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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.

AUSTIN -- The strain of handling the huge child custody case involving a polygamous sect in West Texas is trickling down through the ranks of Child Protective Services caseworkers who are pinching pennies while waiting for the state to repay them for overdue travel expenses. Officials from the Texas Department of Family Protective Services say the agency is struggling to reduce a growing backlog in reimbursement requests for out-of-pocket expenses from caseworkers in the field who say the skyrocketing price of gasoline is hampering their ability to do their jobs. ..... "I'm having to make choices between buying gas for...

Texas Supreme Court justices ended the day Friday by sending for the trial record in the polygamist sect custody case from the Third Court of Appeals, an indication that the justices will spend the weekend grappling with the legal issues surrounding state custody of well more than 400 children.Meanwhile, the parents of 12 of the children are enjoying a reunion after state authorities in San Antonio on Friday temporarily released the children of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' embattled YFZ Ranch families back to their parents pending the outcome of an action in district court there.Rod...

With the price tag of providing care for more than 400 children seized last month from a polygamist ranch in West Texas expected to reach the tens of millions of dollars, a legislative panel suggested Tuesday that the state explore garnisheeing the religious organization's assets to recoup the costs. "That compound didn't grow out of fairy dust," Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, said after a Senate Finance Committee hearing in which he urged state health officials to determine whether members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or even the sect as a whole, should be held...

Fox says Texas appeals court wants children returned to their homes!

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Pamela Jeffs Jessop's eyes sparkled and she smiled as she walked out of the Tom Green County Courthouse Friday. "I love to be with my children," she said meekly. The 18-year-old has secured a few more rights over her newborn baby than other members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church have over their children, her attorneys said Friday.

Group Discusses Decriminalizing Polygamy Last Update: 5/09 9:41 pm It's outlawed under the Utah constitution and that's unlikely to change. But decriminalizing it could mean lesser penalties for bigamy convictions. “I think something needs to happen. Something needs to be changed. It needs to be decriminalized,” said Dorothy Allred Solomon. Solomon is the daughter of Rulon Allred she says she grew up in polygamy and said she had a happy childhood. Allred was murdered in 1977 in a hit ordered by rival polygamist Ervil Lebaron. “What happens when a way of life is outlawed is that it attracts outlaws. And...

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — As the supper dishes were being cleared away and the rice pudding brought out for dessert, Marvin Wyler’s two wives, along with some of their children and a group of friends, began poring over the list. The 44-page document, from a court in Texas, gives a glimpse of who is married to whom in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or F.L.D.S. — and in the hothouse world of religious polygamy, a list like that is a sort of Rosetta Stone to the usually hidden relationships of power, politics and piety. “We are...

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- A judge today ordered the Texas Attorney General's Office to appoint a special prosecutor to handle any criminal cases arising from the raid of the FLDS polygamous ranch in El Dorado. Two men were arrested on suspicion of interfering with police during the raid last month but have not been formally charged. Texas child protective services also say they found 31 teenagers at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ranch who were pregnant or who had already given birth.

A representative of the Fundamentalist LDS Church is urging Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to intervene in the massive child custody battle in Texas over the raid on the YFZ Ranch. A letter was sent to Huntsman's office on Friday urging him to get involved, noting that many of the FLDS members caught up in the raid by Texas authorities are from Utah. "This siege ended in Utah residents being held hostage by the Texas authorities," FLDS member Willie Jessop wrote in the letter. Jessop wrote that "atrocities" were being committed with their children being taken into state custody and...

The FLDS argument will not hold up By MARCI HAMILTON When Texas authorities entered the Yearning for Zion (YFZ) Ranch, one of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compounds, on April 3, they did so using a warrant based on calls from a person who alleged that she was an underage girl being subjected to physical and sexual abuse, including rape, at the ranch. Once the authorities entered, they discovered pregnant underage girls, girls with more than one child, papers indicating that rampant polygamy was occurring at YFZ, and even a document involving cyanide poisoning. The authorities then intelligently decided...

When a renegade Mormon sect was looking for a quiet place to live out its polygamous beliefs, it made a Texas-sized mistake when it picked this state to move to. Texas responded by raising the age at which children can legally get married with parental consent, and law enforcement agencies immediately put the sect in its crosshairs. The result was raids this month that left 463 minors in state hands or foster care. With judges saying they will hear abuse cases individually, the sect's practices are sure of thorough legal scrutiny. "They made a big mistake when they came here,"...

Federal grand jury indicts polygamous sect leader for allegedly fleeing prosecution SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal grand jury indicted the leader of a polygamous sect Wednesday, accusing him of fleeing to avoid prosecution on Utah sex charges. The one-count indictment covers a five-month period in 2006, although Warren Jeffs was believed to be on the run for a longer stretch before his arrest in August during a traffic stop near Las Vegas. Jeffs also faces trial in southern Utah in April on charges of rape as an accomplice for his alleged role in the ceremonial marriage of a...

FLDS doctor denies abuse at YFZ Ranch By Heather May and Brooke Adams The Salt Lake TribuneSalt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated:05/01/2008 01:20:20 AM MDT The physician who cares for the polygamous community now in the national spotlight - and who has treated its prophet in a Utah jail - is described by his mentor as "very kind, very sensitive, very concerned."     Lloyd H. Barlow, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, graduated from the University of Utah's School of Medicine in 1995.     He completed a one-year internship in internal medicine...

AUSTIN, Texas — Attorneys for 38 FLDS women filed a new appeal Wednesday seeking to have more than 400 children returned to their mothers. The petition alternatively asks the 3rd Court of Appeals to order the men to leave the YFZ Ranch and allow the children to return, or order mothers and their children to live elsewhere. "The trial court could order the men — the alleged perpetrators of abuse — to vacate the ranch, or it could order the women to live elsewhere with the children during the pendency of the investigation," says the petition filed by attorneys for...

By APRIL CASTRO Associated Press Writer AUSTIN, Texas - Texas officials told legislators Wednesday that they're investigating the possible sexual abuse of some young boys taken from a polygamist sect's ranch, as well as broken bones among other children. The disclosures are the first suggestions that anyone other than teenage girls may have been sexually or physically abused at the ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon sect. In written and oral testimony provided to lawmakers Wednesday, officials with the state Department of Family and Protective Services said interviews and journal...

Texas child welfare officials say more than half the teen girls swept into state custody from a polygamist sect's ranch have been pregnant. Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar says 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 were living on the ranch in Eldorado. Of that group, 31 already have children or are pregnant.

At least nine children taken from a polygamous sect's ranch are or have been in the hospital and attorneys for most of the mothers say they have received little or no information about their conditions. Attorneys for Texas Rio-Grande Legal Aid (TRLA) are working to identify the children and the hospitals, and to arrange for the mothers to visit the children. "We can't seem to get anyone on the phone with authority to make that happen and the mothers don't even know the seriousness of the situation," said Amanda Chisholm, a TRLA attorney. The legal aid society, which represents 48...

This won't be 'another Short Creek' Action: Criminal charges are urged By Amy Joi O'DonoghueDeseret News Published: April 28, 2008 SAN ANGELO, Texas — A Texas lawmaker who helped pass legislation strengthening the state's marriage laws in response to the Fundamentalist LDS Church presence in his state said he believes criminal charges will result from the Eldorado raid earlier this month. "I don't think this will be another Short Creek," Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R- Kerrville, told the Deseret News. The controversial Short Creek Raid of 1953 in Arizona rounded up polygamist wives and children and jailed the men. No...

Court refuses to hear FLDS mothers' request All FLDS children in Texas now off to foster careSAN ANGELO, Texas — The last of the children taken in the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's Yearning for Zion Ranch are now adjusting to life in the foster care system. Escorted by police cars and ambulances, more than a dozen charter buses rolled out of the San Angelo Coliseum grounds Friday, carrying the remaining 260 children toward foster homes. Small children waved as they went by. Some appeared to be very young; one child was seen holding a bottle. "It's a good...

A Corpus Christi attorney representing two mothers from the West Texas polygamist retreat claims child welfare authorities cannot account for two boys, but the state says that's not true. The boys, ages 16 months and 11 years, were part of a group of more than 400 removed from their parents' custody this week after the retreat, 40 miles south of San Angelo, was raided earlier this month amid allegations of sexual abuse. The children have been bused to foster homes across the state. The last group left early Friday. State child welfare authorities responded that no children have been lost,...

Texas court: State can take sect children to foster homes By: Associated Press Posted: 4/25/08 SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) - Dozens of mothers from a polygamist retreat were bused away from their children Thursday, their legal efforts to stay united rejected as Texas officials sort out their massive custody case. Two buses took the women from the San Angelo Coliseum, where they had been temporarily housed with their children. Texas officials were preparing to move the last of more than 400 children to group homes, shelters and residences, some hundreds of miles away, over the next few days. One woman...

The Third Court of Appeals has decided to hear arguments over whether the state of Texas can place children from the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints currently in its custody into foster care without giving each of their families the opportunity to defend themselves in court, according to a press release. The decision comes after Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA), the leading provider of legal aid in Texas, filed a request with the court to order state District Judge Barbara Walther to hold hearings at which each family would be able to respond to allegations of abuse. TRLA is...

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- Buses filled with women and children today began leaving the San Angelo Coliseum where 437 FLDS children have been been held for more than two weeks. The movement came after Judge Barbara Walther issued an order setting destinations and explaining how the children will be placed. Walther ordered that mothers who are minors will be placed with their babies, with pregnant minors in the same location. Children under 12 months will be placed in foster homes with their siblings who are under 5, she said, and every attempt will be made to place [other] siblings together....

A drill instructor in the National Guard has been convicted in a Wisconsin federal court of illegally transferring a machine gun after a rifle he loaned to a student malfunctioned, setting off three shots before jamming. The verdict of guilty on one count in the case against David Olofson was confirmed yesterday by the clerk's office in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. That means now that anyone whose weapon malfunctions is subject to charges of having or handling a banned gun, according to an expert witness who reports that the particular problem is a well-known...

<p>“Freedom of education, being an essential of civil and religious liberty . . . must not be interfered with under any pretext whatever," the party's national platform declared. “We are opposed to state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental . . . doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government."</p>

Feds OK controversial Muslim youth camp National radio host who opposes project will hold public forum Posted: July 1, 2003 5:00 p.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Amid resistance from neighbors and nationwide attention, a plan to build a Muslim youth camp on federal land moved ahead yesterday with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval of a scaled-down proposal. As WorldNetDaily reported, the newly formed Muslim Youth Camps Association, or MYCA, wants to build a facility at a site in Northern Iowa formerly leased to the Girl Scouts for $1 a year. Most opponents have expressed environmental concerns, while some...