The leader of a polygamous Mormon splinter group has been convicted in the US of being an accomplice to rape for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her 19-year-old cousin.

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs made his first appearance in a Utah courtroom today as a judge set a November 21 hearing to determine if there is probable cause to send him to trial on charges of arranging an underage marriage.

After three months on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and two years on the run, the fugitive life of the US leader of a polygamist religious sect ended with a routine traffic stop.