The Salt Lake Tribune
June 12, 2008
by Stephen Hunt
Top state and federal law enforcement officials from Utah, Arizona and Nevada met Wednesday in Las Vegas to discuss cooperating in the investigation of polygamy-related crimes.
U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman said the group talked about working together on cases, including any involving the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and other groups.
No plans were made for a task force, said Gregory Brower, U.S. attorney for Nevada.
But he added: "The public should know that to the extent that these communities are running afoul of the law, in any way, that is something federal, state and local law enforcement are watching and taking very seriously, and will act upon if appropriate."
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said he strongly favors a task force, given the national and even international scope of the FLDS sect.
He said Wednesday's "very productive" meeting included a briefing on Utah's past investigations, and was also attended by representatives from the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Texas Attorney General's Office.
"The whole purpose of the meeting was to talk about whether there should be a task force," Shurtleff said. "We're not there yet."
One topic discussed: documents and other evidence gathered in the April raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, and how other states may gain access to it. Shurtleff said the evidence is more voluminous than anything previously collected on the FLDS.
"We'll know a lot once their records in Texas have been gone through," Shurtleff said.
Shurtleff said officials also discussed other polygamist sects, including a Davis County group.
Both Brower and Tolman said the meeting - attended by U.S. attorneys from Utah and Arizona, and attorneys general from all three states - was not arranged by nor connected to Washington.
"It's something that came about after some of the state attorneys general and U.S. attorneys in relevant states talked about trying to enhance our communication on these issues," Brower said.
U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, however, recently appointed a senior Justice Department prosecutor to work with Utah, Arizona and Nevada to review how the federal government can help attack polygamy-related crimes.
In requesting a national task force, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he believes local officials need such assistance from the federal government.
Tolman disagrees, saying, "We just need to open the lines of communication."
Visiting Salt Lake City on Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the agency will continue to assist local authorities. "I'm not certain a task force is necessary," he said.
The FBI put FLDS leader Warren Jeffs on the bureau's Most Wanted list, and assisted in serving search warrants on the sect's Texas compound during the recent investigation there, he said.
Texas officials removed more than 450 children from the FLDS ranch in April following calls to a family shelter by someone claiming to be a 16-year-old pregnant girl who had been abused by her husband.
Texas appeals courts overturned the removal, and police have connected the calls to a Colorado woman with a history of making false reports to authorities.
NATE CARLISLE and PAMELA MANSON contributed to this report.
This article was found at:
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_9558791
Showing posts with label mormons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mormons. Show all posts
12 Jun 2008
Child-protection workers have no doubts of raid's necessity
Scripps Howard News Service
June 11, 2008
by Paul A. Anthony
ELDORADO, Texas -- "We need you now."
node/33929
June 11, 2008
by Paul A. Anthony
ELDORADO, Texas -- "We need you now."
With those four words, Angie Voss and her team rolled into action.
They left the Schleicher County Sheriff's Office, drove five minutes on County Road 300, and pulled up to the gate of the YFZ Ranch, home to hundreds of devotees of a polygamist sect.
The women, investigators with Texas' child protective services agency, were dressed for the occasion -- long sleeves, long dresses, no jewelry, no makeup. After two hours of negotiation with local law enforcement officers, ranch leader Merril Jessop, an elder in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, had agreed to let Voss and three other Child Protective Services investigators into the 1,700-acre fenced compound.
It wouldn't be that easy.
First, another two hours of negotiation, then a mile-long drive in the West Texas night from the front gate to the center of the community itself, escorted by sect members.
No one spoke.
"It was very quiet in the vehicle," Voss said. "Just contemplating what we were doing and what this investigation was about. We were there to try to help a girl named Sarah."
It was 10 p.m. on April 3. Voss and her investigators would not leave the ranch for 28 hours. The decisions they made while inside its fences would hearten some, infuriate others and unleash a national firestorm of praise and criticism the likes of which San Angelo had never seen before -- and may never see again.
"When I saw the table with the coffee pot" inside the schoolhouse where they were to conduct their interviews, said investigator Ruby Gutierrez, "I knew we were in for a long night."
Sixty-three days had passed between Angie Voss' quiet drive down an arrow-straight gravel road and June 6, when she and five other CPS investigators discussed publicly for the first time their thoughts and feelings in the wake of the biggest child-welfare raid in U.S. history -- and its subsequent dismantling at the hands of the state's appellate courts.
In an hour long exclusive interview with the San Angelo Standard-Times, the investigators -- of whom Voss is a supervisor -- expressed no reservations about their decision that the sect had cultivated a "pervasive pattern and practice" of forced marriages and sexual abuse, and that all 438 children removed from the ranch were at risk of either being abused or being coerced into perpetrating abuse.
They rejected many of the claims brought forward in recent weeks by sect members and their spokespeople, dismissing the notion that the CPS raid was chaotic, or that investigators ripped children from their parents' arms.
They also acknowledged the personal devastation they felt when the Texas Supreme Court ruled late last month that all sect children must be returned to their parents after deciding CPS had failed to prove immediate danger of abuse in the case.
Most importantly, they said, they continue their investigation with the firm belief that the facts of the case will prove as right their request to remove the sect's children.
"We have to back it up with fact," said special investigator Paul Dyer. "That's what we're doing. What you may read in the newspaper or see on the television -- that's not necessarily supported by fact. Our investigation is and will be supported by fact."
For Dyer and fellow special investigator Eric Sanders -- retired law enforcement officers who work on investigations and often serve as protection for female caseworkers -- the wait that night was especially tense.
Jessop would allow only women into the compound. The men, waiting outside the gate with law enforcement and other CPS employees, slept in cars, walked outside and fidgeted while lightning flashed ominously in the black night.
Inside, according to Voss' testimony at an en masse hearing two weeks later and signed affidavits, the investigators ran into resistance -- changing birthdates, coached answers, missing or shredded documents.
Distrust had already been high. The sect waited four hours before allowing law enforcement and CPS -- which had a court order signed by state 51st District Judge Barbara Walther -- through the front gates, negotiating the terms of their entrance.
Even participating in such a negotiation was highly unusual, but the agency felt compelled to be as respectful as possible to the sect's wishes, Gutierrez said.
"That's not anything we're accustomed to doing," she said. "You investigate. You don't negotiate."
Once on the ranch, initial interviews raised concerns about a specific group of girls, and CPS asked Judge Walther to allow them to be brought into emergency temporary custody, Voss said.
As the night progressed, the concerns grew, eventually spreading to all the children living on the ranch.
"It was very incremental," Voss said. "There was not a global, overall decision. As more interviews occurred, the decision was made" to remove all the children.
Gutierrez called "absolutely false" the characterization of the raid by sect mothers and officials as a terrifying, chaotic experience in which law enforcement and CPS workers were rude, even tearing children away from their mothers.
In court, Voss described an incident in which mothers resisted giving up their children until Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran called Jessop on speaker phone, and Jessop told the women to acquiesce to authorities.
"I was surprised they were so cooperative," Voss said. "They came very willingly."
Dyer, who entered the ranch the next morning, agreed.
"It was very calm," he said. "There was no physical contact between state workers (and mothers) or investigators physically removing a child."
Since then, the public tenor of the case has shifted dramatically.
CPS has more often than not endured withering fire from attorneys, civil libertarians and outside observers for removing so many children without a case-by-case consideration.
The backlash began soon after the raid, as it became clearer the phone calls that sparked the investigation were a hoax.
It culminated May 22, when the Third Court of Appeals in Austin upended the case, ruling that Walther overstepped her bounds by giving the state temporary custody and ordered her to return the children to their parents.
On May 29, the Texas Supreme Court agreed.
"I was distressed by it," Sanders said, as his fellow investigators agreed. "Then again, I knew my job was still to protect kids. I knew we had done the right thing."
The now 440 children -- two were born in state custody -- were returned, but with restrictions that included prohibiting parents from moving them out of state and requiring them to allow unannounced visits by CPS workers within a 12-hour window each day.
The rulings were a shattering interlude in what had already been a trying process, Voss said.
"In my career, this investigation has been and continues to be the most difficult," both in numbers and length, she said. "It was very disheartening and discouraging."
Nevertheless, said investigator Kelly Walker, the investigation continues and remains all consuming.
She and the rest of the investigators could not talk specifically about evidence, citing the pending investigation. Instead, they spoke broadly, expressing their belief that despite the court ruling, the facts ultimately will justify their actions April 3 and beyond.
"These are beautiful, innocent children," Walker said. "We're the only people who could speak for them. We won't quit until they are safe."
This article was found at:
http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/33929
11 Jun 2008
Beware of FLDS enforcers, Texas told
Deseret News - June 11, 2008
"... you can never underestimate what a religious fanatic is capable of"
by Leigh Dethman
Texas police have been standing guard outside the home of the Texas judge who ordered the removal of all the FLDS children from the YFZ Ranch.
Washington County sends dossiers of select FLDS members to Texas officials
Deseret News - June 11, 2008
The Washington (Utah) County Sheriff's Office sent Texas authorities dossiers of several FLDS members "who may engage in acts of intimidation or violence again law enforcement and/or potential witnesses."
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/
1,5143,700233685,00.html
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/
1,5143,700233581,00.html
"... you can never underestimate what a religious fanatic is capable of"
by Leigh Dethman
Texas police have been standing guard outside the home of the Texas judge who ordered the removal of all the FLDS children from the YFZ Ranch.
The heightened security was ordered after authorities from Utah and Arizona warned them to be on the lookout for FLDS "enforcers," the Deseret News has learned.
Every officer guarding Judge Barbara Walther's San Angelo house was provided dossiers and photos of 16 FLDS men and women whom Utah police deemed a threat. However, e-mails obtained by the Deseret News from the Washington County Sheriff's Office warned Texas authorities to be suspicious of everybody, not just those on the list.
"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," according to the e-mails, which were obtained through Texas' public records law.
Police were also keeping close tabs on witnesses, as the "enforcers" might try to "intimidate kids and other witnesses, watch foster homes where kids may be placed, bribe witnesses, appear at court hearings, and make attempts to contact FLDS kids," according to an e-mail from an investigator with the Tom Green County District Attorney's Office.
Law enforcement in Texas has been on alert since a Fundamentalist LDS Church-related Web site published Walther's home address and work and home telephone numbers.
Walther signed the original order to remove all of the FLDS children from the YFZ Ranch in April and place them in state custody.
An attorney for the FLDS Church said its followers are peaceful people and that law enforcement has nothing to worry about.
"Have they ever seen an act of intimidation or violence against law enforcement from the FLDS community at all, ever?" Rod Parker told the Deseret News. "Before they start spreading those kinds of rumors, they ought to be able to ID an example of them ever doing that in the past."
As for the threat to "pay Ms. Walther's home a visit," on the site www.flds.ws, Parker said the site is not sanctioned by the FLDS Church. The site is run by Bill Medvecky, a Fort Myers, Fla., man who has donated to the fund for captive FLDS children, Parker said.
Once Parker told church leaders that the post could be construed as a threat, they contacted Medvecky and had him remove the judge's address, he said.
However, Walther's work and phone numbers are still listed on the Web site. The site calls Walther the "leader of the Gestapo," and includes a link to a petition to impeach the judge.
Medvecky doesn't see the harm in publishing Walther's address on the Internet. After all, it's in the phone book, he said.
"They are not confrontational whatsoever. I am," Medvecky told the Deseret News. "They are not me, and they have nothing to do with the site. We support them 100 percent."
Texas law enforcement wasn't aware of the threat until early June, but the dossiers "regarding any FLDS members who may engage in acts of intimidation or violence against law enforcement and/or potential witnesses" started circulating April 16.
The dossiers track individuals in FLDS leader Warren Jeffs' circle of trust, as well as a few "wild cards" that make Utah authorities "uncomfortable."
The list includes Willie Jessop, who has acted as one of the main spokesmen for the FLDS Church after the April 3 raid on the Yearning For Zion Ranch. The dossier calls him — William Roy Jessop — "the most serious threat associated with the FLDS religion."
Others included on the list are Lyle Steed Jeffs, Warren Jeffs' brother; and Lindsay Hammon Barlow, who witnesses described as Warren Jeffs' "muscle," among others.
"It is very obvious that Washington County officials do not let the facts get in the way of a good story," Willie Jessop said. "These are the types of paranoid allegations that can hurt a lot of innocent people if they are allowed to go unchecked.
"I don't know what the remedy is, but it should alarm everyone when an investigator does not even bother to fact check what he is supposed to be investigating."
The dossiers include the persons of interests' last known address and possible vehicles.
Washington County sheriff's deputies compiled the dossiers by tracking individuals during Warren Jeffs' 2007 trial, where he was convicted of rape as an accomplice after performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. He was sentenced to a pair of five-to-life prison terms.
Police believe Jessop, also known as "Willie the Thug" or "King Willie" in the dossiers, is the primary FLDS "enforcer" and has a passion for violence, weapons (legal and illegal) and explosives.
On the third day of Warren Jeffs' trial, Jessop was banned from the courthouse after "it was determined he was attempting to intimidate the witnesses, after he was observed numerous (times) staring menacingly at the witnesses," according to the dossiers.
Jessop said he and other FLDS men and women who attended Jeffs' highly publicized trial were there as observers, nothing more.
"The fact that we would show up in court and then to have them turn that around on us shows how biased these public officials are," Jessop said. "There are no facts, no history of violence, not a shred of evidence to support these irresponsible allegations. Not one bit of it is true and these officials know it."
Other FLDS members showed up on the dossiers for a variety of things, from staring down and intimidating witnesses, being an active member of Warren Jeffs' security team, or holding a high rank in the FLDS Church's hierarchy.
Utah police also warned Texas officials of so-called "wild cards" or "religious fanatics," including Ruth Cooke, a woman police said is "blindly devoted to Warren and the FLDS religion," according to the dossiers.
"She is just the kind of person who may be capable of doing something crazy but justified in her head," the dossiers state.
Dee Yeates Jessop is another "intimidating enforcer" who police described as a fanatic who blindly follows Jeffs. Witnesses told police Dee Yeates Jessop is "relatively unimportant" in the church's command structure.
"His social status makes all the more dangerous. What would he do to improve his standing?" according to the dossiers.
Several other high-ranking church officials show up in the dossiers, like William E. Jessop, a high-ranking elder in the FLDS Church, and David Allred, who is involved in the church's finances and is "fairly high in the FLDS pecking order." However, the dossiers said the men were unlikely to be considered a threat, but could be involved in the decision-making process because of their positions of power.
Both Willie Jessop and Parker, who has also acted as a spokesman for the church, discounted the dossiers.
"If they are going to malign people's character like that, they ought to have something better than someone staring at somebody or looking at them funny," Parker said. "This is the same kind of rumor-mongering that I've been complaining about for a long time. These rumors tend to feed on themselves."
Contributing: Nancy Perkins.
Washington County sends dossiers of select FLDS members to Texas officials
Deseret News - June 11, 2008
The Washington (Utah) County Sheriff's Office sent Texas authorities dossiers of several FLDS members "who may engage in acts of intimidation or violence again law enforcement and/or potential witnesses."
The information, obtained by the Deseret News through Texas public records laws, includes intelligence compiled during Warren Jeffs' 2007 trial in St. George for performing an underage marriage.
William Roy Jessop
• AKA "Willie the Thug" or "King Willie"
• The most serious threat affiliated with the FLDS religion.
• Reportedly has a passion for violence, weapons (legal and illegal) and explosives.
• Accused of intimidating witnesses at Warren Jeffs' trial in 2007.
• "If anything remotely resembling violence or intimidation occurs, you can be fairly certain that William had a hand in it."
• Has acted as a spokesman for the FLDS Church after the raid on the YFZ Ranch.
• Lives in Hildale, Utah.
Ruth Cooke
• A "wild card" who is "blindly devoted to Warren and the FLDS religion."
• "We reviewed countless letters she had sent to Warren that confirmed her unstable behavior, as she talked of disturbing visions she had received and breaking down the prison walls in the name of the prophet."
• "She is just the kind of person who may be capable of doing something crazy, but justified in her head."
Lindsay Hammon Barlow
• Several witnesses describe him as Warren Jeffs' "muscle."
• Barlow was "clearly in charge of the group's security."
• During Warren Jeffs' trial, Barlow "attempted to seat individuals who could intimidate the witnesses in their direct line of sight."
• Lives in Hildale, Utah.
William E. Jessop
• "Respected as a bishop in the FLDS religion."
• "He is a very powerful man in the community, but I have never received any information that would indicate that he is involved in anything of a violent nature."
• "Could be involved in the decision-making processes due to his position of power."
• Lives in Hildale, Utah.
Lyle Steed Jeffs
• Brother to FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.
• Acted as wedding security during illegal marriages conducted in Nevada.
• "Minimal information to suggest that Lyle would be considered a threat to commit acts of violence or witness intimidation."
David S. Allred
• Involved in the financial areas of the FLDS Church.
• "Fairly high in the FLDS pecking order."
• "I do not have any specific information that would label David as a threat, nor do I have any that would discount him as a threat."
Nephi Steed Jeffs
• Brother and personal assistant to FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.
• "To the best of my knowledge, he is not involved in any FLDS security and has no known history of violence or intimidation."
Wendell Loy Nielson
• One of the presiding elders in the FLDS religion.
• "He is not likely at this time to be involved directly in any acts of violence or intimidation, but may still be involved in their development, planning and approval stages."
Rodney Hans Holm
• Convicted of unlawful sex with a minor in Utah in 2006
• "Known to have significant disdain for law enforcement."
• "Rodney also was under the close watch of our court security staff during the trial, as he appeared at times to be attempting to intimidate witnesses from his seat."
Rulon Daniel Barlow
• "Rulon seemed to be extremely focused on the routines of our court staff and repeatedly seemed to be staring down the prosecuting attorneys and their witnesses."
Dee Yeates Jessop
• "Appears to be another intimidating enforcer for the FLDS religion."
• Was more interested in intimidating witnesses with "menacing" stares during Warren Jeffs' trial than the trial itself.
• "He has been described as a fanatic, who is blindly devoted to Warren Jeffs."
Samuel Rapylee Bateman
• "Showed an unnatural interest in the security procedures and routines of our staff during the trial."
Donovan J. Stubbs
• "Seemed to be taking mental notes of the security staff present."
• "Donovan carried himself well and seemed to be respected by the other members of the FLDS group. When he spoke, others listened."
Guy Curtis Bauer
• "Seemed to "make it a point to be noticed by the prosecution's victim and witnesses whenever possible."
• "Seemed to be there for the purpose of intimidation.
Guy E. Nielson
• "Appeared to make several discreet attempts at intimidating the victim and members of her (Alissa Wall's) family."
Nathan Mead Jessop
• "Multiple witnesses confirm Nathan Jessop is a member of the FLDS security team."
• One of three men who came to a woman's home and informed her she was no longer a worthy member of the community, a task generally reserved for Warren Jeffs' security staff.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/
1,5143,700233685,00.html
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/
1,5143,700233581,00.html
Talks aim to settle Mormon and Boy Scouts sex abuse lawsuit
The Oregonian - June 11, 2008
$25 million - Six men have filed against the Boy Scouts and the Mormon church
by Peter Zuckerman | Oregonian staff
Six Portland men agreed to enter talks this week to settle their $25 million lawsuit against the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts of America over alleged sexual abuse.
The lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Portland contends that in the 1980s and 1990s Timur Van Dykes molested Boy Scouts in Troop 719, which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supervised. Since 1983, Dykes, 51, has been convicted of at least 26 sex crimes.
"The amazing thing about this case is the extent to which these institutions continued to allow him access to kids, even after he had acknowledged sexually abusing boys and, indeed, after he had been convicted for doing so," said Portland attorney Kelly Clark, who represents the plaintiffs.
Attorney Steve English, who represents the Mormon Church, said that perspective is inaccurate.
"The church worked cooperatively with the Portland police, who learned of this abuse before the church did, and the church suspended Mr. Dykes' privileges as a church member within two weeks of learning of this abuse," English said.
The Cascade Pacific Council of the Boy Scouts of America in Portland did not return phone calls.
Dykes, who lives in Southwest Portland, is one of about 50 Oregon leaders expelled by the Boy Scouts for sex abuse between 1970 and 1990, according to confidential Boy Scout files obtained by The Oregonian. The number of Boy Scout leaders ejected in Oregon eclipses the number of abusive priests identified statewide in the recent Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal.
Under Oregon's flexible statute of limitations, victims of sexual abuse can bring cases once they've discovered how the abuse affected them, sometimes decades after the actual crimes.
Dykes has been a source of legal troubles for the Boy Scouts before. Three lawsuits alleging abuse filed in 1987 resulted in undisclosed settlements. The mother of one of Dykes' earliest alleged victims told The Oregonian in 1995 that abuse of her son contributed to his suicide.
This article was found at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/
index.ssf?/base/news/
121314571936950.xml&coll=7
$25 million - Six men have filed against the Boy Scouts and the Mormon church
by Peter Zuckerman | Oregonian staff
Six Portland men agreed to enter talks this week to settle their $25 million lawsuit against the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts of America over alleged sexual abuse.
The lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Portland contends that in the 1980s and 1990s Timur Van Dykes molested Boy Scouts in Troop 719, which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supervised. Since 1983, Dykes, 51, has been convicted of at least 26 sex crimes.
"The amazing thing about this case is the extent to which these institutions continued to allow him access to kids, even after he had acknowledged sexually abusing boys and, indeed, after he had been convicted for doing so," said Portland attorney Kelly Clark, who represents the plaintiffs.
Attorney Steve English, who represents the Mormon Church, said that perspective is inaccurate.
"The church worked cooperatively with the Portland police, who learned of this abuse before the church did, and the church suspended Mr. Dykes' privileges as a church member within two weeks of learning of this abuse," English said.
The Cascade Pacific Council of the Boy Scouts of America in Portland did not return phone calls.
Dykes, who lives in Southwest Portland, is one of about 50 Oregon leaders expelled by the Boy Scouts for sex abuse between 1970 and 1990, according to confidential Boy Scout files obtained by The Oregonian. The number of Boy Scout leaders ejected in Oregon eclipses the number of abusive priests identified statewide in the recent Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal.
Under Oregon's flexible statute of limitations, victims of sexual abuse can bring cases once they've discovered how the abuse affected them, sometimes decades after the actual crimes.
Dykes has been a source of legal troubles for the Boy Scouts before. Three lawsuits alleging abuse filed in 1987 resulted in undisclosed settlements. The mother of one of Dykes' earliest alleged victims told The Oregonian in 1995 that abuse of her son contributed to his suicide.
This article was found at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/
index.ssf?/base/news/
121314571936950.xml&coll=7
Five pregnant children is no small deal
Seattle Post-Intelligencer - June 10, 2008
Opinion
by John Young | Waco Tribune-Herald
WACO, Texas -- Parents of the polygamist sect in Eldorado, Texas, have their children back, but they aren't all in the clear. Until the DNA speaks, it's not clear who's a parent and who, as a child victim, became a parent.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/
366478_youngonline11.html
Opinion
by John Young | Waco Tribune-Herald
WACO, Texas -- Parents of the polygamist sect in Eldorado, Texas, have their children back, but they aren't all in the clear. Until the DNA speaks, it's not clear who's a parent and who, as a child victim, became a parent.
Criminal charges may spring from what remains in play after the Texas Supreme Court ruled Child Protective Services overreacted when it took 440 FLDS children into custody.
If this was a certifiable overreach, as two appellate courts say, I gladly vote for this over the chain of reactions in 1993 which left charred corpses on a blackened patch of prairie outside Waco. The initial concerns in that debacle were the same.
In that case, to prosecute something that started out as a child abuse case, officials chose federal SWAT teams in cattle trailers over caseworkers and deputies.
The feds opted for flash-bang grenades over diplomacy. They chose a big production over a quiet arrest of David Koresh away from the compound on the many occasions in Waco when he was being a guitar-loving messiah about town.
In the resulting shoot-out, 51-day standoff and horrific end by fire, 85 people died.
The DNA ultimately would speak to crimes that demanded someone's attention. Koresh fathered 13 children who died in the fire. Some were the result of his bedding minors.
Throughout those events, in which Waco became the media center of the universe, I got to sample a bizarre night-and-day divide of letters to the editor from two groups of outraged people.
On the one hand were the locals who wrote, "Support law enforcement." On the other hand were faxes from afar (before most of us were e-mailing) denouncing law enforcement as "jackbooted Nazi thugs."
In either case, the observers were blind to the culpability of those with whom their sympathies lay. Both the feds and the Branch Davidians were egregiously, horrifically at fault.
Now, with the case in Eldorado, I've seen mass e-mailed letters to newspapers like ours flinging charges at Texas for Gestapo tactics and for pursuing "fictional abuse." We've also heard from a "polygamy rights" group.
Breathe deeply. The state's claims -- that 31 teenage girls were impregnated -- were way off. It turns out that all but five were legal adults.
This may sound to you like an exoneration of the FLDS. It may also bring to one's mind the phrase "a little bit pregnant." Five pregnant children is no small deal.
Sect members say all was consensual. Texas law says, "If she's a minor, there's no such thing."
FLDS members now say they no longer will countenance marriages involving minors, a confession of something forbidden in the first place. Once again, feel free to denounce CPS for overreaching and exaggerating. I vote for child advocates who move their feet when clear suspicions present themselves.
Due process has prevailed thus far in this child abuse investigation. It had no such opportunity in 1993. The investigation continues in Eldorado, as it should. In the incident that became known as "Waco," all the truth that was left about the crimes that first alerted investigators was in the DNA.
This article was found at:If this was a certifiable overreach, as two appellate courts say, I gladly vote for this over the chain of reactions in 1993 which left charred corpses on a blackened patch of prairie outside Waco. The initial concerns in that debacle were the same.
In that case, to prosecute something that started out as a child abuse case, officials chose federal SWAT teams in cattle trailers over caseworkers and deputies.
The feds opted for flash-bang grenades over diplomacy. They chose a big production over a quiet arrest of David Koresh away from the compound on the many occasions in Waco when he was being a guitar-loving messiah about town.
In the resulting shoot-out, 51-day standoff and horrific end by fire, 85 people died.
The DNA ultimately would speak to crimes that demanded someone's attention. Koresh fathered 13 children who died in the fire. Some were the result of his bedding minors.
Throughout those events, in which Waco became the media center of the universe, I got to sample a bizarre night-and-day divide of letters to the editor from two groups of outraged people.
On the one hand were the locals who wrote, "Support law enforcement." On the other hand were faxes from afar (before most of us were e-mailing) denouncing law enforcement as "jackbooted Nazi thugs."
In either case, the observers were blind to the culpability of those with whom their sympathies lay. Both the feds and the Branch Davidians were egregiously, horrifically at fault.
Now, with the case in Eldorado, I've seen mass e-mailed letters to newspapers like ours flinging charges at Texas for Gestapo tactics and for pursuing "fictional abuse." We've also heard from a "polygamy rights" group.
Breathe deeply. The state's claims -- that 31 teenage girls were impregnated -- were way off. It turns out that all but five were legal adults.
This may sound to you like an exoneration of the FLDS. It may also bring to one's mind the phrase "a little bit pregnant." Five pregnant children is no small deal.
Sect members say all was consensual. Texas law says, "If she's a minor, there's no such thing."
FLDS members now say they no longer will countenance marriages involving minors, a confession of something forbidden in the first place. Once again, feel free to denounce CPS for overreaching and exaggerating. I vote for child advocates who move their feet when clear suspicions present themselves.
Due process has prevailed thus far in this child abuse investigation. It had no such opportunity in 1993. The investigation continues in Eldorado, as it should. In the incident that became known as "Waco," all the truth that was left about the crimes that first alerted investigators was in the DNA.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/
366478_youngonline11.html
9 Jun 2008
Freed from Bountiful: a mother wins a custody battle
The Vancouver Sun - June 7, 2008
by Daphne Bramham
Over the past two weeks in two different countries and in very different circumstances, two sisters regained custody of their children. Those children now face vastly different futures.
One set of cousins was returned to their mother after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the state had improperly seized more than 450 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' walled compound in west Texas.
They will grow up within in a reclusive, polygamous sect where toys, television and books are banned and where church, not family, comes first.
The other cousins have been set free from its strictures. Their mother, Teressa Wall, got full and permanent custody after her estranged husband agreed to a negotiated settlement that was approved by the B.C. Supreme Court.
Teressa's son and two daughters will only go back to the FLDS community in Bountiful, B.C., for short visits with their father and only if they want to.
Last September in Utah, Teressa helped put FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs in jail. She testified that Jeffs could have stopped the "spiritual marriage" of her 14-year-old sister, Elissa, to their 19-year-old first cousin. But Jeffs didn't and Allen Steed subsequently raped Elissa.
Jeffs is now serving two consecutive terms of five years to life in Utah for being an accomplice to rape and is awaiting trial in Arizona on similar charges.
Before Teressa testified, her estranged husband never opposed her taking the children with her to Idaho, not even when a U.S. border officer phoned to make sure that Teressa was not abducting them.
But within weeks of her testimony, Roy Blackmore filed for divorce and full custody. It was clearly retribution. It pitted her bank teller's wage against the church's treasury.
Teressa braced for a trial and the prospect of her legal costs in excess of $50,000. Then as the Texas custody battle was at its height, Blackmore offered to settle.
"He just caved. I'm just filing the final papers and it should all be finished in a matter of a few weeks," Teressa said last week. "It's so amazing. It's taken a huge load off me."
Even so, she's rung up a legal bill of $12,000 and still owes nearly half of that.
But there was no way Teressa was backing down. There was too much at stake.
She was terrified that her daughters might be forced into "spiritual marriages" at 14 like Elissa was. She was frightened that they'd become "poofers," disappearing without a trace into one of many FLDS compounds as her mother and two younger sisters have.
She had nightmares that if they went back, some day Jeffs might order them all to drink poison so that they could be "lifted up" to heaven.
Yet part of the negotiated settlement is that the children -- their eight-year-old son and two girls, aged nine and five -- will spend several weeks each year in British Columbia with Blackmore.
It was a hard decision.
"I didn't want to be the Big Bad Mom who totally denied them access to their Dad," she says. Besides, she wants them to see the reality of Bountiful for themselves.
In Idaho, they live in a three-bedroom house with a yard. In Bountiful, they squeezed into a single bedroom.
"One of the rooms we lived in was so small we could barely fit a queen-size bed into it," she said in a sworn affidavit. "There was no room for a dresser or even a bed for the children."
In another affidavit, her friend and cousin by marriage, Suzanne Blackmore, described Teressa's living conditions in Bountiful as "deplorable."
"They were living in a tent for a time," Suzanne said. "From my observation, Roy was not a very good provider for his family. That is not to say that he did not work hard. He definitely worked hard. However, he was content to have the extra money that he earned go to the church rather than to his family."
Several affidavits noted that, like most FLDS men, Roy was rarely home except on weekends.
Teressa and others were also highly critical of the schooling that focuses mainly on religion and is done mostly at home even though the B.C. government funds and accredits Bountiful elementary-secondary school.
"It is absolutely true that the children are home-schooled part of the time," Teressa says in her affidavit. "Yes, it [the school] may be approved by the B.C. government, but I am sure it is only approved if the schooling is actually happening at home and the children are getting the assistance and guidance they need."
In response to the Texas raid, the FLDS posted information on a website that gives hour-by-hour descriptions of children's daily lives.
Children get up at 5 a.m., dress, say their prayers and "read or listen to a few good words read from a religious book" before gathering with other family members at 6 a.m. for prayers, hymn singing and a reading from one of the FLDS prophets.
Breakfast is at 6:30. School starts at 7:30.
"Breathless, smiling children file into the school house about 10 minutes before starting time," it says.
First up is an hour of religious instruction during which the principal often calls on teachers and students to "stand up and bear testimony of what they believe. Freedom of speech is honoured in our society."
After that, there are classes in "English, math, spelling, history, reading, writing, phonics, crafts, sewing, singing, horticulture, etc. Teachers and parents have worked hard to put together a curriculum that will meet the standards of our religion."
Even preschoolers have to do chores. "Children who are just learning to walk love to help wash doorknobs, benches, cupboards, etc. . . . We do not give our children dolls, yet if the children act or pretend that they have a baby, that is fine; it is the natural instinct of a child," says the daily schedule for children under two.
There are more prayers and hymns in the afternoon and evening.
There are stories before bedtime, but as in school, the only ones allowed are from the Bible, Book of Mormon or from the fundamentalist prophets. Because fables, fairy tales or "other untrue stories" are forbidden, "[t]hey seldom have bad or frightful dreams, just sweet dreams of a happy family living together."
It doesn't say whether children dream of fathers. In fact, there are no references to fathers at all in the children's schedules.
Of course, the FLDS is silent on the most shocking reality of FLDS life -- forced marriages of under-aged girls.
But the Texas child protection services was not. Among other evidence, it filed photos of a then 50-year-old Jeffs with two young girls -- his "celestial brides." One was 12, the other -- Teressa's cousin -- was scarcely older.
It was not enough to keep some mothers' daughters safe. But at least Teressa Wall knows that she has done all she can for hers.
This article was found at:
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=09218181-661d-4d5f-afea-eaa9022e251a
by Daphne Bramham
Over the past two weeks in two different countries and in very different circumstances, two sisters regained custody of their children. Those children now face vastly different futures.
One set of cousins was returned to their mother after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the state had improperly seized more than 450 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' walled compound in west Texas.
They will grow up within in a reclusive, polygamous sect where toys, television and books are banned and where church, not family, comes first.
The other cousins have been set free from its strictures. Their mother, Teressa Wall, got full and permanent custody after her estranged husband agreed to a negotiated settlement that was approved by the B.C. Supreme Court.
Teressa's son and two daughters will only go back to the FLDS community in Bountiful, B.C., for short visits with their father and only if they want to.
Last September in Utah, Teressa helped put FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs in jail. She testified that Jeffs could have stopped the "spiritual marriage" of her 14-year-old sister, Elissa, to their 19-year-old first cousin. But Jeffs didn't and Allen Steed subsequently raped Elissa.
Jeffs is now serving two consecutive terms of five years to life in Utah for being an accomplice to rape and is awaiting trial in Arizona on similar charges.
Before Teressa testified, her estranged husband never opposed her taking the children with her to Idaho, not even when a U.S. border officer phoned to make sure that Teressa was not abducting them.
But within weeks of her testimony, Roy Blackmore filed for divorce and full custody. It was clearly retribution. It pitted her bank teller's wage against the church's treasury.
Teressa braced for a trial and the prospect of her legal costs in excess of $50,000. Then as the Texas custody battle was at its height, Blackmore offered to settle.
"He just caved. I'm just filing the final papers and it should all be finished in a matter of a few weeks," Teressa said last week. "It's so amazing. It's taken a huge load off me."
Even so, she's rung up a legal bill of $12,000 and still owes nearly half of that.
But there was no way Teressa was backing down. There was too much at stake.
She was terrified that her daughters might be forced into "spiritual marriages" at 14 like Elissa was. She was frightened that they'd become "poofers," disappearing without a trace into one of many FLDS compounds as her mother and two younger sisters have.
She had nightmares that if they went back, some day Jeffs might order them all to drink poison so that they could be "lifted up" to heaven.
Yet part of the negotiated settlement is that the children -- their eight-year-old son and two girls, aged nine and five -- will spend several weeks each year in British Columbia with Blackmore.
It was a hard decision.
"I didn't want to be the Big Bad Mom who totally denied them access to their Dad," she says. Besides, she wants them to see the reality of Bountiful for themselves.
In Idaho, they live in a three-bedroom house with a yard. In Bountiful, they squeezed into a single bedroom.
"One of the rooms we lived in was so small we could barely fit a queen-size bed into it," she said in a sworn affidavit. "There was no room for a dresser or even a bed for the children."
In another affidavit, her friend and cousin by marriage, Suzanne Blackmore, described Teressa's living conditions in Bountiful as "deplorable."
"They were living in a tent for a time," Suzanne said. "From my observation, Roy was not a very good provider for his family. That is not to say that he did not work hard. He definitely worked hard. However, he was content to have the extra money that he earned go to the church rather than to his family."
Several affidavits noted that, like most FLDS men, Roy was rarely home except on weekends.
Teressa and others were also highly critical of the schooling that focuses mainly on religion and is done mostly at home even though the B.C. government funds and accredits Bountiful elementary-secondary school.
"It is absolutely true that the children are home-schooled part of the time," Teressa says in her affidavit. "Yes, it [the school] may be approved by the B.C. government, but I am sure it is only approved if the schooling is actually happening at home and the children are getting the assistance and guidance they need."
In response to the Texas raid, the FLDS posted information on a website that gives hour-by-hour descriptions of children's daily lives.
Children get up at 5 a.m., dress, say their prayers and "read or listen to a few good words read from a religious book" before gathering with other family members at 6 a.m. for prayers, hymn singing and a reading from one of the FLDS prophets.
Breakfast is at 6:30. School starts at 7:30.
"Breathless, smiling children file into the school house about 10 minutes before starting time," it says.
First up is an hour of religious instruction during which the principal often calls on teachers and students to "stand up and bear testimony of what they believe. Freedom of speech is honoured in our society."
After that, there are classes in "English, math, spelling, history, reading, writing, phonics, crafts, sewing, singing, horticulture, etc. Teachers and parents have worked hard to put together a curriculum that will meet the standards of our religion."
Even preschoolers have to do chores. "Children who are just learning to walk love to help wash doorknobs, benches, cupboards, etc. . . . We do not give our children dolls, yet if the children act or pretend that they have a baby, that is fine; it is the natural instinct of a child," says the daily schedule for children under two.
There are more prayers and hymns in the afternoon and evening.
There are stories before bedtime, but as in school, the only ones allowed are from the Bible, Book of Mormon or from the fundamentalist prophets. Because fables, fairy tales or "other untrue stories" are forbidden, "[t]hey seldom have bad or frightful dreams, just sweet dreams of a happy family living together."
It doesn't say whether children dream of fathers. In fact, there are no references to fathers at all in the children's schedules.
Of course, the FLDS is silent on the most shocking reality of FLDS life -- forced marriages of under-aged girls.
But the Texas child protection services was not. Among other evidence, it filed photos of a then 50-year-old Jeffs with two young girls -- his "celestial brides." One was 12, the other -- Teressa's cousin -- was scarcely older.
It was not enough to keep some mothers' daughters safe. But at least Teressa Wall knows that she has done all she can for hers.
This article was found at:
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=09218181-661d-4d5f-afea-eaa9022e251a
Polygamous sect's no-underage-marriage vow: Will it be honored?
The Salt Lake Tribune - June 9, 2008
They say 'we mean it,' but know outsiders might balk at believing them
by Brooke Adams
For years, a polygamous sect seemed willing to risk everything in a standoff with government over underage marriages: property, prophet, progeny.
Now, a week after a church elder delivered a statement saying the FLDS Church would no longer sanction such marriages, the question is: Problem solved?
Maybe, maybe not.
In Texas, authorities investigating the sect have made as much of its polygamous life-style as underage marriages. But in Utah and Arizona, where most members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints live, authorities have long said that marriage age, not polygamy, is the issue.
"We're still trying to find out what it means," said Paul Murphy, spokesman for Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. "This could be the most significant thing that has happened to the FLDS Church in years.
"I'm hoping this is a sign . . . that the FLDS Church is stepping into the 21st century as far as what people will accept and not accept as far as marriages," he said.
"We mean it": Church spokesman Willie Jessop issued the "clarification" a week ago on a dusty road outside a meetinghouse at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas.
The key section of the statement said the church would commit to "not preside over the marriage of any woman under the age of legal consent in the jurisdiction in which the marriage takes place. The church will counsel families that they neither request nor consent to any underage marriages."
Jessop said the policy was not a reaction to the April 3 raid at the ranch, which led to the removal of some 450 children. A judge signed an order allowing the children to be returned to their parents hours before Jessop read the statement.
He said the policy had been in place for about 18 months and, because of attention brought on the group by the raid, was now being shared publicly.
"Not only do we mean it, we've lived it," he said, adding that the policy applied to both monogamous and plural marriages. "This isn't like the manifesto where we condemn it publicly and then do it privately," said Jessop, a reference to the 1890 declaration made by the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disavowing polygamy.
Plural marriages continued within the church for more than a decade before they were stopped, an act that seeded the breakoff of fundamentalist sects. The LDS Church now excommunicates members who support or practice plural marriage.
"The Manifesto was a fundamental change in the belief structure of the church," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney and sect spokesman. "The timing of the actual marriage is not a fundamental core part of [the sect's] belief. It is not a compromise in the same way the Manifesto was."
"Not a gray area": Experts and current and former sect members alike describe a diverse marriage-age pattern in the FLDS Church. Teenage girls, they say, are not routinely married off.
"The claims of detractors of the number of underage marriages is overblown," said Ken Driggs, an Atlanta attorney and historian of Mormon fundamentalism.
But until last week, the FLDS - unlike other polygamous groups in Utah and Arizona - had refused to publicly denounce the practice. In fact, six years ago the FLDS took a decidedly different stance, one that set the sect on a devastating collision course with government officials.
In an April 2002 church meeting, an elder stood and encouraged the congregation to stay strong against coming attacks on the sect's marriage practices, including marriages of underage girls.
"They said marriages involving 15- or 16-year-olds was a gray area and we said it's not a gray area," Murphy said.
At the time, Warren Jeffs was acting as the de facto leader of the church for his ailing father; he took over five months later.
As warned, Utah and Arizona initiated actions aimed at dismantling the group. The states began prosecuting men who had spiritually married underage girls and took over the sect's property holdings in the border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.; and Bountiful, British Columbia.
They also helped set the stage for the Texas raid, which targeted the sect's most sacred property and a portion of its next generation. Shurtleff, for example, testified before a Texas legislative committee in favor of changes to the state's marriage laws that may now be used to prosecute FLDS members.
A vow to stop: Shurtleff, who underwent surgery last week and was unavailable for comment, said months ago that he believed the sect's underage marriages had stopped.
Jessop said Jeffs was not involved in crafting the policy. If it has been in place for 18 months or so, it was adopted after Jeffs' arrest in August 2006. Jeffs was convicted in September of rape as an accomplice in Utah based on an underage marriage he conducted in 2001 and is awaiting trial in Arizona on two similar allegations.
The policy also apparently came after at least four marriages - the last a month before his arrest - between Jeffs and underage girls, including two who were 12.
"When people saw the pictures of Warren Jeffs kissing a 12-year-old, that embodied the whole issue," Murphy said.
Several FLDS members, who declined to be named, said they found the photos just as shocking, even as they offered up scenarios that might explain them. Jessop claims Jeffs' marriages to the youngest girls were never consummated. But a search warrant used to obtain DNA samples from Jeffs alleges he fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl in October 2005.
DNA tests collected in Texas may show whether other men in the sect fathered children with underage girls to whom they were spiritually, but not legally, married - provided they participated in the tests.
Meanwhile, Parker said the sect intends to make good on its promise to end underage marriages.
"There is no question that it is going to take time for the outside world to have confidence in that statement," Parker said.
Utah officials are arranging a meeting with FLDS leaders to learn more about the new policy, which Murphy said would go a long way to resolving key problems the group has faced.
"I just wish this was an effort made years ago," he said.
This article was found at:
http://www.sltrib.com/
news/ci_9525799
They say 'we mean it,' but know outsiders might balk at believing them
by Brooke Adams
For years, a polygamous sect seemed willing to risk everything in a standoff with government over underage marriages: property, prophet, progeny.
Now, a week after a church elder delivered a statement saying the FLDS Church would no longer sanction such marriages, the question is: Problem solved?
Maybe, maybe not.
In Texas, authorities investigating the sect have made as much of its polygamous life-style as underage marriages. But in Utah and Arizona, where most members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints live, authorities have long said that marriage age, not polygamy, is the issue.
"We're still trying to find out what it means," said Paul Murphy, spokesman for Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. "This could be the most significant thing that has happened to the FLDS Church in years.
"I'm hoping this is a sign . . . that the FLDS Church is stepping into the 21st century as far as what people will accept and not accept as far as marriages," he said.
"We mean it": Church spokesman Willie Jessop issued the "clarification" a week ago on a dusty road outside a meetinghouse at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas.
The key section of the statement said the church would commit to "not preside over the marriage of any woman under the age of legal consent in the jurisdiction in which the marriage takes place. The church will counsel families that they neither request nor consent to any underage marriages."
Jessop said the policy was not a reaction to the April 3 raid at the ranch, which led to the removal of some 450 children. A judge signed an order allowing the children to be returned to their parents hours before Jessop read the statement.
He said the policy had been in place for about 18 months and, because of attention brought on the group by the raid, was now being shared publicly.
"Not only do we mean it, we've lived it," he said, adding that the policy applied to both monogamous and plural marriages. "This isn't like the manifesto where we condemn it publicly and then do it privately," said Jessop, a reference to the 1890 declaration made by the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disavowing polygamy.
Plural marriages continued within the church for more than a decade before they were stopped, an act that seeded the breakoff of fundamentalist sects. The LDS Church now excommunicates members who support or practice plural marriage.
"The Manifesto was a fundamental change in the belief structure of the church," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney and sect spokesman. "The timing of the actual marriage is not a fundamental core part of [the sect's] belief. It is not a compromise in the same way the Manifesto was."
"Not a gray area": Experts and current and former sect members alike describe a diverse marriage-age pattern in the FLDS Church. Teenage girls, they say, are not routinely married off.
"The claims of detractors of the number of underage marriages is overblown," said Ken Driggs, an Atlanta attorney and historian of Mormon fundamentalism.
But until last week, the FLDS - unlike other polygamous groups in Utah and Arizona - had refused to publicly denounce the practice. In fact, six years ago the FLDS took a decidedly different stance, one that set the sect on a devastating collision course with government officials.
In an April 2002 church meeting, an elder stood and encouraged the congregation to stay strong against coming attacks on the sect's marriage practices, including marriages of underage girls.
"They said marriages involving 15- or 16-year-olds was a gray area and we said it's not a gray area," Murphy said.
At the time, Warren Jeffs was acting as the de facto leader of the church for his ailing father; he took over five months later.
As warned, Utah and Arizona initiated actions aimed at dismantling the group. The states began prosecuting men who had spiritually married underage girls and took over the sect's property holdings in the border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.; and Bountiful, British Columbia.
They also helped set the stage for the Texas raid, which targeted the sect's most sacred property and a portion of its next generation. Shurtleff, for example, testified before a Texas legislative committee in favor of changes to the state's marriage laws that may now be used to prosecute FLDS members.
A vow to stop: Shurtleff, who underwent surgery last week and was unavailable for comment, said months ago that he believed the sect's underage marriages had stopped.
Jessop said Jeffs was not involved in crafting the policy. If it has been in place for 18 months or so, it was adopted after Jeffs' arrest in August 2006. Jeffs was convicted in September of rape as an accomplice in Utah based on an underage marriage he conducted in 2001 and is awaiting trial in Arizona on two similar allegations.
The policy also apparently came after at least four marriages - the last a month before his arrest - between Jeffs and underage girls, including two who were 12.
"When people saw the pictures of Warren Jeffs kissing a 12-year-old, that embodied the whole issue," Murphy said.
Several FLDS members, who declined to be named, said they found the photos just as shocking, even as they offered up scenarios that might explain them. Jessop claims Jeffs' marriages to the youngest girls were never consummated. But a search warrant used to obtain DNA samples from Jeffs alleges he fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl in October 2005.
DNA tests collected in Texas may show whether other men in the sect fathered children with underage girls to whom they were spiritually, but not legally, married - provided they participated in the tests.
Meanwhile, Parker said the sect intends to make good on its promise to end underage marriages.
"There is no question that it is going to take time for the outside world to have confidence in that statement," Parker said.
Utah officials are arranging a meeting with FLDS leaders to learn more about the new policy, which Murphy said would go a long way to resolving key problems the group has faced.
"I just wish this was an effort made years ago," he said.
This article was found at:
http://www.sltrib.com/
news/ci_9525799
Few willing to break away from FLDS. Those who do risk being cut out of family.
Houston Chronicle - June 7, 2008
At 21, Elissa Wall overcame her fear of losing contact with her family forever and endangering her immortal soul when she decided to help Utah prosecutors in their sexual abuse case against polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs — a man her church believes gets his orders directly from God.
story.mpl/front/5825107.html
At 21, Elissa Wall overcame her fear of losing contact with her family forever and endangering her immortal soul when she decided to help Utah prosecutors in their sexual abuse case against polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs — a man her church believes gets his orders directly from God.
Wall is one of the few women who has gone up against the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the group that broke from the Mormon church more than 100 years ago and now sits squarely at the center of a Texas child abuse investigation.
"One of the tenets you learn is that if you leave and you testify against the leaders, you are what they call an apostate and damned to hell," said Wall, who wrote Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs.
"That's one of the biggest things, those mind hurdles. ... You have to get over this mind thing that you're going to hell," said Wall, whose testimony was key in convicting Jeffs last year of being an accomplice to rape for his role in forcing a 14-year-old Wall to marry her 19-year-old cousin.
The pressure to be loyal
The FLDS' rigid sense of community and conformity could be a major hurdle for Texas authorities as they investigate allegations of sexual and physical abuse at the sect's sprawling ranch near Eldorado in West Texas."It's very rare anyone breaks away," said Sam Brower , a Utah private investigator who has spent 4 1/2 years tracking FLDS members and helping authorities in his state and Arizona build criminal cases against them. "Most can't bring themselves to leave their community, they've segregated themselves from the world and to ask them to break off from the community ... they do what they're told."
Since April 3, when Texas Child Protective Services first entered the reclusive sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch and seized more than 400 children, Texas and the nation have seen images of crying mothers in their uniform hairdos and identical pioneer dresses as their sun-kissed husbands stood mostly silent off to the side, in starched long-sleeve shirts and jeans.
Meanwhile, their lawyers sparred vigorously with state officials over whether the children should have been removed by CPS and placed in foster care as the agency investigated which ones, if any, suffered physical and sexual abuse.
Thanks to a Texas Supreme Court ruling that their removal was not warranted, the children are back with their families for now, albeit with several CPS-mandated restrictions.
But the case is far from over, as the criminal chapter opens in a grand jury room in Eldorado's Schleicher County courthouse.
There, the work is just beginning for prosecutors with the Texas Attorney General's Office and the local district attorney's office who are expected to lay out documents recording marriages of FLDS adult men to girls under the age of 18. Witnesses expected to be called are law enforcement officers who collected the evidence and FLDS members.
But don't expect a lot from the FLDS, Brower and others say. The pressure from family and church members can be intense and witnesses from within the sect can easily flip-flop on prosecutors, if they show up at all.
Kids may disappear
Since 2003, nine FLDS men, including Jeffs, have been tried for child sex abuse or related bigamy charges. Of those, four have been convicted, but barely because of inconsistent witnesses.In one case, a woman who convinced a grand jury she was 16 at the time of her marriage, turned around and offered to change her testimony for money, resulting in dropped charges against her husband. In another case, a former underage victim testified against her husband, then urged leniency at his sentencing. And in another, a 17-year-old child bride told a court her husband never should have been prosecuted.
Then there's the family pressure Wall talks about.
Brower recalled how charges were dropped against Randolph Barlow after his wife told authorities that she was 16 when she was forced into a marriage with him — then clammed up on the witness stand.
Brower watched as the woman's mother moved from one end of a courtroom bench to another so she could have direct eye contact with her daughter.
"She got up on the stand and stopped talking," Brower recalled. "It was watching like The Godfather."
Given the recent CPS custody battle, Texas authorities shouldn't expect any cooperation from the FLDS, said Stephen Singular, the author of When Men Become Gods: Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, his Cult of Fear, and the Women who Fought Back.
"I would think it'd be unlikely they'd have witnesses," he said. "There was enormous pressure put on women (in other states) not to testify against the men. I don't see any sign it'll be different here."
Plus there's the danger that any witnesses will just uproot and leave, even though FLDS parents at the ranch have been ordered not to take their children out of Texas .
"The whole pattern of this group is to move. The pressure comes and they move," Singular said.
In addition to Texas, Utah and Arizona, the FLDS has property in South Dakota, Canada, Colorado and Idaho.
"The kids will start disappearing and all the adults will have hanging over them is a contempt citation," Brower said.
Who are the victims?
Richard Holm, 55, a successful businessman in Utah who was a lifelong sect member until his excommuication five years ago, agreed that members would likely go underground.Willie Jessop, Jeffs' former bodyguard who has since become a spokesman for the group living in Texas, hedged when asked if FLDS members would go underground.
"As far as being excited about turning witnesses against their family and trying to get on the government's agenda, I don't know that people would be standing up to volunteer for it but I don't know that they'd be hiding, either," he said.
Brower said one way to combat the problems with the FLDS as witnesses is to keep the criminal case tied directly to documents, as Utah and Arizona did.
Texas authorities also have to decide whether to treat the women as victims, or accomplices.
Brower knows of no FLDS woman ever charged as an accomplice in Arizona and Utah.
But he believes sentiment is changing. It is for him.
"I used to see them as victims and I felt really sorry for them but after working these cases, I think they know better," Brower said. "They know that underage marriage is illegal but they still defend the men and send their daughters to marry them."
This article was found at:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5825107.html
6 Jun 2008
Gov. Rick Perry stands by raid of polygamist sect's Texas ranch
Dallas Morning News - June 6, 2008
Gov. Rick Perry, accepting personal blame if Texas "stepped across some legal line," nevertheless on Thursday strongly defended its sweep of all youngsters from a polygamist sect's ranch.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/
dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/
DN-polygamists_06tex.ART.State.
Edition1.46c09f2.html
Gov. Rick Perry, accepting personal blame if Texas "stepped across some legal line," nevertheless on Thursday strongly defended its sweep of all youngsters from a polygamist sect's ranch.
"I still think that the state of Texas has an obligation to young women who are forced into marriage and underage sex – to protect them. That's my bottom line on this," Mr. Perry said during a visit to France.
State child-welfare authorities last month removed hundreds of children from a ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, saying that the sect forces underage girls to marry older men. The state this week returned all the children to their parents after courts ruled that it had overstepped its authority in the mass removals, but says it is continuing its investigation.
The governor said he hopes state law enforcement officials and prosecutors "continue to send the message" to the sect that child sexual abuse won't be tolerated.
Mr. Perry warned sect members that "if you are going to conduct yourself that way, we are going to prosecute you. If you don't want to be prosecuted for those activities, then maybe Texas is not the place you need to consider calling home."
Willie Jessop, a Utah-based elder in the sect, called Mr. Perry's remarks shocking – especially, he said, after the courts ruled against the state.
"It's an outrage that he would even make such gross and broad allegations," Mr. Jessop said. "He's listening to people that tell lies about the FLDS."
The sect has denied there is any greater prevalence of child abuse in its ranks than in mainstream society. It has accused CPS of religious persecution.
Mr. Perry, speaking in La Baule, France, where he gave the keynote address at a European business conference, was asked if he will fire or discipline any state officials because of the way the case was handled.
"I think that with the knowledge that the CPS had at the time they acted, that they acted with the best interest of those children," he said.
Mr. Perry said he hopes CPS and the sect "work together" to protect any sect children who may be in jeopardy.
"If responsibility needs to be taken for [court edicts] saying that we stepped across some legal line, I'll certainly take that responsibility," Mr. Perry said. "I am substantially less interested in these fine legal lines that we're discussing than I am about these children's welfare; that's where my focus is. That's where CPS' focus is."
Mr. Perry said he wants Texas to enforce its laws, which generally forbid minors under 17 from engaging in sex, especially with partners who are four or more years older.
"Forcing a young woman who reaches puberty into a marriage with an older man for whatever reason is not appropriate behavior in the state of Texas," he said.
The governor said investigating the sect has been "incredibly difficult" because of a lack of cooperation by sect parents. While he said, "I understand totally reuniting pre-pubescent children with their mothers," he said authorities must focus on "what occurred here and why it occurred here. And that is a clear violation of ... social standards and the law."
Mr. Jessop said girls in his fundamentalist Mormon sect aren't in danger. On Monday, the church announced that it would no longer sanction marriage of any female under the age of legal consent in the state where she lives.
Mr. Jessop said Mr. Perry, in calling for criminal prosecutions, showed the same stubbornness as President Bush on the Iraq war.
"Rather than acknowledging we're in there on bad intelligence, we keep fighting the fight," Mr. Jessop said. "I don't know if that's a Texas thing or what that is. But he's in that same mentality – let's continue to justify why we're there rather than acknowledging it wasn't true."
Mr. Jessop also cited a Dallas Morning News review of Mr. Perry's e-mails, which showed the Republican governor did not receive a full briefing on the FLDS removals until five days after the raid.
"It's an outrage he would even comment on things that he obviously hasn't stayed close enough to, to personally know what he's talking about," Mr. Jessop said.
He said Mr. Perry ought to get his facts straight. He said the governor has rebuffed a sect invitation to visit the ranch.
Perry spokeswoman Krista Piferrer said the governor used his phone and personal updates from his staff to stay informed about FLDS-related events in early April. She said the governor was engaged but deferred to experts at CPS and the Department of Public Safety to conduct the investigation and do their work.
Ms. Piferrer, asked about the sect's invitation for Mr. Perry to visit the ranch, said, "It would be inappropriate for the governor to go to the home of any child who was removed by CPS because their parents are under a criminal investigation for not protecting them from sexual abuse. This case is no different."
This article was found at:http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/
dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/
DN-polygamists_06tex.ART.State.
Edition1.46c09f2.html
1984 Twelve Tribes cult raid had similar judicial conclusion as Texas case
Times Argus - Vermont
June 5, 2008
by Wilson Ring | Associated Press
MONTPELIER — Before dawn on June 22, 1984, 90 Vermont State Police troopers and 50 social workers descended on the Island Pond homes of about 400 people belonging to the Northeast Kingdom Community Church to investigate allegations of child abuse.
Authorities had received reports children were being beaten, sometimes with sticks, as part of the strict discipline imposed by church parents. The 112 children taken into custody were to be examined for abuse and if none were found they were to be returned to their parents — if the parents agreed to cooperate with the state.
But within hours a judge returned the children to their parents, calling the state's effort a "grossly unlawful scheme."
While there are many differences between the Vermont raid on Island Pond and the decision by Texas officials to take into custody 430 children amid allegations underage girls were being forced to marry older men, there are many similarities, said one of the former officials involved in the Vermont case. "It's very apparent from these two cases that at least two courts are looking for specific, direct information regarding each family unit," said Washington attorney John Easton, who in 1984 was the Vermont attorney general and involved in the decision to launch the Island Pond raid. "To remove a child from a family is a high burden. The courts are going to be looking for a substantial amount of proof" of abuse.
On April 3, Texas Child Protective Services removed all the children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints after a 16-year-old mother claimed she was being abused by her middle-age husband. The state charged all the children were at risk because church teachings pushed underage girls into marriage and sex.
Last month, The Texas Third Court of Appeals said the state went too far. The Texas Supreme Court has since upheld the decision and almost all the children have been returned to their parents. Church leaders are promising not to sanction underage marriages.
Vermont law school Professor Peter Teachout said he'd read the Texas court decisions and the 1984 Vermont rulings, which reached the same conclusions:
"Lawyers who practice family law will know to say the burden is on the state in these cases," Teachout said. "The underlying principle is whenever you take a child away from his parents, that you do so when there is serious risk of abuse."
The Northeast Kingdom Community Church took root in Island Pond, a small, rural community in northern Vermont, in the summer of 1978 after a resident invited a church leader to town. Almost immediately, the Island Pond group tripled in size from its 20 original members to 60. The church is now known as the Twelve Tribes, which has 50 communities in nine countries and about 3,500 members.
From the beginning the relationship between Island Pond in a part of Vermont called the Northeast Kingdom and the bearded men and their women in kerchiefs was uneasy. In some circles the word "cult" was used to describe it and state officials began to hear reports of physical abuse of children.
So the state decided to act, got an order from a judge to seize the children and secretly assembled the police and social workers, said Easton, the former attorney general.
After they were taken, Judge Frank Mahady, who has since died, interviewed them and sent them home. His scathing opinion is still available on the church's Web site.
James Richardson, a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who has studied efforts by governments to control minority faiths, said the Texas and Vermont cases were among almost two dozen similar cases scholars have identified around the world.
He said in many cases organizations get caught up in investigating allegations of child abuse and they overreach. In Vermont and Texas the efforts were stopped by the judge.
"Concern about children trumps all other considerations in most western nations, and usually overcomes even religious freedom concerns," Richardson said in an e-mail.
Even from the perspective of 24 years, Easton said there wasn't much he would have done differently.
"We were put in a difficult position. We had rather serious allegations from people who had directly observed activities inside the church," Easton said. "To not act would have been irresponsible."
In 1984, Jean Swantko was a public defender assigned to represent the people of the Island Pond church. Now she's a member.
"Maybe a lot of people don't realize the 1st Amendment protects freedom of association. You don't find groups guilty, you find people guilty," said Swantko, who splits her time between Twelve Tribes communities in Vermont and Tennessee.
She said many of the children seized in 1984 are now adults raising their own children in the church.
"Now, 24 years after the raid they are between 24 and 32. Most of them are still in the community. They are taking on the faith of their parents," Swantko said. "You can judge a tree by its fruit."
This article was found at:
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20080605/NEWS02/
806050368/1003/NEWS02
June 5, 2008
by Wilson Ring | Associated Press
MONTPELIER — Before dawn on June 22, 1984, 90 Vermont State Police troopers and 50 social workers descended on the Island Pond homes of about 400 people belonging to the Northeast Kingdom Community Church to investigate allegations of child abuse.
Authorities had received reports children were being beaten, sometimes with sticks, as part of the strict discipline imposed by church parents. The 112 children taken into custody were to be examined for abuse and if none were found they were to be returned to their parents — if the parents agreed to cooperate with the state.
But within hours a judge returned the children to their parents, calling the state's effort a "grossly unlawful scheme."
While there are many differences between the Vermont raid on Island Pond and the decision by Texas officials to take into custody 430 children amid allegations underage girls were being forced to marry older men, there are many similarities, said one of the former officials involved in the Vermont case. "It's very apparent from these two cases that at least two courts are looking for specific, direct information regarding each family unit," said Washington attorney John Easton, who in 1984 was the Vermont attorney general and involved in the decision to launch the Island Pond raid. "To remove a child from a family is a high burden. The courts are going to be looking for a substantial amount of proof" of abuse.
On April 3, Texas Child Protective Services removed all the children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints after a 16-year-old mother claimed she was being abused by her middle-age husband. The state charged all the children were at risk because church teachings pushed underage girls into marriage and sex.
Last month, The Texas Third Court of Appeals said the state went too far. The Texas Supreme Court has since upheld the decision and almost all the children have been returned to their parents. Church leaders are promising not to sanction underage marriages.
Vermont law school Professor Peter Teachout said he'd read the Texas court decisions and the 1984 Vermont rulings, which reached the same conclusions:
"Lawyers who practice family law will know to say the burden is on the state in these cases," Teachout said. "The underlying principle is whenever you take a child away from his parents, that you do so when there is serious risk of abuse."
The Northeast Kingdom Community Church took root in Island Pond, a small, rural community in northern Vermont, in the summer of 1978 after a resident invited a church leader to town. Almost immediately, the Island Pond group tripled in size from its 20 original members to 60. The church is now known as the Twelve Tribes, which has 50 communities in nine countries and about 3,500 members.
From the beginning the relationship between Island Pond in a part of Vermont called the Northeast Kingdom and the bearded men and their women in kerchiefs was uneasy. In some circles the word "cult" was used to describe it and state officials began to hear reports of physical abuse of children.
So the state decided to act, got an order from a judge to seize the children and secretly assembled the police and social workers, said Easton, the former attorney general.
After they were taken, Judge Frank Mahady, who has since died, interviewed them and sent them home. His scathing opinion is still available on the church's Web site.
James Richardson, a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who has studied efforts by governments to control minority faiths, said the Texas and Vermont cases were among almost two dozen similar cases scholars have identified around the world.
He said in many cases organizations get caught up in investigating allegations of child abuse and they overreach. In Vermont and Texas the efforts were stopped by the judge.
"Concern about children trumps all other considerations in most western nations, and usually overcomes even religious freedom concerns," Richardson said in an e-mail.
Even from the perspective of 24 years, Easton said there wasn't much he would have done differently.
"We were put in a difficult position. We had rather serious allegations from people who had directly observed activities inside the church," Easton said. "To not act would have been irresponsible."
In 1984, Jean Swantko was a public defender assigned to represent the people of the Island Pond church. Now she's a member.
"Maybe a lot of people don't realize the 1st Amendment protects freedom of association. You don't find groups guilty, you find people guilty," said Swantko, who splits her time between Twelve Tribes communities in Vermont and Tennessee.
She said many of the children seized in 1984 are now adults raising their own children in the church.
"Now, 24 years after the raid they are between 24 and 32. Most of them are still in the community. They are taking on the faith of their parents," Swantko said. "You can judge a tree by its fruit."
This article was found at:
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20080605/NEWS02/
806050368/1003/NEWS02
5 Jun 2008
Sheriff: Sect members will be charged
McClatchy Newspapers - June 4, 2008
FORT WORTH, Texas - Even as children continue to stream back home to the Yearning for Zion Ranch near El Dorado, Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran predicted Tuesday that numerous criminal charges will eventually be returned against followers of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).
news/articles/2008/06/04/
20080604polyretreat04-on.html
FORT WORTH, Texas - Even as children continue to stream back home to the Yearning for Zion Ranch near El Dorado, Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran predicted Tuesday that numerous criminal charges will eventually be returned against followers of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).
"I believe when all of the criminal charges come forward it is going to be very hard to practice their beliefs within the state of Texas," Doran said. "I believe there are numerous criminal investigations going, and a number of charges will eventually come out of those investigations."
A grand jury was convened Monday in Schleicher County, but Doran said that panel is only dealing with local issues and is not taking up cases related to child abuse allegations at the sect's compound. He said the Texas Rangers, who are the lead agency in the investigation, are moving deliberately."I see warrants coming but the timing of that is up to the Texas Rangers and the district attorney," Doran said. "I'm not party to that. We didn't have the manpower to conduct this investigation, so we've been in a support role, trying to provide communications with the ranch and provide law enforcement protection to our county."
Doran defended the April 3 raid that led to the seizure of all of the children from the ranch, even though the call that spurred the raid may have been a hoax. A Colorado woman, who was arrested for making prank calls, has been declared a person of interest by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
"A lot of people don't understand these calls kept coming during the operation," Doran said. "When the children were moved to Fort Concho (in San Angelo), the calls continued with details like it rained and toys were being given to the children. So there was a lot of information that led people to believe the calls were true. But on the flip side, there is a person of interest - this hoax caller; and if the Texas Rangers decide this person did something wrong, then that person will be charged."
Last week the Texas Supreme Court upheld the 3rd Court of Appeal's ruling that said there was no basis for taking all of the children from the ranch.
Doran still believes removing the children was the correct decision and said that many residents in El Dorado feel the same way.
"A lot of people on a local level are very upset about it," Doran said. "They're very concerned about the women and children."
He believes the threat by FLDS elder Willie Jessop to register 300 voters is retaliation against him, but he does not believe it will work. Doran is up for re-election this fall.
"I think there is strong concern around town about that," Doran said. "I think the buzz is people around town are ready to stand up against them at the ballot box."
Doran said he has not seen Merrill Jessop, the presumed leader of the YFZ Ranch, since he saw him during the raid.
"My understanding is he's out of state," Doran said. "That apparently is what he has told some people. I think there's been a rotation of the leadership at the ranch. We're not seeing the faces out there that we're used to seeing."
This article was found at:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/06/04/
20080604polyretreat04-on.html
A Texas court’s contention that a few cases of underage sex doesn’t justify removal of all children from sect’s ranch raises troubling questions
Lawrence Journal World
June 5, 2008
Opinion
Child welfare laws in most states express a significant preference for keeping children in their homes or in the custody of biological family members, if at all possible.
June 5, 2008
Opinion
Child welfare laws in most states express a significant preference for keeping children in their homes or in the custody of biological family members, if at all possible.
There are times, however, when returning children to a questionable family situation clearly is not in their best interests. It remains to be seen whether Texas officials have done the right thing by ordering about 400 children back to a ranch operated by a polygamist religious sect. In the meantime, the welfare of these children certainly demands close monitoring by the child welfare system.
The children were placed in foster care about two months ago amid allegations of underage girls being forced into marriages and sexual relations with older men in the sect. DNA samples have been taken from one of the leaders of the sect as part of an investigation into underage sex with girls ages 12 to 15 at the ranch. The sect leader has been convicted as an accomplice to rape in Utah and is in an Arizona jail awaiting trial on similar charges.
No group should be persecuted for practicing its religious beliefs — unless those beliefs involve illegal activity such as sexual abuse of underage children. The children were removed from the Texas ranch and placed in foster care because there was evidence that illegal activity was occurring there.
The Texas Supreme Court’s decision last week to return children to the ranch seems to underestimate the potential threat. The court ruled that the state had overreached by taking all the children from the ranch when prosecutors had failed to show that more than five teenage girls had been sexually abused.
How many cases of abuse does it take? If the case involved eight girls, would the ranch be deemed an unsafe place for younger children? Maybe 10 cases of potential abuse? And how many more cases might occur while this investigation is ongoing?
This investigation obviously has been unsettling and difficult for the young children involved. The law is not wrong for wanting to return those children to their biological mothers, but the state also needs to weigh family interests against the safety of the children.
Perhaps returning the children to the Texas ranch won’t hamper the investigation of this group’s activities or endanger any of the children involved. If, however, any underage children are harmed as a result of the court’s decision to place them back in this environment, the outcry from the people of Texas should be long and loud.
This article was found at:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/
jun/05/child_protection/?opinion
Ex-Polygamy Cult Member Shares Family's Violent Past
San Diego 10News - June 4, 2008
by Charisse Yu
Ervil LeBaron started the Church of Lamb of God in San Diego. He had 13 wives and more than 50 children. He allegedly ordered the killing of his brother Joel, his wife Noemi, his daughter Rebecca and many others.
The killings continued even after LeBaron's arrest in 1979.
Now, one of his daughters shares what it was like to be part of this violent family.
"When I thought of my dad... I thought of him as being God," Norma LeBaron said. "We went extreme in almost every way. I got married off when I was 13, twice."
In describing her father's beliefs, she said, "He believed in having revelations and that one person -- one man -- was God's representative on Earth, and God would speak through that one person."
She is one of 52 children of Ervil Lebaron. LeBaron's followers were spread out across Utah, Texas, California and even Mexico. The children shared the same father; the wives shared the same husband.
"We were God's chosen," Norma said. "And everybody else, the world was what who we feared."
Norma said that anyone who strayed or wanted to get out of the group would be killed, or what they called, "blood atoned."
"I had my aunt and my younger sister who were blood atoned and it was traumatizing," she said.
"Anybody that threatened to go to the police or young mothers who wanted to leave with their children, those are reasons and grounds to kill them."
One of those murders happened in National City. Ervil ordered his 10th wife, Vonda White, who was pregnant at the time, to kill Dean Vest.
Retired prosecutor Gary Rempel said Vest, a former member of the group, was about to contact authorities.
"He was getting ready to leave," Rempel said. "She served him some chicken and told him to wash his hands at the sink and while he was washing his hands at the sink she came up behind him, having put on rubber gloves, and shot him twice in the back."
But Norma said many of the assassins are victims. Ervil LeBaron's followers were taught that blood atonement was a way of sending the person back to heaven.
"That meant we didn't want to do God's will and so that was part of my challenge growing up. There was so many things that weren't right inside of me and they were so hard to deal with. I knew I was going to Hell because I knew in my heart I didn't want somebody to get killed," Norma said.
The bloodshed didn't end with Ervil LeBaron's teachings. Family rivalry over leadership also turned to violence. Norma was caught in the gunfire in Mexico when she was 11 years old.
"It just went and I pulled it out," she said. "I doctored myself."
Ervil LeBaron was eventually arrested and convicted of ordering the death of a rival polygamist. But inside his prison cell, LeBaron wrote a book that became the bible for his followers. It also contained a hit list.
"These people made Manson look like amateurs," Rempel said. "They had 22 successful unpunished hits."
When Norma LeBaron was asked if the hit list still exists, she said, "There's nobody that believes that it exists. There's no threat for anybody anymore."
In the wake of the raid on a polygamist compound in Texas, Norma says she has deep sympathy for the children.
"Where do we stop this perpetual raising people in this certain beliefs? So, it's really hard. A part of me wants somebody to go and give them things and help them in a very loving way how were helped we would probably still in Mexico waiting for God to come back," she said.
She said the wives and the children of her polygamist cult are victims. Many of them were born into the lifestyle.
"I had this yearning to go out to school, to sometimes talk about ... and that very yearning was something of the Devil and we would always try to smash it," she said.
She said leaving never crossed her mind. And if she didn't have the help of police, she probably would still be in Mexico.
"To just conjure up the notion of wanting to leave was so bizarre and something you just don't do," she said. "To me it's kind of like, in this day and age, saying, 'oh, you know what, I'm gonna just go to the moon now."
It took many years for Norma to come to terms with her past, but now she wants to live in the present and can only hope the cycle of polygamy won't continue.
Norma said the LeBaron polygamy group no longer exists. According to the FBI, by 1995 four members of the LeBaron group were found guilty for murders and sentenced to prison. One of Norma's sisters is, however, on the FBI's most wanted list for her alleged involvement in a series of crimes including conspiracy to commit murder.
This article was found at:
http://www.10news.com/news/
16499608/detail.html
by Charisse Yu
Ervil LeBaron started the Church of Lamb of God in San Diego. He had 13 wives and more than 50 children. He allegedly ordered the killing of his brother Joel, his wife Noemi, his daughter Rebecca and many others.
The killings continued even after LeBaron's arrest in 1979.
Now, one of his daughters shares what it was like to be part of this violent family.
"When I thought of my dad... I thought of him as being God," Norma LeBaron said. "We went extreme in almost every way. I got married off when I was 13, twice."
In describing her father's beliefs, she said, "He believed in having revelations and that one person -- one man -- was God's representative on Earth, and God would speak through that one person."
She is one of 52 children of Ervil Lebaron. LeBaron's followers were spread out across Utah, Texas, California and even Mexico. The children shared the same father; the wives shared the same husband.
"We were God's chosen," Norma said. "And everybody else, the world was what who we feared."
Norma said that anyone who strayed or wanted to get out of the group would be killed, or what they called, "blood atoned."
"I had my aunt and my younger sister who were blood atoned and it was traumatizing," she said.
"Anybody that threatened to go to the police or young mothers who wanted to leave with their children, those are reasons and grounds to kill them."
One of those murders happened in National City. Ervil ordered his 10th wife, Vonda White, who was pregnant at the time, to kill Dean Vest.
Retired prosecutor Gary Rempel said Vest, a former member of the group, was about to contact authorities.
"He was getting ready to leave," Rempel said. "She served him some chicken and told him to wash his hands at the sink and while he was washing his hands at the sink she came up behind him, having put on rubber gloves, and shot him twice in the back."
But Norma said many of the assassins are victims. Ervil LeBaron's followers were taught that blood atonement was a way of sending the person back to heaven.
"That meant we didn't want to do God's will and so that was part of my challenge growing up. There was so many things that weren't right inside of me and they were so hard to deal with. I knew I was going to Hell because I knew in my heart I didn't want somebody to get killed," Norma said.
The bloodshed didn't end with Ervil LeBaron's teachings. Family rivalry over leadership also turned to violence. Norma was caught in the gunfire in Mexico when she was 11 years old.
"It just went and I pulled it out," she said. "I doctored myself."
Ervil LeBaron was eventually arrested and convicted of ordering the death of a rival polygamist. But inside his prison cell, LeBaron wrote a book that became the bible for his followers. It also contained a hit list.
"These people made Manson look like amateurs," Rempel said. "They had 22 successful unpunished hits."
When Norma LeBaron was asked if the hit list still exists, she said, "There's nobody that believes that it exists. There's no threat for anybody anymore."
In the wake of the raid on a polygamist compound in Texas, Norma says she has deep sympathy for the children.
"Where do we stop this perpetual raising people in this certain beliefs? So, it's really hard. A part of me wants somebody to go and give them things and help them in a very loving way how were helped we would probably still in Mexico waiting for God to come back," she said.
She said the wives and the children of her polygamist cult are victims. Many of them were born into the lifestyle.
"I had this yearning to go out to school, to sometimes talk about ... and that very yearning was something of the Devil and we would always try to smash it," she said.
She said leaving never crossed her mind. And if she didn't have the help of police, she probably would still be in Mexico.
"To just conjure up the notion of wanting to leave was so bizarre and something you just don't do," she said. "To me it's kind of like, in this day and age, saying, 'oh, you know what, I'm gonna just go to the moon now."
It took many years for Norma to come to terms with her past, but now she wants to live in the present and can only hope the cycle of polygamy won't continue.
Norma said the LeBaron polygamy group no longer exists. According to the FBI, by 1995 four members of the LeBaron group were found guilty for murders and sentenced to prison. One of Norma's sisters is, however, on the FBI's most wanted list for her alleged involvement in a series of crimes including conspiracy to commit murder.
This article was found at:
http://www.10news.com/news/
16499608/detail.html
Judge's orders aimed to protect Jeffs' daughter from sect member
The Dallas Morning News - June 4, 2008
Governor very troubled that the children, especially those most at risk for abuse in this case – young girls – are being sent back to the very compound that is riddled with uncertainty, potential for harm and remains at the center of a very serious criminal investigation
ELDORADO, Texas – A judge Tuesday set special conditions for the release from state custody of a 16-year-old daughter of polygamist sect prophet Warren Jeffs after the girl's lawyer complained she'd been sexually abused by a man in the group and might be in danger.
While 397 of the sect's 440 children in the custody of Child Protective Services had been released by late Tuesday, Mr. Jeffs' daughter was the only one accorded special protections, said her lawyer, Natalie Malonis of Flower Mound.
dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/
DN-polygamists_04tex.ART.State.
Edition2.4655eb9.html
Governor very troubled that the children, especially those most at risk for abuse in this case – young girls – are being sent back to the very compound that is riddled with uncertainty, potential for harm and remains at the center of a very serious criminal investigation
ELDORADO, Texas – A judge Tuesday set special conditions for the release from state custody of a 16-year-old daughter of polygamist sect prophet Warren Jeffs after the girl's lawyer complained she'd been sexually abused by a man in the group and might be in danger.
While 397 of the sect's 440 children in the custody of Child Protective Services had been released by late Tuesday, Mr. Jeffs' daughter was the only one accorded special protections, said her lawyer, Natalie Malonis of Flower Mound.
State District Judge Barbara Walther of San Angelo allowed the girl to be released to her mother, Annette Jeffs, at a Midland foster care facility after ordering the mother to keep her in the San Antonio area where she lives – and away from the alleged perpetrator, a 38-year-old sect member.
The judge may impose additional restrictions, Ms. Malonis said.
"She was very concerned about, 'Will the parent be able to protect her?' " Ms. Malonis said of Judge Walther.
Ms. Malonis said CPS and law enforcement had evidence that the girl was sexually abused, though they don't believe she's ever been pregnant.
CPS lawyer Gary Banks and Tim Edwards of San Angelo, attorney for the girl's mother, helped craft the special order. It orders Annette Jeffs not to return to the ranch with the girl.
The order also prohibits the girl from seeing her father, Mr. Jeffs, but Ms. Malonis said that was "standard" in CPS cases because Mr. Jeffs is a convicted sex offender. He is awaiting trial in Arizona on a charge of coercing an underage girl into a "spiritual" marriage with her 19-year-old cousin – a charge similar to one he was convicted of last fall in Utah.
Meanwhile, only a few sect families trickled back to the group's Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado. Many remained elsewhere in the state out of fear that CPS may "tear away" their children again, said sect spokesman Willie Jessop.
Edson P. Jessop Jr. and his wife, Zavenda Young, returned to the ranch Tuesday afternoon in a pickup loaded with bicycles and toys – and their four children.
"They hardly slept; they were just so excited," Ms. Young said.
She said their first words on being released from state custody Monday were, "Are we really going to go?"
The parents drove to Waco and retrieved sons Zachary, 9, and Ephraim, 7, from the Methodist Children's Home. They then headed for Houston to fetch son Russell, 5, and daughter, Annie, 3.
Ms. Young said she had noticed on regular visits that on some days her children "are not the same." She said they endured "one trauma after another" and will need help for years in getting past recent events.
Both parents, though, heaped praise on the children's caregivers, especially at Boys & Girls Country near Houston.
"They literally cried when we took them away," Ms. Young said.
She predicted a difficult relationship ahead with CPS, which under an order Judge Walther signed Monday can interview the children and have them undergo psychological evaluations. The couple is required to take parenting classes.
"They are hard people to trust," Ms. Young said of CPS workers.
On Tuesday, Judge Walther continued to receive initial results of DNA tests administered to sect children and many parents.
CPS spokeswoman Shari Pulliam said the test results are crucial.
"Our investigation is going to continue," she said, "And the DNA testing is a very important part of that investigation."
While the Texas Rangers and state attorney general's office pursue possible criminal charges against certain men in the sect, CPS says it needs the test results to establish family relationships.
"That's a piece of the puzzle we don't have, to figure out who we're going to be working with," Ms. Pulliam said.
Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran expects indictments to be returned against some sect members in the next several months.
Gov. Rick Perry, who indicated last month that he was proud of the actions taken by CPS, warned through a spokeswoman that Friday's decision by the Texas Supreme Court ordering the sect children's release could place youngsters in danger.
"The governor is concerned that the legal process by which the children were removed from their home is overshadowing the sexual abuse allegations at hand," said Perry's deputy press secretary, Allison Castle.
"He is very troubled that the children, especially those most at risk for abuse in this case – young girls – are being sent back to the very compound that is riddled with uncertainty, potential for harm and remains at the center of a very serious criminal investigation," Ms. Castle said.
The sect has denied there is any greater prevalence of child abuse in its ranks than in mainstream society. It says Texas swept its more than 450 children into custody two months ago in an act of religious persecution.
This article was found at:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/
DN-polygamists_04tex.ART.State.
Edition2.4655eb9.html
3 Jun 2008
Cult Plans Major Legal Battle After Children are Seized
Southern Poverty Law Center
Intelligence Report - Summer 2008
Raid and Reaction
by Sonia Scherr
When leaders of a racist, polygamous cult purchased 1,691 acres for a compound in rural Texas, they hoped to retreat further from the government and the press, which increasingly were shining a spotlight on some of their more unsavory activities.
Though the children's fates had yet to be determined at press time, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) — which split from the Mormon Church years ago — could grow even stronger as it fights what it considers ongoing harassment by outsiders. "This is a major, major blow and will be seen as the ultimate persecution," said John Dougherty, who has written extensively about FLDS. "This will not do anything to weaken them. It will just make them more determined to move forward."
While the group is best known for practicing polygamy more than 100 years after it was outlawed by the Mormon Church, FLDS is also extremely racist. According to Jeffs, "The black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth." He has blasted the Mormon Church for allowing blacks to become priests, saying it "became the great and terrible church on the earth" and will be destroyed by God.
Jeffs hoped to escape that kind of unwanted attention when he moved several hundred of his most loyal followers to the compound in Eldorado. But in 2006, he was apprehended after nearly two years on the lam and a stint on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. A Utah judge sentenced him to two consecutive prison terms of five years to life for forcing Elissa Wall, then 14, to marry her 19-year-old cousin. Jeffs is currently imprisoned in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial on charges of arranging two other marriages involving underage girls. He continues to run FLDS from prison.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas, which observed the custody hearing, has already said the rights of FLDS members may have been violated. "We recognize that this balancing act is difficult, but we are concerned that government may not be complying with the constitution or the laws of Texas in the execution of its mandate, from how the raids were conducted to whether the current process protects basic rights," said Lisa Graybill, legal director for the ACLU of Texas, in a statement.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/
article.jsp?aid=914
Intelligence Report - Summer 2008
Raid and Reaction
by Sonia Scherr
When leaders of a racist, polygamous cult purchased 1,691 acres for a compound in rural Texas, they hoped to retreat further from the government and the press, which increasingly were shining a spotlight on some of their more unsavory activities.
Only it didn't quite work out that way. Instead, their so-called prophet, Warren Jeffs, was convicted last year of being an accomplice to rape for arranging a marriage involving a 14-year-old girl. Then, in early April, state authorities took more than 460 children from the group's secluded Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, a small town in central Texas. Shortly afterward, a judge ruled that the children could remain in state custody, at least temporarily, because Texas officials had shown they were in imminent danger of abuse or neglect by their parents. The children, who were sent to foster homes, were to receive individual hearings to decide if the state retains control of them or if they can return to their parents.
 |
The raid was triggered by a phone call to a Texas domestic abuse hotline. The caller identified herself as a 16-year-old girl who was being physically and sexually abused by her 50-year-old husband. While the report is now believed to be a hoax, child welfare workers say they've uncovered other examples of abuse at the compound, including marriages between underage girls and older men. Of the 53 girls ages 14 to 17 who were taken from the ranch, 31 either have children or are pregnant, state officials said. Texas law generally forbids girls under 18 from having sex with an adult. As of press time, no criminal charges had been filed against any ranch member in connection with the alleged abuse.
For its part, the sect denies that abuse occurred and has enlisted attorneys to challenge the removal of its children. "They will fight this thing tooth and nail. They're not just going to give up," Dougherty said.
 The Eldorado, Texas, compound of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) (Tony Gutierrez) |
While the group is best known for practicing polygamy more than 100 years after it was outlawed by the Mormon Church, FLDS is also extremely racist. According to Jeffs, "The black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth." He has blasted the Mormon Church for allowing blacks to become priests, saying it "became the great and terrible church on the earth" and will be destroyed by God.
As for sexual relations between men, Jeffs called that "the worst evil act you can do, next to murder. It is like murder. Whenever people commit that sin, then the Lord destroys them."
Jeffs has claimed some 10,000 followers, most of whom live in the Short Creek community of Colorado City, Ariz., and neighboring Hilldale, Utah. Nonetheless, the sect's impact extends beyond its adherents: An investigation of the cult by Dougherty, then a reporter for the Phoenix New Times, detailed how FLDS leaders used taxpayer dollars, intended for city services, to help finance the church. He also found — as did a major 2005 exposé of the cult in these pages — that FLDS marriages between relatives were causing babies to be born with an extremely rare and disabling genetic disease. The refusal of FLDS members to stop inbreeding had troubling financial implications along with ethical ones, since the state of Arizona was helping pay for medical care and other assistance for children with the disease.
In addition, an investigation this spring by McClatchy Newspapers revealed that tax dollars were flowing to a business run by an FLDS leader. The business, NewEra Manufacturing in Las Vegas, had been awarded $1.2 million in military contracts and a $900,000 federal loan. In a 2005 affidavit filed as part of a civil lawsuit, a former NewEra employee said the company was funneling $50,000 to $100,000 of its monthly profits to the FLDS or Jeffs.
 Warren Jeffs (Trent Nelson) |
Jeffs hoped to escape that kind of unwanted attention when he moved several hundred of his most loyal followers to the compound in Eldorado. But in 2006, he was apprehended after nearly two years on the lam and a stint on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. A Utah judge sentenced him to two consecutive prison terms of five years to life for forcing Elissa Wall, then 14, to marry her 19-year-old cousin. Jeffs is currently imprisoned in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial on charges of arranging two other marriages involving underage girls. He continues to run FLDS from prison.
In fact, Jeffs' imprisonment made him a martyr in the eyes of his followers — and they will now see him as an even greater prophet than before, Dougherty said. They will regard the ranch raid as fulfilling their leaders' predictions of further persecution by outsiders. In addition, Dougherty said FLDS members no doubt see an explanation for their ordeal in the race of the 33-year-old woman whom police have linked to the phone call that touched off the raid. (The woman, Rozita Swinton, is black.) "That's just more support [for the idea] that the devil is at hand and that's why this is happening," he said.
The case is bound to provoke a legal debate about whether the state of Texas was justified in separating all the children from their parents and not just teenage girls or those on the cusp of puberty, Dougherty said. During the hearing in April, the state contended that the children were living in a climate that fostered abuse by teaching girls to accept sex with much older men and boys to eventually take child brides. However, no evidence presented at the hearings suggested that young children were directly harmed. "I think there are going to be all sorts of constitutional questions raised about the right of the state to intervene," Dougherty said.
 Over the years, the polygamist cult threw out many of its young boys so that there would be plenty of women for the remaining men to marry, leading to a whole colony of "lost boys" like Richard Black, who was excommunicated and forced to leave his family at age 15 for watching the film "Scary Movie." (Benjamin Lowy) |
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas, which observed the custody hearing, has already said the rights of FLDS members may have been violated. "We recognize that this balancing act is difficult, but we are concerned that government may not be complying with the constitution or the laws of Texas in the execution of its mandate, from how the raids were conducted to whether the current process protects basic rights," said Lisa Graybill, legal director for the ACLU of Texas, in a statement.
The situation unfolding in Texas is eerily similar to a raid on Short Creek in 1953, which was also prompted by reports that men were taking minors as wives. In Short Creek, law enforcement officials took protective custody of more than 300 women and children and arrested nearly 40 men, according to the Deseret News. The incident garnered extensive media coverage, most of it highly critical of the state's actions. The raid ended the political career of Arizona Gov. John Howard Pyle, but did nothing to damage the FLDS. None of the men were prosecuted, and everyone who'd been taken from Short Creek ultimately returned. FLDS followers saw the incident as a trial they had to endure for their faith — one from which they emerged victorious.
FLDS members view the Eldorado raid in a similar light. Just as they did more than half a century ago, they are coming together to fight the unwelcome intrusion from outsiders. While their Texas outpost may not have provided quite the refuge they were hoping for, it's doubtful they will abandon it anytime soon.
"They've invested a tremendous amount of time and money into building their compound down there," Dougherty said. "I find it hard to believe they're going to walk away."
This article was found at:http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/
article.jsp?aid=914
Tory MPP pushes for Ontario polygamy probe
The Toronto Star - June 2, 2008
|
http://www.thestar.com/News/
Ontario/article/435797
|
Ontario's Liberal government should follow British Columbia's lead and launch a criminal investigation into polygamist marriages in the province, Conservative Lisa MacLeod said today.
MacLeod wrote Premier Dalton McGuinty requesting the investigation after media reports about a Toronto Imam, Aly Hindy, who claimed to have officiated at more than 30 polygamous marriages in Toronto.
She raised the issue several times in the legislature in the past week but received only denials that polygamy was a problem in Ontario.
"If these stories as reported are true, which I believe them to be, then a criminal investigation is warranted," wrote MacLeod.
"This Imam is poking his finger in our eyes and saying he will continue to do this illegally," she complained in an exclusive interview with The Canadian Press. "For the government to hide its head in the sand on this issue is troubling to me. They literally laughed at me in the legislature."
MacLeod noted the problem with polygamist marriages under investigation in British Columbia involved a different religion than the one in Ontario, but said in both cases the rule of law should be upheld on marriages and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it comes to gender equality.
"Nothing incenses a young woman like me than to say we are unequal, that I'm insubordinate," said the 33 year old MacLeod. ``It's a real problem."
B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal said Monday that public concerns about older men marrying young girls and men with multiple wives at the polygamous community of Bountiful played a strong part in the decision to review whether charges of sexual abuse and polygamy are warranted against members of the religious group.
Oppal directed the criminal justice branch to appoint a special prosecutor to look into allegations of misconduct in Bountiful, located near Creston in southeastern B.C.
"B.C. has given Premier Dalton McGuinty the opportunity to act and to respond and to be decisive," said MacLeod.
She said polygamous marriages clearly violates the Criminal Code and the Ontario Marriages Act and should be investigated by police.Attorney General Chris Bentley told the legislature Monday that police will conduct investigations and will contact prosecutors if they feel there is reasonable grounds to believe an offence has been committed.
He told MacLeod that Canada's laws will always trump religious laws.
"We are always one that will uphold the law of Canada as outlined in the criminal code," said Bentley.
"The Canadian law is paramount. End of story."
This article was found at:http://www.thestar.com/News/
Ontario/article/435797
Polygamist leader says BC attorney general guilty of religious persecution
The Canadian Press - June 3, 2008
VICTORIA — A religious leader from the B.C. polygamous community of Bountiful is accusing the province's attorney general of religious persecution.
Winston Blackmore, one of two religious leaders in Bountiful, said B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal appears determined to involve himself and his government in religious persecution against the sect.
Oppal announced Monday that he's appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the possibility of criminal charges ranging from sexual assault to polygamy with regard to Bountiful, and provide an opinion on the likelihood of a conviction.
Oppal made the move despite two earlier legal opinions saying proceeding with criminal charges on polygamy would be difficult, because anyone charged criminally under the prohibition of polygamy may decide to defend themselves on grounds that their rights to religious freedom are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
One examination suggested launching a court challenge of the laws barring polygamy as opposed to a criminal prosecution.
But the B.C. attorney general has said that public concerns about older men marrying young girls and men with multiple wives in Bountiful played a strong part in the decision to review charges.
"I take the public's view into consideration," Oppal said Monday.
"That's not the governing factor, but still, I think, all right-thinking people out in the public have informed us that they want us to do something here."
In an e-mail to The Canadian Press, Blackmore said Oppal wants to force the Liberal government to persecute citizens it has an obligation to serve and protect.
"Mr. Oppal seems determined to involve himself in religious persecution," said Blackmore's e-mail. "It can't possibly be about polygamy. It must be about his own religious bias and now he wants the Liberal government to persecute some of the citizens that they have an obligation to serve and protect."
Blackmore goes on to say: "I guess religious persecution by governments does happen in other countries."
Oppal said Monday that Blackmore - who does not dispute that he lives a polygamist lifestyle and has numerous wives and dozens of children - appears to be daring him to charge him with polygamy.
About 800 people live in Bountiful, where members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints live a polygamous lifestyle in the secluded agricultural community near Creston, B.C.
The sect is a breakaway offshoot of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.
Oppal said the recent apprehension of more than 400 children from a sister polygamous community in Texas has raised public interest about Bountiful, which B.C. justice officials have struggled with for more than two decades.
Authorities in Texas removed the children from their homes after they say they received calls to a domestic abuse hotline, purportedly from a 16-year-old in the community who said she was forced into a marriage with a man three times her age. That girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the call was a hoax.
But the Texas children, including at least one Canadian teenaged girl from Bountiful, were ordered released from state custody by the courts and began returning to their families this week.
This article was found at:
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/
ALeqM5jA-BYJ3c-Jh6NgP8oFXS8b5EsDlg
VICTORIA — A religious leader from the B.C. polygamous community of Bountiful is accusing the province's attorney general of religious persecution.
Winston Blackmore, one of two religious leaders in Bountiful, said B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal appears determined to involve himself and his government in religious persecution against the sect.
Oppal announced Monday that he's appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the possibility of criminal charges ranging from sexual assault to polygamy with regard to Bountiful, and provide an opinion on the likelihood of a conviction.
Oppal made the move despite two earlier legal opinions saying proceeding with criminal charges on polygamy would be difficult, because anyone charged criminally under the prohibition of polygamy may decide to defend themselves on grounds that their rights to religious freedom are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
One examination suggested launching a court challenge of the laws barring polygamy as opposed to a criminal prosecution.
But the B.C. attorney general has said that public concerns about older men marrying young girls and men with multiple wives in Bountiful played a strong part in the decision to review charges.
"I take the public's view into consideration," Oppal said Monday.
"That's not the governing factor, but still, I think, all right-thinking people out in the public have informed us that they want us to do something here."
In an e-mail to The Canadian Press, Blackmore said Oppal wants to force the Liberal government to persecute citizens it has an obligation to serve and protect.
"Mr. Oppal seems determined to involve himself in religious persecution," said Blackmore's e-mail. "It can't possibly be about polygamy. It must be about his own religious bias and now he wants the Liberal government to persecute some of the citizens that they have an obligation to serve and protect."
Blackmore goes on to say: "I guess religious persecution by governments does happen in other countries."
Oppal said Monday that Blackmore - who does not dispute that he lives a polygamist lifestyle and has numerous wives and dozens of children - appears to be daring him to charge him with polygamy.
About 800 people live in Bountiful, where members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints live a polygamous lifestyle in the secluded agricultural community near Creston, B.C.
The sect is a breakaway offshoot of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.
Oppal said the recent apprehension of more than 400 children from a sister polygamous community in Texas has raised public interest about Bountiful, which B.C. justice officials have struggled with for more than two decades.
Authorities in Texas removed the children from their homes after they say they received calls to a domestic abuse hotline, purportedly from a 16-year-old in the community who said she was forced into a marriage with a man three times her age. That girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the call was a hoax.
But the Texas children, including at least one Canadian teenaged girl from Bountiful, were ordered released from state custody by the courts and began returning to their families this week.
This article was found at:
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/
ALeqM5jA-BYJ3c-Jh6NgP8oFXS8b5EsDlg
3rd prosecutor named to investigate polygamy in Bountiful, B.C.
CBC - British Columbia
June 3, 2008
B.C.'s attorney general has appointed a third special prosecutor to investigate whether charges should be laid against members of the polygamist community of Bountiful, in the province's southeastern Interior.
story/2008/06/02/bc-080602-
bountiful-prosecutor-roberts.html
June 3, 2008
B.C.'s attorney general has appointed a third special prosecutor to investigate whether charges should be laid against members of the polygamist community of Bountiful, in the province's southeastern Interior.
Wally Oppal instructed the province's Criminal Justice Branch to hire another special prosecutor, Terrence Robertson, to review the results of the latest police investigation and consider charges.
Robertson will look at results of the RCMP investigation, consider charges, offer advice to the police, write a report, and if he believes charges are warranted, conduct the prosecution.
Oppal said he disagrees with the recommendations of two previous special prosecutors, Richard Peck and Leonard Doust, whom he appointed, and who both recommended the Criminal Justice Branch not proceed with charges.
"I think this is something we, as a society, need to be concerned with. The whole idea of men with senior ages, 50-year-old men, having relationships with younger women between the ages of 14 and 16 and 17 … I think Canadians would find abhorrent," said Oppal.
In April, Doust, a prominent Vancouver lawyer, recommended the government ask the courts to clarify whether the law prohibiting polygamy is constitutional before considering pressing charges.Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada explicitly bans polygamy and threatens offenders with a five-year prison term.
But Doust declined Oppal's request that he prosecute on the polygamy allegation when the two met in May, saying he felt it would be unfair.
On Monday in a written statement, Oppal said upholding the law is not unfair, and that's why he has asked the criminal justice branch to appoint Robertson as the third special prosecutor to handle the investigation.
"It is my opinion that the Criminal Justice Branch is mistaken in its belief that section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada is unconstitutional. Both Mr. Doust and Mr. Peck believe section 293 to be constitutionally valid legislation. A valid criminal law is and should be enforced. To do so is appropriate and is not unfair," Oppal said in written statement.
The polygamist community of Bountiful is home to a community of several hundred polygamists with links to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the U.S.
A woman who used to live in Bountiful said she hopes the latest special prosecutor will recommend charges be laid.
Debbie Palmer, who left Bountiful 20 years ago with her eight children, told CBC News on Monday she wishes the provincial government would approach the issue more directly.
"I thought that he [Oppal] would have the power to go ahead and designate that they should go ahead and prosecute charges of polygamy and child sexual assault without asking for yet another opinion," Palmer said.
Texas ruling allows children, parents to reunite
In Texas on Monday, a judge ordered the return of more than 400 children taken by state authorities from a ranch run by the polygamist group.
According to the ruling, parents are allowed to pick up their children but can't leave Texas without court permission and must participate in parenting classes.
They have also been ordered not to interfere with any ongoing child abuse investigation and to allow the children to have psychiatric or medical exams if required.
The order comes days after the Texas Supreme Court said child welfare officials had no right to seize hundreds of children from the west Texas ranch.
Child welfare officials removed more than 400 children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, about 300 kilometres northwest of San Antonio.
This article was found at:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/06/02/bc-080602-
bountiful-prosecutor-roberts.html
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