4 polygamist sect members post bond in Texas

Michelle Roberts

Associated Press

August 7, 2008

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Four polygamist sect members indicted on charges of sexual assault of a child were released from jail late Wednesday after posting bond.

Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran said the men — Raymond Merrill Jessop, 36; Allan Eugene Keate, 56; Michael George Emack, 57; and Merrill Leroy Jessop, 33 — posted bonds of $100,000 per charge and were likely headed home to the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. They had been jailed since turning themselves in more than a week ago.

Each of the men from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which runs the YFZ Ranch, was indicted last month on one count of sexual assault of a child. Merrill Leroy Jessop faces an additional charge of bigamy.

Under the conditions of their bonds, the men must stay in Schleicher County unless they notify authorities and must stay away from their alleged victims.

They were indicted July 22 along with imprisoned FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, who was also charged with sexual assault of a child, and Lloyd Hammon Barlow, a 38-year-old physician who was charged with three misdemeanor counts of failure to report child abuse. Barlow posted bond last week.

Prosecutors have declined to provide details on what the men are accused of doing, but documents from a separate custody case included a journal entry from Jeffs indicating Raymond Merrill Jessop was married to Jeffs' daughter the day after she turned 15.

The journal entry also indicates Merrill Leroy Jessop married another sect daughter that day, though it's not clear how old she was.

Jeffs is jailed in Arizona awaiting trial on charges related to the marriage of underage girls to older sect members there. He was convicted in Utah last year as an accomplice to rape for marrying a girl to her cousin.

Under Texas law, a girl younger than 17 cannot generally consent to sex with an adult.

The state's bigamy statute applies to legal marriages and to couples who purport to marry, a lower standard adopted in part to target unions like the spiritual marriages practiced by FLDS members.

Prosecutors and law enforcement say their investigation continues.

Child Protective Services, which launched the initial investigation into possible underage marriages, is also still investigating. On Tuesday, CPS asked a judge to place eight children in foster care, saying their mothers refuse to limit their contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.

The FLDS, which believes polygamy brings glory in heaven, is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which officially renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iIdMpRHjN4hpNKBhfYyAsR4DDo4QD92D7ELG0

5 indicted FLDS men appear before judge

Ben Winslow
Deseret News

July 30, 2008

Five members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church indicted by a Texas grand jury made their first appearances before a judge.

The men were arraigned before Schleicher County Justice of the Peace James Doyle late Tuesday afternoon, where they were handed papers spelling out their rights and told not to contact their alleged victims.

"All I do is an admonishment," Doyle told the Deseret News. "I read the warrant so they know what's been charged by the grand jury. I go through their rights."

One man, Dr. Lloyd Hammon Barlow, 38, posted a $15,000 bond late Tuesday and was released from jail pending his next court appearance. The rest remained in jail pending the posting of $100,000 bail, Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said. The men's next court appearance will then be set by the district court judge, who is based in nearby San Angelo.

Raymond Merril Jessop, 36; Allan Eugene Keate, 56; Michael George Emack, 57; and Merril Leroy Jessop, 33, are all charged with first-degree felony sexual assault. Merril Jessop is also charged with bigamy, a first-degree felony. Barlow was indicted on misdemeanor counts of failure to report child abuse.

Also indicted is FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, who remains in an Arizona jail. Jeffs, 52, is accused of performing child-bride marriages there. -->Texas authorities have said they will seek to have the FLDS leader extradited as soon as possible to the Lone Star state to face a sexual assault charge -->. Jeffs was convicted in Utah of rape as an accomplice for performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin and was sentenced to a pair of 5-to-life sentences.

In April, child welfare authorities and law enforcement raided the YFZ Ranch outside Eldorado, Texas, after a phone call from someone claiming to be a pregnant 16-year-old in an abusive marriage to an older man. On site, authorities said they saw other signs of abuse, prompting a judge to order the removal of all of the children.

The ranch's 440 children were ultimately returned to their families when two Texas courts ruled the state acted improperly and there was no imminent danger of abuse. The original calls that sparked the raid are still being investigated as a hoax.

Hundreds of boxes of evidence were seized from the ranch, including diaries, photographs, thousands of pages of dictations by Jeffs and other FLDS records. These are believed to have contributed to the indictments, which may be the first of a series. The Schleicher County grand jury will meet again next month.

Raymond Merril Jessop is believed to have married Teresa Jeffs (now 17) a day after her 15th birthday in July 2006. Jeffs repeatedly has gone public denying she was a sex abuse victim but was subpoenaed to testify before the Schleicher County grand jury anyway. In the indictment, he is accused of sexually assaulting a girl under 17 in November 2004.

Merril Leroy Jessop is charged with sexual assault involving a girl in August 2006. The indictment also charges him with bigamy, stemming from a ceremony the same day Raymond Jessop married Teresa Jeffs.

"I was mouth at performing the marriage sealings," Jeffs said in a July 27, 2006, dictation filed with a child-advocate's court report and obtained by the Deseret News. "Merril Leroy Jessop received (the girl), and Raymond Merril Jessop received my daughter Teresa Jeffs."

According to the dictation, the FLDS leader himself married a girl in the same ceremony. Texas child welfare authorities believe she was 12 at the time.

A Bishop's Record seized by law enforcement indicates Allan Keate had a 17-year-old wife, and may have fathered an underage child with her. The indictment accuses him of sexual assault in April 2006.

Emack, according to the Bishop's records, has a 19-year-old wife and had a 1 1/2-year-old son with her. The indictment accuses him of sexual assault in October 2004.

Barlow is an FLDS community physician. The indictments accuse him of delivering babies in October and December of 2006 and May 2007, knowing their mothers were children and having cause to believe they were abused or neglected.

With the news of the criminal charges, Utah licensing officials said they will monitor the Texas case before deciding if they will take any action against Dr. Barlow.

"I cannot confirm or deny if we have an investigation going," said Jennifer Bolton, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Occupational and Professional Licensing.

E-MAIL: bwinslow@desnews.com

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700246826,00.html

5 indicted FLDS men surrender to Texas authorities

Pat Reavy

Deseret News

July 29, 2008

The five FLDS men indicted last week by a grand jury in Schleicher County, Texas, surrendered to authorities Monday afternoon at the Schleicher County Sheriff's Office.

The 12-member jury indicted a total of six men, including FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, on July 22. At least nine jury members must vote in favor of an indictment for one to be issued.

Five of the men, including Jeffs, were indicted on first-degree felony charges of sexual assault of a child. But the names of the other men were withheld until they were in custody.

Monday afternoon, the Texas Attorney General's Office announced the other men charged with sexual assault are Raymond Merrill Jessop, 36; Allan Eugene Keate, 56; Michael George Emack, 57; and Merrill Leroy Jessop, 33. Merrill Jessop was also charged with bigamy, a first-degree felony.

The sixth man, Lloyd Hammon Barlow, 38, was indicted on three counts of failure to report child abuse, all class B misdemeanors.

The sentence for a sex assault conviction is five to 99 years in prison, or five years to life in prison.

Bond for the men other than Jeffs was set at $100,000 per charge for the felonies and $5,000 for the misdemeanor.

The arrests "reflect nearly a weeklong effort by the Texas Rangers and Texas Attorney General's Office to arrange for the defendants' arrests," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a statement.

Diaries of an FLDS member submitted as evidence in connection with the case of Teresa Jeffs, now 17, the daughter of Warren Jeffs, mentioned Raymond Jessop.

Teresa Jeffs allegedly married Raymond Jessop on her 15th birthday in 2006, according to her diary.

Raymond was described in Warren Jeffs' diary as being part of the faith's priesthood.

Jeffs is in custody in a Kingman, Ariz., jail awaiting trial on charges of sexual misconduct as an accomplice, accused of performing underage marriages. He was convicted in Utah in 2007 of rape as an accomplice for marrying a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin. He was sentenced to two sentences of 5-years-to-life in prison.

E-mail: preavy@desnews.com

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700246728,00.html?linkTrack=Email%2DGME

5 from West Texas polygamy sect to be arraigned today in sex assault case

Emily Ramshaw
Dallas Morning News
July 29, 2008

AUSTIN — Five men from a West Texas polygamist sect will be arraigned this afternoon, a day after they turned themselves in on charges related to the sexual assault and “spiritual” marriage of underage girls.

Attorney General Greg Abbott said law enforcement officials and an attorney for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints negotiated the surrender, which came sooner than expected, officials acknowledged.

A sixth sexual assault suspect – sect prophet Warren Jeffs – has already been convicted of similar charges in Utah, is in jail awaiting trial in Arizona, and could still be extradited to Texas.

The arrests follow child welfare investigators’ seizure of 440 children and about two dozen women from the polygamist community in April, over allegations the sect permitted a culture of sexual abuse and marriages between young girls and much older men.

State courts overturned the decision to take children and some young women into state custody months later, and most children were returned to their parents.

Attorneys for the sect, who have expressed outrage over the raid and subsequent criminal charges, declined to comment on Monday’s arrests. Willie Jessop, who has been speaking on behalf of the West Texas community in Mr. Jeffs’ absence, could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Jeffs and four other men — Merril Leroy Jessop, 33; Raymond Jessop, 36; Michael Emack, 57 and Allan Keate, 56 — were charged with first-degree felony sexual assault of a child. The younger Mr. Jessop, who uses his middle name, is also charged with first-degree felony bigamy, which means one of his alleged wives is younger than 16. A sixth man, Dr. Lloyd Barlow, 38, faces three misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse.

A grand jury received DNA evidence drawn from members of the sect before issuing the criminal charges.

All the men but Mr. Jeffs are in custody in Schleicher County, where their Yearning For Zion ranch is located. The men charged with felonies are all being held in lieu of $100,000 bond and face sentences ranging from 5 years to life in prison. Dr. Barlow’s bail is $5,000, and he faces a sentence of up to six months in prison.

It’s unclear whether the men will post bond today. Mr. Abbott, acknowledging the deep financial pockets of the Mormon breakaway sect, said that he still thought the $100,000 bail was sufficient and that authorities would keep close watch over any of the individuals who are released on bond.

Dr. Barlow is known as the chief physician at the sect’s compound outside Eldorado and is thought to have had information about young mothers there.

At least three of the other men, including Mr. Jeffs, are believed to have taken underage wives. A 2006 “dictation” from Warren Jeffs submitted as evidence in the case details the prophet choosing another wife for himself, as well as arranging the marriage of his own 16-year-old daughter to Raymond Jessop. He also chooses a bride for Leroy Jessop.

In the dictation, he refers to another man arrested Monday, noting that an FBI agent had “called Mike Emack right on Mike Emack’smobile phone, asking him if he would testify against me.”

“I don’t deserve any of my ladies,” Mr. Jeffs says in the dictation, “but I thank the Lord for every one of them, and yearn for every one of them to succeed, and all to be gathered.”

The Dallas Morning News does not name alleged victims of sexual assault.

Despite sect members’ vows last week that they would turn themselves in, state law enforcement officials had refused to estimate how long it would take to apprehend the men. They feared they had already fled to the FLDS’ home base — the Utah-Arizona border — or worse, left the country.

On Monday, Mr. Abbott confirmed that an attorney for the sect facilitated the surrender of the men, who arrived at the Schleicher County jail in two shifts. He said he didn’t know if the men had to be summoned from another state to turn themselves in.

Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran said the men were booked peacefully.

The grand jury meets again next month, and Mr. Abbott said the “investigation of this whole issue is ongoing.”

Gerry Goldstein, a San Antonio-based attorney for the sect, said he was “not in a position to discuss the case.”

But as recently as last week, Mr. Jessop said he was confident in the “character of the people from the ranch,” and that they would “certainly step up to the allegations.” He said the idea that any sect members would flee the state in fear of indictments was outrageous.

“I’ll tell you right now,” he said, “anyone under these indictments will step up and answer the charges, to show the judicial system that we’re not guilty of what they’ve accused us of.”

eramshaw@dallasnews.com

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/073008dnmetpolygamy.14277b19.html

143 FLDS kids are back at YFZ Ranch

Brian West

Deseret News

June 13, 2008

One third of the FLDS children seized by Texas officials have returned to their original homes on the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado.

Of the 440 children who were returned to their parents earlier this month, 143 children are living in 30 households on the 1,700-acre Yearning For Zion Ranch, said Texas Child Protective Services spokesman Patrick Crimmins.

Most of the children from the Fundamentalist LDS Church — 178 children — are living in 33 households in the San Antonio area. The rest of the children are living in different areas of Texas.

No other details about those locations were released by CPS.

The information was gathered as the parents picked up their children from various foster facilities. Each parent or guardian was required to be photographed and fingerprinted. They also filled out forms listing their addresses and telephone numbers, as well as a list of names of adults and children who would be residing in the same household with the children.

Judge Barbara Walther released the children back to the custody of their parents after the Texas Supreme Court upheld a Court of Appeals decision saying the state had acted improperly by seizing the children from the ranch. All were returned by June 4.

Some parents who are renting homes and chose not to return to the YFZ Ranch, at least for now, told the Deseret News they wanted to avoid additional scrutiny from CPS that might occur if they moved back.

CPS officials say they have no preference about where families live, but attorneys for the agency have repeatedly argued since the raid that the ranch was an unsafe environment for the children and was a single-household community that fostered a dangerous pattern of abuse.

Some attorneys have also advised the parents not to return to the ranch.

Crimmins said CPS is continuing to investigate allegations of abuse and neglect. As part of an agreement, child welfare workers can make unannounced visits to the homes between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. each day. During such visits, medical, psychological and psychiatric examinations can be conducted, according to the agreement.

CPS has also received "partial" DNA results from the maternity and paternity testing that had been ordered from the children and parents. "The results are being reviewed and analyzed to determine if the DNA results can help investigators in the multiple investigations to determine if abuse occurred," CPS officials said in a statement on its Web site.

Many believe that DNA evidence will also be used in ongoing criminal investigations against the sect.

E-mail: bwest@desnews.com

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700234395,00.html

A Sect’s Families Reunite, and Start to Come Home

Gretel C. Kovach

New York Times

June 6, 2008

ELDORADO, Tex. — The cows still get milked each day by machine here at the Yearning for Zion ranch, although the raw-milk cheese is stacking up uneaten. The onions in the garden are as big as grapefruits, ready for harvest, with few people to pick them.

But a woman in a pink prairie dress, surrounded by a stack of boxes on a porch, is one of the first signs that life is slowly returning to normal.

Just a handful of families have returned to the ranch, the home of a polygamist sect that was raided in West Texas in April in an investigation of possible sexual abuse. The rest of the members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have heeded their lawyers’ warnings and moved to other cities while criminal and child-abuse investigations continue.

All of the more than 460 children seized in the raid have been returned to their parents.

“It’s getting better,” said Zavenda Young, 43, who returned to the ranch at sunrise Tuesday after driving all night to pick up her children scattered in group homes across the state. “I notice a few more people coming home. It was lonesome when they were gone.”

Ms. Young’s husband, Edson Jessop, 51, said, “It will be a long ways to get back to normal,” as he and his brother, Guy, 48, took two reporters and a photographer on a tour of the ranch on Wednesday in their dusty sport utility vehicle.

But it will happen, they said.

“It’s been really hard to understand why people say this is not a safe place to raise children,” Edson Jessop added. “To me, this is the safest place in the world to raise children. Isn’t home where children should be?”

The Jessops usually work in the furniture shop. But with so few people to work the land, Guy Jessop has started helping out in the garden.

“We’ve got 300 pounds of cabbage out of there already, and a couple hundred more coming,” he said, driving by the green stalks of a garden plot waving in the hot wind. “It’s getting really weedy on that end, we’re so short of help.”

Residents of the ranch are largely self-sufficient, but they have to stop at the nearest Wal-Mart now and then. “We don’t make watches,” Guy Jessop joked.

In the schoolhouse, all the calendars are stuck on April. The chalkboard bears a handwritten date — April 3, 2008 — when state troopers and child welfare workers came through the gates, after a caller to a domestic abuse hot line said she was a 16-year-old girl who was being abused by her 50-year-old husband.

The caller was never found, and the authorities now say that the call might have been a hoax. Two courts, including the Texas Supreme Court, have ruled that the children who were taken from the ranch by the authorities in April had to be returned to their parents because there was insufficient evidence that they were in imminent danger of abuse.

The criminal investigation, led by the state attorney general’s office, is continuing, and government officials are still expressing reservations about the court rulings.

“The governor is troubled that the children, especially those most at risk for abuse, the young girls, are being sent back to the compound in a situation riddled with uncertainty and the potential for harm, while it remains at the center of a very serious criminal investigation,” said Krista Piferrer, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry.

The sect is trying to put the pieces back together. “We’re trying to find that safe little town in Texas where we can be in peace,” said Willie Jessop, a sect spokesman.

Church members have been through this before. Most of their parents tell the tale of the 1953 Short Creek raid, when the authorities rounded up the women and children from their historic homeland on the Utah-Arizona border, only to return them after a public outcry over pictures of screaming children being ripped from their mothers’ arms.

“Our progenitors all the way down have been persecuted for their religion,” Edson Jessop said. “Now we get to have those one-on-one conversations with our fathers about what it was like.”

At the ranch, the purple petunias and white alyssum were still blooming next to the strip of green lawn and the rose bushes outside the schoolhouse. But life has been “totally disrupted,” Edson Jessop said.

Sometimes, residents of the ranch have to throw out the milk from their black and white Holsteins and the brown Swiss cows.

“You have to milk them, whether you do anything with it or not,” Guy Jessop said. “You’ve got to maintain them, so when the people come back, you’ll have something to feed them.”

Edson Jessop’s children — Zachery, 9; Ephraim, 7; Russell, 5; and Anne, 3 — have been reunited with one another and with their parents. Mr. Jessop and Ms. Young are thankful to the strangers who invited them to stay in their homes, “total strangers, very sweet people,” while they went from group home to group home across the state to visit their children.

Back at their apartment near the furniture shop, Mr. Jessop’s daughter scoots around the pavement on her purple plastic tricycle.

“Anne, come over here so we can take a picture,” Mr. Jessop calls, but she says “No!” and makes her father laugh. “She got sassy; they must have taught her that,” he jokes.

Watching her children play, Ms. Young, said, “It’s wonderful, wonderful to have them all here.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/us/06polygamy.html

A new deal on FLDS offered

Ben Winslow
Deseret News

June 2, 2008

SAN ANGELO, Texas — A new order to return hundreds of children taken in the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch will be put before a judge today.

Lawyers representing FLDS mothers, children and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services met for several hours Sunday at a state office building, hammering out a new order for Judge Barbara Walther's consideration.

"We reached consensus on some things and other things we really didn't. We're just making an effort to try and get this worked out as soon as possible so we can get the kids home," said Brad Haralson, a San Angelo lawyer representing three FLDS mothers.

If Walther signs the proposed order, the children could be reunited with their parents as early as Tuesday. Texas child welfare authorities indicated the order would apply to all of the children in state custody — not just the children whose mothers successfully appealed the judge's decision to Austin's 3rd Court of Appeals.

Attorneys have been trying to figure out what to do after Walther abruptly left the bench on Friday, refusing to sign an order to return the children to their mothers.

The Texas Supreme Court and the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin both ruled that Texas child welfare authorities acted improperly in removing more than 450 children from the YFZ Ranch while they investigated allegations of abuse. The courts ordered Walther to return more than 130 children to their parents — but allowed her to set conditions. It also allowed Child Protective Services the ability to continue its investigation.

Negotiations broke down in court on Friday, leaving parents and attorneys unsure of when they will be reunited with their children.

"The judge has a right to enter an order, whether or not the parties agree," said Andrea Sloan, a lawyer representing a group of young women Texas claimed were underage. "At the end of the day, because of time constraints, I would expect she will just enter the order."

Lawyers declined to detail what the new order would say but said the language that was tweaked was a compromise. There will be no hearing today; the order will be dropped in the judge's box for her to sign.

"I think she's going to sign whatever order she wants to sign," said Kirk Hawkins, a lawyer representing four FLDS mothers. "It's closer to her version."

The sticking point still appears to be a disagreement over whether the judge has the authority to impose broad conditions giving Texas CPS authority over the families, or whether the judge should just free the children.

Julie Balovich, an attorney for the Texas RioGrande Legal Aid Society (representing 38 FLDS mothers), argued in court that the judge should just release the children. She left Sunday's meeting without commenting.

Proposed orders have required parenting classes, access to homes at various times, interviews and medical evaluations, travel restrictions — and how long CPS can be involved in the families' lives.

"It's not an agreed order," Hawkins said. "It's the judge's order. We're just hoping she'll sign an order. You can't get 400 lawyers to agree. We just went over her order and tried to clean up the language some."

Some attorneys complained they weren't in on the discussions at all. Deborah Keenun, a court-appointed attorney representing 11 children in state custody, arrived as the meeting was breaking up. Others found out about the meeting from news reporters.

"There's a lot of general frustration from attorneys who have not been part of the process, when under the law we're supposed to be," Keenun said.

If the order is signed, the children will not be bused en masse to the YFZ Ranch. Instead, parents will go to foster care facilities that have sheltered the children and pick them up. Once they are reunited with their children, some families may not return to the ranch.

"Many of them will be getting independent housing," said Laura Shockley, a lawyer representing a group of young women Texas believed were underage.

She declined to say why they would not return — citing attorney-client privilege — but said some parents are trying to respect the concerns of Texas child welfare authorities and remain with their children.

"They're going to listen to what they think CPS is requiring and try to respond that way," Sloan said.

Texas CPS has claimed the YFZ Ranch is essentially "one household," with a culture of sexual abuse that grooms girls to be child brides, and boys to be sexual perpetrators.

The YFZ Ranch was raided April 3 when Texas child welfare workers and law enforcement responded to the FLDS property on a report of a 16-year-old girl who was pregnant and in an abusive, polygamous marriage with an older man. The girl was never found, an arrest warrant for the alleged husband was dropped and Texas authorities are still investigating whether the original call was a hoax.

Once on the ranch, authorities said they found other signs of abuse, prompting Walther to order the removal of all of the FLDS children.

Texas child welfare authorities had claimed to have as many as 31 pregnant or underage mothers in custody. They were young women the FLDS insisted were adults. On Sunday, Shockley told the Deseret News that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has declared all but "four or five" to be adults.

"We're happy that our 29-year-old client is now an adult," Sloan said.

A spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services could not immediately confirm the status of the "disputed minors" on Sunday.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700231020,00.html

A day in court: Highlights of the FLDS custody hearing

Trish Choate
San Angelo Standard-Times

April 19, 2008

Modestly dressed men and women from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints listened quietly as intimate details of their lives marched forth matter-of-factly in Day 2 of testimony in a hearing to set temporary custody for 416 of their children.

W. John Walsh, an FLDS expert, said he hoped he wasn't embarrassing sect members, before launching into an explanation of their family values, and attitudes toward sex and underage marriage as he sees them.

"Most FLDS men have never seen their wives naked, no matter how long they've been married," said Walsh.

He was testifying on behalf of parents during the custody hearing.

All eyes in the dimly lit San Angelo Auditorium focused on Walsh, whose slightly blurry on-screen presence filled the cavernous room.

This was a new wrinkle in proceedings to determine whether 416 YFZ Ranch children will go back to their parents. Child Protective Services took them into custody this month after suspicions arose of sexual abuse.

Lawyers, media and law-enforcement officers froze, distracted from fatigue, frustration, confusion, anger, boredom or all of the above.

An unspoken agreement formed not to eyeball FLDS members sitting toward the back of the auditorium. They have been constant subjects of sideways glances, stolen looks and outright stares during the two days of the hearing, the women's old-fashioned dresses especially a novelty.

Here are excerpts from a rolling log of events from Day 2 kept on gosanangelo.com by Standard-Times reporters:

§ "What's important to the court at this point is what do I need to know to know whether or not the children can be returned," Walther says. "That's what I'm focusing on. You all focus on whatever you want."

§ "If the situation could be proposed that the men would leave the community and not have contact," and the same supervision provided as at the San Angelo Coliseum, would (Child Protective Services supervisor Angie) Voss be willing to allow the children to return?

No, Voss answers: "The ranch is 1,700 acres. It's huge. There is no way to secure that I'm aware of."

§ A parents' attorney complains that her mothers haven't been served proper legal documents.

The judge notes the problem of identifying the parents, and that names are "being switched back and forth" in the case.

§ "Up to this point in the investigation, there are over 20 girls in the investigation who have conceived or given birth at the age of 16 or 17," Voss says. "What I'm telling you is that there is a culture of young girls being pregnant by old men."

§ Under questioning from the parents' attorney who's pursuing his objection, the psychiatrist says he has gotten much of his information from the media. Guffaws break out.

§ "What can a parent say to a judge that could be helpful in getting that child returned?" the parents' attorney says.

The witness replies, "What would make me feel comfortable is if a parent came forward and said, 'I don't think a girl should get married as a young teen. We need to know more about the outside world and be more transparent about their beliefs.'" It also would be a good sign if the parent asked for some advice about creating a healthy environment for their children, the psychiatrist adds.

"Believe me, so much of what they do out there is wonderful," he says.

§ "We started this process with over 400 attorneys. Unfortunately, we have a number of attorneys who have had to leave town and have appointed co-counsel," the attorney says. She inquires about perhaps taking lunch so they can get organized.

No, lunch "would only embolden you all," the judge says.

All laugh.

§ The FLDS has been subject to persecution, an FLDS expert says: Law enforcement officers have come in and asked the children, "Who is your mommy, and who is your daddy?" When the children answered, then mommy and daddy went to jail for bigamy.

"Most FLDS men have never even seen their wives naked, no matter how long they've been married," the expert offers under questioning from yet another child's attorney.

They wear religious garments at all times, long-john type garments, he says. They don't take them off during sex.

The FLDS members also have conservative family values, the expert says.

http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr/19/a-day-in-court-highlights-of-the-flds-custody/

400 Children Removed From Sect's Texas Ranch

AFP

April 14, 2008

NAIROBI (AFP) — At least 12 people were killed Monday in a series of clashes involving Kenyan police and members of a banned Kenyan sect protesting over the killing of their imprisoned leader's wife.

Police said five people were killed in Nairobi, four in central Kenya and three others in the Rift Valley region where members of theMungiki sect were blocking roads and stoning motorists.

Nine of those killed were Mungiki members shot dead by police, while the three others were reportedly civilians caught up in the violence, police officials said.

"We have things under control and have deployed security forces across the country to ensure that peace prevails," national police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told AFP.

"We assure the public that peace will be restored and all these hooligans brought to book," he added.

The Mungiki sect was once a religious group of dreadlocked youths who embraced traditional rituals, but the authorities say it has evolved into a ruthless criminal gang involved in extortion and murder.

The Mungiki members were protesting the killing of Virginia Nyakio, the wife of imprisoned sect leader Maina Njenga. Nyakio'smutilated body was recovered on Friday -- three days after she was seized by unknown kidnappers.

Since March last year, the Mungiki gang has been blamed for murdering dozens of people, including several beheadings, mainly in the slum districts of the capital Nairobi and in central Kenya.

Police responded with a crackdown in which they have killed scores of gang members.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ipg4xpOg22o4y5R298zM8imFb2VQ

60 more women leave Texas ranch as search for girl continues

Brian West
Deseret Morning News

April 7, 2008

Nearly 220 Jeffs followers removed from Eldorado

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Sixty FLDS women willingly left a cloistered polygamist compound here Sunday to join the now 159 children taken by police and state social workers.

Texas officials can't say why exactly the women agreed to leave the YFZ ranch but said they weren't forced to go and may have left to be with their children.

"I can't really speak for their motivation," said Texas Child Protective Services spokesman Patrick Crimmins. "During the course of our investigation, we've been talking and conducting interviews and we told the women if they wanted to leave the compound, they were free to do so.

"Sixty chose to do so, but I can't say what they were individually thinking."

No adult men have left or been taken from the reclusive ranch, situated near the western Texas prairie town of Eldorado.

Sunday evening, The Eldorado Success reported an additional 32 children and nine adults had been transported from the ranch. CPS officials said more people would likely be taken from the compound throughout Sunday but would not confirm new numbers until a press briefing this afternoon.

All 219 of the FLDS community members who were removed or allowed to leave as of Saturday were taken by bus Sunday afternoon to San Angelo, a town of about 88,000 people nearly 50 miles away. They are now being housed together in a building at the historic Fort Concho, near the Ralph R. Chase State of Texas Services Center.

Police from several agencies have surrounded the building and are keeping the press and public at bay.

"Eldorado is a small community, and we had them at two separate locations there," Crimmins said. "San Angelo is a larger community and the city offered us facilities there."

Dozens of cribs and cots have been set up inside the building housing the women and children.

"They've got everything they need," Crimmins said. "In a large, central location we can better help them."

State officials were still at the compound late Sunday and said they are continuing to look for more children there. Specifically, they are looking for a 16-year-old girl whose complaint prompted the raid.

"To the best of our knowledge, we have not removed her yet," said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

The search began late Thursday when police and state workers forcefully entered the ranch and began taking away children. The actions came in response to a complaint from a 16-year-old girl living there who claimed she was being physically abused.

Meisner wouldn't say how the complaint was received and declined to reveal any details of what the girl said. If the girl is already one of those who have been removed from the ranch, she has not come forward to authorities.

Asked if she believes the girl is hiding or being forced to hide somewhere inside the nearly 1,700-acre ranch, Meisner would only say that FLDS members inside the ranch were being cooperative.

So far, 18 children have showed signs of "sufficient evidence of possible abuse and neglect," Meisner said. Those 18 will be placed with foster families "that have been located and ID'd."

None of the children, however, had been officially placed as of late Sunday.

Once that evidence of abuse was reported to a judge, the court gave state workers permission to remove the children from the compound in order to be taken to a "neutral location" for briefings, Meisner said.

It's unknown how long the women and children will be held in San Angelo. A judge may be holding a court hearing about the matter today, but that has not been confirmed.

The YFZ Ranch is the site of the FLDS Church's first temple. Since finishing the sacred limestone centerpiece in 2006, Eldorado residents say members of the polygamous community have continued building a small city inside the ranch, constructing many buildings, a water tower, a sewer system and other improvements.

Few outsiders are allowed inside the compound, which is guarded by members of the sect.

Tensions were high Saturday night when a SWAT team entered the temple. Sheriff's deputies prepared for the worst, but no incidents were reported. Community members, however, did at first offer resistance to the idea of police entering their temple, which is considered sacred and normally open only to those FLDS members determined to be worthy.

YFZ stands for "Yearning for Zion," which is the name of a song written by FLDS leader Warren Jeffs. He is currently behind bars serving two five-years-to-life sentences after a jury in southern Utah last year convicted him of performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.

Jeffs is now in Arizona, where he faces additional charges of sexual misconduct and incest involving child-bride marriages. Jeffs had been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List before he was eventually captured near Las Vegas in August 2006.

E-mail: bwest@desnews.com

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695268191,00.html

401 children from FLDS compound now in protective custody

Brooke Adams

Salt Lake Tribune,

April 7, 2008

The Texas Child Protective Service now has taken temporary legal custody of 401 children from an FLDS compound near Eldorado, a spokeswoman said today.

The children are accompanied by 133 women, and authorities are nearly done clearing the ranch, said spokeswoman MarleighMeisner.

The agency will file affidavits in court this afternoon that will explain more about why the state should have temporary legal custody, she said.

An April 17 court hearing has been set on the children's status.

Officials are now seeking additional shelters in other parts of the state to house the women and children, members of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Some 200 social workers from across the state are working on the case in a state already experiencing a critical shortage of foster families, Meisner said.

Meisner said she still could not confirm whether workers have found or spoken to the girl who sparked the investigation. A 16-year-old girl called for help on Monday, alleging she had been abused.

The girl's report led authorities last week to raid the 1,691-acre ranch, beginning on Thursday night.

When asked if the state planned to take the children away from their parents, Meisner said: "It's absolutely too soon to make that decision."

Each one of the children will get their own attorney to represent their interests in court, she said.

Meisner could not confirm how many men are at the ranch, but confirmed they are not allowed to leave it.

Tela Mange, spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said there was one arrest today -- a man charged with a class B misdemeanor for interfering with the duties of a public servant.

http://www.sltrib.com/Faith/ci_8839610