Joseph D. Jeffers v. United States of America, Connie B. Jeffers v. United States

Appellants, husband and wife, were each convicted, at a joint jury trial, of thirteen counts of mail fraud and were each fined $500 on each count and were placed on three years’ probation.

Joseph Jeffers is the spiritual and secular leader of the Kingdom of Yahweh, a religious sect with its headquarters in Arizona. The Kingdom maintained one bank account, upon which Joseph Jeffers was authorized to draw. The headquarters of the Kingdom also served as the residence of appellants and as a meeting place for members of the Kingdom. Religious tracts were published by the Kingdom, which was essentially an evangelical organization which emphasized prophecy, revelation, and extrasensory perception. The Kingdom solicited new members by various commercial means and word-of-mouth. Appeals for money to members were made from time to time and certain representations were made in connection with said appeals, which representations as to the uses to which funds would be put and as to the financial condition of the Kingdom presumably form the bases of the charges here involved; namely, violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (mail fraud).

Each count stems from a separate mailing of material containing…