New details on life in Warren Jeffs’ polygamist compound (VIDEO)

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Warren Jeffs, the former sect leader convicted by a Texas jury of sexually assaulting two girls, ages 12 and 15, whom he'd taken as brides, faces sentencing this week.

Meanwhile, a nephew of Jeffs, 55, has told the jury that the former sect leader sexually abused him as a young boy.

According to the Detroit Free Press:

Brent Jeffs testified on Saturday that his uncle sodomized him when he was 5 years old. Warren Jeffs never was charged with sexually assaulting his nephew, but Brent Jeffs says he and his uncle reached a settlement in 2003 involving some land.

Meanwhile, new details have emerged on Jeffs' behavior during his 13 years as leader of the southern Utah-based sect calling itself the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Jeffs, who according to the Salt Lake Tribune has 78 wives, 24 of them under the age of 17, taught that polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. His 10,000 or more followers consider him God's spokesman on Earth.

Ezra Draper, who was raised in the sect, testified Saturday that Jeffs ruled his followers "with a heavy hand, banning parades, dancing, Sports Illustrated magazine and even the color red," the Detroit Free press reports.

Draper recounted how Jeffs admonished him when he was 14 for liking a girl. Draper said Jeffs tapped his crotch with a yardstick and said it was better for him to lose one part of his body than risk all of it suffering in eternal damnation.

"I felt that this man was telling me to cut off my penis," Draper said.

The Tribune, meantime, recounted life inside the sect:

During the 13 years he has led his followers from his walled compound in southern Utah, and even when he was on the run, he expelled men who displeased him.

He reduced his people by assigning them little more than homes they couldn’t own and keeping them in stunning ignorance of the rest of the world.

He took women and children from their husbands and fathers and gave them, as mere chattel, to other men.

Jeffs is due back in court Monday as his sentencing hearing continues, the AP reports. He boycotted the previous two days of proceedings, remaining in another room of the courthouse.

He faces up to life in prison

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