Warren Jeffs is the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church), a polygamous sect that broke away from the mainstream Mormon Church. He is currently serving a life sentence for multiple sex crimes involving underage girls, some of whom he claimed as his wives.
David Jessop is a former leader and spokesman for the FLDS Church, who left the church in 2011 and publicly denounced Jeffs He is also the father of Naomi Jessop, who was one of Jeffs’ favorite wives and the mother of his only biological son.
Contents
David Jessop and Warren Jeffs are not related by blood, but by a complex web of marriages that link the Jessop and Jeffs families in the FLDS Church. According to ABTC, Jessop is connected by a nebulous series of marriages to the Jeffs family; several of Jessop’s daughters and at least one of his wives were previously the plural wives of Rulon Jeffs, Warren’s father and predecessor as the FLDS Church president, while at least eleven of Jessop’s daughters and two of his granddaughters became plural wives to Warren Jeffs, several of them while they were underage.
One of Jessop’s daughters who married Warren Jeffs was Naomi Jessop, who was only 17 when she became his 24th wife in 2002. She was also one of Rulon Jeffs’ widows, having married him when she was 15. Naomi Jessop gave birth to Warren Jeffs’ only biological son, Leroy Johnson Jeffs, in 2005. She later escaped from the FLDS Church with her son and testified against Warren Jeffs in his 2011 trial.
Why did David Jessop leave the FLDS Church?
David Jessop left the FLDS Church in 2011, after he discovered incriminating evidence (documents and audio recordings) that proved Jeffs was guilty of crimes he had been charged with and subsequently found guilty of in 2011 (namely accessory to rape and rape of minors). Jessop was shocked and disgusted to discover that the prophet he had been protecting had in fact been using his status to facilitate group sex with young girls.
Jessop received further confirmation after interviewing some of Jeffs’ wives. After publicly denouncing Warren Jeffs in 2011, Willie Jessop was subject to discrimination, harassment and burglary by FLDS members and sect leaders. He later won a lawsuit against them in court. In March 2015, he appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show to reveal the truth in his change of allegiance, as well as open up about the aftermath that followed.
Conclusion
David Jessop is not related to Warren Jeffs by blood, but by a series of marriages that involved his daughters and granddaughters becoming plural wives to both Rulon and Warren Jeffs. He left the FLDS Church in 2011 after discovering evidence of Warren Jeffs’ sex crimes and has since spoken out against him and his followers.
