“Red Line”: New Video Details Andy Biggs’ Failure To Protect Women and Children in Colorado City

PHOENIX – Today, the Katie Hobbs campaign in conjunction with the Navajo County Democratic Committee released a new video, “Red Line,” detailing Andy Biggs’ failure to protect women and children in Colorado City, Arizona from a corrupt pedophile cult led by convicted child rapist Warren Jeffs. Biggs’ decision to side with Jeffs allowed the abuse of women and underage girls to continue for years.

The mini-documentary-style video takes viewers inside the horrors of Colorado City’s polygamist cult, using survivor testimony, law enforcement accounts, and news footage to tell the story of Andy Biggs’ failure to act — bringing a dark chapter of his record to Arizonans in a new and powerful way.

The video details how, as Arizona Senate President, Biggs used his power to block bipartisan legislation that would have stripped authority from the corrupt Colorado City Marshal’s Office — an agency the U.S. Department of Justice found was loyal to Jeffs and was used to shield the abuse of women and underage girls.

Republicans and Democrats alike condemned Biggs’ decision, with one of his own Republican colleagues saying that “women and children suffered three years longer than they should have because [Biggs] protected the bad guys.”

“Protecting children from sexual abuse should be a red line for anyone, but Andy Biggs had the power to act and chose instead to shield a corrupt pedophile cult,” said Michael Beyer, Communications Director for the Katie Hobbs campaign. “This mini-documentary gives Arizonans the chance to hear directly from survivors, law enforcement, and those who witnessed what happened in Colorado City, Arizona — and hold Andy Biggs accountable for failing to protect women and children when it mattered most.”

Watch “Red Line” here and read a full transcript below:

WATCH “RED LINE”:

NEWS CLIP: GOP lawmakers now accusing him of turning a blind eye to child abuse.

TERRY GODDARD: The chance of getting serious outside law enforcement intervention to protect women and children did not happen. I really have no idea what Andy Biggs was thinking.

CAMERA MAN: Can I put a mic on you?

ELISA WALL: Yeah, sure. It’s warm today.

WALL: My name is Elisa Wall. I am a survivor, born and raised in a highly controlled religious cult.

NEWS CLIP: A polygamous cult along the Arizona border.

NEWS CLIP: The most lawless town in America.

NEWS CLIP: Warren Jeffs calls himself Prophet of God.

NEWS CLIP: Jeffs ruled the Colorado City, Arizona area.

WALL: I didn’t fully understand what trust was because I had grown up with such suspicion of the world around me.

LEESA WEISZ: They were so isolated. One road in, one road out. They controlled every single aspect of their lives.

GODDARD: Jeffs had the power as the prophet to take away somebody’s wives and children at a whim.

NEWS CLIP: Women who’ve wanted to escape have been forcibly held by the marshals against their will.

NEWS CLIP: The bed where he forced young women to seal their arranged marriages.

LINNEA MARIA: Cases involving or calls involving children were probably the hardest.

WALL: I was once a scared little girl who didn’t have a say in her own life. I was eighteen years old and had already been married for four years. The man I was married to was abusive. It’s easy for people to assume that it’s as easy as just walking out the door, but it isn’t.

GODDARD: If a young woman felt that she was being abused and she wanted to get out of the situation, the only option she had was to call the Marshal’s Office. 911. That was a direct line to Warren Jeffs.

NEWS CLIP: Jeffs holds an entire community captive.

NEWS CLIP: And has a rogue police force at his command.

WEISZ: The ability for the perpetrators to use law enforcement in the community was a huge power play.

MARIA: As a police officer, trust is everything. The badge, the uniform, like that’s your symbol of hey, I’m a safe haven for you.

NEWS CLIP: Seven marshals have had their police certifications revoked. One marshal was convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with a sixteen-year-old girl. Another admitted to molesting a five-year-old girl.

TOM HORNE: They’re, in my opinion, the worst injustice happening in the state of Arizona right now.

GODDARD: Here are two of many books that were printed when Mr. Biggs was president of the Senate. This one was a bestseller. You couldn’t have been alive and in a leadership position and not known that Colorado City was a festering sore.

NEWS CLIP: Marshals wrote letters to Warren Jeffs pledging their loyalty.

GODDARD: You would ask them under oath and they would answer truthfully that they were following the orders of Warren Jeffs. Both Republicans and Democrats were absolutely fundamentally opposed to what was going on in Colorado City and stood up against it.

NEWS CLIP: Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne wants to shut the Marshal’s Office down completely. In March, Tom Horne’s bill passed the Arizona House 52-7. But it’s here in the Senate where the bill died.

NEWS CLIP: I spoke with two Republican lawmakers who accused Biggs of killing the bill.

NEWS CLIP: Republican colleagues accused you of killing this bill.

ANDY BIGGS: Well, um, you’re. I can’t remember the procedure.

GODDARD: All he had to do was to look at the headlines or look at any of the television coverage if he hadn’t already heard it. Mr. Biggs refused to bring forward a bipartisan bill that would have done something to eliminate the marshals as the sole law enforcement and the implementers of the tyranny of Warren Jeffs.

BIGGS: I wasn’t concerned, um, I- uh that we were going to actually bury stuff. Did we have enough as a state to step in? I don’t know.

MARIA: It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you’re on. Child abuse, child victims, that should be a red line for anybody.

WALL: Courage was leaving the cult that I had been born into. It was knowing that staying silent was going to protect the wrong people. I would like Andy Biggs to explain why he chose to not support this bill and not protect women and children.

GODDARD: This is not about beliefs. It’s not about the First Amendment. It’s about the illegal abuse of women and children.

WALL: If he didn’t care then, when it was really important, what makes any of us believe that he’s gonna care now?