Pawn shop tip was key to capture of Lyle Jeffs

South Dakota authorities say polygamous sect leader Lyle Jeffs was captured at a recreation area marina southwest of Sioux Falls.

Lyle Jeffs, who has been on the run for almost a year, was arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and Yankton County authorities.

Jeffs fled from his Salt Lake City home - where he was under house arrest - on June 19 of past year while awaiting trial for his alleged involvement in a multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud case.

Jeffs became a fugitive the weekend of June 18-19, 2016 when he slipped off his Global Positioning System ankle monitor using olive oil or another lubricant and fled from a Salt Lake City house where he was on supervised home release, authorities have said.

The FLDS has a compound in South Dakota, though it is on the opposite side of the state - nearly 400 miles away from where Jeffs was booked into jail.

Mr Jeffs is the brother of Warren Jeffs, a former FLDS leader who in 2011 received a life sentence for sexually assaulting two underage followers he took as brides.

"It was actually the acting chief of the Yankton PD who was off duty at the time down near the marina near Yankton, and he saw that vehicle", Barnhart says.

Authorities have said the South Dakota congregation is led by Seth Jeffs, brother of Lyle and Warren Jeffs.

John Huber, the U.S. Attorney for Utah said additional charges of fleeing could be added to the fraud charges. The arrests were made in Utah and South Dakota.

Authorities said that Jeffs was identified on Tuesday by an employee of the River City Treasures and Pawn shop.

Barnhart said investigators believe Jeffs was running out resources and not getting much help from members of the sect. It is an offshoot of the mainstream Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon church, which renounced polygamy in 1890 and is not affiliated with the FLDS.

Lyle Jeffs might also be charged for fleeing to avoid prosecution, though no such charge has been filed against him so far.

Prosecutors accused Mr 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. The Gainesville Sun says (http://bit.ly/2rzKv3x ) the report shows the 33-year-old Clark also used city money for her cable television bill, food, highway tolls, a television and other expenses. The church has a few thousand members and, unlike the contemporary Mormon church, believes in polygamy.

Federal prosecutors and the FBI fought hard to keep him in jail pending trial, but Jeffs' attorneys persuaded Judge Ted Stewart to set him free with monitoring.

Nine of them accepted plea deals and one had his charges dismissed. At the time of his arrest, Lyle Jeffs was the bishop of Short Creek - Hildale, Utah, and adjoining Colorado City, Ariz. - and the person in charge of day-to-day operations of the FLDS.