SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Warren Steed Jeffs told his lieutenants he was invincible, protected by God from capture, investigators say. According to Utah’s attorney general, bodyguards for the polygamist sect leader had promised a gunfight and said they would die for him.

Those vows, fortunately, amounted to nothing Monday night, when the lanky, bookish-looking fugitive was arrested after a traffic stop on a highway north of Las Vegas, three months after the FBI put him on its Most Wanted List.

Jeffs had no weapons, no bodyguards. Just a red 2007 Cadillac Escalade with one of his brothers, one of his wives, tens of thousands of dollars in cash and gift cards, several cell phones and laptop computers, three wigs, and a contact lens receipt authorities say he tried to use as a fake ID.

Jeffs had been wanted for more than a year on charges that he arranged marriages between underage girls and older men. He had at least 40 wives, scores of children, thousands of followers and control over millions of dollars from a church trust.

He had safe houses in several states and messengers to carry his orders to the twin polygamous towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where he ruled by fiat over the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints since the death of his father in 2002.

“Now that he’s in custody, he’s away from those folks. I think you’re going to see a lot of changes within the FLDS community as far as their fear of him, their loyalty to him,” said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. “We’re hoping that loyalty that will start to crumble, and that other witnesses will come forward with (information about) other potential crimes.”

Church dissidents say that underage marriages – some involving girls as young as 13 – escalated into the hundreds under his leadership, and that he broke apart families by casting out married men and reassigning their women and children to others.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told KTAR-AM of Phoenix that Jeffs’ arrest marks “the beginning of the end of … the tyrannical rule of a small group of people over the practically 10,000 followers of the FLDS sect.” He too predicted it will lead more people to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse.

Jeffs, 50, was a passenger with one of his wives, Naomi Jeffs, in the SUV driven by his most loyal brother, Isaac Steed Jeffs. Naomi and Isaac Jeffs, both 32, were released after Jeffs’ arrest.

They were stopped by a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper who couldn’t make out the vehicle’s temporary Colorado paper license tag on Interstate 15.

State Trooper Eddie Dutchover told The Associated Press he felt something was amiss.

“Something was obviously wrong,” Dutchover said. “I even told him, ‘You’re making me nervous. Is everything OK?’

“He said, ‘Everything’s fine,”‘ Dutchover said. “He just stared straight ahead.” Dutchover called other officers. Even when Sgt. David Miller found letters in the car addressed to “President Warren Jeffs,” Jeffs refused to give his name.

Jeffs identified himself as John Findley, using a contact lens receipt from Florida as identification. “Once the FBI got there,” Dutchover said, “he gave his full name, Warren Jeffs, and kind of gave a sigh.”

Jeffs would not say where he had been hiding out, but he did say “that he was being subject to what he termed religious prosecutions,” said FBI agent John E. Lewis.

Jeffs confirmed his identity to an FBI agent who was called to the scene. He would not tell investigators where he had been hiding out, but he did say “that he was being subject to what he termed religious prosecutions,” Lewis said.

Jeffs was being held Tuesday in Nevada’s Clark County jail, awaiting a court hearing Thursday on charges of arranging a marriage between an underage girl and an older man.

He is wanted in Utah on similar but more serious charges that include two counts of rape as an accomplice, with each count punishable by up to life in prison.

Arizona filed charges first, but Utah says it has a stronger case and wants to try him first. It was uncertain Tuesday how that conflict would be resolved.

The FLDS Church split from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the Mormons disavowed polygamy more than 100 years ago. Warren Jeffs took over the renegade sect after the death of his 98-year-old father, Rulon Jeffs, who was said to have had 65 children by several women. Warren Jeffs took nearly all his father’s widows as his own wives.

Jeffs has been called a dangerous extremist by those familiar with his church. Church dissidents said that while the sect has long practiced the custom of arranged marriages, young girls were rarely married off until Warren Jeffs came to power.

People expelled from the community said young men were sent away to avoid competition for brides. Older men were cast out for alleged disobedience, and their wives and children were reassigned by Jeffs to new husbands and fathers, the former members said.

“If this will bring an end to that, that will be a good thing,” Ward Jeffs, an estranged half brother of Warren, said Tuesday. “We’re excited for the people down there, but we’re very concerned about who might step up and take the leadership role.”

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Associated Press writers Ken Ritter in Las Vegas and Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

AP-ES-08-29-06 2154EDT