YFZ

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints case is back to a grueling pace in a Tom Green County courthouse.

Lots of testimony. Lots of speeches. But little progress on what will happen next in 10 criminal cases stemming from the raid of the Yearning for Zion Ranch in April 2008.

“I thought I made myself clear at 9 a.m.,” 51st District Judge Barbara Walther said Friday morning, as she asked attorneys to bring forth “actual evidence — not arguments — to support your case.”

Even so, as day three of a preliminary hearing dragged forward Walther was still deep in a legal battle between the state Attorney General Office and FLDS attorneys.

Walther called a recess to Friday’s marathon hearing about 10:15 p.m. It started at 9 a.m. with anticipation of an early morning ruling. The hearing will resume at 8:30 a.m. today.

Attorneys for 10 men in the polygamist sect who face charges want Walther to throw out evidence gathered on the basis of a pair of search warrants issued for the raid that led to the removal of more than 400 children from the ranch near Eldorado.

That raid included removal of masses of documents and digital records.

The FLDS attorneys argue that law enforcement intentionally omitted information while seeking the warrants from Walther.

Source/Full Story: gosanangelo.com

Days before law enforcement approached a judge asking for a warrant, officers began amassing enough firepower and equipment outside a polygamist sect’s ranch to raid an entire village — a sign that law enforcement always intended to broaden its search beyond a single abused girl, defense attorneys said Thursday.

The attorneys for 10 men from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints want a judge to throw out evidence from a pair of warrants issued after several fake phone calls to a domestic abuse hot line, saying the officers used the hoax calls as a pretext to rummage through the entire 1,700-acre Yearning For Zion Ranch.

State prosecutors deny that, saying officers legitimately believed at the time that a 16-year-old pregnant girl was in danger.

When the officers requested the warrant in April 2008, "there is a genuine belief by law enforcement that there is a victim of child and sexual abuse," said Assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols, who is leading the state’s case.

Defense attorney Gerald Goldstein acknowledged that he had no direct evidence showing Texas Ranger Brooks Long, who requested the warrant, or other law enforcement knew the calls were a hoax, but he contends there were details that should have raised suspicions and should have at least been shared with Texas District Judge Barbara Walther before she issued the warrant.

Goldstein said the actions of law enforcement seem to belie their stated intent — to look for a girl and her abusive husband — because officers, buses, food, heavy equipment and a shutdown of the airspace over the ranch were being requested days before Walther was approached for a warrant.

"Why would you need buses to bring two people off the ranch?" Goldstein said.

Nichols said law enforcement routinely prepares in the event that a request warrant is issued.

Source/Full Story: Houston Chronicle

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While the media spotlight has dimmed a bit, the legal wrangling has continued. The latest: ten men from the west Texas ranch will be in court this week for a crucial hearing ahead of their trials on criminal charges including bigamy and felony sexual abuse of girls allegedly pressed into marriage.

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The 10 men from the Eldorado ranch who will be in court on Wednesday argue that Texas rangers illegally seized the photos and records during the raid. At the hearing in nearby San Angelo, they will press for the evidence to be thrown out of court, which could devastate the case.

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The sect is waging legal battles in other states and in Canada, weighing it down with legal bills just as the recession is constricting income.

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With legal bills mounting, said Rod Parker, a church spokesman, “there’s a huge hemorrhaging of money.”

Source/Full Story: WSJ

Texas Rangers deliberately misled a judge into authorizing the search of the Yearning For Zion Ranch by leaving out key facts, attorneys for polygamist sect members alleged in court filings this week.

Identical 61-page motions, filed Tuesday and Wednesday on behalf of 10 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, accuse Texas Rangers Lt. Brooks Long of withholding details that would have undermined the credibility of the domestic abuse hotline calls that sparked a raid last April.

As a result of the raid, a dozen FLDS men face charges ranging from sexual assault of a child and bigamy to failure to report child abuse.

Source/Full Story:: ksl.com

So Oprah went to visit the YfZ ranch to inquire about sexual abuse (and hair styles, and dresses, apparently), and today we read that her highly expensive school for girls in South Africa has the second case of sexual abuse to deal with within the two years it has been open…  Now how is it that Oprah thinks she has a right to go and “see for herself”, snicker at the FLDS girls and make fun of their ways, when she cannot even keep her own school free of sexual abuse.

Maybe she should have build a school in Chicago, IL, instead, so she could actually pay attention to what is going on there.  But nooo, the better publicity of course it to be had if you go to South Africa or some other unfortunate place and do some good there, with some celebrities accompanying your efforts.

Two passages come to mind:

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. ” (Mat 7:3-5)

and

“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Mat 6:2-4)

Source: Chron.com

Texas Child Protective Services notified a judge on Monday that it is removing the 17-year-old daughter of jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs from court supervision even though evidence shows her father encouraged her marriage to a 34-year-old sect member.

The teen’s removal leaves under court supervision only three of 439 children CPS removed from the sect’s ranch in Eldorado in April 2008.

“We have nonsuited (dismissed) cases when we believe that parents or family members have taken steps to protect the children from future abuse or neglect,” CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said. “A nonsuit means that in our estimation court oversight is no longer needed to ensure a child’s safety.”

With her signature by late afternoon, state District Judge Barbara Walther, of San Angelo, acknowledged CPS’ notice to drop the case from her court.

“It was the right thing to do,” said Mindy Montford, attorney for the teen’s mother, Annette Jeffs. “I hope CPS continues on this same course of action.”

One of the teen’s siblings is among the three children still under court supervision.

In December, CPS found that there was a “reason to believe” the teen had been abused.

That finding and the agency’s decision to have the case dropped seem contradictory, the girl’s attorney, Natalie Malonis, said.

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Technorati Tags: FLDS

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: dallasnews.com

Nearly nine months since state authorities raided the Yearning for Zion polygamist ranch and took hundreds of children into temporary custody, the families upended by the largest-ever U.S. child welfare case cling to their culture.

Some members of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hunker down in suburban subdivisions across Texas, struggling to maintain piety and an austere lifestyle in the face of influences they consider immoral. Others have moved back to the ranch, trying to restore sanctity and self-sufficiency to their once-thriving community.

Members of the breakaway Mormon sect say the state jumped to conclusions based on religious bigotry, sweeping into their sacred temple and snatching healthy, happy children based on a hoax call and bad information from their critics. Child Protective Services says it was required by law to check out the initial tip – purportedly a distraught sect teenager’s plea for help to a women’s shelter, though now suspected of being from a Colorado woman with a history of filing false police reports.

CPS officials say once they began to interview girls at the ranch, caseworkers grew alarmed over possibly widespread child sexual abuse, involving girls pressured into “spiritual” marriages with older men. Agency leaders defend the mass removal as necessary so caseworkers could investigate their suspicions. State courts ultimately ruled, though, that CPS removed too many children without enough proof each was at risk of abuse, especially those who hadn’t reached puberty.

Last week, CPS capped its nine-month investigation with a report saying a dozen girls younger than 16 were “spiritually united” to adult men in the past four years. Of the 12, seven gave birth, CPS said. And nearly two-thirds of sect families investigated had children who were abused or neglected, mostly through inappropriate exposure to underage marriages.

Separately, a dozen men from the sect – including prophet Warren Jeffs – have been indicted on charges such as sexual assault of a child and felony bigamy. None has gone to trial.

Sect parents, though deeply affected, hardly call the shots in what has become a protracted legal and public relations battle between their church and Texas. Some say living at the ranch is still too risky. Others, confident that CPS can’t convince the public that the sect’s youth should be foster children, have urged all sect members to return.

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Technorati Tags: Yearning for Zion, FLDS

What a complete load of horse crap…

Grab the report and see for yourself:  Eldorado Investigation Report

Source: mysanantonio.com

Texas child protective services officials in a report today defended this year’s raid on a West Texas polygamous compound as being about child abuse, not religion.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services was criticized by officials with the Yearning for Zion Ranch outside of Eldorado as being overzealous in its raid on the compound because the group believes in polygamous marriages and leaders held that “spiritual marriages” for underage girls were Godly.

“The Yearning for Zion case is about sexual abuse of girls and children who were taught that underage marriages are a way of life. It is about parents who condoned illegal underage marriages and adults who failed to protect young girls — it has never been about religion,” said the final investigative report on the April raid outside of Eldorado.

The raid by protective services and other state agencies became one of the largest child abuse investigations in U.S. history, with 439 children being removed from the ranch. The report was issued by protective services Commissioner Anne Heiligenstein to Health and Human Services Commissioner Albert Hawkins.

The Yearning for Zion Ranch was a settlement of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church.

The raid may have been prompted by a hoax telephone call to a San Angelo women’s shelter from a Colorado woman.

State officials did not directly address that in the report, but stated that state law requires Child Protective Services to investigate all allegations of abuse.

“A family violence shelter in San Angelo called the hotline after taking a call from someone who said she was a 16-year-old girl who had suffered sexual and physical abuse by her husband while at the ranch,” the report said. “The report met the statutory definition of abuse; therefore, DFPS was required to act.”

The report said there were 91 families where there was reason to believe one or both parents abused or neglected a child in the family by entering into an underage marriage. The agency ruled out 12 families and was unable to determine what might or might not have occurred in 39 families. The agency was unable to complete the investigation of one family, and administratively closed the cases involving three families.

The agency said 12 girls ranging in ages from 12 to 15 were “victims of sexual abuse at the YFZ ranch with the knowledge of their parents” by being placed in “spiritual marriages.”

The earliest marriage occurred in 2004, and the most recent known marriage was in 2006. Seven of the girls had children after the marriage.

Technorati Tags: FLDS, YFZ

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: Deseret News |

A probation violation hearing for a woman suspected of making the hoax call that sparked the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church’s YFZ Ranch in Texas has been continued.

Court minutes indicate the hearing for Rozita Swinton, 33, was continued until Jan. 12, 2009 — a week after a trial is scheduled in Colorado Springs on a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report.

Full Story…

Source: Deseret News

Boxes filled with files of children are stacking up in the clerk’s office at the Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo, Texas.

More children from the Fundamentalist LDS Church’s Yearning For Zion Ranch have been dropped from court oversight in the ongoing custody case in Texas.

Four more children were “nonsuited” on Tuesday, Texas Child Protective Services spokesman Patrick Crimmins said. That brings the total number of people dropped from the court case to 308.

The Deseret News’ ongoing tally includes 26 so-called “disputed minors,” women whom CPS initially believed were minors but were later nonsuited when they were determined to be adults.

The reasons for nonsuiting a child vary, CPS said, including no evidence of abuse or the parents have taken appropriate steps to protect the child from harm. A nonsuit effectively ends the court oversight and requirements for the parents, although CPS could still maintain some role in working with the families.

Full Story…

Source: Deseret News

The grand jury probing crimes within the Fundamentalist LDS Church is meeting here again today.

Jurors were escorted into the Schleicher County Memorial Building about 8:30 a.m. local time, with law enforcement surrounding the building. However, by mid-day, it did not appear that any witnesses had showed up to testify.

Attorneys representing some young women from the FLDS Church have said their clients were not subpoenaed to testify this time. Prosecutors from the Texas Attorney General’s Office went into the building early this morning, taking briefcases and boxes with them.

The grand jury could be hearing more evidence based on scores of documents seized in the raid on the FLDS Church’s YFZ Ranch. Marriage certificates, diaries, photographs, scrapbooks and dictations were all taken as evidence. Some has wound its way into ongoing custody cases as Texas child welfare authorities sought to show a pattern of underage marriages.

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Source: gosanangelo.com

The polygamous-sect matriarch whose husband led the YFZ Ranch in Schleicher County has been uncooperative with child-welfare caseworkers and broken court-imposed communication restrictions between her and her 14-year-old daughter, according to a report filed last week in state district court in Tom Green County.

Barbara Jessop, who the state alleges allowed her daughter to be married at age 12 to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ self-styled prophet Warren Jeffs, lost custody of the girl last month after pleading the Fifth Amendment more than 50 times during a hearing.

The report is a routine progress check as the custody case against the family moves toward its scheduled Sept. 25 hearing. It alleges Jessop and the girl had 21 unsupervised telephone conversations in one week despite an order from 51st District Judge Barbara Walther restricting communication to weekly monitored phone calls and weekly one-on-one visits.

“Both presented as though they had been adhering to the monitored phone contact only,” CPS caseworker Catherine Irons wrote in the report. “Many of the phone calls occurred in the middle of the night, and some lasted in duration for longer than 30 minutes.”

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Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Child welfare officials plan to ask a Texas judge to keep a 14-year-old FLDS girl in custody because her parents continue to be uncooperative.

Merril Jessop, the girl’s father and bishop of the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, remains in hiding and Barbara Jessop, her mother, has circumvented visitation rules on several occasions, a newly filed court document says.

It says that Barbara Jessop asked the state to let the girl’s younger brother or friends be allowed to join her in custody. She also asked that another daughter be allowed to trade places with the 14-year-old.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective services filed the report for a Sept. 25 status hearing before 51st District Judge Barbara Walther.

Walther ordered the state to take the girl, allegedly married at age 12 to sect leader Warren S. Jeffs, on Aug. 19. She is the only FLDS child in state custody and is in a foster home.

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