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PerryPeabody
 Posted:
Thu May 15, 2008 3:10 pm |
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CNN.com
Polygamist Allen Steed awaiting trial on rape charge objects to Elissa Wall's book "Stolen Innocence". Steed says the book could taint potential jurors.
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- A book and promotional tour by a woman who helped convict polygamist leader Warren Jeffs could taint the jury pool in a rape case against her cousin and former husband, the husband's attorney said.
Allen Steed, shown at sect leader Warren Jeffs' trial, says a book by his former wife could taint his jury.
Elissa Wall's book, "Stolen Innocence," was released Tuesday by publisher William Morrow.
It chronicles her life, including her time with cousin and former husband Allen Steed, whom she describes as having a violent temper and a "calculating and controlling" personality.
Steed is charged with raping Wall during their relationship, which was arranged in 2001 by leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that practices polygamy and arranged marriage.
Wall, who was 14 at the time, said she was forced into sex with Steed, who was 19. Steed has said he never forced Wall to have sex.
"Ms. Wall needs to specifically understand that her conduct may compromise Mr. Steed's ability to obtain a fair trial and that she may have to make some choices regarding her quest for publicity and her desire to have Mr. Steed prosecuted," defense attorney Jim Bradshaw said last week in a letter to Washington County prosecutors.
County prosecutor Brock Belnap told the Deseret News on Wednesday he was still confident an impartial jury could be seated.
Wall's attorney, Roger Hoole, didn't return a message Thursday.
Wall, now 21, was the key witness last year in the trial that sent Jeffs to prison for rape as an accomplice. She claimed he refused to release her from the relationship.
Steed, 27, testified for Jeffs and was charged with rape a day after the FLDS leader was convicted in St. George, in southern Utah.
The Associated Press does not generally identify people who say they were sexually assaulted, but Wall has spoken publicly.
A raid on an FLDS ranch in Texas last month further complicates the issue, Bradshaw said. Texas authorities have placed more than 460 children in state custody during an investigation of child abuse.
Wall was granted an FLDS divorce from Steed and left the church in 2004 after she became pregnant with another man's child. She is married and has two children.
Steed, still a member of the church, could spend his life in prison if convicted.
Jeffs, 52, remains the FLDS prophet, despite his imprisonment. He is in an Arizona jail, awaiting two trials on accomplice charges of incest and sexual misconduct.
The mainstream Mormon church disavows polygamy and has no ties to the FLDS.
http://tinyurl.com/5as3rv
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1091
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Sat May 17, 2008 1:10 pm |
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Polygamous Sect Moves In, And Texas Town Asks 'Why?'
Mormon Offshoot Accused of Abuses in Arizona and Utah
By Sylvia Moreno
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 7, 2004; Page A03
ELDORADO, Tex. -- By anyone's account, 2003 was a banner news year in this tiny town on the western edge of Texas's rolling hill country.
A man killed his father in the first homicide here in two decades, and an elderly man pushing brush with a bulldozer was stung to death by killer bees. A local businessman pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and was hauled off to federal prison, and nine residents, most of them members of the First Baptist Church, were killed in an accident in Louisiana on their way to visit historic sites in Pennsylvania.
"I thought, we'll never have another year like that," said Randy Mankin, the part-time city administrator and full-time publisher and editor of the Eldorado Success, a weekly newspaper. "Then in mid-March this thing came along -- like a UFO landed north of town."
The polygamists had arrived, and Eldorado (pronounced el-doh-ray-doh) -- population 1,951 -- hasn't been the same since.
"Your first question is 'Why Eldorado?' " said Jeri Whitten, director of the Schleicher County Public Library, which nowadays has a waiting list for its small collection of books about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose members are Eldorado's newest neighbors.
Local and state officials are trying to find out why the group chose this location, especially because of recent allegations against the sect -- which broke away from the mainstream Mormon Church when it banned polygamy in 1890 -- of child abuse, forced marriage and fraud. The sect, known as the FLDS, is led by self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs, 48, who, along with two of his brothers, was accused in a civil lawsuit filed in Salt Lake City this summer of sodomizing a nephew when the boy was 5 and of coercion for trying to keep the boy from discussing the abuse. Jeffs and his brothers have denied the allegations through a church spokesman.
The FLDS practices plural marriage, a spiritual ritual that is arranged by the group's prophet through what the church teaches are revelations from God. Having multiple wives, members believe, gives them access to the highest level in heaven, the Celestial Kingdom. Today, the fundamentalists claim a membership of 10,000 to 12,000, most of them living in the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where they run their own schools, police departments and businesses and boast families that include dozens of wives and dozens of children.
Recent cases brought by Utah and Arizona law enforcement authorities to prosecute the problems associated with polygamy -- bigamy, criminal nonsupport of children, child rape, forced marriage of minor girls and fraud of the welfare system -- have shone the spotlight on the insular community.
That attention, said a Salt Lake City lawyer who speaks for Jeffs and the FLDS, prompted the sect to look for a new "outpost and retreat" in Texas. Rodney Parker said the Eldorado compound will be used by about 500 church members, who have no interest in political or civic involvement in Eldorado.
"People can go there to concentrate and focus on their religious mission without the interferences and pressures they've been subjected to" in Arizona and Utah, Parker said. "They're a very private people, and right now they're feeling very picked on."
But the group's efforts here are attracting widespread attention. An informal squad of local businessmen and officials flies over the sect's compound regularly. Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran is in regular contact with the group, and the Eldorado Success has been running front-page stories on it regularly.
"It's been a nice town until now. Everybody's like kin to each other; we all know each other," said Eldorado resident Amelia Rodriguez, 60, a retired housekeeper. "I get kind of scared because there's no telling what's going to happen. . . . I don't like it. I don't feel it's a good place for them to be."
The news that the FLDS was creating a settlement began trickling in at the end of winter after a local pilot noticed that concrete foundations were being laid for three large buildings on a plateau about five miles north of town. He relayed the news to the sheriff. Then a Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden reported a man on the property for hunting without a state license or proof that he had taken a hunter safety class. He was from Arizona and "he said he was hunting for food," said game warden Doug Seamands.
Doran tracked down the representative of record for YFZ Land LLC of Utah, the purchaser of the 1,691 acres. That representative, David Allred, said the property was to be used as a hunting lodge for the company's clients. But the answer didn't sit right with residents.
Leasing land to hunters is one of the biggest money-making businesses in Schleicher County, and locals know what a hunting lodge looks like. "It's a 20-by-21 room with a simple road, a little log cabin that will fit four or five guys," said Justice of the Peace Jimmy Doyle. "These [buildings] are like college dormitories, three stories tall, with a lot of road work. We knew something was up."
Besides, said Doyle, "we couldn't figure out why, if they have elk and bear in Utah, they're coming to the county to hunt a little white-tailed deer."
By mid-March, with the construction going strong, information began coming in to the sheriff and to the newspaper that Allred and the owner of the property were connected to Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Doran called Allred in for another meeting, and it was then, the sheriff said, that "he said it's not a hunting retreat -- he said it was for church members who wanted to get away" from Utah and Arizona.
Then the region's media arrived in droves, attracted by Flora Jessop, who went to Eldorado to hold a news conference and warn local residents about their fundamentalist neighbors. Jessop, 34, fled the FLDS enclave on the Utah-Arizona border at the age of 18, claiming years of sexual abuse by her father, virtual imprisonment by her uncle and a forced marriage to a cousin. She has since become an anti-polygamist activist and the executive director of the Child Protection Project in Phoenix, which helps girls escape the FLDS.
All summer, the construction at the Eldorado compound has proceeded without pause. There are no county zoning or building codes and the property -- with church members working on it exclusively -- now contains at least four large multi-story dormitories, a church and community center, several storage barns, a rock quarry, a concrete plant, construction trailers, a large cultivated plot for growing crops, and a network of roads. A wastewater treatment plant and a water supply system are being constructed on the compound.
The property is off limits to outsiders and even the only government agency with any jurisdiction over the property, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, has had difficulty getting regular access. The agency has cited the FLDS for improperly disposing of wastewater, for emissions problems with the concrete plant and, most recently, for 20 violations with the drinking-water system, said John Steib of the commission's office of compliance and enforcement.
Doran and his deputy have visited the FLDS compounds in Hildale and Colorado City and received briefings from officials there. The Utah attorney general has offered to meet with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who believes the Eldorado community is a "local law enforcement issue," a spokesman said.
"We won't hesitate to enforce the law if any are broken, but there have been no laws broken yet," Doran said.
In the meantime, wary residents are reading their local paper and wondering whether life as they know it in their little town will change. A few of the fundamentalist men have been spotted in town but none of the women, who wear floor-length, pioneer-style dresses and long braids.
"We all know one another, and we're basically close-knit," said Patsy Kellogg, director of the Schleicher County Community Resource Center, which administers local welfare programs. "We don't want anyone to mess up our little world. We're very secure here. . . . I hope they stay on their own ground and they don't register to vote."
I put it here because it's not a NEWS article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1152-2004Sep6?language=printer
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 5368
Location: onder de pannen
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| woebedamned
Posted:
Sat May 17, 2008 2:01 pm |
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"We all know one another, and we're basically close-knit," said Patsy Kellogg, director of the Schleicher County Community Resource Center, which administers local welfare programs. "We don't want anyone to mess up our little world. We're very secure here. . . . I hope they stay on their own ground and they don't register to vote."
LOL Their own little world? Wonder what other "types" they wouldnt want to enter into their world
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Damn it All!!!!
Joined: 15 Aug 2006
Posts: 6287
Location: pathetic joke of an American, bitter, gun clinging, God loving, racist cracker
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| tulsad
Posted:
Sat May 17, 2008 6:19 pm |
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If I lived in a tiny town of only 2,000 people, and a group 25% the size of our entire population built a walled enclave next door - which they would not allow anyone to enter - I might be a bit unsettled, too. Not because of the fact that there were new people in town, but because there was a large group of new people living very near me who could potentially profoundly impact my life without my knowing anything about them.
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Sparkly Tree
Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 10139
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| woebedamned
Posted:
Sat May 17, 2008 6:22 pm |
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| tulsad wrote: | | If I lived in a tiny town of only 2,000 people, and a group 25% the size of our entire population built a walled enclave next door - which they would not allow anyone to enter - I might be a bit unsettled, too. Not because of the fact that there were new people in town, but because there was a large group of new people living very near me who could potentially profoundly impact my life without my knowing anything about them. |
I dont think that was what worried the good folk of Eldorado. I look around the town quickly shows who is or who is not "their type".
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Damn it All!!!!
Joined: 15 Aug 2006
Posts: 6287
Location: pathetic joke of an American, bitter, gun clinging, God loving, racist cracker
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| tulsad
Posted:
Sat May 17, 2008 6:27 pm |
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| woebedamned wrote: |
I dont think that was what worried the good folk of Eldorado. I look around the town quickly shows who is or who is not "their type". |
Her comment about hoping they don't register to vote was rather  shocking. Being apprehensive and denying the right to vote are worlds apart. But! I still like to have some idea of who my neighbors are - not to be snoopy but just to have an idea of what the electorate is like.
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Sparkly Tree
Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 10139
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| woebedamned
Posted:
Sat May 17, 2008 6:56 pm |
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| tulsad wrote: |
Her comment about hoping they don't register to vote was rather shocking. Being apprehensive and denying the right to vote are worlds apart. But! I still like to have some idea of who my neighbors are - not to be snoopy but just to have an idea of what the electorate is like. |
How many Jewish folk do ya reckon lives in Eldorado? Population less than 2000....13 churches, 10 of which are Baptist. Oh, they know who they want and dont want living amoung them.
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Damn it All!!!!
Joined: 15 Aug 2006
Posts: 6287
Location: pathetic joke of an American, bitter, gun clinging, God loving, racist cracker
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| tulsad
Posted:
Fri May 23, 2008 3:48 am |
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When Men Become Gods: Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His ..
.. Cult of Fear, and the Women Who Fought Back
By Karen Algeo Krizman, Special to the Rocky
Updated 06:13 p.m., May 22, 2008
* Nonfiction. By Stephen Singular. St. Martin's Press, $24.95. Grade: A-
Book in a nutshell: With polygamists in the news nearly every day lately, Singular couldn't have picked a more timely topic. Documenting the rise and fall of Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs, this book offers an intriguing look inside the very same polygamist Mormon sect that is making headlines for the recent raids in Texas.
As a self-styled Mormon prophet, Jeffs ruled his followers with an iron fist. Television, radio and newspapers were banned. Dancing, basketball and water sports were forbidden. Families were ordered to throw away their Bibles. Business owners had to turn their assets over to the prophet. And underage girls were forced into polygamous marriages with much older men. Anyone who disobeyed Jeffs or who in any way posed a threat to his reign was banished - along with all dogs, laughter and the color red.
Jeffs' tyrannical ways ultimately led to his downfall. As he began kicking more followers out of the fold and as more women escaped their polygamous marriages, word began seeping out about what was happening in the sect. What had been Arizona's and Utah's "dirty little secret" suddenly began making national headlines.
Charged with rape for his role in arranging marriages with underage girls, Jeffs went on the run for two years and landed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List before being arrested in 2006.
Best tidbit: When Jeffs was arrested, he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and was riding in a red Cadillac loaded with lottery tickets, high-tech gadgets and money - clothes, colors and things he had long since banned his followers from having.
Pros: Exploring thousands of followers living on compounds in Utah, Arizona, Texas - and even Colorado - this book gives a thorough look at a far-reaching issue.
Cons: Every other person in the book has the surname Barlow, Jessop or Jeffs, and the author keeps introducing more people long after it's necessary. Good luck keeping everyone straight.
Final word: With thousands of church members - many still loyal to Jeffs - we haven't heard the last of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints.
http://tinyurl.com/4thmgx
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Sparkly Tree
Joined: 19 Aug 2006
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| diandra
Posted:
Thu Jun 12, 2008 1:18 am |
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illustrating the mind-set TX CPS is facing ...
excerpt below from
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
by Jon Krakauer
It is a juxtaposition of two stories: the formation and evolution of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and a modern-day double murder committed by Ron Lafferty and Dan Lafferty in the name of God.
The title is drawn from an 1880 address by John Taylor, the Mormons' fourth president, defending the practice of polygamy: "God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven we will be ranged under the banner of heaven against the Government. The United States says we cannot marry more than one wife. God says different..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Banner_of_Heaven
Dan and Ron Lafferty murdered the wife/Brenda
and infant daughter/Erica
of their younger brother Allen
Brenda was severely beaten
and then her throat was slit ear-to-ear.
Erica was not beaten but her throat was slit ...
both mother and child were nearly decapitated
after their LDS ex-communication,
Dan and Ron became deeply involved
in the mormon fundamentalist movement,
educating themselves and fellow travelers
in a group called the School of the Prophets
Kenyon Blackmore attended that "school"
along w/ the Laffertys
Colonia LeBaron:
fundamentalist polyg settlement
founded by the LeBaron tribe
in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1924
pages 274-279
Brenda and Erica Lafferty were murdered in American Fork on July 24, 1984, and right away the police considered Kenyon Blackmore and Bernard Brady to be prime suspects, along with everyone else even remotely associated with the School of the Prophets. But law enforcement had actually become well acquainted with Brady and Blackmore long before the Lafferty murders: in 1983, a federal grand jury had indicted Blackmore, Brady and nineteen other partners on multiple counts of fraud, charging them with bilking more than $32 million from thirty-eight hundred investors - a swindle described as a "classic ponzi scheme" by the United States Attorney who prosecuted the case.*
*Utah has been called the "fraud capital of the world" by the Wall Street Journal, and within the state, no place has more white-collar crime than Utah County. According to FBI agent Jim Malpede, at any given moment, the FBI is investigating scams totaling $50 million to $100 million perpetrated by con artists, like Kenyon Blackmore, based in the county. The uncommonly high incidence of fraud is a direct consequence of the uncommonly high percentage of Utah County residents who are Mormons. When Saints are invited to invest in dubious schemes by other Saints, they tend to be overly trusting. Michael Hines, director of enforcement for the Utah Securities Division, told the Deseret News that in Utah County it is common for scammers to ensnare their victims by asking them to evaluate the proposed investment through prayer. "People need to realize," Hines warned, "that God is not a good investment advisor."
Among those who got burned in the scam was Blackmore's new mother-in-law, Lavina Stubbs LeBaron - Gwendolyn's mom. "Heaven sakes alive," Lavina recalls. "I lost a lot of money in Kenyon's stupid money program. I sold my house and everything else, and gave all the money to him. Every cent of it disappeared." Astonishingly, she doesn't blame Kenyon Blackmore for leaving her penniless. According to Lavina, he "meant well. He was trying to benefit all of us, but then the investments just turned bad or something. I wasn't mad at Ken, not for that. Not until he took my daughter and all my grandkids to Central America and did all those horrible things to them."
Kenyon's partner in crime, Bernard Brady, was arrested, tried and eventually sent to federal prison for six years. But when Blackmore learned of the indictments, he opted to go into hiding instead of surrendering to the police. He ran straight to Mexico, where Gwendolyn and Lavina were waiting to shelter him in Colonia LeBaron.
At this point Annie Blackmore, Kenyon's first wife, still knew nothing of Gwendolyn, the second wife. "God had commanded Ken not to tell me about her," Annis says bitterly. "The only reason I found out he had married her is because I went down to Mexico to try and talk him into coming back to Utah." It proved to be an exceedingly humiliating experience for Annie. Not only did she discover that Kenyon had a new wife who was the same age as their eldest daughter, but this young woman had just given birth to a baby daughter of her own with Kenyon. Delivered in Colonia LeBaron exactly three days before Dan Lafferty cut the throats of Brenda and Erica Lafferty, the little girl had been named Evangeline.
After failing to persuade Kenyon to return to Utah with her, Annie went home alone, in utter shock. But she couldn't let herself give up on him. "I was committed to the marriage," she says. "I didn't want to be a quitter." So in January 1985 she went back to Mexico and again asked Kenyon to come home. And this time he agreed.
As soon as he crossed the border into El Paso, Texas, however, Kenyon was surrounded by FBI agents and placed in handcuffs. A brother-in-law, one of the investors who had been swindled by Kenyon, had tipped them off. Seeing no alternative, following his arrest Kenyon entered into a plea bargain with the government and was incarcerated in a federal lockup in Tallahassee, Florida.
After his release from prison in late 1991, Kenyon Blackmore returned to the town where he was born - Cardston, Alberta. Annie had given up on him by this point and filed for divorce, but Kenyon made an effort to reunite with their eldest daughter, Lena, in Cardston, the hub of Canadian Mormondom. Although Lena tried to give her father the benefit of the doubt, she wasn't comfortable around Gwendolyn, the wife who had supplanted her mother, or the two children Gwendolyn had had with Kenyon by this point. "It was disturbing to see how my dad and her were raising those kids," Lena said. "They had them on some extremely wierd natural diet. And Ken wouldn't let them use soap or brush their teeth. The kids looked malnourished and smelled bad. My dad and his wife did too. They just stunk. It was disgusting."
Lena might have been able to put up with all that, but then her father stole her vehicle. "I had this nice new truck," she says, "and I was having some financial difficulties. So Dad said he'd make the payments for me and pay the insurance if he could use it for a little while." After driving off in Lena's truck, however, Kenyon didn't bother to make any of the promised payments, which she discovered only when the bank threatened to repossess it. Furious, she called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who in turn alerted Kenyon's probation offficer, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. "Ken discovered he'd bit into the wrong bone this time," Lena says. Upon learning he was wanted by the law again, Kenyon fled south with Gwendolyn and their kids to his old hideaway, Colonia LeBaron.
Back in Mexico, Kenyon married a third wife, who happened to be Gwendolyn's half sister. He departed Colonia LeBaron soon thereafter with both wives and all their children, and lit out across Central America. Over the years that followed he had four more children with each wife. He supported all those dependents, after a fashion, by doing odd jobs, selling natural foods, working as a massage therapist and running petty scams. "He got money lots of different ways," says Evangeline Blackmore, the oldest of the kids Ken had with Gwendolyn. Now a tall, blonde, exotic-looking eighteen-year-old who speaks English with a trace of a Mexican accent, Evangeline explains that Kenyon "would buy and sell gold once in a while. When we were in Mexico he made saddles and other leather goods for Mexican cowboys. But mostly he would con people. My dad is a very good con artist."
Kenyon Blackmore had always subscribed to wierd religious views, but they became notably more extreme after his release from prison, when he disappeared into the shadows of Central America with his two LeBaron wives. "The LeBarons seemed to encourage Dad's strange beliefs," says Lena. "They were convinced he possessed God-like qualities. They would feed his fantasy, and he would feed theirs."
As he dragged his young wives and their pack of semi-feral children back and forth across Central America, Kenyon received a series of revelations in which God told him that he was "the last prophet before the return of Jesus Christ." God told him, in fact, that Jesus would come back to earth in the form of a child born of Kenyon's pure seed and his daughter's virgin womb. Heeding the Lord's commandment, in June 1996, on Evangeline's twelfth birthday, he took her as his wife - that is to say, he began raping her on a regular basis. According to Evangeline, her father believed that he should start having sexual intercourse with her when she turned twelve "because this is when Mary, the first mother of Jesus, was impregnated." Kenyon was convinced, she says, that "nobody else's blood was good enough" to sire the Son of Man.
When Kenyon forced himself of Evangeline, she remembers him telling her that "I was going to hell because I wasn't being submissive." As she continued to resist, "he would throw me on the ground, punch me, cover my mouth when I would try to scream." Eventually, to keep from being beaten, she started yielding passively to her sixty-year-old father's incestuous assaults.
"I was barely twelve years old," Evangeline states with astounding composure. "I didn't know what was happening to me, but I knew I didn't like it. I felt gross. My father wouldn't allow me to have friends, or even talk to anybody."
During Evangeline's ordeal at her father's hands, Blackmore often fasted, and would force his family to fast along with him. "He was always going on liquid diets of pure orange juice, or lemon water," says Evangeline. He came to believe that "if he makes his body pure enough, that he can move mountains and walk through walls." He also believed that almost everyone in the world except himself had been corrupted and was evil. Evangeline recalls Blackmore talking about "finding some innocent, naive Indian tribe and converting them to his beliefs," then systematically improving their blood by impregnating their women "with his own pure seed."
After being raped by her father for the better part of a year, Evengeline became pregnant, but she miscarried the baby two months later. In April 1997, when she failed to conceive again, Kenyon cast Evangeline out and abandoned her in Guatemala; she was two months shy of her thirteenth birthday. "I lived by myself for about four months," she recalls. "When I ran out of food I went to stay with some friends in Guatemala City." After about six months, these Guatemalan acquaintances managed to contact her grandmother, Lavina, in Colonia LeBaron, and Lavina drove down to Guatemala and rescued her.
Evangeline currently lives in the American Midwest; she is married and has a baby son. She's doing well, all things considered, but she's extremely worried about her younger siblings, six of whom are girls, all of them still traveling with Kenyon Blackmore, presumably, somewhere in Central or South America. Her father, she reports, intends to "marry" each of his daughters when they turn twelve years old. "I'm concerned about my sisters," Evangeline says. "I don't want them getting raped. I'm still not over it. It's something that ... haunts you, something that's always there."
The oldest of Evangeline's sisters had her twelfth birthday in May 2001, the next in February 2003; another will turn twelve in July 2004.
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Sun Jul 13, 2008 8:59 am |
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FLDS compound in Eldorado a world apart
EDITOR'S NOTE
This is the first of a two-part account of the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado, less than 125 miles from Ingram. It was the site of an extraordinary raid by Texas authorities in early April in the wake of complaints about sexual and physical abuse of children.
By Lise Lieder Miller
Special to the Current
When my husband talked about going to Zion for our anniversary, I thought he meant scenic Utah. We had discussed driving to New Mexico before picking up our daughter at a West Texas Girl Scout camp, but gas prices and work schedules appeared to have quashed that.
Imagine my surprise when my anniversary trip last Thursday was to the windswept plateau near Eldorado and the Yearning for Zion Ranch run by the legally embroiled polygamists from Warren Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. FLDS is a breakaway sect of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. FLDS membership practices plural marriage, which LDS abandoned in 1890.
The short drive from my husband's dental office in Sonora to our past subdivision and on to County Road 300 takes minutes, but the trip is like going back in time.
On April 3-10, Texas authorities raided the FLDS' Yearning for Zion Ranch and removed almost 140 children. Investigators for Child Protective Services, Texas Rangers and state troopers served search and arrest warrants after complaints of sexual and physical abuse by a teenaged girl.
Dr. Steve Sessoms, the Eldorado dentist, and other friends and neighbors worry about the 400 voter registration cards the FLDS requested from Schleicher County officials in the wake of the early-April raid. They fear the 1,200-person town (2,000 county population) will be changed into a clone of Colorado City, Ariz., the stronghold of the convicted Jeffs' reactionary faith.
A decade ago when my daughter Jordan was almost seven, she and I unknowingly drove through the FLDS enclave after dropping my husband Phil off for elk season.
She and I spent a relaxing fortnight touring through Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde and the Navaho Nation.
After building a snowman on the South Rim of Grand Canyon, we drove, hiked and stopped at our leisure while she read out of geography, history and fiction books about the desert Southwest.
Each night before dark, I would find safe, clean lodging in a friendly town. Diesel isn't at every station, so I would stop at stations to keep my tank half full traveling the remote vastness.
While filling up near Colorado City, Ariz., I liked the clean town and asked about the motel. I was told "they won't have room for you."
Puzzled, I drove on to the next town to find room with a view where we were welcome. The Mormon innkeeper” - they refer to themselves as the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) and strongly disavow the splinter group they feel tarnishes their Christian faith - explained why a trouser-wearing woman traveling alone would not be welcome. "They'll sell you alcohol and tobacco, but you're not welcome there."
Neighbors' help
There are many YFZ anecdotes shared by the people of the area. There's a Sonora minister's wife who responded at a moment's notice to ride the buses with the young mothers and their children as they were removed from the ranch. By Texas law, a child is anyone who has not reached the age of 17 and these children and their offspring were the first to be physically sequestered under the focus of the state's abuse investigation.
A well known feature of the FLDS women is the long plaited hair. While the raid was progressing, young girls were told to grab just the necessities they could carry. For those with babies, this often meant whatever they could fit in the one free hand.
While most of us might have grabbed any number of toiletries (I would have taken a toothbrush) and clean undergarments, their choices were based on their identity in the group some have called a cult. Preteen girls left the large $1 million log structures with their hairspray and a brush in hand.
The immediate need to feed the teens was handled by calling the top local caterer and restaurant owner, Linda Love of the Sutton County Steakhouse. If you are ever heading West on I-10 stop off at the DaysInn & Steakhouse for the best onion rings in Texas. Our friend in Houston who has traveled everywhere (Alaska, Europe, the Orient) and done everything (plays golf with former presidents at Burning Tree and even Augusta National) is the consummate critic of everything edible. Even he said these are the best onion rings he's ever eaten and he is not easily impressed.
Linda, a chicly dressed grandmother with white blonde hair, brought terrific trays of steak fingers, hamburgers and fries on short notice to the juvenile group at the Baptist Fellowship Hall.
For folks eating porridge for breakfast plus a little chicken with rice and vegetables for other meals, the higher fat, low-fiber meals did give the people stomachaches. Still, this was not on purpose to poison the YFZ clan as they claimed. My slacks size would be a great deal smaller if I were ignorant of the tasty treats from the Steakhouse.
In fact, if the YFZ gets hard up for cash while their once-hefty United Effort Plan (UEP or The Trust) is managed by a court-appointed officer, they could earn a fortune turning the ranch into an austere spa/fat farm. A morning of hand-weeding the gardens, shearing the sheep, followed by chicken plucking and cooking for 50 before you can eat, then a break while you fold laundry listening to monotonous recorded sermons from Jeff's pre-incarceration reign, topped off by walking the mile to Temple while carrying your nursing infants or riding the two miles to Eldorado on horseback should melt the fat off of anyone.
On a darker side, devout Baptist ladies who tended the group removed from the YFZ ranch in early April heard young sons asking their mothers if those people (meaning them) were the Devils.
Another source described talking to a pre-pubescent boy about his family. Chatting amiably, the woman asked if the boy had sisters in Texas. He said his mother's daughters had already gone off to "breeders".
Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran told my husband years ago that they feared a David Koresh-Waco scenario if law enforcement ever had to go into the ranch. His pragmatic worry was about social services overload in a crisis.
In March of 2003, we had just contracted for a house in Kerr County. The FLDS used stealth and David Allred to buy the 1,671 acre tract as "hunting retreat." Sheriff Doran told my husband that if the 1,200 person town had to provide for even 100 dependents, they would be bankrupt.
Flashing forward five years, you understand Schleicher County struggling with a $14 million tab for expenses related to the April raid. Even Kerr County Commissioners recently passed a resolution of support for Schleicher County's assertion that the state shoulder the enormous burden amounting to $7,000 of extra debt for each resident of the county whose annual budget is $3.9 million.
Townspeople feared the compound (YFZ residents dislike that term, but guard shacks, patrols with night vision goggles and locked gates support the designation) was riddled with subterranean tunnels. I doubted that after trying to set my mail box near Highway 277 that runs through Eldorado. The caprock is exposed; only a mechanized posthole digger could breach the rocky crust to even a six-inch depth.
Still, experienced seismic crews which abound in West Texas found no tunnels or caches.
Something not rumor are the three known graves on YFZ. One is of an older woman who succumbed to breast cancer. Another is Warren Jeffs' first wife (cause of dearth uncertain) and the third belongs to Allen Rulon Jeffs, age 3, who died after a vehicle driven by Barbara Joy Jessop, age 18, struck a boulder on the YFZ gravel road in 2006. Another 3-year-old was life-flighted to Angelo (as locals call it). That toddler survived; the driver, a wife of the child's father, Isaac Jeffs according to the Bishop's List seized from the Temple in April, and another 3-year-old from the household were treated & released.
Local funeral directors and hospital employees said not a single tear was shed by the parents, Isaac and Zevanda Jeffs or the cadre of YFZ relatives that came to claim the toddler's body.
I understand the idea of not mourning God's faithful who have gone to a better place, but my imperfect soul weeps when a loved one dies for my own loss of their loving presence. The reaction is just bizarre, like Jeffs' amplification of obscure early Mormon doctrine about losing the Lord through excessive party spirit. Jeffs translated that reasonable belief into laughter letting Christ leak out of one's body. Jeffs issued edicts against laughter. The repressive regime caused some families to migrate north to the less-harsh FLDS settlement in Canada.
Eldorado natives scoff at any information released by the YFZ officials because of the history of deception and misinformation. When Allred purchased the former Red Cheek Ranch for a hunting retreat, locals clucked their tongues. Unlike Hill Country terrain, in rocky cactus country wildlife management prescribes 1,000 acres per good buck sought and a minimum of 500 acres. Allred spent $657,500 to be able to harvest three nice bucks and some doe. That's pretty expensive venison.
Later when Judge and local pilot James Doyle noticed the dormitories and the large gardens, the FLDS admitted it was a retreat for Elders, but told Sheriff Doran that YFZ would not be a permanent settlement and have at most 200 followers visiting at a time.
The construction continued and Eldorado Mayor Nikolauk (also a member of the Upper Colorado River Authority) became concerned about sanitation. In 2004, the YFZ residents were dumping raw sewage into the "draws" or dry creek beds. When rains fill the draws, contaminants are sent downstream into the South Concho River and lakes.
YFZ officials thought they were singled out for enforcement of Texas environmental laws, but Nikolauk stressed that all citizens and businesses, including the oil rigs in the area, must follow the strict rules to preserve the health of Texans. The FLDS hired a Dallas engineer to design a sewage treatment plant for them but then decided not to allow him on the ranch for a site survey. As a stopgap measure, YFZ hauled their waste to the city treatment plant and paid in cash.
The suitcases full of cash were a recurring theme of outside tradesmen who YFZ needed in the days before self-sufficiency. A friend's husband installed some of the six to eight air conditioning units per structure on the early homes. Propane trucks delivered in the early days as well. The men were aghast at the suitcases full of cash that would choke a Soprano.
Marriage law
When Texas Representative Harvey Hilderbran learned of the real intent of the FLDS for YFZ, he sponsored a bill to raise the minimum age of marriage in Texas to 16 with parental consent after discussions with Utah's officials.
The standards that had to be satisfied for a 16-year-old's marriage to be legal included a notarized affidavit of approval presented to the county clerk with a state-issued form of identification, a prohibition against currently married persons from seeking a license and a disqualification if any adult provides a false information, plus no marriages between stepparents and stepchildren.
If the petition is found to be fraudulent, the license is void and the parties are subject to sexual assault charges. Under the age of 16, a marriage license can be issued by court order, usually in cases of teen pregnancy to avoid the monogamous husband's prosecution. Petitions for wedlock cannot be granted in bigamous or step-parent, sibling or other incestuous cases as they break Texas law. The marriages in question at YFZ do not appear to have met any of the Texas law requirements for legal, parental-approved minor marriage.
In fact, the blatant disregard for Texas marriage law shows in the meticulous records kept by the church seized in the seven-day search for an underage and physically abused wife.
The call to the state child abuse hotline now appears to be a false report filed by a Colorado woman. With probable cause for a search for an abused girl, authorities saw evidence of habitual teen pregnancy. Law enforcement seized The Bishop's List tracking marriages, fathers, children and the physical location people occupy on the large ranch, which now includes a dairy, a cheese plant, a tannery, a machine shop, cement plant, a 280,000-gallon potable water tank, a septic plant, plus orchards and gardens.
These records exhibited in court show a number of underage illegal marriages, with children resulting. More disturbing are the four girls illegally "wedded" to Warren Jeffs at the Ranch between January of 2004 and July 2006 who are between 12 and 14 years of age. Records indicate one of these brides of the pedophile conceived at 15. Photos show Jeffs posing with the child and her newborn.
The 52-year old convicted Jeffs consummated three of the unions with the girls 38 years his junior in the inner sanctum of the YFZ Temple, according to a confidential informant working with law enforcement. The DNA test results provide additional evidence the state may need to indict Jeffs on aggravated sexual assault charges and habitual child rape. The names of children identified as victims of sexual abuse are not shown in public court records. Some of these assaults apparently occurred at YFZ while Jeffs was a fugitive from Utah's felony charges of accomplice to rape.
During the bus ride to Eldorado, at the Baptist Fellowship Hall and before transport to Angelo, detailed records were kept with names, ages, family relationships, father's names. Each time the females were interviewed, the information changed following apparent cell phone promptings by the men of the compound. CPS used three versions of the coded wristbands. Adult women, took off, switched or rubbed off the information (name, age, family) each time the bands were applied to hide the relationships from Texas authorities.
When children are told to lie by family members, FLDS city or church officials routinely lie and falsify vehicle registrations (to harbor the fugitive Jeffs) and obstruct justice (sexual assault and financial cases), it is no wonder why Texas officials and Eldorado residents don't believe Willie Jessop's June pledge to end underage marriages even with parental consent.
One of the cases the FLDS screamed about was a young mother that appeared underage whom the husband said was 22. The identification the couple presented CPS was not a birth certificate but rather a UEP spread sheet listing the mother's name as Sarah and her last name. FLDS records show hundreds of girls with that maiden name and many with Sarah as a first name born in a six-year span than includes girls who would have been 15 at the conception. No photos, Social Security number or any records independent of FLDS documents were presented to bolster the claim that Sarah Steed is the Sarah that is 22.
Birth defects resulting from incest and intermarriage are unfortunately not mere rumor. Interbreeding with first cousins and closer relatives like nieces can significantly increase the chances of a child getting a recessive gene from each parent for a rare defect called Fumarase deficiency. The severe retardation leaves many children with an IQ of 25, seizures, and inability to walk or care for themselves. Chances are one in four for this defect if the parents both carry the gene.
Until a few years ago, only 13 cases of the rare disease were documented in the entire world. A pediatric neurologist, Dr. Theodore Tarby, in the Utah-Arizona border area now has 20 cases within a few blocks of each other and he expects the number to increase. He explained to a father why the child was unresponsive: "It's because you and your wife are related." The father replied, "but we're all related here."
Another Arizona polygamist group, the Kingston Clan, believes that close unions protect the chosen bloodline. They believe incest will bring back Christ for the second coming. There Kingston men choose all the young, cute girls for wives and have been convicted and imprisoned for child sex abuse.
In 2005, the UEP Trust was put under court-appointed control after litigation alleging mismanagement of FLDS real estate trust controlling Canadian, Utah, Arizona and Texas assets. Jeffs was a fugitive for almost two years before his January 2006 capture. Cash and documents found in the separate arrests of Seth Jeffs and later his brother Warren indicated the $1,000 per man per month additional tithes were funneled directly to the fugitive instead of the Trust. Seth Jeffs was captured with $142,000 in cash plus loads of empty envelopes bearing the writingœpennies for the Prophet, plus prepaid phone cards and untraceable cell phones. Warren Jeffs was arrested with $55,000 in cash.
The CPA appointed by a Utah court, Bruce Wisan, sued Warren Jeffs, his family and the church for $8.8 million dollars to repay the funds siphoned off. Wisan also believes the UEP Trust was illegally drained to purchase and improve the YFZ. The improvements on the YFZ had been appraised at $8 million but sources now say the current value is close to $21 million.
Additional civil and criminal cases will likely result when the huge mess is sorted out. The judgment against Jeffs was issued in 2007 but re-payment has not begun. Despite the massive holdings, the Trust did not even maintain a bank account, working only with cash.
Curiously, the fundamentalist-sex-for-procreation Jeffs have been hit with homosexual charges. Seth Jeffs' arrest included one for solicitation of prostitution when the driver of his vehicle, Nathaniel Allred Steed, told police he was paid $5,000 for sexual services. It seems taken directly from those cash tithes of the faithful.
Ward Jeffs, Warren's brother by another mother, joined his son Brent and Brandon in 2004 when they executed depositions alleging sodomy by Jeffs during Sunday School in the Cottonwood Compound in Salt Lake when the boys were as young as five. Clayne Jeffs, Ward's other son also made similar allegations. He became a drug user and committed suicide, which is common for childhood sex abuse victims. Brent Jeffs, now 25, alleged sexual abuse by Jeffs and two of Jeffs' brothers when he was four. Brent came forward three years ago with the sodomy allegations against his uncles Blaine, Leslie and Warren Jeffs.
Bleeding the Beast
FLDS members are also astute at ethically abusing the system and getting tax dollars to fund their lifestyle or improve their communities. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, 66 percent of Hildale residents received Medicaid in 2002 , compared to 6.5 percent for Utah overall, or 10 times the normal rate. In 2003, the food stamp usage in C-City was 80 percent, costing the state of Arizona $2.3 million. Cash assistance payments plus $5 million in free "indigent" healthcare mean the community rakes in $8 million per year in tax dollars and the communities' combined taxes paid for that same period total only $72,000.
In a 1998 SLT article, Dan Barlow, the ex-mayor of Colorado City, conceded "that government aid has made a better lifestyle possible for many polygamous families."
He thinks taking food stamps or WIC is "simply the American thing to do." The practice of getting government assistance is referred to as Bleeding the Beast.
Next week, Part II: Your tax dollars at work, racism, escapees, Blood Atonement and the new indictments expected from the Schleicher County Grand Jury, plus more photos from YFZ.
http://www.wkcurrent.com/
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Posts: 5368
Location: onder de pannen
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Sun Aug 10, 2008 8:29 pm |
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http://ronlawhouston.blogspot.com/2008/08/reforming-flds.html
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Reforming the FLDS
I can only speak for myself. I'm pretty much of a liberal libertarian. I personally find it shocking that adult polygamist have to go so far underground that they end up not availing themselves of medical care for their children. Now I can understand the argument of those less liberal than me that individuals in society only need to have as many children as they can rationally support. However, regardless of how you feel about the parents, the child should not suffer.
The FLDS are in serious need of reform from within. They need to say that spiritual marriages will not occur before the age of 16. They need to be willing to say, "we will only have children that we can support within our community." In other words they need to renounce the implication that they're going to keep having children and applying for public assistance to support those new children.
I recently came across a person with the handle of IITMOC. IITMOC also runs the blog known as Texas Polygamy .
From what I can see, this person is a brave soul. He/she asks a lot of questions that society needs to address in its relations with the FLDS.
My firm belief is that society will not change. It's too difficult to create such a widespread change. The only resolution to the problem of society vs. FLDS is for FLDS to make changes.
IITMOC seems to be willing to at least ask the questions that will lead to change.
Posted by Ron in Houston at 5:28 PM
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Posts: 5368
Location: onder de pannen
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:54 pm |
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Texas officials initially estimated 70 charges against FLDS
Current number of cases unknown
By Melinda Rogers
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 08/12/2008 02:37:58 PM MDT
While Texas authorities were initially investigating 20 cases of sexual assault and 50 bigamy cases involving FLDS members, it's unclear how many of those cases remain open four months later.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange confirmed the number of cases -- outlined in an April e-mail -- was accurate in the month officials raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado.
But she can't confirm the current number of cases still being investigated. And Salt Lake City attorney Rod Parker, a spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, thinks the numbers have more than likely drastically changed as the investigation has progressed.
So far, the Schleicher County grand jury hearing evidence against sect members has indicted six men, including sect leader Warren S. Jeffs, on charges of sexual assault, bigamy and failure to report child abuse.
Parker said he wonders in particular about the volume of bigamy charges that had been predicted back in April.
Based on the number of men on the ranch in plural marriages, in order to file 50 bigamy charges against ranch residents, he said, prosecutors would likely need to charge women -- a departure from the typical bigamy suspect. He said women have typically been viewed as victims of bigamy, not perpetrators.
In Utah, for example, outspoken independent polygamist Tom Green was successfully prosecuted for bigamy, but none of his wives were charged.
Green was convicted in 2001 and 2002 of bigamy, criminal nonsupport and child rape for fathering a child with his stepdaughter when she was 13.
But generally, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has said, Utah won't prosecute consenting adults who engage in polygamous relationships. Texas officials have not ruled that out.
While the e-mail's number of Texas investigations was current in April, it's hard to say how many people are still under investigation, or how many charges prosecutors will decide to pursue after the investigation is complete, Mange said.
"I don't know what ultimately the team will decide to do, as far as possible charges filed," she said Tuesday.
The Schleicher County grand jury will reconvene next week. Jeffs and four men are charged with first-degree sexual assault; one of those men also is charged with bigamy. The sect's physician was indicted on accusations that he failed to report child abuse.
More than 450 of the sect's children were removed from the ranch amid a child abuse investigation. They were later returned to parents, after the Texas Supreme Court criticized the lack of evidence supporting the children's removal.
http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_10178678
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Posts: 1091
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:53 am |
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FLDS Children See Dogs For the First Time in Their Lives
Visiting therapy dogs are their first touch of fur
By Berit Mason
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Dogs are not allowed and never have been on the FLDS compound. So most kids had never seen one and many have never even seen a picture of a dog.
But when some of the children were housed at a San Antonio shelter they requested to finally see a four footed friend.
The call for a dog went to Pasty Swendson, a former TV personality, now owner of Pennies from Heaven, a dog therapy service.
The fragile meeting was arranged. After all, the kids didn’t know a dog from a gopher. Swendson says she brought her Golden Retriever, two smaller dogs and her Irish Wolfhound.
“When we entered the room, the kids, boys and girls, showed restraint. But soon enough they became excited and the first dog they went to was the 135 pound Wolfhound.”
Swendson says the children were well behaved, spelled aloud the dogs names, examined their fur, toes and faces and expressed amazement at them.
The 90 minute “therapy session” was over too soon says Swendson. “I could tell one little boy did not want to go back. He wanted to stay there with us.”
“It was bittersweet seeing those kids go,” she says.
“Harder still was knowing that they would return to the compound, without the happiness of having a pet.”
“Maybe one day they’ll have the opportunity."
A follow up visit never materialized. By then the children had been returned to the compound.
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Printed from: http://radio.woai.com
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Posts: 5368
Location: onder de pannen
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:23 am |
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Swinton [alleged hoax-caller] may be witness in FLDS evidence challenge
Monday, Aug. 18, 2008
By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
SAN ANGELO, Texas — A judge here has set an Oct. 1 hearing on a challenge to the law-enforcement search of the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch.
Among those who could be witnesses at the contentious hearing: the woman who allegedly made hoax calls that sparked the raid on the polygamous sect's property in west Texas. Rozita Swinton's name appears on a list of potential witnesses subpoenaed for either testimony or documents, according to court records obtained by the Deseret News.
Lawyers for the FLDS Church and one of its leaders, Lyle Jeffs, filed the subpoena request in court in late April. Their list of possible witnesses include workers at San Angelo's New-Bridge Family Shelter, Texas Rangers involved in the initial investigation into the phone call that sparked the raid, FLDS members at the YFZ Ranch, Swinton and documents pertaining to a series of cell phone numbers linked to her.
FLDS Church attorneys recently renewed their challenge to the seizure of evidence, urging the judge to set a hearing date.
"Counsel understands this Honorable Court has been extremely busy with matters relating to the children removed from the YFZ Ranch," wrote Cynthia Orr, a San Antonio attorney for the FLDS Church and Lyle Jeffs.
"Counsel knows that this Honorable Court has signed an order conditionally returning the children to their parents."
They are demanding that the search warrants and evidence be tossed, questioning the grounds for the search and suggesting that anything seized may fall under priest-penitent privilege between FLDS leaders and followers.
Nearly 1,000 boxes of evidence were seized in the April raid on the YFZ Ranch. Authorities have been poring over thousands of pages of documents, including dictations by FLDS leader Warren Jeffs in which he details alleged underage marriages. Some of that evidence has become public in court records used by Texas child welfare authorities.
Swinton, 33, is considered a "person of interest" in the phone calls that launched the raid on the YFZ Ranch. In late March, someone claiming to be a pregnant 16-year-old girl named Sarah called the NewBridge Family Shelter, activists and other crisis hotlines, claiming to be in an abusive marriage to an older man named Dale Barlow. Barlow was questioned by Texas lawmen, but not charged with any crime.
Texas Child Protective Services and law enforcement went to the ranch to investigate. They never found "Sarah," but on site, they claimed to have seen other signs of child abuse that prompted a judge to order the removal of all of the children from the compound.
The 440 children were ultimately returned to their parents after the Texas Supreme Court ruled the state acted improperly in removing all of the children. Court hearings are scheduled here today, where CPS will seek to take custody of eight children again, arguing their mothers have failed to keep them from men who have had involvement in underage marriages.
Swinton is charged in Colorado Springs with making a hoax call to police that prompted a massive search there in February for an abused 13-year-old chained in a basement. When Swinton was arrested, Texas Rangers were there. Arrest warrant affidavits suggest that phone numbers linked to her are the same that "Sarah" used to make her calls for help.
Swinton is scheduled to be in a Colorado court Aug. 28 for a hearing on her case, where she may take a plea deal on a misdemeanor charge of making a false report.
"The investigation into Ms. Swinton continues," Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said in an e-mail to the Deseret News.
Calls to FLDS lawyers involved in the search warrant battle were not immediately returned on Friday. Swinton's lawyer in Colorado has not responded to past requests for comment.
Prosecutors filed a challenge to the subpoena for a Texas Ranger involved in the case, noting that Ranger Shawn Palmer would be required to bring "work product on the part of law enforcement," assistant Tom Green County district attorney Allison Palmer wrote.
Six men, including Warren Jeffs, have been indicted by a grand jury in nearby Eldorado on charges ranging from sexual assault to bigamy to failure to report child abuse. The grand jury is scheduled to meet again on Thursday.
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700251690,00.html?pg=1
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:29 pm |
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Behind the Cloak of Polygamy
By Andrea Moore-Emmett, Ms. Magazine
Posted on August 24, 2008, Printed on August 25, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/93515/
The full text of this article appears in the Summer issue of Ms. magazine, available on newsstands and by subscription from http://store.msmagazine.com .
In 1953, Gov. John Howard Pyle of Arizona tried to rescue 263 children living in the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist community of Short Creek, near the Utah border of Arizona. His effort failed, as the press and public sentiment turned against him. Children who had been removed from their families were returned, and the governor's political career effectively ended.
In the 55 years since the abortive Short Creek incident, politicians in Arizona and Utah have been reluctant to challenge the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamy-practicing group that broke away from the Mormon Church (formally, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). But in early April, a similar sort of child-rescue effort took place, this time at the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas -- reportedly the new headquarters of the FLDS. Texas child-welfare authorities, acting on an abuse complaint from an anonymous caller, eventually removed more than 450 children from the property and put them in foster care.
The women of the Yearning for Zion Ranch quickly became subjects of empathy, even if their long, high-necked prairie dresses and sky-high bouffant hairdos were disconcerting. No one is immune to the grief of a parent having her child wrenched away, or can fail to be moved by the sight of children taken from what seems to be their safe maternal haven.
And the FLDS knows this. The group immediately launched a public relations campaign -- complete with photo ops of the sad-looking mothers -- accusing Texas Child Protective Services of violating their parental rights and for targeting them on account of religion. But my own research, which includes interviews with dozens of women, adolescents, children and men who formerly lived or are currently living in fundamentalist Mormon and polygamous Christian families, shows the very dark reality of these communities. It uncovers how claims of religious and parental rights can be a cloak for abusive and criminal behavior. And it suggests that deference to religion and parental rights must sometimes be overweighed in favor of protecting the safety and human rights of women and children.
ANDREA MOORE-EMMETT is author of God's Brothel: The Extortion of Sex for Salvation in Contemporary Mormon and Christian Fundamentalist Polygamy and the Stories of 18 Women Who Escaped (Pince-Nez Press, 2004).
© 2008 Ms. Magazine All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/93515/
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Posts: 5368
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| Tonk
Posted:
Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:53 am |
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Sounds like an interesting book. Catchy title.
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Joined: 25 Jul 2006
Posts: 765
Location: pray for rain
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