ACLU weighs in on Texas polygamist custody case

[calmus]

Hahahahah. I can tell your neanderthal ass what's going to happen next.  The Texas Supreme Court will finesse some rules to determine when a child should be separated from its parents, and then remand to the lower court to apply.  Most of the kids will be back with their parents...

[Dos Equis]

Why am I not surprised that the soulless, morally ambivalent callous has no problem with a man getting married to and raping 12 and 13 year old girls?   

[calmus]

Go find someone else to play your "let's change the subject and make interminable pointless posts" game with, Douche Bum.   

[Dos Equis]

   As usual, callous has nothing of substance to add.  An empty suit. 

[Dos Equis]

Well looks like calmus was right.  Send the kids back to be raped.

Texas high court: Removal of sect kids 'not warranted'
     
SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- Texas officials had no right to remove about 460 children from a polygamist sect, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The Texas Supreme Court agreed with a lower court's ruling, that the state's Child Protective Services division did not present ample evidence that the children were being abused.

The state said it removed the children last month from the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, because in interviews with those living there, officials found what they called a "pervasive pattern" of sexual abuse through forced marriages between underage girls and older men.

The high court ruling could clear the way for the children to be returned to their families. The sect subscribes to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon offshoot that practices polygamy.

"We are not inclined to disturb the court of appeals' decision," the ruling said. "On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted."  Watch what the ruling may mean »

The court's 6-3 ruling came in the case of 38 mothers who had appealed the removal of their children, but attorneys in the case have said the reasoning behind the court rulings can be applied to the removals of all the children from the ranch during the raid, which began April 3.

About 460 children were removed, although 20 were found in court to be adults.

It's unlikely the children will be returned to their homes soon, because it's unclear which child belongs to which parent. A DNA testing order by the district court is incomplete.

And even if the children do return to the YFZ Ranch, the case may not be over. The justices noted that Texas law gives the district court "broad authority to protect children short of separating them from their parents and placing them in foster care."

Examples of those conditions might be a court order saying a child must remain in a certain geographical area or an order removing an alleged perpetrator from the child's home, the district court said.

An FLDS member applauded the Texas Supreme Court ruling Thursday.

"When we'd given up hope on the system and we'd made a plea to every politician there is, it ends up being some kindhearted attorneys that were willing to take up this fight," Willie Jessop said outside the courthouse in San Angelo after the ruling was issued.

"Put these families back. There has been a catastrophic emotional and physical trauma to these families, permanent damage that will be left on them for a lifetime. Two wrongs do not make a right, and the court has the ability to load these children up and return them."  Watch Jessop urge that the children be returned »

He emphasized that the fellow FLDS members he knows do not allow their children to marry unless they are of age.

"I would like to call on [Child Protective Services] and the state of Texas to end this nightmare," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City, Utah, attorney who has been a spokesman for FLDS families. "It is time for the children to come home. It is time for the state of Texas to lay down arms here and solve this problem."

State officials have said the sect, with its polygamist beliefs, groomed young boys on the ranch to be abusers. FLDS members deny any sexual abuse at the ranch and claim that they are being persecuted because of their religion.

The district court said in its ruling that CPS did not demonstrate that all the children on the ranch faced imminent danger, as necessary for their removal.

CPS said it will work to reunite children covered under the ruling with their parents.

"We are disappointed, but we understand and respect the court's decision and will take immediate steps to comply," a statement reads. "Child Protective Services has one purpose in this case -- to protect the children. Our goal is to reunite families whenever we can do so and make sure the children will be safe."

CPS will continue working with the district court to make sure that the children remain safe and that the agency's actions comply with the ruling.

In the Texas Supreme Court decision, the three dissenting justices said in an attached opinion that they agreed that the state had no right to remove the young boys from the ranch but that the district court did not err in electing to remove pubescent girls from the ranch and keep them in state custody.

The pubescent girls are "demonstrably endangered," Justice Harriet O'Neill wrote.

FLDS leader and "prophet" Warren Jeffs, 52, is in a Utah prison, serving two consecutive terms of five years to life after being convicted on two charges of being an accomplice to rape in connection with a marriage he performed in 2001. He also faces trial in Arizona on eight charges, including sexual conduct with a minor, incest and conspiracy.

Jeffs' trial thrust the normally secretive FLDS into the national spotlight, and the raid on the YFZ Ranch last month intensified scrutiny on the sect.

In addition to the YFZ Ranch, the FLDS is prevalent in the twin border communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.

It was not immediately clear whether the Texas Supreme Court ruling would be appealed. In theory, it could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, said CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, but the court would be unlikely to weigh in because the case relates exclusively to Texas law.

Texas attorney Barbara Elias-Perciful supported the state in her filing. She has been a guardian ad litem -- an attorney representing children's interests -- in child protection cases for 16 years and is also the director of Texas Lawyers for Children.

"This case involves the systematic rape of minor children -- conduct that is institutionalized and euphemistically called 'spiritual marriage,'" she wrote. "Typically, there is no media coverage of the horrific acts sexual predators commit against children ... if the media showed the actual events of adult males demanding sex with 11-year-old girls, there would be no one questioning the graphic danger of returning these children to their home at this time."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/29/texas.polygamists/index.html

[Dos Equis]

Looks like a delayed return to the rapist compound.

Judge delays reunion for sect families
     
SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- A Texas judge on Friday refused to sign an order returning more than 300 children seized from a polygamist community, saying she wanted the mothers involved to sign the order first.

Members of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints decried Judge Barbara Walther's decision, which followed a Texas Supreme Court ruling that the removals were unwarranted.

"The kids have been terrorized and put in the custody of the state for weeks and weeks," FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop said Friday after the hearing to determine how to return the children.

"Every effort has been made to bring relief," Jessop said outside the courthouse. "It doesn't need to be a problem to go pick up the kids. It doesn't need to be any more difficult than picking them up after school."

The 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled this month that officials with Child Protective Services erred in removing the children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, effectively overturning Walther's ruling that the children remain in state custody.

On Thursday, the Texas Supreme Court let the ruling stand, clearing the way for the children to be reunited with their families.  See a timeline of the FLDS case »

But in a conference Friday to discuss the children's fate, Walther left the courtroom without signing the final draft, saying she would do so after the mothers in the case signed it.

"It places a huge burden on attorneys who are already overburdened to begin with. It's not going to happen over the weekend even under the best circumstances," said Laura Shockley, an attorney for some of the children.

Shockley said Walther did not set a date for another hearing.

A draft of the agreement was circulated Friday to the media while Walther met with parties in the case.

The draft said the order applies to 330 children. It was not immediately known how the state would handle return of the other children, who number about 110.

Under the tentative order, the children would start to return Monday under a number of conditions, including that they remain under state supervision while a criminal investigation ensues.

Child welfare officials removed the children from the sect ranch based on a perceived pattern of abuse in the community that they say included forcing underage girls to marry older men.

Officials expressed concern that FLDS families might leave Texas if their children were returned.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/30/polygamist.order/index.html

[240 is Back]

Well looks like calmus was right.  Send the kids back to be raped.

Weird that TX, a state where repubs control everything, allows for child rape so easily.















Weird.

[War-Horse]

I would assume that they are allowed back because allegations are false.    Are all the girls who are married of legal age in Texas??    If this is true then oh well.....


One thing i just remembered is that even tho the men get married in their church to many girls....only the first wife counts legally...and the rest of the wives arent seen as married by the state.   This allows them to be classified as single with lots of children and they live off of state aid for food stamps and utility bills paid and monies....


The men drop by to have sex, get a meal and collect the check.  The next nite its a different "Spiritual" wife......

[calmus]

I would assume that they are allowed back because allegations are false.    Are all the girls who are married of legal age in Texas??    If this is true then oh well.....


One thing i just remembered is that even tho the men get married in their church to many girls....only the first wife counts legally...and the rest of the wives arent seen as married by the state.   This allows them to be classified as single with lots of children and they live off of state aid for food stamps and utility bills paid and monies....


The men drop by to have sex, get a meal and collect the check.  The next nite its a different "Spiritual" wife......

Yup, often the case.

[Dos Equis]

Pains me to quote the daughter (Lisa Bloom) of the most irritating woman in America (Gloria Allred), but I agree with her:

HAYS: It didn't because a good judicial conservative follows the statute. And the Texas statute, as written, requires that there be more of an evidentiary showing and it requires that reasonable efforts be made to avoid removal, such as having the alleged perpetrators leave the premises.

You know, there were nine votes here to return the boys and the younger girls and six votes to return the teenage girls. And that's a pretty strong vote count.

KING: Lisa Bloom, what's your read?

LISA BLOOM, ATTORNEY, "OPEN COURT," TRUTV: Well, I agree with Justice Harriet O'Neill, the sole female member of the Texas Supreme Court, who was joined by two of her colleagues, who says look, what about the pubescent girls?

They are in serious danger of sexual abuse. There are at least five girls that were taken into custody who were underage and pregnant or already mothers, 16 or younger.

It's very clear what's going on in that community. There was testimony that spiritual marriage could take place at any age. At first menstruation, girls were eligible for pregnancy. Warren Jeffs is already a convicted felon, convicted of accomplice to rape Elissa Wall. The young girl -- now a woman -- who prosecuted him was 14 when she was forced to have sex with this underage marriage.

KING: But...

BLOOM: We know what's going on in the cult. They have to protect the children. I applaud the State of Texas for trying to do something.

KING: But, Lisa, all those children -- what about all the other children that have parents and weren't beaten?

There were no individual charges, as the courts say. This is a case by case basis in every district and jurisdiction in the country.

What about them?

BLOOM: We're not talking about beatings. We're talking about a culture that compels underage girls over and over again to have sexual relations they don't want to have. You know, this is America. We don't tolerate extremist sects that say this is what we're going to do to young girls. They have rights as American citizens not to have sexual relations...

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0805/29/lkl.01.html

[calmus]

Oh brother.

[War-Horse]

They are in serious danger of sexual abuse. There are at least five girls that were taken into custody who were underage and pregnant or already mothers, 16 or younger.

It is well known that the girls are forced to marry old foggies and cousins.   Holy hell...upon their first period!!!!!!!


DNA tests still have to be done on the fathers also, right??

[calmus]

It is well known that the girls are forced to marry old foggies and cousins.   Holy hell...upon their first period!!!!!!!


DNA tests still have to be done on the fathers also, right??

No, in Douche Bum's brave new world, we let the fathers run around untroubled while we wreak our vengeance upon the mothers, child-mothers and children.

[Dos Equis]

  Says callous, the chief child rape defender.  Are you like a paralegal with the public defender's office?   

[calmus]

Says callous, the chief child rape defender.  Are you like a paralegal with the public defender's office?   

It's gonna be ok, grumpy. 

[War-Horse]

No, in Douche Bum's brave new world, we let the fathers run around untroubled while we wreak our vengeance upon the mothers, child-mothers and children.

Any guy that has sex with an underage child should be castrated immediatly...no trial.

Just take an axe, a treestump, and a clothespin to stop the blood from squirting and ruining my nice clothes.

[Dos Equis]

No, just use the callous solution:  send the kids back to the rape compound and send the parents to "counseling."    

[Dos Equis]

Back to the rape compound so the girls can be groomed for their "spiritual husbands."   

Judge Orders Return of 430 Children to Polygamist Sect
Monday, June 02, 2008

 
SAN ANGELO, Texas —  A Texas district judge on Monday ordered the immediate return of the more than 400 children taken from a polygamist sect's ranch, bringing a sudden end to one of the largest custody cases in U.S. history.

Texas District Judge Barbara Walther, responding to a state Supreme Court ruling last week, signed the order filed by attorneys for the parents and Child Protective Services, allowing the parents to begin picking their children up from foster care facilities around the state almost immediately.

The order requires the parents to stay in Texas, to attend parenting classes and to allow the children to be examined as part of any ongoing child abuse investigation. But it does not put restrictions on the children's fathers, require that polygamy is renounced or that parents live away from the Yearning For Zion Ranch.

"We're really grateful to get the order signed," said Willie Jessop, an elder for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the sect that runs the ranch.

Two months in foster care has taken a toll on the children, who previously lived an insular life on the self-contained ranch where church teachings dominated the way of life, and he hoped for a less restrictive order, he said, without elaborating.

Return to the Ranch Polygamist Retreat The order requires that parents allow CPS to make unannounced visits to the families and that they notify CPS if they plan to travel more than 100 miles from their homes.

The Supreme Court on Thursday affirmed an appeals court ruling ordering Walther to reverse her decision in April putting all children from the ranch into foster case. The Supreme Court and the appeals court rejected the state's argument that all the children were in immediate danger from what it said was a cycle of sexual abuse of teenage girls at the ranch.

Half the children sent to foster care were no older than 5.

The FDLS denies any abuse of the children and says they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

The Third Court of Appeals last week ruled that the state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and had offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children.

Roughly 430 children from the ranch are in foster care after two births, numerous reclassifications of adult women initially held as minors and a handful of agreements allowing parents to keep custody while the Supreme Court considered the case.

It's not clear how many might return to the ranch right away. Many of the parents have purchased or rented homes in Amarillo, San Antonio and other places around the state, where the children were placed in foster facilities.

The FLDS, which teaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a breakaway sect of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,361345,00.html

[Dos Equis]

A revelation.  Girls will no longer be forced into a "marriage" unless they can legally consent (age 18).  Funny how a little intervention changed their "spiritual" beliefs.   

Polygamist sect clarifies marriage policy
Story Highlights
NEW: Parents rush to detention centers, leave with children

FLDS spokesman says church will not consent to underage marriage

Judge delays release of 16-year-old girl identified as victim of sexual abuse

Texas Supreme Court ruled state had no right to remove kids from sect ranch

SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- A polygamist sect under fire over allegations of underage marriage will now allow women to wed only when they are old enough to give consent under state law, a spokesman said Monday.

The legal age in Texas to marry without parental consent is 18.

"The church is clarifying its policy on marriage," said Willie Jessop, a spokesman for the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He told reporters the church would advise FLDS families "neither request nor consent" to the marriage of underage girls, though he stopped short of saying the church ever violated the law.

"In the FLDS church, all marriages are consensual. The church insists on appropriate consent," he said.

. . .

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/02/texas.polygamists/index.html

[240 is Back]

your thread sucks

[Dos Equis]

Criminal Case Against Polygamist Texas Sect Members Possible
Wednesday, June 04, 2008

SAN ANGELO, Texas —  The polygamist sect raided by authorities two months ago has its children back. But with a criminal investigation under way into allegations of sexual abuse, the splinter group's troubles are not over.

Child-welfare officials have alleged that members of the sect pushed underage girls into marriages with older men, and while the last of 440 children seized from the ranch were returned to their parents Wednesday, prosecutors could still bring criminal charges.

"There have been criminal problems located out there," said Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran, who was with state troopers and child welfare authorities when they raided Yearning For Zion Ranch in west Texas on April 3.

The Texas Department of Public Safety and the attorney general's office have taken over the criminal investigation at the request of authorities in the rural ranching community. While they confirm they are investigating, neither will say how long the investigation may take.

Obtaining the DNA evidence and the testimony necessary to prove such a case could prove difficult.

DNA evidence acquired in the custody case is off limits to criminal investigators unless child welfare investigators find wrongdoing or law enforcement gets court permission, and a prosecution probably would go nowhere without at least one willing witness in the insular ranch community. Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had a strong distrust of outsiders even
Sect Families Reunite Return to the Ranch Polygamist Retreat Child-welfare officials had said that 31 teenage girls at the ranch were pregnant or had had children, but nearly all those the mothers turned out to be adults.

No more than five minors who are pregnant or have given birth were identified during the child custody hearings. Under Texas law, girls younger than 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult.

Children from the ranch were allowed to leave foster care after a judge bowed to a Texas Supreme Court ruling last week that the state overreached by taking all of them even though evidence of sexual abuse was limited to five teenage girls. Half the children taken from the ranch were no older than 5.

All 440 children were returned to parents by Wednesday, Child Protective Services spokesman Patrick Crimmins said.

The high court ruling and state District Judge Barbara Walther's orders returning the children do not affect the criminal investigation, which involves several trailer loads of documents confiscated during a raid lasting nearly a week. Authorities removed all documents and photos they say might show relationships between underage girls and older men.

"It's going to take awhile. With any criminal case we investigate, we do as much as we possibly can before turning the case over to the prosecutors," said public safety spokeswoman Tela Mange.

Last week, investigators from the attorney general's office took DNA from Warren Jeffs, the jailed prophet of the FLDS church, saying they were looking for evidence of relationships between Jeffs and four girls ages 12 to 15.

At a custody hearing, state attorneys introduced a photo they said was a wedding picture showing Jeffs embracing a girl and kissing her on the mouth.

Jeffs has been convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape in the marriage of an underage sect member. He faces similar charges in Arizona, though no trial date has been set.

Authorities have DNA from all the children and many of the parents at the YFZ Ranch — 603 samples in all — but those results cannot be used by law enforcement without a finding of wrongdoing by child abuse investigators or a court order because they were taken from parents and children as part of a civil custody case, not with a criminal search warrant.

Even if the DNA shows children were born to underage girls and adult men, any prosecution will probably be difficult unless a victim testifies.

Utah successfully prosecuted three FLDS members and got a no-contest plea from Jeffs after years of investigation, but Arizona authorities have had to drop some charges because the victim quit cooperating.

Without a victim's testimony, it's impossible to establish jurisdiction for prosecution, a key element that has prevented some charges of members who frequently move among the sect's residences in Arizona, Utah, Texas and elsewhere.

In any sexual assault case, it can be difficult to persuade victims to assist in prosecutions, but such cases are even more challenging when they involve a community as insular as the FLDS, said Paul Murphy, a spokesman for the Utah Attorney General's Office.

Sect members are raised and work within the community, developing few financial or personal resources away from other members.

Texas authorities raided the YFZ Ranch after three calls to a domestic abuse hot line, purportedly from a 16-year-old mother who said she was being abused by her middle-age husband. The calls — which Doran said continued even after all the children were removed from the ranch — are now being investigated as a hoax.

The children and their mothers were taken to a shelter in San Angelo, where they were later separated. E-mails obtained by The Dallas Morning News under Texas public records laws show state officials had proposed sending them to another location because of fears of violence. A judge rejected conducting the separations in Midlothian, and the children were taken from their mothers without incident.

The e-mails also showed state officials' concerns that some of the mothers were planning a "run" from the shelter before they were separated, something FLDS elder Willie Jessop called absurd.

"We never, never did anything other than to comply and to endure what they put us through," he told the newspaper in a story published Wednesday.

The FLDS, which believes polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a breakaway sect of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. Jessop said this week that the church would not preside over marriages between sect members who were not of legal age.

He sidestepped questions about whether such marriages ever occurred but has said the sect has been unfairly portrayed.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,363341,00.html

[Dos Equis]

Sect leader Jeffs is charged with child sex assault
     
ELDORADO, Texas (AP) -- Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was indicted in Texas on a count of child sexual assault, a first-degree felony. Five members of the sect also face charges.

Attorney General Greg Abbott says four of Jeffs' followers are charged with one count of sexually assaulting girls under the age of 17.

One of the four faces an additional charge of bigamy.

Abbott says a fifth follower is charged with three counts of failure to report child abuse.

The charges follow an ill-fated child custody case in which more than 400 children were placed in foster care. The Texas Supreme Court ruled child welfare authorities overstepped in taking all the children from their parents even though many were infants and toddlers.

Abbott earlier Tuesday went into a small community building where a grand jury was meeting in the West Texas town of Eldorado.

Women and girls in prairie dresses, including a 16-year-old daughter of Jeffs, were escorted into the same building, while lawyers and members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints crowded a bench in front of the courthouse.

The grand jury met for one day in June without issuing indictments in the case. Timeline: Warren Jeffs and the FLDS »

Weeks later, the Texas Supreme Court directed the judge overseeing the case to return the children to their parents, saying the state had overstepped its authority because it didn't show that any more than a handful of teenage girls may have been abused.

FLDS leaders have consistently denied that there was any abuse at the ranch and vowed not to sanction underage marriages.

Grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret, but documents released as part of the separate child custody case involving the FLDS children have revealed some of the evidence collected by law enforcement during the weeklong raid of the ranch.

Among the hundreds of boxes of photos, documents and family Bibles, investigators found photos of Jeffs kissing and intimately embracing several apparently teenage girls.

A journal entry purportedly from Jeffs attached to a report by a child advocate indicates that he married his daughter to a 34-year-old man the day after she turned 15. The girl turns 17 on Saturday and has denied being married, though the child advocate report indicates that intimate notes between the girl and man were also found in the raid.

The girl, who playfully climbed a giant oak tree while waiting to be called to testify last month, left the community building frowning as she talked to her lawyer. The Associated Press is not identifying her because authorities believe she may be a sexual abuse victim.

Under Texas law, a girl younger than 17 cannot generally consent to sex with an adult. Bigamy is also illegal in Texas, although FLDS members in plural marriages did not get Texas marriage licenses.

In addition to discussions of the girl's marriage, the Jeffs journal entry indicates that he blessed marriages of two other underage sect members.

The FLDS, which believes that polygamy brings glory in heaven, is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, which officially renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

Jeffs, who is revered as a prophet, is jailed in Arizona awaiting charges related to the marriages of young girls. He was convicted in Utah of rape as an accomplice for his role in the marriage of a 14-year-old last year.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/22/flds.grand.jury.ap/index.html

[Dos Equis]

Fight for 8 FLDS children renewed
By TERRI LANGFORD Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 6, 2008, 12:36AM

SAN ANGELO — Texas Child Protective Services moved Tuesday to return eight polygamist sect children to foster care, the first such action since the Texas Supreme Court ordered these children and more than 400 others returned to their parents in May.

The six girls and two boys, ages 5 to 17, are in four Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints households that either refuse to condemn underage marriages in writing or are actively involved with the practice, according to CPS affidavits filed in San Angelo.

Asked if the eight children are in danger, Charles Childress, a CPS attorney from Austin who filed the agency's motions, would only say: "That's what the judge is being asked to decide."

A Sept. 25 hearing before state District Judge Barbara Walther has been scheduled.

The four petitions for state conservatorship, or custody, of the six girls and two boys were filed after CPS caseworkers say they could not get the parents of the eight to sign what is known as a safety plan.

The plan requires parents' promise to keep the child safe from harm and meet certain CPS requirements such as providing the child's parentage and medical documents.

On its face, Tuesday's filing for custody is no different than hundreds of others filed in Texas courts each year when parents retreat from the CPS bargaining table.

But it is the supporting documents, including caseworker affidavits, letters and diaries from FLDS members, including sect president Warren Jeffs, that offer a rare peek inside the state's 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 FLDS, the largest breakaway Mormon sect in the country.


Flurry of child marriages
Among the evidence CPS workers filed are documents that show a flurry of underage marriages involving at least 10 girls in 2005 and 2006. Of those, two were 12 years old, two were 14, five were 15 and one was 16.

Interviews with the some of the eight children by CPS workers showed that they believed there was nothing wrong with underage marriage.

A 14-year-old who was "spiritually married" three weeks after her 12th birthday to Jeffs, the 52-year-old FLDS president, gave a CPS worker a "disgusted look," when the worker asked her if a 40-year-old man impregnating a 13-year-old girl was sexual abuse.

"(The girl) stated that it isn't what CPS is making it to be," CPS caseworker Ruby Gutierrez wrote in her affidavit. "She said that the marriages are pure. Further, (the girl) stated that this can't be a crime because Heavenly Father is the one that tells Warren (Jeffs) when a girl is ready to get married and that he is only following the word of Heavenly Father."

The eight children include two daughters of Dr. Lloyd Hammon Barlow and Alice Faye Barlow, one of the physician's four wives.

Barlow was indicted on July 22 on a charge of failure to report sex abuse. In an interview last May with The Salt Lake Tribune, the doctor insisted that sexual abuse did not occur at the FLDS' Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado.

In an affidavit written by CPS caseworker Paul Dyer that was filed with the court Tuesday, Barlow said he had delivered many babies to minor girls.

"Dr. Barlow was asked if he had ever delivered children to girls under the age of 18 on the ranch and he said many times both on this ranch and in other places," Dyer wrote.


Elders handle abuse cases

Barlow also informed CPS that domestic violence is something handled internally by the FLDS.

"(A caseworker) asked Dr. Barlow what a young woman's recourse was should she be a victim of domestic violence," Dyer wrote. "Dr. Barlow stated that the church elders would handle the situation first."

Three of the children who may be removed belong to Jeffs' second-in-command, Frederick Merril Jessop, and his wife, Barbara. One of them was the girl married to Jeffs at age 12.

Last month, Jeffs and four followers: Raymond Merril Jessop, 36; Allan Eugene Keate, 56; Michael George Emack, 57; and Merril Leroy Jessop, 33, were indicted on sexual assault of a child charges.

Jeffs is in custody in Arizona where he is awaiting trial for his hand in arranging underage marriages. The other five surrendered a week ago.


Separated from mother
One of the children, a 10-year-old girl, told caseworkers how she had been moved from her mother's home in Utah to her uncle Merril Jessop's house. It was at least three years — until after the government raid — before the girl finally saw her mother again.

"(The girl) said that she misses her mother very much and when she asked her uncle Merril Jessop about where her mother is living he has told her it was none of her business so she has just gotten to the point that she had stopped asking," a caseworker wrote.

The girl told CPS when she grows up she wants to "be a good mother and have as many children as the Heavenly Father wants her to have."

She also told CPS officials that Merril Jessop "would make the decision as to when she would get married, at what age, and who she would marry."

Calls to FLDS spokesmen Willie Jessop and Rod Parker were not immediately returned.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5926113.html

[Eyeball Chambers]

It is well known that the girls are forced to marry old foggies and cousins.   Holy hell...upon their first period!!!!!!!