Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs upgraded to serious condition

By the CNN Wire Staff

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was convicted of two counts of sexual assault on a child.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Jeffs was moved Tuesday to a prison hospital
Doctors there evaluated and upgraded him, official says
He was hospitalized Sunday night after he fell ill while fasting

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Dallas (CNN) -- Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, who was hospitalized this week after falling ill while fasting in a Texas prison, has been upgraded from critical to serious condition, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Wednesday.

The decision was made Tuesday, after Jeffs, 55, was flown from East Texas Medical Center in Tyler, Texas, to a prison hospital in Galveston, Texas, said department spokesman Jason Clark.

"That was a call the doctors made," Clark said. "The medical staff evaluated him and upgraded his condition."

The determination was made nearly three hours after Jeffs arrived in Galveston. Prison officials made the decision to move him to Galveston after he was stabilized, Clark said.

"In a free-world hospital, we would post correctional officers outside the door," he said. "A prison hospital is a secure facility."

Jeffs, leader of the 10,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is serving a life-plus-20-year term for sexual assault. He was convicted in early August of the aggravated sexual assaults of a 12-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl Jeffs claimed were his "spiritual wives."

The FLDS is a breakaway Mormon sect that openly practices polygamy in the twin border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, as well as on its Yearning For Zion ranch near Eldorado, Texas. The mainstream Mormon church renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

Jeffs was sent to the Tyler hospital Sunday night. He told officials at the Powledge prison unit he was not on a hunger strike, but was "fasting," Clark said earlier. "While he definitely is eating and drinking some, it just wasn't as much as he should," he said.

Department spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said earlier Jeffs is expected to make a full recovery. In addition to not eating, she said, Jeffs had "bigger issues that required medical attention." Lyons could not elaborate because of inmate privacy rules.

Jeffs was conscious while he was transported Tuesday, Clark said Wednesday. "As of late yesterday, I can tell you he was responsive and able to respond to questions."

CNN's Vivan Kuo contributed to this report.