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When an FLDS mother called to tell her 14-year-old daughter a judge had ordered her back into state custody, the girl cried steadily for seven hours. "Just me? Only me?" she asked her mother before dissolving into tears. Barbara Jessop is breaking her silence to describe the traumatic Tuesday separation from her daughter. The teen - allegedly married to sect leader Warren S. Jeffs in 2006 - is the only FLDS child now in state care. A videotape of her transfer in a state building parking lot shows the girl crying and holding her mother as Child Protective Services workers...

A Schleicher County grand jury today handed down three new felony indictments in the state's polygamist sect investigation, a court clerk said. Schleicher County District Clerk Peggy Williams said the indictments involve three individuals. It's unclear whether those individuals are new defendants or suspects already charged in the probe. The identities of those individuals were not immediately available. Neither were the actual charges listed in the indictments. The grand jury last month indicted six members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Court hearings for those individuals is scheduled for Sept. 8, authorities said. The grand jury...

State seeks to return eight children to foster care.

A spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was in state court Thursday to ask a judge if members can ultimately own their homes, now held by a state-managed church trust. ...... Judge Denise Lindberg on Thursday told Willie Jessop that under the newly revised trust managed by accountant Bruce Wisan, members can own their own homes, with some restrictions. She also sought to assure him there is no bias against the church in the management of the trust. ....... Until now the FLDS have operated on a directive from imprisoned church leader Warren Jeffs...

A physician from a polygamous sect was released from the Schleicher County Jail on Tuesday after posting bail, but four other men have not yet been released. ... A Schleicher County grand jury on July 22 indicted six FLDS members, including jailed sect leader Warren S. Jeffs, on sexual assault and related charges. Those documents, unsealed Tuesday, show Jeffs, 52, is alleged to have sexually assaulted a minor on or about Jan. 14, 2005. According to a search warrant used to collect DNA evidence from Jeffs, a girl he married in 2004 gave birth in October 2005 when she was...

There are new questions about the raid on a polygamist compound in Texas. What did authorities know, when did they know it, and why did they wait so long to go in if hundreds of women and girls were in fear of being abused? ... Considering the high emotions and tense situation, it's remarkable it didn't turn out worse. When Texas Rangers and state police surrounded the compound and started looking for children, it took days instead of hours. The parents didn't want them found. Capt. Barry Caver, with the Texas Rangers, said, "They were shuffled around houses as we...

ELDORADO - A Schleicher County grand jury issued indictments today against Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs and five other sect members, alleging sexual assault, bigamy and related charges. Jeffs was charged with sexually assaulting a child, a first-degree felony, and the four others were indicted on allegations of sexually assaulting girls younger than 17. Each of those four face one felony count of sexual assault, and one faces an additional charge of bigamy.Jeffs was identified because he was served with the indictment in jail. The other four remain unidentified until they are served....

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The Colorado woman alleged to have sparked the raid on the polygamous FLDS ranch in Texas with bogus tips may be on the run. On Monday, an arrest warrant was issued for Rozita Swinton after she failed to show up for a court hearing on charges of violating her probation for one of two other false-reporting cases against her, court administrator Lori McKager told Salt Lake City's 2News. Swinton is 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. Authorities...

A Texas judge is set to consider a request from the teenage daughter of polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs that her attorney be replaced. Natalie Malonis, ad litem for Teresa Jeffs, requested that 51st District Judge Barbara Walther meet with the teen privately to hear why she wants Malonis to step aside. That hearing is set for Monday afternoon. Malonis also has filed two motions asking the judge to stop two other attorneys participating in the child welfare case involving Jeffs. A rift between Malonis and Jeffs, 16, became public last month after the Flower Mound, Texas, attorney sought...

Sect leader Warren Jeffs was taken to a hospital in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Police wouldn’t say why and the real cause of his departure hasn't been found out yet. Jeffs was taken to the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas from an Arizona Jail. The jail in Kingman, Arizona is 100 miles from the medical center and the imprisoned man was flown by helicopter to the hospital, where he was placed under armed guard by the Metropolitan Police Department. Warren Jeffs, 52, is the leader of FLDS, a Mormon offshoot that practices polygamy. The Fundamentalist Church of...

Al Holm lived his entire life as a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — until he confessed two years ago to being addicted to online porn sites and was expelled. Now, contrite, lonely and grieving the loss of his family, he's trying to work his way back into the secretive polygamist sect. But he can't find anyone with the authority to pardon him.

Six-year-old Samuel Jeffs has only one leg. On April 3 he was taken away from his home and his mother by the Texas Child Protective Services (CPS). His father, Warren Jeffs, is in prison, convicted in Utah of being an accomplice to child rape. On May 19, Samuel’s mother, Sharon Barlow, is sitting in a San Angelo courtroom with her attorney to hear a review of Samuel’s care. She is wearing an ankle-length turquoise dress, cut roughly in the style of a 19th-century prairie housewife’s. She has reddish hair, a pointed nose, sleepy eyes and poor skin. The hair rises...

A lawyer for the 16-year-old daughter of polygamist group leader Warren Jeffs is requesting a restraining order to prevent a spokesman for the group from intimidating and harassing the girl. The request for a restraining order against Willie Jessop was filed in San Angelo today by Natalie Malonis. The teenager was one of the hundreds of children taken from the Yearning For Zion Ranch by Texas Child Protective Services in April because investigators believed they were exposed to abuse by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Her name is not being disclosed because Malonis...

FORT WORTH, Texas — The cost of the April raid on a polygamist compound in West Texas is expected to top $14 million, about one-third of it in lawyers' fees, according to a published analysis of state records. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram published its findings Saturday after reviewing more than 400 pages of invoices, e-mails and other state records that it obtained under an open-records law request. More invoices for overtime, travel and professional services are expected to boost the final tab, the records indicate.

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.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ― The home of the San Angelo judge who ordered the removal of 440 children from a polygamist ranch is under guard after Utah and Arizona authorities warned of "enforcers" from the sect, a newspaper reported Wednesday. Police assigned to Judge Barbara Walther's San Angelo house were provided dossiers and photos of 16 men and women deemed a threat, the Deseret News said. "There are many individuals who are willing to give up their life for the cause and you can never underestimate what a religious fanatic is capable of," said e-mails obtained from the Washington...

Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs' defense team wants to keep any evidence seized from the raid on the YFZ Ranch out of his upcoming trial in Arizona. In papers filed in Mohave County, Ariz., Superior Court late Thursday, Jeffs' defense lawyers put the court on notice that they intend to fight to suppress "any and all evidence obtained from the raid and the search of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) property in the state of Texas." "It is becoming more and more evident that the Texas raid was based on a hoax telephone call containing false...

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...

YFZ RANCH, Texas - Anne Sweeter Jessop puts her arms around her mother's neck and hangs on, her smile a Texas-mile wide. She is home. Her mother is here. So are her father and three brothers. And that is all this 3-year-old cares about. A day after a district judge gave the go-ahead for parents to reclaim their children, families are trickling back to the YFZ Ranch outside Eldorado. Edson Jessop and his wife Zavenda Young were among the first to return. The couple were on their way to Waco to visit Ephraim, 7, and Zachery, 9, on Monday when...

ELDORADO, Texas — He was the man at the gates in the white cowboy hat and the folksy southern drawl. Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran was one of the few outsiders whom the FLDS would initially allow onto the YFZ Ranch, and he cultivated a relationship with them. That relationship has been severely strained in the aftermath of the raid on the YFZ Ranch. "I did not have the power to step in and stop this," Doran said. "The state of Texas had an investigation. They had a call, an outcry of a child they had to investigate and we...

YFZ RANCH, Texas - Anne Sweeter Jessop puts her arms around her mother's neck and hangs on, her smile a Texas-mile wide. She is home. Her mother is here. So are her father and three brothers. And that is all this 3-year-old cares about.

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.

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...

ELDORADO, Texas -- Hours after signing an order releasing FLDS children from state custody, 51st District Judge Barbara Walther arrived at the Schleicher County Courthouse in Eldorado to swear in a grand jury that may be considering indictments related to the polygamous sect. By the end of the day, 18 indictments had been issued, although no details were immediately available. The number was more than the usual; it is more typical for five to 15 indictments to be returned, a court clerk said. Walther arrived at at the Eldorado courthouse at 12:30 p.m., accompanied by two bailiffs and her court...

SAN ANGELO, TX- Bells are ringing in the Lone Star state on this joyous day. The Texas high court ruled last week that more than 400 children removed from the Yearning for Zion polygamist ranch weeks ago may be returned to their parents- and not a moment too soon since many of them have made arrangements for lavish June weddings. For 12 year old Wanda Mann and her octogenarian shared-husband-to-be, the ruling means that they won't have to postpone their nuptials after all and, more importantly, they won't lose the deposit on the reception hall at Chuck E. Cheese. "I...

State seeks Texas help in probing possible sex crimes involving JeffsA search warrant filed Thursday in Mohave County Superior Court in Kingman reveals that Texas authorities are investigating possible sex crimes involving the sect leader and four child brides.Jeffs, 51, was "married" or spiritually united with two 12-year-old girls and two 14-year-old girls since 2004, according to the search warrant. The warrant indicates the Jeffs-child bride unions are detailed in marital logs, and supported by photographs, seized during the April raid at the Yearning For Zion ranch in Texas. Mohave County attorney Matt Smith wants to know whether the...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that children taken from a polygamist sect's ranch should be returned to their parents, saying child welfare officials overstepped their authority. The high court on Thursday affirmed a decision last week by an appeals court that said Child Protective Services failed to show an immediate danger to the more than 400 children swept up from the Yearning For Zion Ranch nearly two months ago.

'SHUDDER' BUG CULT CREEP'S PHOTOS By TODD VENEZIA May 28, 2008 -- Crazy polygamy cult leader Warren Jeffs likes to think of himself as a prophet - but new photos prove that that he's really a pervert. The shots show the jailed, 52-year-old leader of a renegade Mormon sect planting deep kisses on two of his underage "wives" - one of whom is 12 years old. The smiling, fresh-faced pre-teens - dressed in "Little House on the Prairie"-style garb typical of Jeffs' cult - are also depicted hugging him and being cradled in his arms as if he were...

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...

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...

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...

"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...

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 San Angelo judge accused of abusing her discretion by a higher court fought back on Friday, overruling objections that cited the appellate decision during a lengthy and contentious child-custody hearing that will continue next week. 51st District Judge Barbara Walther indirectly rejected assertions by the Third Court of Appeals that she should not have allowed the state to maintain custody of more than 450 children belonging to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Attorneys for the state's Child Protective Services agency and an attorney for the infant in Friday's hearing did the same. "I...

SAN ANGELO, Texas — The day after FLDS mothers celebrated an appeals court decision ordering the return of their children, child welfare officials went to the Texas Supreme Court to prevent it. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services asked the Supreme Court to stay the 3rd Court of Appeals order and keep the children where they are, in foster facilities, until the high court considers its arguments. Attorneys argued the more than 450 children will "suffer irreparable harm" if the appellate court order is followed and says the children "will be at risk of sexual and emotional abuse"...

Wiating for story.

SAN ANGELO, Texas - A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children. Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators. The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not...

"Three weeks into covering the polygamous ranch raid story, I keep hearing from colleagues throughout NBC News who want to know more about how members of the sect live." --snip-- "Here are some of the things members of the sect told me about life on the YFZ Ranch – which stands for Yearn For Zion – in Eldorado, Texas:" --snip-- "Much of the above sharply contrasts with the picture of alleged physical and sexual abuse painted by state investigators. The courts will ultimately decide which version of the truth is closer to reality. I can’t say whether what ranch residents...

The more than 400 children, from newborns to teens, forced from a polygamist sect's sprawling ranch during a raid six weeks ago and into foster care have been treated as a single group of abused and at-risk kids. Starting Monday, judges will filter the unruly, chaotic custody dispute into hundreds of individual cases to determine what the parents must do to get their children back or whether their parental rights will be permanently severed. This is standard operating procedure for family court, but these are hardly standard cases. First, these families are comprised of at least 168 mothers and 69...

Cases for seven children from one family, five from another and at least two fathered by polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs are among those set for court Monday as the next phase begins in the largest child welfare action in United States history.

Elissa Wall Speaks Out About Her 'Stolen Innocence' Forced Into Marriage at 14, She Testified Against Polygamous Prophet Warren Jeffs By JOSEPH DIAZ May 16, 2008 — The recent raid on Warren Jeffs' Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas, which resulted in the removal of more than 400 children from their homes, has thrust allegations of widespread child abuse at the polygamous sect into the national spotlight. But one of the darkest secrets of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints unfolds at a seedy roadside motel in the remote Nevada desert, where underage girls --some...

In April, Texas authorities investigating a fundamentalist polygamist group after allegations of child abuse removed 464 children from a West Texas compound. The state now has the minors in temporary custody, including a young woman and the son she gave birth to after the raid. The case, remarkable for its scope, involves a complicated tangle of legal, religious and social issues. The group — called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — practices a brand of polygamy taught by the earliest leaders of the Mormon faith but officially abandoned by Mormons in 1890. The case brings...

In the days following the raid on the Texas polygamous compound, I took a call from a St. Louis radio host requesting one of our reporters to come on his show to "talk about the situation in Utah." Early in this cordial conversation, I informed him that this newspaper is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that I am a member of this church. After a few minutes, it became clear that he thought I was somehow affiliated with the FLDS group. I felt like an anthropology specimen. The questions were friendly and good natured,...

Texas child welfare attorneys say children were removed from the YFZ Ranch and should not return there because its residents live as one big family and all have the same dangerous belief system. The agency that has taken legal custody of 464 children sent its response Thursday to a petition from dozens of Fundamentalist LDS Church mothers. The petition asks the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals to order Judge Barbara Walther to return the children to their mothers. "The community has one common belief system that young girls are called on to be wives and no age is too young...

Attorneys for Fundamentalist LDS leader Warren Jeffs are asking a judge to dismiss incest charges in the cases pending against him in Arizona. In papers filed in Mohave County Superior Court in Kingman, Jeffs' defense team argues that incest charges must be dismissed because Arizona laws require both participants to be "18 or more years of age." "In addition, because (suspect) and (victim) are first cousins of the half blood, they are not within the degrees of consanguinity that are defined as incestuous under Arizona law," attorneys Richard Wright and Michael Piccarreta wrote. "Accordingly, counts 2 and 4 of the...

As his polygamist followers in Texas undergo one of the most intensive child abuse investigations in the nation's history, sect prophet Warren Jeffs sits in a small jail cell in Arizona, emaciated and under a suicide watch, as he awaits trial on charges of criminal incest and sexual assault in a desert town that was once the home of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Jeffs, 52, is alone in his cell 23 hours each day, allowed out only to shower and use the telephone. He is given two 30-minute visitation periods a week. Those who come to see him are...

ELDORADO, TEX. — The Yearning For Zion ranch a few miles west of nowhere was built to keep the secrets of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hidden from prying eyes. But the church's days of splendid isolation and impenetrable secrecy – only the top fringe of the temple's white limestone walls visible from a distant rural road at the edge of the 1,700-acre spread – are rapidly ending. The Texas Rangers raid of the secluded ranch in early April led to sensational allegations of grooming underage girls for marriage and sexual abuse. And the discovery...

Officials in Texas have found signs of injury among children removed from a polygamous sect and are checking for possible sexual abuse of boys.A judge ordered the removal of 464 children last month as officials investigated whether underage girls had been forced into marriage and sex. A state welfare official said 41 of the children had broken bones or previous fractures, without giving more details. The sect, which has Mormon roots, says the state is trying to mislead people. It was raided on 3 April amid reports that a 16-year-old girl had been physically and sexually abused. Detectives are looking...

MONTHS before authorities removed 416 children and 139 women against their will from the Texas compound of the fundamentalist Mormon sect, the producers at WE were all over them like a bad smell... < snip > Tomorrow's episode tells not just their stories but those of other women and girls who were forced into marriage at 13 and 14 years old. Carolyn was married off as a teenager to a man called Meryl Jessop, who was 32 years her senior and already had three wives. Jessop was then the No. 2 guy in command and is now the un-anointed Prophet...

One phase of FLDS work is complete SAN ANGELO, Texas — The last of the extra Texas state troopers, child welfare investigators and others involved in the massive effort of caring for Fundamentalist LDS Church children in custody have rolled out of town. "The demobilization of resources in San Angelo was completed only (Monday)," said Gov. Rick Perry's spokeswoman Krista Piferrer. "It was a large scale effort with a tremendous law enforcement presence, nonprofit presence and (Child Protective Services) workers from all around the state. We basically transformed a coliseum into a shelter.-SNIP- Boys locatedAttorneys identified Monday the location of...