San Angelo, Texas (CNN) -- Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs ended his self-imposed silence at his sexual assault trial Friday, repeatedly interrupting prosecutors and launching into a diatribe on religious freedom while acting as his own one-man defense team.
The defendant is charged with two counts of sexual assault on a child and one count of bigamy stemming from a 2008 raid on a ranch near Eldorado, Texas, run by his church, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This month's trial addresses the first two counts, as Jeffs is expected to be tried later on the bigamy charge.
Several people took the stand Friday in San Angelo, Texas, including a doctor who conducted DNA tests on one of Jeffs' alleged sexual assault victims and her baby; a Texas child protective services agent who took part in the raid; and an FBI agent who took various items from the ranch.
Representing himself, Jeffs interrupted when FBI agent Jeff Broadway began to describe what he found on a computer seized in the raid. Broadway said the computer contained lists of people living at the ranch, including their names, ages and birthdays.
Jeffs then spent about an hour objecting to Broadway's testimony on the grounds that it violated religious freedom, claiming the FBI agents "touched upon what we find sacred to salvation."
"This must stop, in a land ... where we maintain the constitutional right of religious freedom," he said. "We are not a fly-by-night religious organization that just appeared within your borders. Mockery must seize. This is sacred to us, and must remain sacred."
But prosecutors responded that Jeffs' First Amendment arguments were not valid in this case. Over frequent interruptions by Jeffs -- including more than six in a row -- they argued that freedom of religion does not extend to polygamy or infringing on a child's rights.
Eventually, Judge Barbara Walther asked the jury to leave the courtroom. She then urged Jeffs to seek the advice of his available defense counsel, who remained on hand despite his successful attempt on Thursday to fire them so that he could represent himself.
The religious leader had argued Thursday that he felt no counsel could adequately represent him, saying it was necessary "for true justice to be served."
Walther granted the request, but did not push back the plan to have opening arguments later that afternoon.
Prosecutor Eric Nichols told jurors that they would hear an audiotape documenting the sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl. He also promised to present DNA evidence proving that Jeffs fathered a baby girl with a 14-year-old girl.
But when the time came for Jeffs -- who had been verbose earlier in the day -- to talk, he instead sat quiet. He remained that way, with his head down, for about a minute as jurors looked back and forth between him and the judge.
Walther said she understood that, by Jeffs' silence, he had chosen not to give a statement. Then she gave prosecutors the go-ahead to start calling witnesses.
The judge previously had told jurors that she expected the trial could last two to three weeks. But that was before Jeffs won the right to represent himself.
On Friday, prosecutors said that they had worked late into the night readjusting their approach and vowed to rest their case by next Tuesday.
Jeffs' breakaway sect is believed to have about 10,000 followers. Their practice of polygamy, which the mainstream Mormon Church renounced more than a century ago, is part of their doctrine.
The sect's leader, Jeffs, was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list when he was arrested five years ago during a routine 2006 traffic stop in Las Vegas.
He was convicted in Utah of two counts of being an accomplice to rape, for using his religious influence over his followers to coerce a 14-year-old girl into marrying her 19-year-old cousin. Afterward, he was sentenced to two consecutive prison terms of five years to life.
But in July 2010, the Utah Supreme Court overturned his convictions, ruling that the jury instructions were erroneous. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told HLN this week that he would be open to putting Jeffs on trial again in his state.
Meanwhile, the Texas legal proceedings were set off after about 400 children were taken from the sect's Yearning for Zion ranch in 2008. Child protection officials said they found a "pervasive pattern" of sexual abuse on the ranch through forced marriages between underage girls and older men.
But the Texas Supreme Court ruled the state had no right to remove the children. The court also said the state lacked evidence to show that the children faced imminent danger of abuse. Most of the children were returned to their families, although some men at the ranch were charged with sexual abuse.In Session's Jim Kyle contributed to this report.
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