salt Lake City house where he was on supervised home release. Jeffs and 10 others from the sect were charged in an alleged multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud scheme.

Local sheriff department officials said Jeffs surrendered Wednesday evening without incident at a recreation area marina near Yankton, which is southwest of Sioux Falls, S.D.

Michael Rothschadl, chief deputy sheriff with Yankton County, said law enforcement had been looking for a silver Ford pickup truck with Utah plates. An off-duty Yankton Police Department detective spotted the vehicle and believed it was Jeffs.

Rothschadl said police made the traffic stop as Jeffs drove through the marina after using a bathroom. He said Jeffs was alone in the vehicle.

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The FBI had issued a $50,000 US reward and a wanted poster with bold red lettering saying Jeffs should be considered armed and dangerous. It was issued a decade after his brother Warren Jeffs was featured on a similar poster.

Warren Jeffs is now serving a life sentence in a Texas prison.

The group, known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is based in a small community on the Utah-Arizona border, but it also has a small compound in far west South Dakota.

Lyle Jeffs was the last of the defendants in the food stamp fraud case still behind bars when U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart reversed his earlier decision and granted Jeffs his release on June 9. Prosecutors opposed that move, arguing Jeffs was a flight risk.

Lyle Jeffs must now face the pending charges in federal court in Utah.

While he was a fugitive, nine of the 10 other people charged in the high-profile bust in February 2016 took plea deals while one person had his charges dismissed.

Prosecutors accused Jeffs and other sect leaders of instructing followers to buy items with their food stamp cards and give them to a church warehouse where leaders decided how to distribute products to followers. They say food stamps were also cashed at sect-owned stores without the users getting anything in return. The money was then diverted to front companies and used to pay thousands for a tractor, truck and other items, prosecutors say.

The defendants said they were just sharing food as part of their communal living practices.

Members of the sect believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. The group is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism, which disavowed polygamy more than 100 years ago.

John Huber, U.S. Attorney for Utah, said Jeffs will likely face at least one other felony charge connected to his time on the run.