Texas Officials Take 401 Kids From Polygamist Leader Warren Jeff's Compound Monday, April 07, 2008 April 7: Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, walk along the grounds of their temporary housing, Fort Concho National Historic Landmark, in San Angelo, Texas.
ELDORADO, Texas — More than 400 children were taken into state custody as of Monday from a sprawling West Texas compound built by the polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, authorities said.
Child welfare and law enforcement officials had been interviewing more than 200 mostly women and girls who had been removed from the compound since a raid began on the reclusive sect last week, when a 16-year-old girl called to say she was being abused.
Authorities said they had 401 children in custody as of Monday afternoon.
"In my opinion, this is the largest endeavor we've ever been involved in the state of Texas," said Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner, who said she was also involved in the 1993 seige of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.
Meisner said they have space for all the children who have been removed from the compound but "it's very tight."
Since Thursday, Meisner said, authorities have been searching the 1,700-acre compound 40 miles south of San Angelo "from house to house ... and we're getting close to being finished."
Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety, said the criminal investigation was still under way, but that charges would be filed if they determined children were abused.
Still uncertain is the location of the girl whose call initiated the raid. She allegedly had a child at 15, and authorities were looking for documents, family photos or even a family Bible with lists of marriages and children to demonstrate the girl was married to Dale Barlow, 50.
The church members were being held at Fort Concho, a historic fort-turned-museum 40 miles away in San Angelo to be interviewed about the 16-year-old girl and whether, in fact, the 16-year-old girl was among them.
The search continued on Monday. Troopers arrested one person on a charge of interfering with the duties of a public servant, but it was not of Barlow, said DPS spokesman Tom Vinger, who had no other information about the arrest.
Vinger said it's not clear how many people live there; about 20 buildings have to be searched, including a large annex and a massive white limestone temple that rises out of the scrubby flat brushland, easily the tallest building for dozens of miles in any direction.
"For the most part, residents at the ranch have been cooperative. However, because of some of the diplomatic efforts in regards to the residents, the process of serving the search warrants is taking longer usual," said Vinger, who declined to elaborate. "The annex is extremely large and the temple is massive."
Barlow's probation officer, Bill Loader, told The Salt Lake Tribune that he was in Arizona. Phone messages seeking comment from Loader and Barlow were not immediately returned Monday.
Barlow was sentenced to jail last year after pleading no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. He was ordered to register as a sex offender for three years while he is on probation.
The compound, built on a former exotic animal ranch that the group bought for $700,000, was built by Warren Jeffs, the jailed former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The sect, an offshoot of the Mormon church which disavowed polygamy a generation ago, is concentrated in a community on the Arizona-Utah line but several enclaves have been built elsewhere, including in Texas.
Jessop said the move to more isolated locations after Jeffs took over for his father in 2002.
The compound sits down a narrow paved road and behind a hill that shields it almost entirely from view in Eldorado, a town of fewer than 2,000 surrounded by sheep ranches nearly 200 miles northwest of San Antonio. Only the 80-foot-high white temple can be seen on the horizon.
FLDS church members began building the compound several years ago as authorities in Arizona and Utah began increasingly scrutinizing the group.
Jeffs is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., where he awaits trial for four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives.
In November, he was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage in 2001.
The investigation prompted by the girl's call last week was the first in Texas involving the sect.
Now, is this mixing state and religion? Are religions allowed as long as they follow government rule?
Don't slam me for this one...just being the devils advocate here!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Officials contend polygamist site rife with sexual abuse BY MICHELLE ROBERTS The Associated Press
ELDORADO, Texas — A polygamist compound with hundreds of children was rife with sexual abuse, child welfare officials allege in court documents, with girls spiritually married to much older men as soon as they reached puberty and boys groomed to perpetuate the cycle. The documents released Tuesday also gave details about the hushed phone calls that broke open the case, by a 16-year-old girl at the West Texas ranch who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. Days after raiding the compound, offi cials still aren’t sure where the girl is. Officials have completed removing all 416 children from the ranch and have won custody of all of them, Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner told reporters in San Angelo, about 40 miles from the compound in Eldorado. Court documents said a number of teen girls at the 1,700-acre compound were pregnant, and that all the children were removed on the grounds that they were in danger of “emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse.” Another 136 women left on their own. “Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice of the [Yearn for Zion] Ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them,” read the affidavit signed by Lynn McFadden, a Department of Family and Protective Services investigative supervisor. McFadden said the girls were spiritually married to the men as soon as they reached puberty and were required to produce children. An unknown number of men were being held at the ranch while authorities completed the search of the gleaming 80-foot-high temple, a cheese-making plant, a cement plant, a school, a doctor’s offi ce and housing units. Church lawyer Patrick Peranteau did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday. The compound was raided Thursday after the 16-year-old girl called a local family violence shelter March 29 and 30, using someone else’s cellphone and speaking in hushed tones to avoid being overheard, McFadden’s affidavit said. The girl said she was not allowed to leave the compound unless she was ill. She told the shelter that her husband would “beat and hurt” her when he got angry, including hitting her in the chest and choking her while another woman in the house held her baby. The girl also said her husband sexually assaulted her, and that she was several weeks pregnant. The girl told the shelter her husband went to “the outsiders’ world” but didn’t know where. Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for church member Dale Barlow, who is believed to be in Arizona, but the girls’ husband is not identified in the court documents released Tuesday. In the March 30 call, the girl told the shelter she was being held against her will. If she left, church members told her, “outsiders will hurt her, force her to cut her hair, to wear makeup and [modern] clothes and to have sex with lots of men.” At the end of the call, she began to cry. Meisner said the agency still didn’t know whether the 16-year-old was among the children removed from the ranch. Child welfare officials have been interviewing the children in search of the girl and to investigate allegations of abuse. Investigators said some of the children were unwilling or unable to provide the names of their biological parents or identified multiple mothers. The boys were groomed to be ready to marry underage girls upon adulthood and engage in sexual activity, “resulting in them becoming sexual perpetrators,” the affidavit said.
Guilty until proven innocent. An anonymous phone call, triggers a government siege of a religious community. I know COMPOUND is the media buzz word when describing these religious communities. They should call convents compounds also, after all, those women must have been brainwashed to join such a religious community. That's what womens libers like Nacey Pelosi and Jane Fonda would have us believe. I'm all for protecting children, and I don't agree with the polygamist Mormon Religion. But raiding this community in this fashion reminds me of Waco Texas.
The Catholic Dogma preaches to young men and women not to use birth control. Are they brainwashed? The Muslim religion teaches (or brainwash) young women to cover their bodies, with no skin exposed, when out in public. The Hindu's arrange marriage's for their children. No choice. Who knows how many children are working in strip clubs, or are forced into prostitution. Raid the strip clubs. Nah......that would violate the club owners rights.
The American population has been conditioned by the media government complex as to what is acceptable and not acceptable. What's the next religious sect is the government going to raid. They didn't even go after the Catholic Church is this manner when accusations of child abuse were being charged. I don't recall any swat teams going in to Sunday schools and ripping out children, and keeping them in state custody.
An anonymous phone call, triggers a government siege of a religious community.
We have to take action when a child calls for help.
I personally find it deplorable when I hear of a puberty aged female being forced to marry a 50 year old man or their cousin against their will. And being beaten just to have sex for either his pleasure or to procreate. And I find it even more deplorable when it is done in the name of GOD! And yes, there are other religions out there who, "In The Name Of God", require questionable activities or behaviors of their followers. But for right now, this incident sickens me, if it is all true.
But for right now, this incident sickens me, if it is all true.
Guilty until proven innocent. You have already drawn an emotional conclusion based on the information the media has fed you. This is the information they chose to feed you. My point exactly.
How do you feel about puberty aged females being raised to accept arranged marriages, or told to wear burkas and veils and to walk two step behind their husbands? You don't ingrain these things into a culture after people are old enough to think and decide for themselves. You teach them when they are young. An example is our youth being taught in our public schools about the acceptance of homosexuality and premarital sex. Thing that would have never been thought of 50 years ago, but are considered normal today.
Documents: Teens forced into marriage, sex BY MICHELLE ROBERTS The Associated Press
SAN ANGELO, Texas — Young teenage girls at a polygamist compound in West Texas were required to have sex in a soaring white temple after they were married in sect-recognized unions, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday. The temple “contains an area where there is a bed where males over the age of 17 engage in sexual activity with female children under the age of 17,” said an affidavit quoting a confidential informant who left the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Agents found a bed in the temple with disturbed linens and what appeared to be a female hair, said the affidavit signed by Texas Ranger Leslie Brooks Long. The Rangers are the state’s investigative law enforcement arm. The temple also contained multiple locked safes, vaults and desk drawers that authorities sought access to as they searched for records showing alleged marriages of underage girls as young as 12 or 13 to older men and births among the teens. The affidavit unsealed Wednesday mentions a 16-year-old girl who has four children. Texas law prohibits polygamy and the marriage of girls under 16. Also Wednesday, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers completed a weeklong search of the 1,700-acre grounds, said spokeswoman Tela Mange. Lawyers for the sect had wanted to cut off the wide-ranging search as it dragged on but agreed in court Wednesday to the appointment of a special master who will vet what is expected to be hundreds of boxes of records, computers and even family Bibles for records that should not become evidence for legal or religious reasons. Gerry Goldstein, a San Antonio lawyer flanked by nine other attorneys the church hired, said the search of the temple is analogous to a law enforcement search of the Vatican or other holy places. The church lawyers described in documents three men being dragged from the temple as law enforcement sought entry for the search. Troopers also arrested two men over the week and charged them with interfering with the search. Prosecutor Allison Palmer argued the search was to uncover any evidence of criminal activity, not to malign a religion. The search of the compound in Eldorado, 40 miles south of San Angelo, began last Thursday after a 16-year-old girl called a local family violence shelter to report her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. The search warrant covered all documents related to marriages among sect members, including photos and entries possibly written in family Bibles. Since then, the state has taken legal custody of 416 children, who are being housed at two sites in San Angelo, about 200 miles west of San Antonio. Another 139 women voluntarily left the compound of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — known as the YFZ Ranch — and were being housed with the children. Goldstein said a federal search warrant was issued as well as the state warrants. Outside court, Goldstein declined to comment on the allegations against the church. Court documents said a number of teen girls at the compound were pregnant, and all the children were removed on the grounds that they were in danger of “emotional, physical, and-or sexual abuse.”
Guilty until proven innocent. You have already drawn an emotional conclusion based on the information the media has fed you. This is the information they chose to feed you. My point exactly.
What would you suggest should have been done? Ignore the phone call?
No. I wouldn't ignore the phone call. But I would have found a little less intrusive way beside storming the community and taking all 401 children in the community into state custody. We have children in our inner cities having baby's at 15 years old. We don't see the authorities make blanket sweeps of those neighborhoods, in the name of protecting the children from their community.
Some Americans worry about the Patriot Act taking away our freedoms. 21 children actually died in Waco by the hand of the government that was supposed to protect them. And nobody in the federal government had any criminal charges levied against them. We see raids like these in Waco Texas in 93', and Eldorado Texas today, and find the accused guilty before even having a trial. If this doesn't fit the definition of profiling, I don't know what does. It's like the Salem witch hunt 2008, orchestrated by the government. Instead of witches it's fundamentalist Christians they're after.
The media uses emotionally charged language when describing the incident to rally public support to what they believe is morally wrong, even before having all the facts of the incident. Guilty by public opinion, before legal trial by jury.
Officials say they had to wait to make move on polygamist sect BY BETSY BLANEY AND MICHELLE ROBERTS The Associated Press
SAN ANGELO, Texas — It was no secret that a polygamist sect that built a compound in the West Texas desert believed in marrying off underage girls to older men. And the sheriff had an informant for four years who was feeding him information about life inside the sect. But authorities say their hands were tied until last week, when they finally obtained the legal grounds to move against the group. The trigger for the raid was a hushed phone call from a terrifi ed 16-year-old girl to a family-violence shelter to report that her 50-yearold husband had beaten and raped her. State troopers put into action the plan they had on the shelf to enter the 1,700-acre compound, and 416 children, most of them girls, were swept into state custody because of suspicions that they were being sexually and physically abused. On Thursday, state and local law enforcement authorities defended their decision to leave the sect alone for four years after it moved in. “We are aware that this group is capable of” sexually abusing girls, Sheriff David Doran said. “But there again, this is the United States. We are going to respect them. We’re not going to violate their civil rights until we get an outcry.” Doran said it was not until after the raid began that he learned that the sect was, in fact, marrying off underage girls at the compound and had a bed in its soaring limestone temple where the girls were required to immediately consummate their marriages. Also, investigators say a number of teenage girls there are pregnant. Authorities in Texas suspected there would be trouble ever since members of the renegade Mormon splinter group — the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — bought an exotic game ranch in Eldorado in 2004 and began building the ranch. Warren Jeffs, the sect’s prophet and spiritual leader at its longtime headquarters in the dusty, side-byside towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., was charged in 2005 and 2006 with forcing underage girls into marriages there. He was convicted in September in Utah of being an accomplice to rape and is serving up to life in prison. Doran had been making occasional visits to the Eldorado compound — he even called to tell members of Jeffs’ capture in 2006 — but he said he saw nothing to warrant a criminal investigation. Most of those milling around the compound would scatter when he and a Texas Ranger visited, he said. “You can only press someone so far without having a criminal investigation going on,” the sheriff said. “This group doesn’t openly talk and they do not openly answer questions.” Doran said he had an informant who was “instrumental in teaching me the group’s ways.” But he declined to say whether the informant, a former sect member, was in Texas, or Utah or Arizona. Barry Caver, a Texas Ranger who sometimes went with Doran to the compound, said a general welfare check wouldn’t have produced much. “They would allow us on the property to the extent that we could talk to the main three or four people” only, Caver said. Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott said that despite other states’ investigations into Jeffs and FLDS, Texas authorities had to wait until they had evidence of wrongdoing in this state to act. He said authorities handled the case properly. “You cannot go in and bust in someone’s house if there’s not probable cause to do so,” Abbott said. Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has written about polygamy, said even Jeffs’ conviction was not enough to barge in on the sect in Eldorado. “You cannot use stale evidence,” Turley said. “They would need a contemporary statement or evidence at trial that an individual at the compound is practicing polygamy.” The man alleged to be the 16-year-old girl’s husband, Dale Barlow, is a registered sex offender who pleaded no contest to having sex with a minor in Arizona. “I do not know this girl that they keep asking about,” he told Utah’s Deseret Morning News on Wednesday. “And I have not been to Texas since I was a young man back in 1977.” Officials still have not identifi ed the 16-year-old girl among the children and the 139 women being held at two sites in Texas. “When you’re dealing with a culture like this, they’re taught from very early on that they don’t answer questions to the point,” Doran said. “All of that is certainly being sorted out right now.” TONY GUTIERREZ/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Law enforcement vehicles are seen on the grounds of the “Yearning For Zion” Ranch, home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Eldorado, Texas, this week. State troopers, Texas Rangers and other authorities completed their search Wednesday.
Like they didn't know it was being built......so, what to do with a polygamist and what to do with a 'sex offender',,,,,can we tell the difference???----I'm sure Mr.Spitzer and his 'friends' can enlighten us......I bet Mr.Clinton would have a better view point from the end of a cigar....... >
girls---it's time to leave the baby's daddy and there is no golden 'one'........
I'll tell you what---the 'outsiders' Hooters girls will do wonders to give some self esteem back to these girls from the compound------ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha-------------------------
Texas and it's multple 'Pole stores'(strip clubs) couldn't see past the poles to know what the hell was going on I guess.....boys boys boys boys---shame shame shame----sham sham sham...........
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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