dlowan wrote:
I've lost the thread of what the point of this particular argument is about.
I assume we all agree that there is a level of abuse of children in care that is unacceptable
I would also assume that we acknowledge that all, or nearly all (assuming the investigation and court process to be imperfect, and that some children are in care because of deaths or other unavoidable absence by caregivers) the children in foster care were abused prior to their being placed there.
It goes back to
my earlier reponse to her comment that "
With a safe environment i.e. foster families and appropriate counseling, these children have a chance to get through this trauma." where I said that "
1 in 4 children is sexually abused while in the State's care after being removed from their home and as many as 60% can expect to be mentally or physically abused while in foster care." - my entire point being that foster care is not "safe" in itself. Children in foster care are still at risk of abuse at fairly high levels.
She did some checking and found one site where the number that came up was extremely low (under 1%) and claimed that my numbers were nowehere near close.
I followed the referenced source in her site and found that the data they were reporting was only for abuses attributed to "foster care staff" which is only one subset of my overall claim and provided a link to another site that listed several studies showing much higher numbers, etc..., etc...
She, of course, wishes to stick with her numebrs because they come form a government site. The fact that the government site specifically says that it is an apples/oranges comparison doesn't seem to be of relevance to her.
Quote:Can anyone remind me of how this particular argument relates to the thread?
It's all one subset of whether or not these particular children are better off in the State's care or in their normal homes.
Thanks.
Do you have an actual position on:
"whether or not these particular children are better off in the State's care or in their normal homes."?
NOT permanently, of course, because the whole abuse issue is moot....but do you have a firm position on their removal during investigation?
dlowan wrote:
I would be surprised if this were an individual decision by Miss Voss or anyone else. I would have thought that she was the court spokesperson for the department.
Are you assuming that it was an individual decision, in which case what evidence do you have, or are you arguing that it is normal practice for removal decisions to be made by one person without consultation in Texas? If you are arguing the latter, I would be interested to see what evidence you have for that as well.
Once again, I am not saying that you are wrong, but it is so utterly counter to all child abuse investigation practice that I am aware of, that I am not prepared to believe it without some evidence.
She is one of serveral hundred investigation supervisors for the state child agency, and she made the call ...they still gun sling in Texas.
Quote:Child Protective Services caseworkers investigate reports of child abuse or neglect in order to determine whether any child in the referred family has been abused or neglected. In addition, caseworkers assess critical areas of individual and family functioning to determine whether any child in the referred family is at risk of abuse or neglect; and initiate protective services for children who need protection.
To determine whether any child in the family has been abused or neglected and is still at risk of abuse or neglect, the investigative worker may interview family members and appropriate collateral sources. At the end of the investigation, staff must assign a disposition to each allegation identified for the investigation. Dispositions include the following:
Reason-to-believe. Based on a preponderance of the evidence, staff conclude that abuse or neglect has occurred.
Ruled-out. Staff determines, based on available information, that it is reasonable to conclude that the abuse or neglect has not occurred.
Unable To Complete. An "unable to complete" investigation is one that cannot be concluded and assigned another disposition because the family could not be located to begin the investigation, or the family was contacted but subsequently moved and could not be located to complete the investigation or the family refused to cooperate with the investigation. CPS policy outlines several required actions the caseworker needs to complete with the "Unable To Complete" disposition.
Unable-to-determine. Staff concludes that none of the dispositions specified in [1 through 3 above] is appropriate.
Administrative closure. Information received after a case was assigned for investigation reveals that continued Child Protective Services intervention is unwarranted.
The worker must also determine whether there is a reasonable likelihood that a child will be abused or neglected in the foreseeable future. There are two alternatives.
The worker concludes that the children are not at risk if
(a) no significant risk factors have been identified, and abuse or neglect has not been found to have occurred in the current investigation; or
(b) the family appears willing and able, through use of family and community resources, to deal with risk factors in their lives in such a manner as to ensure the safety of the child(ren) for the foreseeable future. If the worker concludes that the children are not at risk, then the case may be closed.
The worker concludes that the children are at risk of abuse or neglect if:
(a) the worker has identified significant risk factors, and
(b) the family appears unable or unwilling to utilize family and community resources to deal with the risk factors in a manner that will ensure the safety of the child(ren) for the foreseeable future.
If the worker concludes that the children are at risk of abuse or neglect, then the worker may recommend:
services to address the problem,
open the case for family based safety services or
file a petition to initiate civil court action to protect the victim.
Actions could include removal of the children from the home and possibly termination of parental rights.
http://handbooks.tdprs.state.tx.us/Child_Protection/About_Child_Protective_Services/investigation.asp
dlowan wrote:Thanks.
Do you have an actual position on:
"whether or not these particular children are better off in the State's care or in their normal homes."?
NOT permanently, of course, because the whole abuse issue is moot....but do you have a firm position on their removal during investigation?
I think they would have been better off if they had been returned to their homes.
For one thing, because of the environment they've been in, IMO, they are probably at higher risk for abuse than the average child taken into the system. These are kids with zero "street smarts".
If necessary (and again, IMO, it probably would have been in this case) the males over say... age 15/16 should have been told to leave the compound for the duration and Child Protective Services should have sent their people into the compound and kept people in there 24/7.
If the adult women were/are also a problem then I would have preferred that they remove ALL of the adults and from the compound and staff it with CPS personnel to monitor the children. I'd rather see the adults moved than the children.
IMO, the children should have been the LAST people to be removed. Given their lack of exposure to the outside world they would have still had famaliar surroundings even if all of the adults were removed. Right now they don't have either their parents or their homes/belongings...
hawkeye10 wrote:dlowan wrote:
I would be surprised if this were an individual decision by Miss Voss or anyone else. I would have thought that she was the court spokesperson for the department.
Are you assuming that it was an individual decision, in which case what evidence do you have, or are you arguing that it is normal practice for removal decisions to be made by one person without consultation in Texas? If you are arguing the latter, I would be interested to see what evidence you have for that as well.
Once again, I am not saying that you are wrong, but it is so utterly counter to all child abuse investigation practice that I am aware of, that I am not prepared to believe it without some evidence.
She is one of serveral hundred investigation supervisors for the state child agency, and she made the call ...they still gun sling in Texas.
Quote:Child Protective Services caseworkers investigate reports of child abuse or neglect in order to determine whether any child in the referred family has been abused or neglected. In addition, caseworkers assess critical areas of individual and family functioning to determine whether any child in the referred family is at risk of abuse or neglect; and initiate protective services for children who need protection.
To determine whether any child in the family has been abused or neglected and is still at risk of abuse or neglect, the investigative worker may interview family members and appropriate collateral sources. At the end of the investigation, staff must assign a disposition to each allegation identified for the investigation. Dispositions include the following:
Reason-to-believe. Based on a preponderance of the evidence, staff conclude that abuse or neglect has occurred.
Ruled-out. Staff determines, based on available information, that it is reasonable to conclude that the abuse or neglect has not occurred.
Unable To Complete. An "unable to complete" investigation is one that cannot be concluded and assigned another disposition because the family could not be located to begin the investigation, or the family was contacted but subsequently moved and could not be located to complete the investigation or the family refused to cooperate with the investigation. CPS policy outlines several required actions the caseworker needs to complete with the "Unable To Complete" disposition.
Unable-to-determine. Staff concludes that none of the dispositions specified in [1 through 3 above] is appropriate.
Administrative closure. Information received after a case was assigned for investigation reveals that continued Child Protective Services intervention is unwarranted.
The worker must also determine whether there is a reasonable likelihood that a child will be abused or neglected in the foreseeable future. There are two alternatives.
The worker concludes that the children are not at risk if
(a) no significant risk factors have been identified, and abuse or neglect has not been found to have occurred in the current investigation; or
(b) the family appears willing and able, through use of family and community resources, to deal with risk factors in their lives in such a manner as to ensure the safety of the child(ren) for the foreseeable future. If the worker concludes that the children are not at risk, then the case may be closed.
The worker concludes that the children are at risk of abuse or neglect if:
(a) the worker has identified significant risk factors, and
(b) the family appears unable or unwilling to utilize family and community resources to deal with the risk factors in a manner that will ensure the safety of the child(ren) for the foreseeable future.
If the worker concludes that the children are at risk of abuse or neglect, then the worker may recommend:
services to address the problem,
open the case for family based safety services or
file a petition to initiate civil court action to protect the victim.
Actions could include removal of the children from the home and possibly termination of parental rights.
http://handbooks.tdprs.state.tx.us/Child_Protection/About_Child_Protective_Services/investigation.asp
"then the worker may recommend:
services to address the problem,
open the case for family based safety services or
file a petition to initiate civil court action to protect the victim.
Actions could include removal of the children from the home and possibly termination of parental rights."
Looks to me as though it is possible that one worker may RECOMMEND such actions.....but I am not seeing evidence that a SINGLE worker may actually take removal action alone.
I'm not saying they definitely cannot........but they would be very atypical if an actual action of such significance is taken alone.
Court action alone would need, I would think, extensive consultation with the department's lawyers etc.
Frankly, if a single worker had made the decision to remove these kids they would be professionally insane, even if they were allowed to. Anyone with the brain the size of a pea would know what a stir the action would cause and the most basic survival instinct would be telling you to consult widely and well. That is clearly not evidence that it DIDN'T happen that way, but your evidence is not persuasive to me yet.
There were clearly a number of people investigating and I think it a far more likely scenario that discussions would have been happening not just between the people investigating, but way up the chain.
Here, such crucial discussions involve front-line workers, senior workers, senior medical and psycho-social staff within the forensic medical and psych-social specialty services, and police, at the least...unless there is a critical reason to believe the child is in imminent danger of physical harm, or the child has injuries which the parents/carers will not consent to be treated/investigated....even then crisis discussions are normal, by mobile phone, at the site, with other workers.
In very complex cases lawyers would also be involved, if harm was not immediately manifest.
Not that this is necessarily how things are done in Texas, but it is more normal practice.
fishin wrote:dlowan wrote:Thanks.
Do you have an actual position on:
"whether or not these particular children are better off in the State's care or in their normal homes."?
NOT permanently, of course, because the whole abuse issue is moot....but do you have a firm position on their removal during investigation?
I think they would have been better off if they had been returned to their homes.
For one thing, because of the environment they've been in, IMO, they are probably at higher risk for abuse than the average child taken into the system. These are kids with zero "street smarts".
If necessary (and again, IMO, it probably would have been in this case) the males over say... age 15/16 should have been told to leave the compound for the duration and Child Protective Services should have sent their people into the compound and kept people in there 24/7.
If the adult women were/are also a problem then I would have preferred that they remove ALL of the adults and from the compound and staff it with CPS personnel to monitor the children. I'd rather see the adults moved than the children.
IMO, the children should have been the LAST people to be removed. Given their lack of exposure to the outside world they would have still had famaliar surroundings even if all of the adults were removed. Right now they don't have either their parents or their homes/belongings...
I think that is a reasonable position.
I wonder if it was considered? I would have thought so, but you never know.
A problem I can see immediately though, is whether or not staff would actually have been available to provide such a service.
Here, for instance, no staff would be available....unless you took them from all the residential care places where kids were currently being looked after, leaving those kids uncared for.
Here, again, to ask welfare case-workers to do it would mean critical loss of ability to investigate other alleged abuse (and remember, a lot of that is physically critical stuff, where children have injuries) plus god knows what happening to case-workers' own kids and a major industrial relations storm.
I have seen this happen in situations where a family of kids were removed and there was literally nowhere to put them....staff briefly did shifts in the motel where the kids were, until carers could be found, but it was a total nightmare in many ways.
We recently considered it in a case here....but there was insufficient medical evidence to justify it.
If it were logistically possible, it sounds like a possibly good option, though.
dlowan wrote: I think that is a reasonable position.
I wonder if it was considered? I would have thought so, but you never know.
A problem I can see immediately though, is whether or not staff would actually have been available to provide such a service.
Here, for instance, no staff would be available....unless you took them from all the residential care places where kids were currently being looked after, leaving those kids uncared for.
Here, again, to ask welfare case-workers to do it would mean critical loss of ability to investigate other alleged abuse (and remember, a lot of that is physically critical stuff, where children have injuries) plus god knows what happening to case-workers' own kids and a major industrial relations storm.
I have seen this happen in situations where a family of kids were removed and there was literally nowhere to put them....staff briefly did shifts in the motel where the kids were, until carers could be found, but it was a total nightmare in many ways.
We recently considered it in a case here....but there was insufficient medical evidence to justify it.
If it were logistically possible, it sounds like a possibly good option, though.
When I said "CPS staff" what I envisioned would be CPS staff supervising a crew of people. I would assume they'd bring in medical staff, teachers, etc... but they'd all be taking direction from CPS. They might only have one case worker there at night along with nurses, and registered care providers, etc... Most of what they'd be doing would be day-to-day care (baths, meals, cleaning, school, etc) so caseworkers wouldn't be needed for that.
As it is right now it has to be a logistical nightmare for CPS. They've got 462 people scattered all over the state that they have to track. Someone has to be tracking where those kids are, telling the foster families when the kids need to be at appointments (interviews, evals, medical, etc...), court dates, etc... Having all of the kids in one place would seem to be easier to me.
I guess it can get ugly either way. As far as I know there aren't any mobile "SWAT" teams for these sorts of things. They don't happen often enough to justify them.
dlowan wrote:
"then the worker may recommend:
services to address the problem,
open the case for family based safety services or
file a petition to initiate civil court action to protect the victim.
Actions could include removal of the children from the home and possibly termination of parental rights."
Looks to me as though it is possible that one worker may RECOMMEND such actions.....but I am not seeing evidence that a SINGLE worker may actually take removal action alone.
I'm not saying they definitely cannot........but they would be very atypical if an actual action of such significance is taken alone.
Court action alone would need, I would think, extensive consultation with the department's lawyers etc.
Frankly, if a single worker had made the decision to remove these kids they would be professionally insane, even if they were allowed to. Anyone with the brain the size of a pea would know what a stir the action would cause and the most basic survival instinct would be telling you to consult widely and well. That is clearly not evidence that it DIDN'T happen that way, but your evidence is not persuasive to me yet.
There were clearly a number of people investigating and I think it a far more likely scenario that discussions would have been happening not just between the people investigating, but way up the chain.
Here, such crucial discussions involve front-line workers, senior workers, senior medical and psycho-social staff within the forensic medical and psych-social specialty services, and police, at the least...unless there is a critical reason to believe the child is in imminent danger of physical harm, or the child has injuries which the parents/carers will not consent to be treated/investigated....even then crisis discussions are normal, by mobile phone, at the site, with other workers.
In very complex cases lawyers would also be involved, if harm was not immediately manifest.
Not that this is necessarily how things are done in Texas, but it is more normal practice.
Quote:The caseworker normally completes the investigation in 30 days. As a result of the investigation, the caseworker will decide if:
abuse or neglect occurred; and
the child is at risk of abuse or neglect.
If it has been determined that the child is at risk of abuse or neglect, the caseworker will decide if:
immediate safety services are needed; and
ongoing treatment services are needed to reduce the risk of abuse or neglect.
The caseworker will get approval regarding these decisions from his or her supervisor and then will inform you about them
http://handbooks.tdprs.state.tx.us/Child_Protection/About_Child_Protective_Services/parentguide.asp
Voss is a supervisor, not a worker, she had the authority to on her own petition the court for removal, as she did. I expect that the notified a superior, but the front line supervisors make the call. In such an unusual case as this, both in size and circumstance, the system in texas will ill suited for the job. The decision required more brain power than one supervisor who consulted with one former FLDS member and one psychiatrist who may orm may not know a thing about polygamist cults. Perry seems to be chosen because he worked with some of the Branch Davidian kids, but what that has to do with polygamy I don't know. I suppose to Voss a cult is a cult is a cult. I would have hoped that if Voss was thinking about traumatizing 400+ kids by throwing them into foster care that she might have taken the time to talk to at least one expert on polygamy cults so that she might have a clue about what she was looking at, there are several....but no can do.
Quote: SAN ANGELO, Texas - A Texas Child Protective Services investigations supervisor who led the initial foray into a polygamous sect's ranch testified today that she had first consulted a psychiatrist who has done extensive research into religious cults and the sister of the Utah woman whose testimony led to the imprisonment of sect leader Warren S. Jeffs.
Angie Voss said in a San Angelo court today that she talked to psychiatrist Bruce Perry of Texas and Rebecca Musser. She is a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose West Texas ranch was the subject of a days-long raid earlier this month.
Musser is the sister of Elissa Wall, who testified in a Utah court last year that she was 14 when Jeffs arranged for her to marry her 19-year-old cousin over her objections. Jeffs was convicted of rape by an accomplice and sentenced to prison. He also awaits trial in Arizona on other charges of arranging marriages for teen-aged girls.
http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_8957324
fishin wrote:IMO, the children should have been the LAST people to be removed. Given their lack of exposure to the outside world they would have still had famaliar surroundings even if all of the adults were removed. Right now they don't have either their parents or their homes/belongings...
Perry speaking
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695271716,00.html
thereby saying that the goal is to bust up the cult, a position that the state bought into. Also why leaving the kids in place was not considered, though we are talking about a couple of months not a life time, so the position is nonsense. The plan should have been to allow the kids to maintain their current stability until such time as it was decided what to do with them, not allowing them to stay at the compound because it would allow them their current belief structure betrays how deeply the hate on the part of the "professionals" towards their "clients" goes. The goal is to rub out the cult, the "we have to save the kids" is a pretext. The state should not be in the business of taking out religious communities, which is why this action will hopefully be over turned by people of more sound mind than Voss and her crew of saviours.
hawkeye10 wrote:dlowan wrote:
"then the worker may recommend:
services to address the problem,
open the case for family based safety services or
file a petition to initiate civil court action to protect the victim.
Actions could include removal of the children from the home and possibly termination of parental rights."
Looks to me as though it is possible that one worker may RECOMMEND such actions.....but I am not seeing evidence that a SINGLE worker may actually take removal action alone.
I'm not saying they definitely cannot........but they would be very atypical if an actual action of such significance is taken alone.
Court action alone would need, I would think, extensive consultation with the department's lawyers etc.
Frankly, if a single worker had made the decision to remove these kids they would be professionally insane, even if they were allowed to. Anyone with the brain the size of a pea would know what a stir the action would cause and the most basic survival instinct would be telling you to consult widely and well. That is clearly not evidence that it DIDN'T happen that way, but your evidence is not persuasive to me yet.
There were clearly a number of people investigating and I think it a far more likely scenario that discussions would have been happening not just between the people investigating, but way up the chain.
Here, such crucial discussions involve front-line workers, senior workers, senior medical and psycho-social staff within the forensic medical and psych-social specialty services, and police, at the least...unless there is a critical reason to believe the child is in imminent danger of physical harm, or the child has injuries which the parents/carers will not consent to be treated/investigated....even then crisis discussions are normal, by mobile phone, at the site, with other workers.
In very complex cases lawyers would also be involved, if harm was not immediately manifest.
Not that this is necessarily how things are done in Texas, but it is more normal practice.
Quote:The caseworker normally completes the investigation in 30 days. As a result of the investigation, the caseworker will decide if:
abuse or neglect occurred; and
the child is at risk of abuse or neglect.
If it has been determined that the child is at risk of abuse or neglect, the caseworker will decide if:
immediate safety services are needed; and
ongoing treatment services are needed to reduce the risk of abuse or neglect.
The caseworker will get approval regarding these decisions from his or her supervisor and then will inform you about them
http://handbooks.tdprs.state.tx.us/Child_Protection/About_Child_Protective_Services/parentguide.asp
Voss is a supervisor, not a worker, she had the authority to on her own petition the court for removal, as she did. I expect that the notified a superior, but the front line supervisors make the call. In such an unusual case as this, both in size and circumstance, the system in texas will ill suited for the job. The decision required more brain power than one supervisor who consulted with one former FLDS member and one psychiatrist who may orm may not know a thing about polygamist cults. Perry seems to be chosen because he worked with some of the Branch Davidian kids, but what that has to do with polygamy I don't know. I suppose to Voss a cult is a cult is a cult. I would have hoped that if Voss was thinking about traumatizing 400+ kids by throwing them into foster care that she might have taken the time to talk to at least one expert on polygamy cults so that she might have a clue about what she was looking at, there are several....but no can do.
Quote: SAN ANGELO, Texas - A Texas Child Protective Services investigations supervisor who led the initial foray into a polygamous sect's ranch testified today that she had first consulted a psychiatrist who has done extensive research into religious cults and the sister of the Utah woman whose testimony led to the imprisonment of sect leader Warren S. Jeffs.
Angie Voss said in a San Angelo court today that she talked to psychiatrist Bruce Perry of Texas and Rebecca Musser. She is a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose West Texas ranch was the subject of a days-long raid earlier this month.
Musser is the sister of Elissa Wall, who testified in a Utah court last year that she was 14 when Jeffs arranged for her to marry her 19-year-old cousin over her objections. Jeffs was convicted of rape by an accomplice and sentenced to prison. He also awaits trial in Arizona on other charges of arranging marriages for teen-aged girls.
http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_8957324
She may or may not have consulted enough...but she certainly didn't make the decision all by herself, as you first said.
Again, you appear to be unable to grasp that the polygamy does not appear to be the focus....it is the allegation of unlawful sex with minors, and the contention that there is a culture leading to and supporting the disposition of young girls legally incapable of giving informed consent to adult men for marriage/sex.
dlowan wrote:
She may or may not have consulted enough...but she certainly didn't make the decision all by herself, as you first said.
Again, you appear to be unable to grasp that the polygamy does not appear to be the focus....it is the allegation of unlawful sex with minors, and the contention that there is a culture leading to and supporting the disposition of young girls legally incapable of giving informed consent to adult men for marriage/sex.
Consulting means that others have a say, which is not the case. Voss talked to the people she wanted to talk to before deciding what to do, but she decided. The question is did she conduct do diligence, and I think that the answer is clearly no. There are state workers in Arizona and Utah who know a great deal about polygamy cults, and there are some in private practice who do as well, and so far as we know she did not talk to a single one.
I get that informed consent does not currently exist in a form that is strong enough to pass muster with current societal views. This is why the cult must change its ways (as I have said repeatedly). My position is that the remedy imposed by the state is unconstitutional, the process is unconstitutional, the methods unnecisarily traumatic, and that the state has used logic that proves that their goal surpasses "saving" the kids, it is to rub out the cult.
In my opinion, this account in today's issue of the Austin American-Statesman is fair, balanced, and informative.
Quote:Did Texas go too far in polygamy case?
Polygamist sect gets millions from U.S. government
By Jack Douglas Jr., staff writer with the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.
Posted on Saturday, April 12, 2008
FT. WORTH, Tex. _American taxpayers have unwittingly helped finance a polygamist sect that is now the focus of a massive child abuse investigation in West Texas, with a business tied to the group receiving a nearly $1 million loan from the federal government and $1.2 million in military contracts.
The ability of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, to operate and grow is largely dependent on huge contributions from its members and revenue from the businesses they control, according to a former accountant for the church, and government officials in Utah and Arizona, where the sect is primarily based.
One of those businesses, NewEra Manufacturing in Las Vegas, has been awarded more than $1.2 million in federal government contracts, with most of the money coming in recent years from the Defense Department for wheel and brake components for military aircraft.
A large portion of the awards were preferential no-bid or "sole source" contracts because of the company's classification as a small business, according to online databases that track federal government appropriations.
NewEra, previously known as Western Precision Inc. and located in Hildale, Utah, also received a $900,000 loan in 2005 from the federal Small Business Administration, the data show.
The president and chief executive of the company is John. C. Wayman, identified as an FLDS leader and a close associate to Warren Jeffs, the sect's "prophet," who was convicted last year as an accomplice to rape for arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin.
When Jeffs, who was one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the summer of 2006, he was driving Wayman's late-model red Cadillac Escalade, government officials say.
Wayman did not return phone calls seeking comment.
On NewEra's Web site Wayman says the company is "an honorable and valuable asset to our country" in helping build military and commercial airplanes that carry people throughout the world. He does not mention its ties to the FLDS.
Steve Barlow, human resources manager for NewEra, said last week that it would be inappropriate to comment, "Given everything that's going on. I could only give you the company motto: 'Good parts on time.'. "
U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, the Fort Worth Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee that deals with issues of defense, military and homeland security, said she is surprised that the federal government is doing business with a group accused of mistreating women and children.
"It makes me very uneasy," Granger said. "It needs to be investigated without a doubt."
To begin with, she added, federal authorities should look into NewEra's financial records.
John Nielsen, who worked for the company when it was Western Precision in Hildale, said in a 2005 affidavit that he and other FLDS members were made to work for little or no wages, even as the company was bringing in lucrative government contracts and other work.
At the same time, $50,000 to $100,000 in company profits were going each month to FLDS "and/or" Jeffs, Nielsen said in the affidavit, filed as part of a civil lawsuit.
He said he and other sect members thought their working for free or for extremely low wages would bring them redemption. Instead, Nielsen said in the affidavit, he was found to be "wanting" by the sect's leadership, ordered off the property and separated from his five young children and his wife. She was "reassigned" to another man, becoming the fourth of his six wives.
"It broke my heart," Nielsen said in the affidavit. He declined to comment when reached by phone Friday.
In Texas, authorities raided the FLDS' sprawling YFZ Ranch near Eldorado on April 3, beginning an exhaustive search of its 1,691 acres. Authorities were acting on a tip from a 16-year-old girl inside the compound who said she had been beaten and raped by a 50-year-old man whom she was forced to marry.
Since then, a state district court judge has ordered the removal of 416 children, many of them young girls who have children or are pregnant after forced encounters with their "spiritual" husbands in the sect's towering white limestone temple, officials say.
"There's a lot of bad **** in there," said a high-ranking official with the federal Justice Department who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the case. On Tuesday, the Justice Department executed a sealed FBI search warrant at the ranch.
While the men of the sect have held close rein on their "plural wives" and children, seldom allowing them to associate with the outside world, the male leaders have fanned out into successful public business ventures. They work as government defense contractors, dairy farmers, engineers, construction contractors, log-cabin homebuilders and suppliers of lanyards, the cords used on eyeglasses or nametags.
In addition, JNJ Engineering, a company owned and operated by FLDS leaders, has made millions of dollars in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in September. The company won $11.3 million in contract work from the Las Vegas Valley Water District; all but one of the project workers came from the twin towns of Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz., where most of the sect's 10,000 members live.
Jethro Barlow, a former accountant for the FLDS whom Warren Jeffs excommunicated in 2003, said Jeffs ordered sect members, their families and the companies they operated to "give till it hurts....
"And people did."
Jeffs was able to rally church members to tithe heavily, even if it hurt them financially, because he had convinced them that they had to prepare for the end of the world, Barlow said.
The fever-pitched preparation continued, even after several apocalyptic deadlines had passed. It motivated the rapid construction of the temple at the YFZ Ranch and the erection there of manufactured cabin-like homes made by sect members in Canada, he said.
Barlow, who remains in Hildale, said he believes he and his family were kicked out of the FLDS because they were not among the favored ones in Jeffs' flock.
Although Jeffs is now behind bars, sect members still consider him their leader and prophet, said Bruce Wisan, a nonmember appointed by the state of Utah to replace Jeffs as manager of a the FLDS' trust. Established in 1942 to "preserve and advance the religious doctrines" of the church, it is now estimated to be worth between $100 million and $150 million.
Under Jeffs' direction, Wisan said, sect households are required to tithe at least 10 percent of their gross income to the church, plus an extra $1,000 a month.
Tim Bodily, an assistant attorney over the tax division of the Utah attorney general's office, said Wisan has received little cooperation from those within the sect, which has traditionally shown distrust for outsiders.
"He's been provided no records at all, and no one inside the organization has provided any inside knowledge. ... It's a very difficult thing to do," Bodily said. "Progress moves slow when dealing with these people. Texas has its hands full."
Ben should stick to game shows.
dyslexia wrote:Ben should stick to game shows.
Maybe, but my point is that my point of view is not that of a lone whack job......It might not be the majority view yet but the longer this miscarriage of justice continues the more popular it will become. It will be a re run of Short Creek, when the citizens revolted against the heavy handed tactics of the state. Experts who know these cults will lay out a fist full of options that could have fixed the problems with out hurting so many people so badly, with out trampling yours and mine Constitutional rights.
Quote:my point is that my point of view is not that of a lone whack job.....
true enough, I'm sure Okie agrees with you.
Quote:SAN ANGELO, Texas - An attorney for FLDS families in Texas challenged the state's allegations of a "pervasive pattern" of underage girls having children, saying the state's own documents show just three teenagers in custody are pregnant.
Of those girls, one will turn 18 in a few months and another merely refused to take a pregnancy test, said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney representing families at the YFZ Ranch. "That leaves us with one," he said.
Parker also said Friday that one state document includes a woman whose first child was born more than a decade ago. He said he based his statements on a copy of a list created by an investigator for Texas Child Protective Services. ". I challenge CPS to come forward with the pregnant minors," said Parker.
Investigator Angie Voss submitted the chart last week during a two-day court hearing to bolster the state's contention that all children at the ranch were at risk of abuse. The state removed 462 children from the Eldorado ranch, owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, earlier this month. The last children were moved out of the San Angelo Coliseum and Wells Fargo Pavilion on Friday. The children are now in group and foster homes across Texas.
The count of children in custody rose again Friday after CPS determined that 25 girls who claimed to be adults are actually minors, said spokesman Chris Van Deusen. That group may overlap with the 20 listed in the court document as pregnant or as mothers, he said.
"The only thing we can say is we're aware of 20 young girls who became pregnant when they were between the ages of 13 and 16," Van Deusen said. "That's not to say that there are 20 now, but at the time they conceived they were 13, 14, 15, or 16. "That establishes that there was some sexual abuse here," he said.
Van Deusen said the court document may not include minors identified as pregnant or mothers since the court hearing. He also said he could not talk about investigative results that haven't been made public in court or otherwise.
One CPS document reviewed by The Salt Lake Tribune lists just three pregnant teenagers. The court document, also reviewed by The Tribune, includes women who became mothers before the FLDS' move to Texas or before the state raised the age of marriage, with parents' permission, from 14 to 16 in 2005. The chart does not indicate whether the women are legally married or the ages of the children's fathers.
Among them: One woman, now 30, listed as having given birth to her first child in 1993 when she was 14. A reference to this situation was made by a CPS investigator without explaining when the pregnancy occurred during the two-day court hearing in which Judge Barbara Walther made her decision to keep the children in state custody. Parker said one CPS list shows some of the minors in state custody are or are about to become adults. One girl sent to a Baptist emergency shelter turned 18 nearly two weeks ago, he said.
"They need to let those people out," Parker said. Parker also refuted CPS' description of an orderly, calm separation of mothers and children at the coliseum. He said it was "complete pandemonium."
As the children, all younger than 5, figured out what was happening, they started screaming and CPS workers had to pry many away from their mothers. "This is inhuman. This is un-American," said Parker, who also said a civil rights lawsuit is possible.
He also said CPS assured nursing mothers they would be able to take breast milk to their infants but, as of early Friday, had been given no information on where the children had been taken. They also were told sibling groups would be kept together. Thirteen children from one family were sent to five locations, he said.
All the FLDS men and many women, some of whom returned Friday, remain on the ranch. "There is a real singular mind-set at the ranch right now to get these children home," he said.
http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_9056589
Ya, underaged sex is such a problem.....the state seems to be including examples of individuals who completely followed the law...before the law was changed. That is how they trump up the numbers.
Quote:...Among them: One woman, now 30, listed as having given birth to her first child in 1993 when she was 14. A reference to this situation was made by a CPS investigator without explaining when the pregnancy occurred during the two-day court hearing in which Judge Barbara Walther made her decision to keep the children in state custody. Parker said one CPS list shows some of the minors in state custody are or are about to become adults. One girl sent to a Baptist emergency shelter turned 18 nearly two weeks ago, he said. ..
That's hardly trumping up the list. Until the DNA is back, they don't really know who is who and who has what kids or when their birthdays are, or who the dads are, or......
