Sect leader convicted after forcing underage marriage

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.

Warren Jeffs, 51, could be sentenced to life in prison after a trial that threw a spotlight on a renegade community on the Arizona-Utah border where as many as 10,000 of Jeffs’ followers have more than one spouse and revere him as a mighty prophet with dominion over their salvation.