Testimony of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
United States Senate Judiciary Committee
July 24, 2008
Thank you, Chairman Whitehouse and Senator Hatch for convening this hearing today. I appear here to reaffirm the benefits that can be achieved by federal and state cooperation and coordination in criminal investigations and prosecutions of crimes committed by members of the FLDS.
As this committee may know, my office is engaged in pending prosecutions of certain FLDS members. Two days ago, a grand jury in Schleicher County, Texas, returned seven indictments against six suspects. All suspects are associated with the YFZ compound near Eldorado, Texas.
Among the six suspects is Warren Jeffs, who is charged with sexually assaulting a child, a first-degree felony.
Four additional suspects are charged with sexually assaulting young girls under the age of 17. One of those suspects is also charged with felony bigamy.
A separate suspect has been indicted on three counts of failure to report child abuse.
The indictments issued this Tuesday are part of an ongoing and continuing criminal investigation.
Because these are pending charges, and because of the nature of this criminal investigation, my ability to provide details about these cases will be limited. I do, however, want to provide the committee some background information about the situation in Texas so you can better understand our perspective on how cooperation and coordination between federal and state authorities can be beneficial.
The charges issued by the grand jury earlier this week reflect a joint effort between several law enforcement agencies. The Texas Office of the Attorney General is leading the prosecution in this case, in coordination with the local district attorney, and the Texas Rangers are serving as the lead investigators. However, several other law enforcement agencies are working closely and cooperatively in this massive, multi-jurisdictional investigation.
This week's indictments reflect a cooperative effort between the Texas Attorney General's Office, Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Rangers, the 51st Judicial District Attorney's Office, as well as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My office has also maintained open lines of communication with the offices of Attorneys General in Arizona and Utah.
We have seen first hand the vital importance of communication and cooperation among state and federal authorities.
The suspects in this case are part of an organization with roots in many states and three countries. To state the obvious, it is a big challenge for state authorities, acting alone, to contain or prevent criminal activity that crosses multiple state - and even national - borders.
According to press reports, Warren Jeffs ordered that the YFZ Ranch in Texas be purchased just one month after Arizona authorities prosecuted an FLDS member for an unlawful sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl. This frames an important issue for this committee to consider?-when one state enforces its law, the FLDS leaders simply move their operations to another state.
Recent press reports indicated that, after the joint crackdown by Utah and Arizona, FLDS members began moving to Southern Nevada and, of course, Texas.
When Utah's enforcement efforts convinced a federal judge to appoint a new trustee to oversee a $100 million FLDS trust, the new trustee reportedly took stock of numerous real property assets in the twin cities of Hilldale and Colorado City. And, according to the trustee, during one week alone, seven houses were abandoned by FLDS members who were presumed to have taken up residence in Texas.
As law enforcement efforts in Texas began to intensify, a Houston Chronicle story noted that the "vast majority" of males at the ranch "have been moved" and "gone underground." As the Dallas Morning News put it, Texas authorities are "up against a culture of secrecy, unlimited resources, and sect members well-schooled in the art of misleading authorities." And the International Herald Tribune wrote about a "network of safe houses where sect members can take refuge" and families living in a "house of hiding."
Today's Houston Chronicle notes that "Texas authorities will have their work cut out for them as they try to track members of a polygamist sect well-equipped to hide within a national network of safehouses and whose members, critics say, have no qualms about harboring a fugitive."
These media reports underscore a real difficulty facing state authorities. This group moves seamlessly from state to state, location to location and has the infrastructure necessary to thwart law enforcement. Even Warren Jeffs, who has achieved international notoriety, managed to hide from authorities for over a year?-and he was on the FBI's most wanted list. This leads me to two very important points:
First, if individuals are charged with crimes, and if those individuals flee the jurisdiction by the time those charges are filed, state authorities could benefit from help by the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, and U.S. Attorneys across the country in locating and arresting those individuals and returning them to the right jurisdiction to stand trial. Assistance and cooperation from federal officials can help ensure these suspects stand trial for the crimes with which they are charged.
Second, and from a bigger picture perspective, we have seen that the FLDS is highly mobile and willing to move from one location to the next in an apparent effort to avoid state authorities. Thus it is critical that federal authorities focus on the FLDS, and devote the resources necessary to prosecute criminal wrongdoing that is uncovered?-whether the evidence leads to Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, or somewhere else. A comprehensive federal response should minimize - if not eliminate - the possibility that persons within FLDS who may be predisposed to commit polygamy, or other crimes, will simply move their operations to another location, because of law enforcement action in their current location.
Although many of the alleged crimes associated with FLDS are state crimes that warrant attention by state officials, there are at least two reasons why federal authorities should get involved.
First, there are multiple potential federal crimes that federal authorities could pursue. Second, by depending exclusively on state authorities, certain criminal activity may?-or may not?-be investigated and prosecuted because of the FLDS's ability - or attempt - to control governmental activity where their community is located and, consequently, suppress law enforcement activities.
I'll explain the second point first. As I understand it, Hilldale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona operated as autonomous regions for decades with little or no oversight from state or federal authorities. FLDS reportedly owned 85% of the land in the two towns and FLDS leaders allegedly controlled everything from the town council, to the police department, the fire district, the local electrical utility, and school district. That was the case until General Goddard and General Shurtleff took action to enforce the law in those long-ignored areas and disentangle the FLDS from the local government. In Arizona, for example, General Goddard charged a school district official with gross financial mismanagement and asked that the district be placed in receivership. Among the misuses of taxpayer money was the purchase of a $200,000 airplane. Additionally, the school district executed and later terminated a real estate lease with an FLDS-controlled trust that cost the taxpayers $190,000 in prepaid rent.
These abuses occurred because local authorities under the FLDS's control apparently looked the other way?-which is why Arizona authorities had to decommission six peace officers.
A close look at Schleicher County, Texas, where the YFZ Ranch is located, shows that it lies in a sparsely populated rural area where the FLDS could similarly take control in a way that would allow them to evade law enforcement. Only 698 citizens voted in that county during the November 2006 election.
Second, although the alleged criminal conduct currently being prosecuted by our office involves crimes that traditionally fall within state authorities' purview, there are important issues for federal prosecutors to consider. Given the nature of the FLDS, and the nature of the crimes that may have been committed, there are a number of areas in which cooperation and coordination could be particularly effective. Without listing them all, the following are some of the more important from my viewpoint.
Consideration should be given to the full application of federal laws, such as the Mann Act, to prosecute crimes committed against underage girls born or placed into the FLDS, as part of the systematic victimization of young women within the sect. Such victimization of young women involves elements of both human trafficking and domestic violence and abuse - two areas which the Department of Justice has committed itself to combating across the country.
Consideration should also be given to the full application of federal laws to investigate potential white-collar crimes by FLDS members and their leadership - activity that spans state borders and which federal law enforcement is experienced and qualified to evaluate and prosecute.
There should be cooperation and coordination among state and federal law enforcement on the collection, review, evaluation and sharing of evidence that has been gathered throughout the states and by the federal government.
Cooperation and coordination are also needed to ensure that if FLDS members are charged with crimes, federal and state resources will be dedicated to locating and arresting those defendants.
Finally, I will mention that cooperation and coordination is warranted to assist the victims of crimes by FLDS members, including those victims who have been subjected to sexual or other abuse.
These are just a few ideas for the committee to consider. This committee and the Department of Justice can be assured that the State of Texas will continue to work closely and cooperatively with federal authorities to hold accountable those who have broken the law. I can also assure the Committee that there has already been a good deal of cooperation and coordination among state and federal law enforcement officials in Texas.
It is my hope that the Committee's hearing today will serve as a step forward in efforts to ensure that detection and prosecution of crimes by FLDS members will span the divides of geographical borders and will employ the full force of both state and federal law.
Thanks for posting that, Wandel. Hawkeye, the Rapist Boy, was stomping about claiming that i didn't know what the Hell i was talking about. He then supported exactly what i had alleged, that the Texas compound was founded by FLDS members who were adherents of Warren Jeffs. As the source you here present also confirms, polygamy as well as child abuse if a possible basis for charges against the membership. My comment was not that i knew for a fact that polygamy would be one of the charges brought, just that i thought it would be likely.
Under the terms of the FLDS, Warren Jeffs is the sole person with the power to perform marriages, and he can punish members by "reassigning" wives to other members. Furthermore, the "church" is held to own all property, all of the homes, in any area in which its members reside. To attempt to separate Jeffs from the FLDS as though there were a rational, separate membership which is not associated with Jeffs is simply bullshit.
A judge on Thursday gave a special fiduciary more authority over a polygamous community's trust, including the power to defend the fund against lawsuits and to collect money from residents to pay taxes on the group's property on the Arizona Strip.
Third District Judge Denise Lindberg granted the increased power to manage the assets of the United Effort Plan (UEP) to Bruce Wisan, who has warned of the possibility of property sales and evictions of residents in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., if the trust is unable to cover an upcoming $1.2 million tax bill.
The judge also granted a request made by Wisan and the Utah and Arizona attorneys general to hold off on appointing new trustees to the UEP, an arm of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Lindberg agreed that she needed more information on nominees before deciding who and how many to appoint.
Who will control sect's $100 mil?The two dozen nominees have 20 days to provide more background information, including financial data and statements about why they want to serve as trustees (see box). Interested parties then will have time to file objections or statements of support for candidates.
A hearing is set for Oct. 25, when Lindberg could name three to nine trustees or forgo appointments and leave the trust's management to Wisan.
Lindberg took the matter under advisement after after hearing arguments from lawyers representing various candidates and interested parties. Many alleged that most candidates have a conflict of interest that would affect their work. In a report filed Tuesday, Wisan said most of them are viewed by the FLDS faithful as dissident, apostate or anti-polygamy crusaders.
The nominees range from anti-polygamy activists, including Flora Jessop, to Winston Blackmore, a Canadian formerly associated with the FLDS. One nomination is for the �dream team� of outgoing Dixie State College President Robert Huddleston, certified public accountant Gregory Kemp and physician Craig Booth; their lawyers argued they would provided neutral oversight.
Don Timpson, a nominee who is affiliated with the Centennial Park community near the twin cities, agreed with the judge's decision.
"I think she did exactly what she had to do," he said. "It's a big trust and it's better to do it right."
But Carl Holm Jr., a nominee who left Colorado City years ago, said the disclosure requirements are just a way "to eliminate a lot of people from the board of trustees. I don't know how they figure there are so many qualifications to represent the people down there. Somebody is going to get rich."
Wisan is being paid $205 an hour for his work. His accounting firm and his lawyers also are being paid at their standard rates.
Nearly all the land, homes and buildings in the twin cities are held in the UEP trust set up by the FLDS, which considers plural marriage a central tenet of the faith. About 8,000 followers in the community are considered at-will tenants by the church, which thought of improvements such as new construction and remodels as donations. In the past, the church sought cash donations from members to pay tax bills.
Wisan has valued the Hildale-Colorado City property at $91.6 million. The FLDS also has established outposts in Texas and Colorado.
Wisan was appointed on May 27 to inventory and protect UEP property after Utah and Arizona officials became alarmed by the FLDS' purported attempt to transfer two pieces of property without receiving any compensation for the trust.
Wisan filed suit in May to stop the transfers. His attorney, Jeffrey Shields, said Thursday he is close to finalizing a deal to sell the land, which could bring about $1.5 million to the trust.
Authorities also were alarmed by the failure of UEP trustees and FLDS President Warren Jeffs to defend against three lawsuits, two in state and one in federal court.
The defendants could lose by default, which means the plaintiffs could get damages that would deplete the trust and potentially cost residents their homes.
The trustees, including Jeffs, were stripped of their power in June. Jeffs, who also faces sex charges in Arizona, has not been seen publicly in the past year and a half and his whereabouts are unknown. He is wanted on state and federal warrants and there is a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
SAN ANGELO — Four polygamist sect families are refusing to cooperate with Texas Child Protective Services and could lose their eight children a second time, according to court documents filed today.
The action, detailed in sworn statements from caseworkers, offers the first real peek inside the sexual abuse investigation that started March 28 with a purported phone call from inside the sect's West Texas ranch to a women's shelter in San Angelo. That call, now considered a hoax, sparked the largest child abuse investigation in the nation and locked the child welfare agency in a battle with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the largest breakaway Mormon sect in the country.
On its face, the filing is no different that hundreds of others filed in Texas courts each year when parents retreat from the CPS bargaining table and refuse to cooperate. But it is the additional documents, including the caseworkers' own affidavits and children's diaries, that paint a picture of exactly what the state is up against in this case.
Texas child welfare officials want custody of 8 children from polygamist group
04:32 PM CDT on Tuesday, August 5, 2008
By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
SAN ANGELO ?- Child Protective Services, forced two months ago to return to their families hundreds of children it had swept from a polygamist sect's West Texas ranch, went to court today to ask that eight of them be put back into state custody.
In affidavits, CPS investigators said the action is necessary because the eight children's mothers won't agree to keep them away from men who entered "spiritual marriages" with underage girls or let their underage daughters be married to older men.
CPS doesn't say there has been sexual abuse or neglect of the six girls and two boys, ages 5 to 17, it wants to remove, though it says three of them are in a household that used harsh disciplinary methods and allowed a 12-year-old daughter to be "spiritually married" to years ago to prophet Warren Jeffs, now 52. The household was headed by bishop Merril Jessop and his wife Barbara.
It says, though, the youngsters are likely to be harmed if a court doesn't let the state intervene because the four mothers refuse to sign "safety plans" in which they voluntarily pledge to keep children away from certain men.
"The department has not been able to work sufficiently with the parents," said CPS lawyer Charles Childress moments after filing the motions. "Mostly, it's about failure to cooperate."
Mr. Childress, asked if the eight children are in danger, said, "That's what the judge is being asked to decide."
CPS lists in the court filings sect men it says are prominent in the eight children's lives ?- either as birth fathers or close relatives or former husbands of their mothers. The men have practiced or condoned underage marriage, CPS says.
The four motions to remove the eight children could be heard separately by state District Judge Barbara Walther of San Angelo. An initial hearing was set for Sept. 25.
CPS is not saying there's an immediate emergency ?- as it did in early April, when it removed from the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado what it thought were 464 children. Twenty-six turned out to be 18 or older. Two more children were born while sect members were in state custody.
Safety plans are common in cases in which CPS thinks children are at risk of maltreatment. But the eight children's mothers, who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, have refused to agree to plans proposed by CPS.
The plans would require there be no contact between children and certain men. CPS insists that must happen if the girls in question are to be protected from sexual abuse and the boys, from being groomed to take underage wives.
An affidavit by CPS investigator Kerrie Blair said the 41-year-old mother of two girls, ages 9 and 10, "has been deceptive with CPS by stating she has never been married" when sect records show she was married to bishop Jessop in 2004.
The woman "abandoned her two daughters for three years and by her own admission did not know who the children were residing with," Ms. Blair said.
An affidavit by CPS investigator Paul Dyer said two of the girls, ages 5 and 15, need protection. Their parents were listed in court papers as Dr. Lloyd Barlow, one of six sect men indicted last month, and a 36-year-old woman.
Mr. Dyer said Dr. Barlow had married a 16-year-old girl seven years ago. The physician said during an interview with the CPS investigator, when asked what a young woman could do if she was a victim of domestic violence, "the church elders would handle the situation first."
Today's action puts CPS and the sect back on a collision path. State protective services workers are demanding that sect parents agree to outside scrutiny and accountability, while sect leaders are almost certain to keep denouncing what they call unwarranted invasions of privacy, sustained by religious bigotry.
The action suggests CPS has finally sorted out who are the parents of most of the sect's children, which mothers will cooperate and which men are suspected of entering or promoting underage marriages.
In ordinary CPS investigations, workers are quickly able to establish who belongs to a family, if parents will cooperate and identities of possible perpetrators. But the FLDS probe has been anything but standard.
After receiving a March 28 tip about young girls being forced into spiritual marriages, CPS raided the ranch about a week later. Inside, it was surprised to discover about 440 youths ?- far more than expected. CPS investigators began to interview teen girls and found evidence of possible child sexual abuse.
CPS, using its standard presumption that any children in a household deemed abusive should be removed at least temporarily, took all of the children and many of their mothers to makeshift shelters and, later, foster care. However, an Austin-based state appellate court and the Texas Supreme Court strongly rebuked CPS for the mass removal, saying the agency provided only scanty evidence of child maltreatment. In early June, CPS was forced to return all of the children to their families.
Last month, a criminal investigation led by state Attorney General Greg Abbott yielded indictments against jailed sect prophet Warren Jeffs, Dr. Barlow and four other sect men. Mr. Jeffs and four men were charged with first-degree felony sexual assault of a child, a crime punishable by five years to life in prison. Dr. Barlow's indictment indicates that he has delivered the babies of underage sect mothers. He was charged with failing to report child abuse.
Those cases have not yet been prosecuted
How about you learn the English language, jackass. I didn't say the church legally owns the property, i was pointing out that according to FLDS dogma, the church owns the property.
It really galls you that you've accused me of not knowing what i'm talking about, but failing to demonstrate it, doesn't it. What makes you so familiar, Rapist Boy--are you an FLDS member? Leaving aside you inability to effectively use English, what makes you think you're expert on this subject? Which one of your adolescent wives told you all about it?
chicagotribune.com
Polygamist sects likened to mob
Federal task force, victim aid proposed
McClatchy Newspapers
July 25, 2008
By Dave Montgomery
WASHINGTON ?- A Senate committee on Thursday heard appeals for the creation of a federal task force to combat polygamist sects that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid described as sophisticated organized crime rings.
Texas Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott was among those backing legislation sponsored by Reid (D-Nev.). The bill would establish a task force in the U.S. Department of Justice and assist victims of crimes committed by polygamist groups.
The hearing, which included testimony from two former sect members, spotlighted the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) led by Warren Jeffs, who was once on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. Jeffs and five unidentified followers were indicted Tuesday by a grand jury in Texas.
Reid told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that polygamist sects are a "form of organized crime" that have spread into numerous states, as well as Canada and Mexico.
"I believe Warren Jeffs ran the FLDS Church and the UEP as an organized crime-type setup," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said Monday. "We just have to get the evidence to prove it."
Second Texas official linked to FLDS raid steps down
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 07/11/2008 12:42:45 PM MDT
The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety announced today he will step down in August.
Col. Thomas A. Davis Jr. issued a one-sentence statement that read: "After 43 years and 9 months with the Texas Department of Public Safety, I am retiring on Aug. 31, 2008."
The Houston Chronicle connected Davis' departure to lack of confidence in the director following an arson fire at the historic Governor's Mansion in June. The building, which was undergoing renovations, was destroyed.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry and lawmakers had been critical of the department's management in a subsequent legislative hearing, the newspaper said.
Davis is the second Texas official to announce retirement plans in the past month. Carey Cockerell, director of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, announced June 26 he also will leave on Aug. 31.
The two state agencies oversaw the raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado in April, which led to removal of some 440 children.
After two months in state custody, two Texas courts ruled the state lacked sufficient evidence to continue to keep them. They were returned to their parents, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in early June.
Criminal and child welfare investigations are
continuing in Texas.
Early estimates of the cost of the state action exceeded $14 million.
Texas officials want 8 sect kids back in custody
(By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press, August 18, 2008)
Lawyers for Texas child welfare authorities and the parents of eight children from a polygamist sect agreed Monday to try negotiating a settlement before beginning new custody hearings.
Child Protective Services had asked Texas District Judge Barbara Walther to return the children to foster care, alleging their mothers refused to ensure they didn't have contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.
Hearings on CPS' request involving the children, ranging in age from 5 to 17, had been set to begin Monday morning. The hearings were delayed so talks could be held.
"We continue to have concerns in particular for these eight children, which is why we have asked the judge to review the case," agency spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said earlier.
None of the children currently live at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, where authorities swept roughly 440 children into foster care in April. Officials said at the time that the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which established the ranch, was forcing girls into underage marriages and grooming boys to be adult abusers.
Six weeks after the children were placed in foster care, the Texas Supreme Court forced CPS to return them to their parents, ruling that the agency presented evidence of no more than a handful of teenage girls being abused. Many of the children taken into CPS custody were infants and toddlers.
In the new CPS petitions seeking foster placement for the eight children, the agency detailed alleged underage marriages involving the children's fathers or stepfathers, though only one faces any criminal charges.
Rod Parker, a church spokesman, said that even though the families are getting individual hearings this time, the argument that they shouldn't be allowed to retain custody of their children remains unfair.
The issue, as it was in the earlier case, is "whether the children are in any immediate danger simply because their parents choose to raise them in this religion," he said. "The substance of what they're doing here is fundamentally the same."
Parker also noted that the church issued a statement in June saying it would not bless underage marriages.
The FLDS church believes polygamy brings glory in heaven. It is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which officially renounced polygamy more than a century ago.
Sect leader Warren Jeffs and four followers were indicted in Texas last month for sexual assault of a child. One of the followers was also indicted for bigamy.
A sixth man, Dr. Lloyd Hammon Barlow, was indicted on three misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse. Authorities want custody of his two daughters, saying he didn't report the babies he delivered to underage girls and that he married a 16-year-old.
Jeffs, already convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape, awaits trial in Arizona on charges of being an accomplice to sexual contact with a minor " all stemming from alleged underage marriages within the sect.
Utahns say fed help OK against polygamy
(By Brooke Adams, The Salt Lake Tribune, 08/25/2008)
A push for federal help prosecuting crimes within polygamous communities has the support of a majority of Utahns, a new poll shows.
"I don't know whether any of the individual states are doing a very good job of tackling it on their own," said Jared Esplin, 35, of South Jordan.
Esplin was among the 56 percent of Utahns in a recent survey who want the federal government to take a more active role in such prosecutions.
"I think young girls are being forced to marry older men and I think that is rape," Esplin said. "This seems to be crossing state lines and to be more than the states know what to do with."
Barbara Rowland, of Payson, agrees. "People cannot pick and choose which laws they want to abide by," she said. But the states "are not doing a very good job of it. You can go to any town in this state and find polygamists."
The poll was conducted Aug. 13-15 - three weeks after a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing at which Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid called polygamous communities a "form of organized crime" and asked the federal government to "play a larger role in this fight."
The hearing focused specifically on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which has been the target of state investigations in Utah, Arizona and Texas.
Majority support for greater federal involvement held steady across several demographic categories: gender, political party affiliation and religious affiliation.
But members of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which first publicly disavowed polygamy 118 years ago, were more likely to oppose federal prosecution than "non-LDS" respondents.
The poll found 31 percent of LDS respondents oppose federal prosecution, compared with 19 percent of those identified as "non-LDS."
Steve Terry, 54, of Taylorsville, is LDS and joined those who don't want to see more federal involvement but said his view was not related to his faith.
"If [polygamists] are working hard, holding down jobs, as far as I'm concerned we ought to leave them alone," Terry said.
Any abuses that occur should be addressed locally, he said.
"The states and local governments are better able to understand those issues and separate out what really needs to be dealt with and what can be let go," Terry said.
Nearly a fifth of the respondents said they were unsure whether federal involvement was necessary. Jack Strosnider, 69, of Cedar City, fell in that camp.
"I don't agree with the practice of polygamy, but whether the federal government should go in . . ." said Strosnider, mentioning Waco and the Elian Gonzalez sagas. "I just get concerned about how much power the government [has]."
But officials in three states - Utah, Arizona and Texas, which is at the forefront of the largest ongoing investigation involving the FLDS - have asked for federal help.
"A comprehensive federal response should minimize - if not eliminate - the possibility that persons within the FLDS who may be predisposed to commit polygamy, or other crimes, will simply move their operations to another location," said Greg Abbott, attorney general of Texas, in July.
He also asked that federal laws be used to investigate crimes within the sect and more federal aid be provided for crime victims.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told the committee he requested federal help in 2005 to investigate possible civil rights violations by the Marshal's Office in Colorado City, Ariz. The town and the adjoining community of Hildale, Utah, are the traditional home base of the FLDS.
"I am still waiting for a response to that request," Goddard said, who also asked for federal help analyzing hundreds of boxes of documents and data seized in Texas and at the arrest of sect leader Warren S. Jeffs.
Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc. of Washington polled 400 Utah residents for The Salt Lake Tribune. The survey's error margin is plus or minus 5 points.
SAN ANGELO, Texas " One by one, children taken into state protective custody during the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch are being dropped from court oversight in the nation's largest child custody case.
On Friday, Texas Child Protective Services filed to have another child from the Utah-based polygamous sect officially nonsuited, ending court jurisdiction over their case. Friday's filing brings the number of cases nonsuited to 287.
Approximately 439 children were taken into state custody during the raid in early April, when CPS caseworkers and law enforcement responded to the YFZ Ranch on a phone call alleging abuse. The children were returned to their families two months later, when two Texas courts ruled the state acted improperly and the children were not in any imminent danger.
Only one girl, a 14-year-old believed to have been married to FLDS leader Warren Jeffs at age 12, has been ordered back into foster care after a judge ruled her mother was unable to protect her from abuse.
Six FLDS members, including Jeffs, were recently indicted by a grand jury on charges ranging from sexual assault to bigamy to failure to report child abuse
SAN ANGELO, Texas " Child Protective Services has revised the number of children it took into state protective custody following the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch.
Texas CPS now believes it had 439 children in state custody, not 440 as the agency has reported for months.
"There isn't a simple explanation for that number changing by one child," Texas CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins told the Deseret News on Friday. "It's been a very complicated case, it remains a complex case, and we think that number is 439 instead of 440."
The number of children from the Utah-based polygamous sect still involved in the nation's largest child custody case will continue to change rapidly as boxes filled with nonsuit filings continue to stack up in the court clerk's office here. As of Friday, CPS said it has filed to nonsuit 268 individuals, including the 26 "disputed minors" whom the agency initially believed to be children but were really adults. Approximately 197 children remain the subject of pending lawsuits.
:
Prosecutors in Utah are beginning to get a glimpse of some of the massive amounts of evidence seized by law enforcement during the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch in Texas.
But any hopes of building criminal cases may evaporate if lawyers for the polygamous sect succeed in getting the search warrants tossed.
"We're certainly interested, and we will follow up on that stuff," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said in a recent interview with the Deseret News. "If we're not allowed to keep that evidence or use it in criminal prosecutions, then we're back to square one."
Among the hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence seized from the Yearning For Zion Ranch's temple grounds were marriage records and dictations by FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.
Some of the evidence has become public since it was entered into court records in the separate child custody battle over children from the YFZ Ranch. Exhibits entered into a recent court case and obtained by the Deseret News show at least three underage marriages took place in the FLDS enclave of Hildale, Utah.
One of the Utah marriages, Texas child welfare authorities claim, took place in 2004 between FLDS leader Warren Jeffs and a girl who was only 13.
Texas lawyers for the FLDS Church recently renewed their challenge to the search warrants.
"Both warrants having now been returned (the FLDS Church) ask the court. ... to conduct a hearing, take testimony and determine whether 'good ground' existed for these warrants and the searches conducted pursuant thereto, and to take measures to protect matters of privilege and privacy in the property seized," FLDS attorney Cynthia Orr wrote in a June motion renewing their challenge.
A judge in San Angelo has scheduled an Oct. 1 hearing on the matter. Lawyers for the church claim the search was illegal, having been based on a hoax phone call that launched the raid, and what was seized may fall under priest-penitent privilege
The Utah Supreme Court has reversed Warren Steed Jeffs' two convictions on charges of rape as an accomplice and ordered a new trial, saying that instructions given to jurors were erroneous
.
..
The defense has always maintained that marrying someone, encouraging them to make their marriage work and "be fruitful and multiply ... that is not the same thing as saying to a husband, 'I'm encouraging you to rape your wife,' " Bugden said.
He said he had not had a chance to speak to Jeffs but planned to do so Tuesday afternoon.
Assistant Utah Attorney General Laura Dupaix told CNN affiliate KSTU that the opinion is "going to make it difficult, I think, for us to do future prosecutions in cases where some of these men in positions of power -- almost complete power, like Warren Jeffs is -- to prosecute them for forcing young girls into these marriages. I think that's really the part of this opinion that is most disappointing for us."
