SALT LAKE CITY — A daughter of convicted polygamist leader Warren Jeffs doesn't need protection from church leaders and says she wants her court-appointed attorney to step down for asking for it.
"I have asked her many times to please step aside," Teresa Jeffs told The Associated Press by telephone on Sunday from Texas. "I need more help. I want my attorney to listen to me."
Jeffs, 16, is one of hundreds of Texas children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints with an attorney appointed by a state judge as part of a child welfare investigation into allegations of abuse. Her father is Warren Jeffs, the church's imprisoned president and prophet.
On Friday, her court-appointed attorney, Natalie Malonis, successfully sought a restraining order against church spokesman Willie Jessop, whom Malonis said was intimidating and improperly influencing Teresa Jeffs.
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"I believe that (the girl) was avoiding service because of coercion and improper influence from Willie Jessop," Malonis wrote the judge.
Teresa Jeffs, however, says she doesn't need and didn't approve of the restraining order.
Malonis sought the protection order after the girl asked State District Judge Barbara Walther to release Malonis from the case and appoint another attorney.
Malonis declined Sunday to respond to her client's complaints.
"I'm trying to help her," Malonis said. "It's really not in any child's interest to waive their attorney-client privilege. I'm not going to fight with her in the media."
Jessop, a Utah-based member of the church, denies trying to influence Jeffs and criticized restrictions that prohibit her from visiting the sect's Yearning For Zion ranch near Eldorado, Texas.
Jeffs said she plans to appear Wednesday before a grand jury opening a criminal investigation into the polygamist group. The state attorney general's office refuses to confirm anything about the proceeding, saying it's secret under Texas law.
Jeffs denies allegations from her attorney that she was forced into a spiritual marriage at 15 with an older man and that she has a baby.
"Natalie, quit all your lying about everything," Jeffs said in one letter she released to the AP. She asked Malonis to "let me get a different lawyer."
In 2003, the FLDS began moving some of its estimated 6,000 members to the YFZ ranch. Acting on an allegation of child abuse, Texas authorities raided the ranch April 3 and seized more than 450 children. A court returned the children earlier this month, although a child welfare investigation continues.
Church members have traditionally made their homes in twin towns on the Utah-Arizona border. The church practices polygamy in arranged marriages, which have sometimes involved underage girls, resulting in criminal charges against some FLDS men.
Last year, a Utah jury convicted Warren Jeffs of two first-degree felony counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in the 2001 marriage between a 14-year-old follower and her 19-year-old cousin. He is currently in an Arizona jail awaiting trial on other charges related to marriages involving young girls.
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