Additional Children Removed at Polygamist Ranch in Texas

New York Times - April 6, 2008

by Ralph Blumenthal


HOUSTON — Authorities removed an additional 85 children from a polygamist compound on Saturday, bringing the total to 137, officials said, as a confrontation appeared to be developing over law enforcement access to parts of the facility in Eldorado, in West Texas.

Randy Mankin, the editor of The Eldorado Success, said on Saturday night that state ambulances were heading into the remote compound, the Yearning for Zion Ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect. Its leader, Warren S. Jeffs, 51, was convicted last year of forcing a 14-year-old girl into marriage and sexual relations.

Mr. Mankin said police reports he was monitoring suggested that church officials were refusing access to the authorities and that the officers were preparing to force their way in.

The Texas Department of Public Safety refused to comment, citing a judge’s gag order.

State troopers, Texas Rangers and investigators from Child Protective Services raided the ranch on Thursday night to serve search and arrest warrants after a 16-year-old girl complained of sexual and physical abuse, officials said Friday.

Tela Mange, a Department of Public Safety spokeswoman, said Friday that church officials were cooperative.

But Ms. Mange said on Saturday night that a judge’s gag order in the case — issued Saturday in San Angelo at the request of the Tom Green County district attorney, Stephen R. Lupton, who has jurisdiction in Schleicher County — kept her from providing any information on whether violence had broken out.

Darrell Azar, communications manager for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said late Saturday that in addition to the 52 girls ages 6 months to 17 years who were removed from the ranch on Friday, another 85 children, including 40 boys, were taken Saturday to a civic center in Eldorado for questioning. An unknown number of children remained at the ranch, he said.

Mr. Azar said the 16-year-old girl whose complaint had set off the raid had not been identified.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints split from the mainstream Mormon Church after church leaders in 1890 repudiated the polygamy prescribed by its founding prophet, Joseph Smith, and excommunicated members practicing plural marriage.


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2008/04/06/us/06dorado.html