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Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron, daughter of the late Utah polygamous sect leader Ervil LeBaron, pleaded guilty in Salt Lake City's federal court Thursday to misdemeanor contempt in connection with a 1991 case that was put on hold while the woman spent 17 years on the lam from authorities.
LeBaron entered her plea before U.S. Magistrate David Nuffer, who gave her credit for time served and no additional prison time.
Now that the 46-year-old LeBaron's Utah case is cleared, she will likely be returned to Texas, where in September she was ordered to serve a three-year prison term after pleading guilty to her role in the 1988 slayings of three adults and an 8-year-old girl in Texas. The victims had broken with the Church of the Lamb of God sect led by her father, and LeBaron gave travel money to family members who went on to kill the victims.
LeBaron had been wanted since October 1992, when a federal warrant was issued following the murders. She was captured in Honduras in May and extradited to the United States.
Her Utah case stems from a March 3, 1991, incident when she fled from a community treatment center in Salt Lake City where a judge ordered her to stay on a material witness warrant.
The Utah case was reignited following LeBaron's arrest by the FBI in May. Agents took the woman into custody in Moroceli, El Paraiso, Honduras, after she had been expelled for being in that country illegally.
The Church of the Lamb of God had been led by Ervil LeBaron, who died in the Utah State Prison in 1981 after being convicted of ordering the 1977 assassination of a rival polygamous leader in Salt Lake County.
While in prison, Ervil LeBaron wrote the 400-page Book of the New Covenants in which he imposed the death penalty for any sect member who broke sect commandments. The FBI said that Ervil LeBaron's writings influenced LeBaron family members to carry out murders in Houston and Irving, Texas, on June 27, 1988.
Ed Marston was slain in Irving; brothers Mark and Duane Chynoweth were killed in Houston. Duane Chynoweth's daughter, Jenny, was also killed to eliminate her as a potential witness.
Eventually, five LeBaron family members were either convicted or entered guilty pleas and were sentenced to prison. The sixth defendant, Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron, remained at large until her May arrest.
Jacqueline LeBaron was charged in a Texas federal on 14 counts, including murder, and could have faced life in prison. But she pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to obstruct religious beliefs as part of an agreement with prosecutors. She received a three-year sentence from U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake in September.
Before entering her plea in June, she expressed remorse, telling Lake, "I'm very sorry this happened."
—The Associated Press contributed to this report—The Associated Press contributed to this report
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