Carolyn Jessop

Source: gosanangelo.com

Several people waiting in line at Carolyn Jessop’s book-signing described her story the same way: brave.

At least 130 people turned out at Hastings in San Angelo to see Jessop, author of “Escape,” and share a word or two with her.

The book is her memoir of life in a polygamist “marriage” in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and how she broke away with her eight children.

Jessop’s former husband, Merril Jessop, was the leader of the FLDS group at the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado that authorities raided in April. More than 400 children were temporarily taken into state custody.

“I think there’s quite a bit of interest here,” Carolyn Jessop said recently.

Willie Jessop, a sect elder who is a spokesman for the FLDS, said Tuesday that he has not read Carolyn Jessop’s book. He said more families continue to return to the YFZ Ranch to resume their way of life, and he is grateful for that.

Of the book-signing, Willie Jessop said, “I’m disappointed she would exploit such a tragic situation and use it for her own personal gain.” He was referring to the state raid on the sect’s ranch.

At the book signing, Callie Albus of San Angelo said she kept up with the news during the YFZ raid, but that Carolyn Jessop’s book gives details about the FLDS that weren’t on the news.

Full Story

Technorati Tags: Carolyn Jessop, Merril Jessop, Willie Jessop

Of course the facts don”t fit the claims…it’s called “propaganda”, or if you prefer a more modern phrase, “perception management.”

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Allegations that members of a southern Utah polygamous sect are guilty of widespread welfare fraud were raised repeatedly this summer during a U.S. Senate judiciary committee hearing.

They surfaced frequently, too, in messages sent to Texas Gov. Rick Perry after an April raid on the Eldorado ranch occupied by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

“Please pull the plug on the freebies for the cult. Why are the taxpayers of your state paying for this illegal group?” wrote a Michigan couple on April 17.

But welfare data from Utah, Arizona and Texas do not support the claims.

None of the 600 or so residents of the Yearning For Zion Ranch received any form of welfare, according to state officials. Cash assistance is almost nonexistent in the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

While many families living in the sect’s traditional home base receive food and medical help, virtually all those families qualify under program guidelines, authorities say. There has been a single fraud case prosecuted in the past decade.

Yet six speakers at a July 24 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing — from Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid to former plural wife Carolyn Jessop — said fraud and misuse of welfare funds is a primary reason the federal government should be more involved in investigating the sect.

Reid said the FLDS have a “sophisticated, wealthy and vast criminal organization” that includes “welfare fraud.”

Jessop told the committee the FLDS engage in a “religious doctrine” known as ‘bleeding the beast,’ ” which she explained included applying for “every possible type of government of assistance that is available.” Author Stephen Singular, who has written a book about the FLDS, told the committee that Colorado City residents received “eight times the welfare assistance of comparably sized towns in the area.”

But data from Utah and Arizona officials contradict that claim.

Full Story

Technorati Tags: FLDS, welfare fraud

I suppose “Escape” is a much more exciting title than “Walked away, but now I need a source of income.”

From Variety

Katherine Heigl will star in and produce the feature film adaptation of “Escape,” the bestselling memoir of Carolyn Jessop, whose testimony helped convict polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs.

Relevant Entertainment and Como Court Prods. acquired the book. Michael Menchel and Cat Williams will produce with Heigl and her Abishag partner Nancy Heigl.

Jessop was born into the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints sect. At 18 she married a man 32 years her senior; at 35, she fled with her eight children.

Equity financier Como Court Prods. will pay to develop the script.

Relevant was started by Menchel, the former longtime CAA agent who became a manager at Artists Management Group before shifting to producer. The shingle has set up several projects at studios including a Paramount film Menchel is producing with Simon Cowell about tenor Paul Potts and the family film “The Tortoise & The Hippo” at Walden Media.

Heigl is shooting the Robert Luketic-directed Sony/Lakeshore comedy “The Ugly Truth.” Abishag projects include “Alpha Moms,” a Ryan Shiraki-scripted comedy for Warner Bros., which the Heigls are producing with Code Entertainment’s Larry Kennar and Rick Berg, and the Fox 2000/Spyglass action comedy “Drawn Together.”

From Anderson Cooper 360

The following an excerpt from Carolyn Jessop’s memoir “Escape,” which recounts her life inside of a polygamist community and her dramatic flight.

By 1995, Warren Jeffs was becoming a subtle and more powerful presence in our daily lives. This struck me as odd because there were many other men who were more powerful in the FLDS than he. But he was Uncle Rulon’s favored son, and the prophet would often say that Warren spoke for him.

Warren spoke in other ways. He began teaching special priesthood history classes in Salt Lake City where he still worked as the principal at a private FLDS school. The classes were taped, and Tammy’s sister came to our house one day enthusiastically talking about how much information they contained. I wondered why anyone would care about whatever Warren Jeffs had to say. Tammy’s sister said that these tapes were not available to just anybody. Only the privileged could purchase them.

Once the tapes gained exclusive status every family in the community wanted a set. Some people who heard them found them disgusting and said they were little more than Warren’s racist rants. He claimed that the black race was put on earth to preserve evil.

From washingtonpost.com

Carolyn Jessop, author of Escape, an autobiography of her upbringing in the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and flight from it with her eight children, was online Wednesday, April 16, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss her story.

Jessop will also discuss the current situation at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Tex., where authorities raided the compound on April 3 because of a phone call from an unidentified 16-year-old girl who said she had been physically and sexually abused. Police rounded up over 400 children who were placed under the protection of child welfare services. However, there have been allegations of improper treatment of the children and questions of whether Texas officials violated legal statutes.

A transcript follows.

“When Carolyn Jessop sums up the first 35 years of her life, she calls it a “horror story”.
But then beatings, polygamy and even child cruelty were part and parcel of her existence in the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints cult.”

Full Story