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Lawyers for the Fundamentalist LDS Church are preparing for what could become a series of lawsuits against Texas authorities for the raid on the YFZ Ranch. "There is a desire and a need for compensation, so I think you will see something come," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake attorney who is acting as a spokesman for the FLDS people. The lawsuits would likely focus on the removal of the children, the raid itself and damage to the FLDS Church's first-ever temple on the Eldorado property.

As a district judge heard the state's case for keeping children from a polygamous sect in custody, hundreds of electronic and telephone messages were pouring into Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office. They came from around the country - including Utah - and most made the same point: Send the children home to their mothers. By April 17, three days after separating mothers from their children, the office had received 449 messages opposed to the removal of the children and just 32 from people who supported it. "If you do nothing to protect these rights, you can be assured that you...

SAN ANGELO, Texas - All the children taken from the Yearning for Zion Ranch are out of state custody and have been reunited with parents, the sect and state officials said Wednesday. Just 53 children had been waiting at shelters Wednesday morning - by the end of business Tuesday, 397 FLDS children had been released to their parents. "It's gone pretty smoothly," said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services. But also with some sadness for caretakers who watched over the children for nearly six weeks. Dan Adams, director of Cal Farley's Boys Ranch in...

The lies to justify this outrageous behavior started from the beginning. First, it was an affidavit from police officers about the children all being in danger to the brain-washing culture of the FLDS. Then it was the accusation that bedsheets were found "used" in the FLDS temple. Then it was the alleged discovery of dozens of pregnant underage girls. --- Bit-by-bit we have seen the accusations made by law enforcement to support their Nazi-like detainment of a religious group and confinement of others lose credibility. First, we learned that these underage pregnant women were actually adults -- in one case...

We've often discussed anti-father bias in Child Protective Services cases. Fathers are frequently marginalized and deprived of custody of their children when their wives/ex-wives/ex-girlfriends abuse their children. This terrible Nebraska case detailed below is another example. In the case, a mother abused her daughter and child protective services took the girl. There were no accusations of abuse against the father. Nevertheless, they deceived and manipulated the father into relinquishing custody of his daughter. The girl was left fatherless -- can anyone guess what's going to happen to her?Surprise, surprise -- without her father, the girl's life, in the words of...

CORPUS CHRISTI - On Monday, 129 polygamist sect children across the state were returned to their parents.All but one child taken from a Schleicher County polygamist ranch and being housed at a Corpus Christi shelter were released to family after a court order Monday vacated state custody. The remaining Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints child is expected to be released today, state officials said.Twenty of the 21 youths left the Ark Assessment Center and Emergency Shelter after the court determined family could begin picking up members 10 a.m. Monday. In Abilene, nine children were returned from...

ELDORADO, TEXAS -- As officials haggled Friday over how to return more than 400 children to their parents, it was becoming increasingly clear that Texas' audacious attempt to rein in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had backfired -- and become a lesson in the difficulty of cracking down on the 10,000-member polygamist sect. .... The town also was abuzz over an anticipated mass voter registration by the FLDS. Hours after the court first ruled against the state, two members of the sect walked into the county clerk's office and requested 300 voter registration forms, a...

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- A Texas judge today signed an order that said hundreds of children seized during a raid on a polygamous sect's ranch must immediately be released to their families. Signed by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, the order provides for parents to retrieve their children from the various foster care facilities where they have been placed beginning today at 8 a.m. and extending through 8 p.m.

SAN ANGELO, Texas — A judge has signed an order to release dozens of children taken in a raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ ranch. "We gave her an order and we're pleased she signed an order," said Julie Balovich, a lawyer for the Texas RioGrande Legal Aid Society which represents 38 mothers who challenged the decision to place their children in foster care. The order allows children to be released as early as today.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state's Child Protective Services exceeded its authority and broke the law when the department seized more than 460 youngsters from a polygamist community near the town of Eldorado last month. Actually, they seized many more people than that, but authorities -- supposedly child welfare experts -- have since had to concede many of the people they hauled away, believing them to be "children," actually turn out to be adults. Authorities staged a massive raid on the 1,900-acre Schleicher County ranch on April 3, saying they had received a tip from someone claiming...

SAN ANGELO, Texas — For nearly two months, Texas child-welfare officials had insisted conditions at a polygamist group's ranch were so abusive that none of its members should be allowed to keep their children. Now, some are looking for what went wrong when the state raided the Yearning For Zion Ranch and removed more than 400 children.

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — For nearly two months, Texas child welfare officials had insisted conditions at a polygamist group's ranch were so abusive that none of its members should be allowed to keep their children. Now, however, one of the of the largest custody cases in U.S. history is unraveling, and some are looking for what went wrong when the state raided the Yearning For Zion Ranch and removed more than 400 children. Since the state Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Department of Child Protective Services overreached when it swept the children into foster care, agency officials have...

SAN ANGELO, Texas - The Texas Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the state must return some 130 children taken into state custody following an early April raid on a polygamous sect's West Texas ranch.     However, the decision likely will affect about 320 other children from the ranch who now are living in foster homes and shelters throughout the state, attorneys for their parents said.     By a six-to-three majority, the justices decided that a district court judge improperly removed the children, like their parents members of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.     The...

The Texas Supreme Court affirmed a lower court today and ordered a San Angelo judge to vacate her ruling that gave the state custody of some 450 children removed from a Schleicher County polygamist compound. The order stops short, however, of ordering an outright, unconditional return of the children in question. "We are not inclined to disturb the court of appeals' decision," according to the unsigned opinion, from which three of the court's nine justices dissented in part. "On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted." The court did indicate that 51st District Court Judge Barbara...

It was the call for help that launched one of the largest raids on a religious compound in U.S. history. But on Monday, a Child Protective Services attorney asked for the case involving a 16-year-old known as "Sarah," who claimed sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her husband, to be dropped. The state has all but declared the call a hoax after the phone number was traced to a Colorado woman with a history of pretending to be an abused child. The Texas Department of Public Safety even withdrew its arrest warrant against Dale Barlow, alleged husband and...

Authorities acknowledge that if the appellate court decision is not thrown out, the state may have to return more than 400 children. A judge allows 12 children to reunite with their parents.

"The raid ­- resulting in the largest child custody case in American history - was based on a lie." "Police traced the calls to 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman named Rozita Swinton. Swinton had earlier been arrested for making a false report, and accused of posing as "Jennifer," 16, who called 911 to report that her father had locked her in a basement for days. Swinton may also have posed as thirteen-year-old Dana Anderson, who was being sexually abused by her pastor and raped by her father. There is no evidence that Sarah, Jennifer, or Dana exist. Swinton remains a "person...

AUSTIN – Texas Child Protective Services will ask the state's highest court to keep a polygamist sect's children in state custody, following a Thursday appeals court ruling that ordered the youngsters be returned to their homes. Texas Supreme Court spokesman Osler McCarthy said attorneys for the state called Friday morning and said they'd be "filing an action in this court" later in the day. On Thursday, a state appeals court ordered many though perhaps not all of a polygamist sect's children returned to their parents Thursday, saying Texas failed to prove they were in physical jeopardy and urgently needed to...

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — A Texas appeals court said Thursday that the state had no right to take more than 400 children from a polygamist sect's ranch, a ruling that could unravel one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the state offered "legally and factually insufficient" grounds for the "extreme" measure of removing all children from the ranch, from babies to teenagers. The state never provided evidence that the children were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without...

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