SALT LAKE CITY — A judge has ordered polygamist leader Warren Jeffs and his Utah-based church to pay a former child bride millions in a lawsuit. 
 
 In a ruling handed down Tuesday and obtained by FOX 13, Elissa Wall was awarded more than $16 million in damages stemming from her marriage at age 14 to her cousin back in 2001 in a ceremony presided over by Jeffs. 
 
 “The judgment handed down by the Court is a big step forward in the fight for a strong and unmovable statement to the world that no one, especially children, can be sexually exploited and abused in the name of religion,” Wall said in a statement to FOX 13. “The message sent by this judgment of justice and accountability will hopefully be heard as a loud and clear warning to anyone who would choose to act in the same manner as that of Warren Jeffs and the FLDS Church.” 
 
 Wall called it a victory for “thousands of victims of abuse,” but said she can now “focus on building a better future for myself and my children.” 
 
 “I will never give up advocating for the voiceless and working tireless to assist in rebuilding the lives of those recovering from any kind of abuse in the name of religion,” she said. 
 
 In the ruling, 3rd District Court Judge Keith Kelly was blunt in his determination of what happened to Wall. 
 
 “Warren Jeffs exercised this absolute control, power and authority over (Wall’s) life so that he could require her, as a young girl, to enter into an unlawful spiritual marriage,” he wrote. 
 
 Wall was the star witness in Utah’s criminal prosecution of Jeffs. His conviction of rape as an accomplice was overturned by the state supreme court. He is currently serving a life sentence in Texas for child sex assault related to underage “marriages.” 
 
 “The conduct of Warren Jeffs and the FLDS Church was so extreme that it went beyond all possible bounds of decency and is regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized society,” Judge Kelly wrote. 
 
 Wall sued Jeffs more than a decade ago over the marriage seeking as much as $40 million at one point in her personal injury lawsuit. Jeffs and the FLDS Church refused to respond to the lawsuit and Judge Kelly found them in default. 
 
 The judgment will allow her to pursue the church and its various interests across the country to collect. The judge wrote that he estimated Jeffs, the Hildale-based FLDS Church and its real-estate arm, the United Effort Plan Trust, to have assets of more than $110 million (Wall settled with the court-controlled UEP previously). 
 
 Judge Kelly awarded Wall $4 million in damages, and another $12 million in punitive damages. 
 
 “Elissa Wall is one of the very few who is willing to continue to hold the FLDS Church and its fallen leader Warren Jeffs accountable for its practices of Church sanctioned underage rape. She is a hero for her perseverance,” Wall’s attorney, Alan Mortensen, told FOX 13. 
 
 “This judgment, based upon substantial evidence, is one further step to hold the FLDS Church and Warren Jeffs accountable for its past conduct relating to innocent minor girls and in deterring any future aberrant behaviors.” 
 
 Read the judge’s default finding against Warren Jeffs and the FLDS Church here: ||||| ST. GEORGE — A man charged with rape following his "spiritual marriage" to a 14-year-old cousin pleaded guilty to reduced charges Friday and was sentenced to probation and a month in jail. 
 
 Allen Glade Steed, 29, who was originally facing a single charge of first-degree felony rape, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of solemnization of a prohibited marriage, and entered a plea in abeyance to a second charge of unlawful sexual activity with a minor. Both are third-degree felonies. 
 
 After entering his plea, Steed was immediately sentenced. Fifth District Judge G. Rand Beacham ordered him to serve three years of probation, spend 30 days in jail and pay two $5,000 fines. 
 
 Because Steed entered a plea in abeyance to the charge of unlawful sex with a minor, the charge will eventually be dismissed if he complies with all the terms of his probation. 
 
 "This is a good day," said Elissa Wall, who Steed married in 2001 when she was just 14. "I'm grateful for where we're at." 
 
 That marriage led to the prosecution and conviction of Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist LDS Church, who presided over the marriage and advised the girl to give herself "mind, body and soul and obey without question," according to court documents. Wall, who is now an adult, testified that she had expressed concerns before the union, stating that she felt she was too young for marriage and that she wished to marry someone other than her cousin. 
 
 She said Jeffs and other family members told her before her marriage, and after, to obey the prophet and her husband. 
 
 "Allen will truly never understand the magnitude of the scars that I will carry for the rest of my life," Wall said after the hearing. "And Warren Jeffs will never understand the scars and the ways that he has destroyed thousands of people's lives, including mine." 
 
 Washington County Attorney Brock Belnap said he reached a settlement with Steed "in recognition of the unique difference between Allen Steed and Warren Jeffs in their level of moral culpability." 
 
 "It was a recognition of the control that Warren had over Allen and the fact that Allen wouldn't have been in this relationship if it weren't for Warren Jeffs," he said. 
 
 Wall said she understands that Steed was just following what he had been taught to do. 
 
 "Yes, I do believe Allen in many ways is a victim of Warren and his power and his control," she said. "That was the only environment he knew also. He was cultured and created to become what he was." 
 
 "He's very relieved to put this chapter behind him," Steed's attorney, Jim Bradshaw, said of his client. "I think its a resolution that all sides agreed was fair." 
 
 Jeffs, the leader of the Utah-based polygamous sect, was sentenced to two consecutive prison terms of five years to life in prison on two counts of accomplice to rape for presiding over the spiritual marriage of Wall and Steed, who was 19 years old at the time. 
 
 Jeffs' conviction, however, was overturned by the Utah Supreme Court in July of 2010 on the grounds that a jury instruction erroneously focused the jury on Jeffs' relationship with Wall rather than Steed's relationship with the girl. The trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that Jeffs could not be found guilty as an accomplice to rape unless Jeffs specifically intended for Steed to have non-consensual sex with Wall. 
 
 Belnap said his office has not yet determined if it will re-try Jeffs' case. Jeffs has since been extradited to Texas to face various charges there. 
 
 "What we ultimately end up doing, we don't know yet," he said Friday. "It could depend on what happens in Texas." 
 
 Wall said it was difficult to see Steed again, but she is pleased that the case is now resolved. "I feel like I can truly close it and move forward," she said. 
 
 In Texas, Jeffs faces charges of bigamy, aggravated sexual assault and assault for incidents involving underage girls at the church's YFZ Ranch near Eldorado. The charges stem from information gleaned from records seized during a raid in April 2008. 
 
 "I'm sure he will get what he deserves," Wall said of Jeffs. "I'm sure he will be held accountable."
– Warren Jeffs must pay $16 million to a woman he pressured to marry her cousin when she was just 14. Elissa Wall, a child bride within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was awarded $4 million in damages and $12 million in punitive damages Tuesday, some 12 years after filing an initial lawsuit, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. It accused Jeffs of arranging the 2001 marriage of Wall to her 19-year-old cousin, Allen Steed, and pressuring the pair to have children. Wall went on to have miscarriages and a stillbirth. Utah judge Keith Kelly said the conduct of Jeffs—who didn't defend himself—"was so extreme that it went beyond all possible bounds of decency and is regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized society," per Fox 13. Jeffs—serving life in prison for child sex assault following a trial in which Wall testified against him—was previously convicted as an accomplice to rape for presiding over Wall's marriage. However, that conviction was overturned in 2010 over improper instructions given to the jury, per the Deseret News. Steed pleaded guilty to solemnization of a prohibited marriage and pleaded no contest to unlawful sexual activity with a minor in 2011; he received 30 days in jail, three years of probation, and was ordered to pay $10,000, the Deseret News previously reported. Following Tuesday's decision, Wall's lawyer suggested the $16 million come from FLDS assets across North America "so the church feels the pain of what their doctrine has been as to the rape of young girls." (A year after a slippery escape, Jeffs' brother was caught in June.)