B.C. Crown says polygamous leader took 15-year-old girl across border for sex
VANCOUVER — A special prosecutor has urged British Columbia’s Court of Appeal to overturn the acquittal of a polygamous leader who was accused of taking a 15-year-old girl across the border for a sexual purpose.
In February 2017, a B.C. Supreme Court judge concluded the Crown failed to prove James Oler arranged the transfer of the girl from Canada to the United States to marry another member of his fundamentalist sect.
A prosecutor told an appeal hearing on Thursday that Warren Jeffs, prophet and president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the U.S., called Oler in 2004 when he was the presiding elder and bishop of the community in Bountiful, B.C.
Jeffs told Oler to bring the girl to the U.S. to be married and, because followers of the religion believe Jeffs has a “direct connection to God,” Oler swiftly complied, Peter Wilson argued.