Eldorado

Attorneys on Monday will begin culling the largest jury pool ever called in Eldorado to try to find 14 people in a county of 2,800 who can set aside what they have heard about a polygamist sect whose alleged marriages involving underage girls triggered a police raid that swept more than 400 children into state custody last year.

Raymond Jessop, 38, will become the first man from the Yearning For Zion Ranch to go on trial here. He is charged with sexual assault of a child — an underage girl he allegedly married first — and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He is also charged with bigamy for allegedly marrying a second underage girl, but will be tried on that charge separately.

In all, 12 sect men have been charged with crimes ranging from failure to report child abuse to bigamy and sexual assault at the ranch, where women and girls wear braids and pastel prairie dresses. They have all denied wrongdoing.

The cases began after a woman in Colorado allegedly called a Texas domestic abuse hot line in March 2008 and pretended to be a teenage girl with a much-older husband who raped and beat her. State authorities swooped in, taking 439 children away from their sheltered lives and hundreds of boxes of documents and family photos to build their case. The Texas Rangers have acknowledged the hot line information was false, but the caller has never been charged.

Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com
Technorati Tags: FLDS, Rosita Swinton

Source: mysanantonio.com

A fight for the custody of the 14-year-old child bride of jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs could be heating up, according to a document filed in West Texas over the holidays.

The girl is the only child still in foster care from among the 439 children taken by Child Protective Services last spring from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ranch in Eldorado.

And the teen could remain in foster care permanently, her parents’ rights to her severed, if her mother does not assure the agency that she can provide a safe home, one in which the girl is not married to another man. If parental rights are severed, it could free the teen for adoption.

A CPS progress report on the case, filed Dec. 22, reveals the agency’s frustrated attempts to convince the teen’s mother, Barbara Jessop, to cooperate with them by assuring them her daughter would not be involved in other marriages. The agency indicated it now wants permanent custody of the girl.

“Ms. Jessop has not been able to identify how she will be able to protect (her daughter) from future abuse,” reads the progress report, filed in San Angelo.

Calls to attorneys for both Jessop and her daughter were not immediately returned Tuesday.

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Technorati Tags: FLDS

Source: Houston Chronicle

Texas Child Protective Services, the agency that removed 439 children from a polygamists’ ranch in West Texas last spring because caseworkers suspected child abuse, is refusing to release the findings of their completed abuse investigation to the Houston Chronicle.

On Wednesday, agency spokesman Patrick Crimmins confirmed that the abuse investigation is finished but said the findings would not be released because CPS officials want to release them later in an upcoming report. The agency hasn’t set a date for that release, Crimmins said.

“The findings are going to be included in an overall report on the Eldorado operation,” said Crimmins. “And that’s the point when the findings will be released.”

The Texas Public Information Act does not provide for an agency to withhold readily available public information unless it meets certain exemptions.

But CPS officials are not claiming the abuse investigation findings meet any exemption.

The Chronicle’s request does not seek the names of the children, only the sex and the age of each child and whether the agency found a “reason to believe” abuse occurred or that investigators were “unable to determine” any abuse or neglect happened.

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Technorati Tags: Texas Child Protective Services, CPS

Source: gosanangelo.com

Nearly four months after the largest child-custody case in U.S. history commenced, 51st District Judge Barbara Walther has broken it up, leaving 244 separate cases involving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Walther split Case No. 2902 – which included more than 300 children – into 110 cases grouped by mother, and Case 2903, which included more than 30 children, into nine cases, also grouped by mother. They join 125 cases filed separately by the state’s Child Protective Services agency, which removed nearly 440 children from the sect’s Schleicher County compound in early April.

“This is something we’ve known all along needs to be done,” said Tom Green County District Court clerk Vicki Vines. “Nobody had a good enough grasp on it (until now). Everybody’s got it a little more under control.”

The part in bold turned out to be false, although that is what was expected of the FLDS…apparently they failed to live up to the expectations of their enemies in this regard.

Source: gosanangelo.com

LIVE FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.: Coverage of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

(All times are Central Standard Time.)

10:11 a.m.

Cardin raises the problem of victims who say that when they went to authorities to report crimes within a polygamist sect, their reports were brushed aside.

Abbott said when the FLDS they came to Texas, they picked a county that was so sparsely populated, the FLDS sect would be able to step in and gain control of government apparatus.

Less than 700 people voted in Schleicher County where the YFZ RAnch is located, Abbott said.

10:05 a.m.

Goddard said the FLDS has thrived in isolation, and there must be cooperation across borders.

He supports a strike force or task force that will help overcome jurisdictional barriers.

Under questioning from U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Tolman said he agrees with Goddard that there is some confusion in distinguishing between the LDS and the FLDS.

I think this is worth pointing out again, for all those who are victim of short attetion spans.

Via: Reason Magazine

[Texas Child Protective Services] claimed 31 underage girls at the ranch were pregnant or mothers. It later conceded that at least 15 of them were in fact adults while a 14-year-old on the list was not pregnant and had no children. The Associated Press reported that “more mothers listed as underage are likely to be reclassified as adults.”

After the column (which ran in the August/September issue of reason) went up on Friday, a couple of readers pointed out that the official tally of underage mothers has fallen to five, meaning the initial figure was off by a factor of at least six. According to a June 15 Salt Lake Tribune story, three of the remaining five girls “were 16 when they gave birth last year,” “one girl was 17,” and “the fifth girl, who turns 17 in August, is pregnant.” Since the minimum age for marriage with parental consent in Texas is 16, in only two of these cases was there prima facie evidence of underage marriage, and even in those cases only because the state legislature raised the minimum marriage age from 14 in 2005 with the FLDS in mind. So based on two cases where where it looks like the law was broken, the state seized 468 FLDS children, including babies, toddlers, boys, and prepubescent girls as well as the teenaged girls who allegedly were at risk.

Via: Houston Chronicle

A woman considered a person of interest in phone calls that may have sparked a raid on a Texas polygamist group is returning to court for one of two false-reporting cases against her in Colorado.

Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs has a hearing in Douglas County District Court on Monday.

She’s accused of violating her probation stemming from her 2007 guilty plea for telling police she was a 16-year-old girl who was suicidal after giving birth.

The 33-year-old Swinton faces jail time if found guilty of violating probation.

Authorities have linked her to a phone number used to call a Texas crisis center that may have led to the raid where more than 460 children were removed from a polygamist compound.

Via: Salt Lake Tribune

Texas authorities working to build a criminal case against polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs took a third genetic sample from an FLDS mother and her child on Saturday.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office served a search warrant on Veda Keate, 19, in Converse, Texas, at the apartment where she is living with her 2-year-old daughter, sister and mother. Robert Switzer, a San Antonio defense attorney, arranged for Keate to meet with a nurse and two deputies.
Keate told The Salt Lake Tribune she and her daughter had given two previous DNA samples and she protested having to undergo a third collection. Keate said she asked why the AG’s office could not use samples taken by Texas Child Protective Services.

“They said this was for something different,” she said.

The AG’s office is leading a criminal investigation into underage marriages involving FLDS members. The Tribune was unable to reach a spokesman for the office Saturday evening, but WOAI, News 4, of San Antonio, said a spokesman on Friday was asked about the collection and said the office is “working with local and state investigators into possible criminal activity at the polygamist compound.”

Keate gave her sample but her daughter began screaming when the nurse attempted to swab the child’s mouth.

“They wanted me to get her in their car and I said, ‘No, I’m going to stand right here.’ They finally just forced it into her mouth,” Keate said.
Switzer said the child’s fear was understandable given that “the last time guys with a couple guns came, it didn’t work out so good.”

From: UPI.com

Another Texas official involved with the controversial raid on an polygamist ranch announced his retirement Friday.

Col. Thomas Davis Jr., head of the state Department of Public Safety, released a brief statement, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported. His last day is to be Aug. 31, the same day that Carey Cockerell, director of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, retires.

Cockerell and Davis headed the two agencies involved in the raid in April on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in El Dorado. The ranch is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway group that practices polygamy.

More than 400 children were seized after investigators said they found evidence that some underage girls had been forced into “spiritual marriages” with older men. But an appeals court later ruled that the state and a lower-court judge had acted too quickly to seize the children and ordered most of them returned to their parents.

Via: Salt Lake Tribune

A woman whose alleged bogus tip is thought to have sparked April’s raid on the FLDS ranch in Texas pleaded not guilty Wednesday to an unrelated misdemeanor charge of making a false report in Colorado.

Rozita Swinton’s case is now scheduled to be heard in a three-day trial starting Oct. 20 in El Paso County District Court.

The 33 year old – who appeared with her attorney David Foley – did not make any statements during her pretrial conference, which had originally been scheduled for June 6 but was postponed.

Salt Lake Tribune

A month after their children were returned, FLDS parents are getting the first word about parenting classes the state of Texas has required them to complete.

Marleigh Meisner, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said the classes will begin to be scheduled within the next 10 days. They will be standard parenting classes consisting of two, four-hour sessions.

“The curriculum will be much like those that the agency uses with other clients,” Meisner said in a statement. “The instructors will be trained on how to best deliver this information to these FLDS parents.”

Tom Green County Judge Barbara Walther ordered the classes for FLDS parents as a condition of allowing the 440 children taken from the polygamous sect’s West Texas Ranch to be returned to their families last month.

Via: keyetv.com

…

The leader of the Fundamentalist sect of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was angry that he was denied the chance to publicly address the Supreme Court’s Commission on Children, Youth and Families.
…

Jessop came to town to attend a regularly scheduled meeting of the Supreme Court’s Commission on Children, Youth and Families.

He thought there would be a time for public comment, as there was at the last meeting. But he and the rest of the people who showed up were told there would be no allotted time to address committee members.

“The Supreme Court is supposed allow both sides to have something to say,” Jessop said. “This didn’t happen. It happened in their building under the disguise of justice and they didn’t want input from anyone else. The only side they wanted to hear from was Child Protective Services.”
…

Good news, from the Deseret News

The head of the Texas department that removed about 440 FLDS children from their homes has announced he is retiring.

Carey Cockerell, the commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services, will retire Aug. 31. Cockerell and Child Protective Services, a branch of DFPS, have been strongly criticized for the April raid at the Fundamentalist LDS Church’s YFZ Ranch in Eldorado, Texas.

The 3rd Court of Appeals and later the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the children were improperly removed from their families and the children have since been returned. CPS officials say they’re continuing to investigate allegations of abuse and neglect at the ranch.

His retirement is not likely linked to the raid, however. On April 30, Cockerell presented a report on the FLDS case and his agency to a Senate committee in Austin. During that hearing, he indicated he was planning to retire soon.

In a news release, Cockerell said he’d been thinking about retirement since late last year. “I’ll soon be a grandfather, and I’m looking forward to a lot of quality time with my family after four decades of working in state and local programs,” he said.

Full Article at: Deseret News

The court-appointed lawyer for a 16-year-old member of the Fundamentalist LDS Church refused to testify before a grand jury investigating crimes within the polygamous sect.

“I asserted my attorney-client privilege,” Natalie Malonis told the Deseret News on Thursday.

It led to a problem in Wednesday’s proceedings. San Angelo Judge Barbara Walther had to be called for a brief hearing, Malonis said. The judge ultimately ruled that there was not sufficient grounds to compel her to testify.

Via: Chron.com

A West Texas grand jury spent a full day Wednesday weighing evidence about alleged sexual abuse inside a polygamist sect but adjourned without filing criminal charges after hearing from only a few of the witnesses subpoenaed by the state.

…

About a dozen women in pioneer dresses, the uniform of female FLDS members, were seen throughout the day outside the heavily guarded courthouse. The women were apparently heeding subpoenas to testify, though Parker said he’s not sure if any did.

He said state prosecutors failed to provide written assurances that witnesses engaged in polygamist unions would not be tried later on bigamy charges, either here or in places outside their jurisdiction, like Utah or Arizona, where the FLDS has its stronghold.

“I think the whole thing fell a