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Posts: 52288
04/12/08 6:05 AM
Administrator/Editor SPAM SQUAD
Officials defend handling of sect
By BETSY BLANEY and MICHELLE ROBERTS Associated Press
SAN ANGELO -- 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 terrified 16-year-old girl to a family-violence shelter to report that her 50-year-old 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 consummate their marriages immediately. A number of the teenage girls are pregnant, officials said.
Authorities in Texas had suspected that 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 compound.
Warren Jeffs, the sect's prophet and spiritual leader at its longtime headquarters in the dusty, side-by-side 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 may spend the rest of his 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 scattered 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, 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 identified 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."
Posts: 38397
04/12/08 2:11 PM
Administrator/Editor
Posts: 36635
04/12/08 2:17 PM
Moderator/Assoc. Editor 50,000th Poster & 2,500,000 Visitor
04/12/08 3:16 PM
I just have to wonder what would have been done if it was a Muslim compound.
Posts: 130596
04/12/08 4:04 PM
Co-Founder/Editor Administrator
KENTUCKY COLONEL wrote: I just have to wonder what would have been done if it was a Muslim compound.
Nothing. Muslims are exempt from our laws.
Posts: 4522
04/12/08 6:44 PM
Moderator/Assoc. Editor 6,000,000 Visitor
Posts: 34817
04/12/08 9:29 PM
Posts: 4796
04/13/08 11:14 PM
Reporter
MJM40 wrote: Forget about the polygamy charges. If the adults were sexually abusing those children each and every damned on of them deserves jail time. The people that did the abusing and those that stood by and allowed the abuse to happen. I don't understand why, with a supposed informant on the inside, that law enforcement stood by while the sexual abuse continued to happen. Standing idly by for a few years while these children were being sexually abused and law enforcement only moved against the cult because of ONE phone call? Something just doesn't sound right.
Agreed!
04/14/08 10:23 AM
04/14/08 12:37 PM
04/14/08 1:50 PM
John, I believe with them having an informant on the inside they may have themselves covered.
04/14/08 2:02 PM
04/14/08 2:08 PM
04/14/08 7:10 PM
04/15/08 6:09 AM
04/15/08 9:40 AM
I can't remember what show I was watching but I'd heard from one of the reporters that a "source" of his claimed there were almost 2 dozen girls between the ages of 13 and 16 pregnant. Disgusting!!
04/15/08 11:39 AM
04/15/08 3:55 PM
04/16/08 10:57 PM
Several women from the polygamist retreat raided more than a week ago defended their lifestyle Wednesday in an exclusive interview with FOX News, calling it "a wonderful pure life," and saying government officials deceived them when they raided the ranch where they live.
Six women from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints spoke to FOX News from the ranch in Eldorado, Texas, raided April 3 by government officials as part of a wide-ranging abuse investigation.
The women, who would only give their first names, told FOX News that the allegations have "no foundation."
"We want the world to know the truth," said Ada, one of the women from the ranch.
The women, who appeared on FOX News wearing similar high-collared dresses in pastel colors, said they agreed to speak to the media in the hopes of getting their children back.
More than 400 children - all of whom lived in the large, dormitory-style log homes at the Yearning for Zion ranch - were seized in the raid on suspicion they were being sexually and physically abused after allegations emerged that underage girls were forced to marry older men.
They are being held in the San Angelo Coliseum and are awaiting a massive court hearing Thursday that will begin to determine their fate.
"The sexual abuse and all of these reports that are coming through are not accurate," said Janet, who said she has five of her 12 children in state custody. "It seems as though, often times people judge from their own hearts - other people - and this is what we are victims of."
Janet told FOX News that they strive to live "pure, virtuous lives" at the ranch, though she admitted her husband has more wives than just her.
"We are a very private people, and we like to give that privilege to anyone else to be what they are," said mother Shannon.
Another woman claimed officials "deceived" and "lied to us continually" when they raided the ranch.
"I want the world to know that our children have been torn from us and that they need us," said Sally, a mother of nine.
"They told us that they were going to put us on a bus and take us to where it was a bigger, better place to be - where our family could be together," she added.
The sect, which is not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is led by Warren Jeffs, who was convicted last year in Utah of being an accomplice to rape and is awaiting trial in Arizona on similar charges.
"It's just alleged stories," Janet said of the Jeffs case.
On Monday, officials began separating women and some of their offspring without warning, members of the sect said.
About three dozen of the women who returned to the FLDS ranch spoke out publicly for the first time Monday, after 11 days in temporary shelters. They said in interviews that police gave them a choice between returning home or relocating to a women's shelter.
"It just feels like someone is trying to hurt us," said Paula, 38. "I do not understand how they can do this when they don't have a for sure knowledge that anyone has abused these children."
Images released Tuesday by Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney who serves as a FLDS spokesman, show police entering the Yearning for Zion ranch wearing body armor and carrying automatic weapons, backed by an armored personnel carrier.
"They responded by singing and praying," Parker said.
Sect members took the photos and video during the first few days of a seven-day raid that involved police agencies from six counties, the Texas Rangers, the state highway patrol and wildlife officers. Authorities were looking for a teenage girl who had reported being abused by her 50-year-old husband.
Shannon said the allegation was just "a prank phone call."
A sect member whose wife shot the video said ranch residents quickly got the impression that state officials "were doing something more than they said they were going to do." The man declined to give his name for fear that speaking out would cause problems for his children, who are in state custody.
Tela Mange, a state Department of Public Safety spokeswoman, said officers are trained to protect themselves.
"Whenever we serve a search warrant, no matter where or when, we are always as prepared as possible so we can ensure the operational safety of the officers serving the warrant, as well as the safety of those who are on the property in question," Mange said.
The armored car was precautionary and designed to remove someone from the property, not to force entry onto the ranch, she said.
While there were hunting rifles at the ranch, search warrants filed in district court in Tom Green County don't show that police seized any weapons.
Eldorado is about 200 miles southeast of Waco, where federal authorities tried to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh for stockpiling guns and explosives in 1993. Four federal agents and six members of Koresh's sect died in the shootout that ensued. After a 51-day standoff, Koresh and nearly 80 followers died in an inferno that the government says was set by the Davidians but that survivors say started when authorities fired tear gas rounds into their compound.
Law enforcement surrounded the FLDS ranch, carrying a warrant seeking a 16-year-old girl who said she was trapped inside the church retreat and had been beaten and raped by her husband.
The search revealed that a soaring white limestone temple at the ranch held a bed where officials believe underage girls were required to consummate their spiritual marriages to much older men.
FLDS members carefully documented the raid in notes, video and still pictures of police and child protection workers talking with families, but much of that material was seized when police executed one of two search warrants on the ranch, Parker said.
The 416 children held by Texas authorities had been accompanied by 139 women until Monday, when officials ordered all the women away except for those whose children are under 5.
Texas Children's Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said officials decided that children are more truthful in interviews about possible abuse if their parents are not around.
"I can tell you we believe the children who are victims of abuse or neglect, and particularly victims at the hands of their own parents, certainly are going to feel safer to tell their story when they don't have a parent there that's coaching them with how to respond," Meisner said.
But another mother disagreed.
"I have an 18-year-old daughter that has been taken and isolated, and they're trying to interrogate her and trying to get her to say that she is the victim," Amy told FOX News. "And she's been isolated and interrogated through the whole night and then several days and the abuse is absolutely terrible.
"How does a young girl stand up under such pressure and still remain mentally stable?" Amy continued. "She needs her mother. She needs us." Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351450,00.html
04/16/08 10:59 PM