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Posted by: kwflatbed

By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer

ELDORADO, Texas - Child welfare officials are scrambling to find foster homes for dozens of girls removed from a secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs after a 16-year-old living there complained of physical abuse.
Officials from Texas Child Protective Services, escorted by state troopers, took 52 girls, ages 6 months to 17 years, from the remote retreat on Friday afternoon.
By the end of the day, 18 were put legally into state custody, and CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said interviews would continue Saturday. A warrant has been issued for at least one individual.
The girls put in state custody were believed to be in danger, Meisner said. "Those are the ones we believe have been abused or they are in imminent risk of harm, and it would not be safe for those children to remain in the compound," she said.
Child welfare officials were looking for foster homes for the girls, most of whom have rarely been outside the insular world of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They were being housed for now at a civic center, she said.
"We're dealing with children that aren't accustomed to the outside world, so we're trying to be very sensitive to their needs," Meisner said.
The investigation began with a call Monday alleging physical abuse of a 16-year-old girl living there, Meisner said. Authorities first arrived at the compound Thursday evening. They interviewed and searched through the night.
On Friday, a search warrant and arrest warrant were issued.
The search warrant sought records dealing with the birth of children to a 16-year-old and any records listing a marriage between a 50-year-old man and the girl, according to the San Angelo Standard-Times, which cited court records released late Friday in Tom Green County.
The individual listed in the arrest warrant had not been located by Friday evening, said Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange. She said she could not reveal whose name was on the warrant.
The ranch covers roughly 1,700 acres. It is north of this two-stoplight town, down a narrow paved road. Authorities blocked access to the compound's gate, keeping onlookers miles away.
State officials said they did not know how many people lived at the retreat, but local officials in 2006 put the number at about 150, as members of the reclusive church moved from a community on the Arizona-Utah line.
The congregation, known as FLDS, has been led by Jeffs since his father's death in 2002. It is one of several groups that split from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, decades after it renounced polygamy in 1890.
In November, Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage in 2001.
In Arizona, Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives. He is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial.
The Eldorado retreat, about 160 miles northwest of San Antonio, is on a former exotic game ranch. The church bought the property in 2004 for $700,000 and began an ambitious construction program anchored by an 80-foot-tall, gleaming white temple.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080405/...gamist_retreat

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Posted by: kwflatbed

Standoff Emerging At Polygamist Compound In Texas

Authorities Search For 50-Year-Old Man, Girl


The compound, in ElDorado, Texas, is known as Yearning For Zion. It has ties with convicted polygamist leader Warren Jeffs. Saturday, 200 women and girls were removed from the compound.
AP



On Sept. 25, 2007, FLDS leader Warren Jeffs was convicted of rape as an accomplice in the arranged marriage of a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.


ELDORADO, Texas (AP) ― Sect leaders at a polygamist compound in West Texas refused Saturday to let authorities search a temple for a teenage girl whose report of abuse led to the raid, and authorities said they were preparing "for the worst."

If no agreement is reached with sect leaders, authorities will forcibly remove the sect's followers "as peaceably as possible," Allison Palmer, a prosecutor in Tom Green County, told the San Angelo Standard-Times.

Medical workers are being sent "in case this were to a go in a way that no one wants," Palmer said. Law enforcers are "preparing for the worst," she said.

"Within the religion that we have encountered, their place of worship is very special to them," Palmer said. "It appears to be of great concern to them if a person from outside their congregation even attempts to step inside their place of worship."

A search warrant authorized troopers to enter the retreat, run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They are looking for evidence of a marriage between the girl and a 50-year-old man.

Court documents the girl had a baby eight months ago, when she was 15.

State welfare officials on Friday removed 52 girls from the compound. Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for Child Protective Services, said another 131 residents were removed overnight. By Saturday afternoon, 137 children and 46 women were being housed and interviewed at local community centers.

"They seem to be doing fine," Meisner told The Associated Press. Investigators remained inside the compound looking for additional children, she said.

The whereabouts of the 16-year-old mother who sparked the investigation are unknown, Meisner said. State troopers who raided the religious retreat were looking for the girl, her baby girl and 50-year-old Dale Barlow.

Under Texas law, girls younger than 16 cannot marry, even with parental approval.

Officials in Texas declined to comment Saturday on whether they had found Barlow, citing a gag order, but the man's probation officer told The Salt Lake Tribune that he was in Arizona.

"He said the authorities had called him (in Colorado City, Ariz.) and some girl had accused him of assaulting her and he didn't even know who she was," said Bill Loader, a probation officer in Arizona.

Barlow was sentenced to jail time last year after pleading no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for three years while he is on probation.

His lawyer in that case, Bruce Griffen, said he had not spoken to Barlow in a year.

The search warrant instructed officers to look for marriage records or other evidence linking her to the man and the baby. The warrant authorized the seizure of computer drives, CDs, DVDs or photos.

Those inside the retreat did not respond to requests for comment.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.

The compound sits down a narrow paved road and behind a hill that shields it almost entirely from view in town. Only the 80-foot-high, gleaming white temple can be seen on the horizon. Authorities blocked access to the gate, keeping onlookers miles away.

The 1,700-acre property had been an exotic game ranch. It is surrounded by dusty, wind-swept land where sheep are raised and mohair produced.

Eldorado (pronounced el-dor-AY'-do) is a two-stoplight town of fewer than 2,000 people and located nearly 200 miles northwest of San Antonio. It consists of a cluster of government buildings, a couple churches and a few blocks of houses.

State officials said they did not know how many people lived at the retreat, although local officials estimated about 150 two years ago.

The FLDS has been led by Warren Jeffs since his father died in 2002. In November, Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage in 2001.

In Arizona, Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives. He is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial.


http://wbztv.com/national/polygamist....2.692883.html

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: Authorities enter Eldorado-area temple

By Paul A. Anthony (Contact)
Originally published 11:55 p.m., April 5, 2008
Updated 11:55 p.m., April 5, 2008

Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.
The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members were resisting efforts to search the structure.
The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed that officials have entered the temple but said they had no word on whether anything occurred in the effort.
The incursion into the temple caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch since Friday afternoon. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child.
Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.
“In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst,” Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have “medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants.”
Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.
Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.
“There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship,” Palmer said Saturday afternoon. “If an agreement cannot be reached … law enforcement will have to — as gently and peaceably as possible — make entry into that place.”
Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.
Palmer said she didn’t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.
The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.
“Anytime someone says, ‘Don’t look here,’” she said, “it makes you concerned that’s exactly where you need to look.”
The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.
The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound’s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.
“Things have been a little tense, a little volatile,” she said.
Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.
Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.
“They’re in the process of looking,” she said. “They’re literally about halfway through.”

http://gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr...forts-to-area/

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Posted by: kwflatbed

Newly Married Girls in Polygamist Sect Forced to Have Sex in Temple Bed, Court Documents Say

Thursday, April 10, 2008



AP


April 8: Young members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints walk off after kicking a ball around at their temporary housing in San Angelo, Texas.


SAN ANGELO, Texas — Agents searching a 1,700-acre polygamist compound in West Texas found a bed in the soaring limestone temple and prosecutors believe it was used for male members to have sex with their underage wives after sect-recognized unions.

The discovery was revealed Wednesday as troopers completed their weeklong search of the grounds of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said spokeswoman Tela Mange.
The temple "contains an area where there is a bed where males over the age of 17 engage in sexual activity with female children under the age of 17," according to an affidavit quoting a confidential informant who had been providing information to the Schleicher County sheriff for years.
Texas law prohibits polygamy and the marriage of girls under 16.

• Click here for photos.

• Click here for Maggie Lineback's On the Scene blog.

The search of the compound in Eldorado, 40 miles south of San Angelo, began last Thursday after a 16-year-old girl called a local family violence shelter to report her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her.
Since then, the state has taken legal custody of 416 children, who are being housed at two sites in San Angelo, about 200 miles west of San Antonio. Another 139 women voluntarily left the compound known as the YFZ Ranch and were being housed with the children.
Court documents said a number of teen girls at the compound were pregnant, and all the children were removed on the grounds that they were in danger of "emotional, physical, and-or sexual abuse."
On Wednesday, state officials said the women and children were in good overall health but would not comment on pregnancies. About a dozen children appear to have chicken pox but were being separated at the evacuation sites, which include an old historic fort and a convention center here, said Child Protective Services spokesman Chris Van Deusen.
Authorities were trying to determine the identities and parentage of many of the children; some were unwilling or unable to provide the names of their biological parents or identified multiple mothers.
During their search of the compound, agents found a bed in the temple with disturbed linens and what appeared to be a female hair, said the affidavit signed by Texas Ranger Leslie Brooks Long and unsealed Wednesday. The temple also contained multiple locked safes, vaults and desk drawers.
Officials still aren't sure where the 16-year-old girl is who made the initial call, and she is not named among the children in initial custody petitions by the state.
Texas has an outstanding arrest warrant for the man alleged to have been the girl's husband, Dale Barlow, 50. He's a registered sex offender who pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor in Mohave County, Ariz., last year. Troopers arrested two other men over the week and charged them with interfering with the search.
Lawyers for the sect had wanted to cut off the wide-ranging search as it dragged on but agreed in court Wednesday to the appointment of a special master. The special master will vet what is expected to be hundreds of boxes of records, computers and even family Bibles for records that should not become evidence for legal or religious reasons.
Gerry Goldstein, a lawyer for the church, said the search of the temple was analogous to a law enforcement search of the Vatican or other holy places. Prosecutor Allison Palmer argued it was to uncover any evidence of criminal activity, not to malign a religion.
The Texas investigation is the state's first of FLDS members, but prosecutors in Utah and Arizona have pursued several church members in recent years, including sect leader Warren Jeffs. He is serving two consecutive sentences of five years to life for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old wed to her cousin in Utah. Jeffs awaits trial on other charges in Arizona.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,349113,00.html

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Posted by: WaterPistola

I don't understand cults... but I guess some people will follow anything

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Posted by: mpd61

Quote:

Originally Posted by WaterPistola I don't understand cults... but I guess some people will follow anything

Yeah...

You should read about the anti-deputy cult here in Massaschusetts. I hear they're armed and have badges!

Seriously though=CMPSA?

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Posted by: rg1283

Its sad how people like that hide behind religion to do what ever they want

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Posted by: kwflatbed

Texas Authorities Defend Sect Raid

By BETSY BLANEY and MICHELLE ROBERTS
Associated Press Writers


SAN ANGELO, Texas --
For four frustrating years, an informant fed Sheriff David Doran information about the polygamist sect that built a compound in the West Texas desert not far from his office in Eldorado.
But those milling about the 1,700-acre compound would scatter whenever he and a Texas Ranger visited, leaving them without the concrete evidence they needed to open a criminal investigation, Doran said Thursday as authorities defended their decision to leave the sect alone after it moved in 2004.
"I have no regrets because we never received any outcry, a complaint. There was no evidence of illegal activity nor an offense in plain view," he said. "You can always suspect something, but until you get something that puts you on that property, there's not a whole lot you can do."
A raid was finally triggered April 3, after a family violence shelter received a hushed phone call from a terrified 16-year-old girl saying 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 compound, and 416 children, most of them girls, were swept into state custody on suspicions that they were being sexually and physically abused.
Doran said it was not until after the raid began that he learned that the sect was marrying off underage girls at the compound and had a bed in its soaring limestone temple where the girls were required to immediately consummate their marriages. A number of teenage girls are pregnant, investigators said.
It had been no secret that the sect believed in marrying off underage girls to older men, and authorities believed the group was capable of abuse, Doran said.
"But there again, this is the United States," he said. "We are going to respect them. We're not going to violate their civil rights until we get an outcry."
Had there been one earlier, authorities would have acted as they did last week, Doran said. "We would have done it in a heartbeat," he said.
Authorities in Texas suspected there would be trouble ever since members of the renegade Mormon splinter group - the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - bought an exotic game ranch and began building.
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. He was convicted in September in Utah of being an accomplice to rape and is serving up to life in prison.
Doran had made occasional visits to the compound - he even called to tell members of Jeffs' capture in 2006 - but he said he saw nothing to warrant a criminal investigation.
"You can only press someone so far without having a criminal investigation going on," he said, adding that members aren't forthcoming when talking to outsiders.
Doran declined to say whether the informant, a former sect member, was in Texas, or Utah or Arizona.
Barry Caver, a Texas Ranger who sometimes went with Doran to the compound, said a general welfare check wouldn't have produced much because they could talk to just three or four main people there.
Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott said state 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 Eldorado sect.
"They would need a contemporary statement or evidence at trial that an individual at the (Texas) compound is practicing polygamy," Turley said.
Officials still have not been able to identify the teen who made the call from the children being held at two sites in Texas.
The man alleged to be the 16-year-old'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 Desert Morning News on Wednesday. "And I have not been to Texas since I was a young man back in 1977."
___
Associated Press writers Michael Graczyk in Houston and Jim Vertuno in Austin contributed to this report.


Wire Service

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Posted by: kwflatbed

Details emerge on sect raid



By Bill Hanna
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

EL DORADO, Texas — On their knees and sobbing, followers of Warren Jeffs formed a perimeter around the huge temple on the grounds of the YFZ Ranch as law officers prepared to go inside Saturday night.
Avoiding a violent confrontation pleased authorities, but they described their six days in the compound as frustrating in part because "children were shuffled around houses as we were searching," Texas Ranger Capt. Barry Caver said Thursday.
For years, the veiled world behind the doors of the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist temple tantalized local imaginations in west Texas.
On Thursday, Caver described in detail what occurred last week when law-enforcement officers, responding to a call for help from a 16-year-old who said she was being sexually abused in the compound, sought entry.
In essence, Caver said at a news conference that officers knocked and asked for a key. The church members quietly said no.
"They opted not to do that because they would be aiding or assisting us in the desecration of their worship place," Caver said.
The authorities called in a locksmith to open the gate, but they were unable to move the deadbolts to open the front doors of the temple. They tried to use a "jaws of life" tool, normally used to remove people trapped in vehicles after accidents, to open the doors. But the doors were too tightly constructed, he said.
Finally, a SWAT team was called to apply brute force. As the team broke down the doors, about 57 men from the church stood in a circle around the building to bear witness, Caver said.
The sect members sank to their knees in prayer, some sobbing, and one young man rushed to intervene. He was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of interfering with a public servant and has been released on bond.
The temple and its annex were the last buildings entered on the 1,700-acre YFZ Ranch -- Yearning for Zion -- because authorities knew they would be entering what members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints considered holy ground, and that could provoke serious resistance.
Authorities still have no idea about the identity of the 16-year-old girl who triggered the investigation, even though she may be in custody. Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran said he remains confident that they will find her.
The 16-year-old girl had accused Dale Barlow, 50, of beating her and getting her pregnant.
Barlow, of Arizona, told the Deseret Morning News on Wednesday that authorities are looking for the wrong man.
"I do not know this girl they keep asking about," he told the Salt Lake City newspaper.

Raid results
— 416
Number of children in temporary Child Protective Services custody at two locations in Texas
— 139
Number of adult women with the children
50 to 60
Estimated number of people who remain at the compound, mostly adult men with some elderly women

Wire Service

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Posted by: kwflatbed

Police Were Well Armed in Texas Polygamist Raid

By JENNIFER DOBNER
Associated Press Writers


SAN ANGELO, Texas --
Police wore body armor, equipped with automatic weapons and were backed by an armored personnel carrier for a raid on a West Texas polygamist retreat, photos and video released Tuesday show.
Four still photos and a slice of video were released to The Associated Press by Rod Parker, spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which owns the raided Yearning for Zion Ranch near San Angelo in Eldorado.
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.
A sect member whose wife shot the video said sect members 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.
Parker said rumors have circulated since the 1950s that the FLDS would respond with violence to threats on their way of life. "It's never been substantiated at all. Nobody who knows these people could possibly believe that," he said.
"It's not in their nature," he said.
Parker said that if there was any suggeston that the FLDS would respond to police with violence, there would have been a cache of firearms found during the raid. "Instead they responded by singing and praying," he 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 April 3, carrying a warrant seeking a 16-year-old girl who claimed she was trapped inside the church retreat and had been beaten and raped by her husband. The search also 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.
More than 400 children - all of whom lived in the large, dormitory-style log homes - were seized in the raid on suspicion they were being sexually and physically abused. They are being held in the San Angelo Coliseum and are awaiting a massive court hearing Thursday that will begin to determine their fate.
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.
"We've known from a little bit of experience to document it and prepare to have that presented in court or wherever it's to our benefit," said the FLDS member who declined to give his name. Law enforcement in Arizona and Utah raided FLDS sites in 1935, 1944 and 1953.
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.
The mothers have complained the state deceived them, revealing the plan only after they and their children boarded buses from historic Fort Concho, where they had been staying, to the larger San Angelo Coliseum. State officials defended that decision Tuesday.
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.
Meisner said child welfare officials still can't find birth certificates for many of the children, making parentage and age determinations impossible. She said many of the children don't know who their parents are and many have the same last name but may or may not be related.
"It's a difficult process," she said.
Officials have yet to identify the 16-year-old whose call for help to a Texas domestic violence hotline triggered the raid.
About three dozen of the women who returned to the Eldorado ranch spoke out Monday. They said in interviews that police surrounded them Monday and 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, who like other members of the sect declined to give her full name. "I do not understand how they can do this when they don't have a for sure knowledge that anyone has abused these children."
The renegade Mormon sect 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.
A company founded and run by members of the church received more than $1.1 million in government contracts between 2003-2007, a federal online database shows. Most of that money was spent by the Department of Defense on aircraft wheel and brake parts.
NewEra Manufacturing's president and CEO is John Wayman, a sect member who runs the Las Vegas business. NewEra was previously known as Western Precision Inc. and based in Hildale, Utah, where thousands of church members live.
In a 2005 affidavit filed with a Utah lawsuit, former church member and Western Precision worker John Nielsen said workers were underpaid or not paid at all for work they did because they were told their time and earnings were being donated to the church.
___
Associated Press writers Michael Graczyk in San Angelo and Brock Vergakis in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.


Wire Service

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Posted by: resqjyw0


A sheriff's department armored vehicle waits April 3 near the polygamist
compound that authorities raided in Eldorado, Texas. The photo was taken
by an unidentified member of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, the sect that lives at the compound. It was one of three
photos released Tuesday by an attorney for the group.


A police officer takes a position at the compound April 4. Sect members
took notes and photos and recorded video during the seven-day raid on the
compound, known as the Yearning for Zion ranch. The group reacted to the
officers "by singing and praying," said the attorney, Rod Parker. Police
seized much of the documentation, he said.


This is another FLDS photo from April 4. The armored vehicle was used as a
precaution and to remove someone from the ranch, not to force entry onto
the property, said a Texas law enforcement spokeswoman. The raid was
prompted by a complaint from a teenage girl who said her 50-year-old
husband had raped and beaten her.


Authorities escort buses carrying people from the Eldorado compound on
April 4. The compound was built by jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.

New Images Show Polygamist Sect Raid

By JENNIFER DOBNER, AP
Posted: 2008-04-16 13:53:52
Filed Under: Nation News

SAN ANGELO, Texas (April 16) - When police officers armed with weapons and protective gear descended on a West Texas ranch owned by a polygamist church, its members responded by going to their knees in prayer.

"They responded by singing and praying," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney who serves as a spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He released four still photos and a slice of video to The Associated Press.

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.

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.

More than 400 children - all of whom lived in the large, dormitory-style log homes - were seized in the raid on suspicion they were being sexually and physically abused. They are being held in the San Angelo Coliseum and are awaiting a massive court hearing Thursday that will begin to determine their fate.

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.

The renegade Mormon sect 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.

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Posted by: kwflatbed

Polygamist sect's children to remain in state custody



The Associated Press

SAN ANGELO, Texas — The more than 400 children taken from a ranch run by a polygamous sect will stay in state custody and be subject to genetic testing to sort out family relationships that have confounded welfare authorities, a judge ruled Friday.
State District Judge Barbara Walther heard 21 hours of testimony over two days before ruling that the children would be kept in custody while the state continues to investigate allegations of abuse stemming from the teachings of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
"This is but the beginning," Walther said.
Individual hearings will be set for the children over the next several weeks, and the judge will determine whether they are moved into permanent foster care or can be returned to their parents. All hearings must be held by June 5.
Walther also ordered that all 416 children and parents be given genetic tests. Child welfare officials say they've had difficulty determining how the children and adults are related because of evasive or changing answers.
A mobile genetic lab will take samples Monday at the main shelter where children are being kept; parents will be able to submit samples Tuesday in Eldorado, closer to the ranch.
The custody case is one of the largest and most convoluted in U.S. history. The ruling capped two days of marathon testimony that sometimes descended into chaos as hundreds of lawyers for the children and parents competed to defend their clients in two large rooms linked by a video feed.
Attorneys popped up with objections in a courtroom and nearby auditorium, then queued up down the aisle to cross-examine witnesses in a mass hearing that frustrated attorneys and stretched the small-town court system.
The April 3 raid on the Yearning For Zion Ranch was prompted by a call made to a family violence shelter, purportedly by a 16-year-old girl who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. That girl has never been identified.
The state of Texas argued it should be allowed to keep the children because the sect's teaching encourages girls younger than 18 to enter spiritual marriages with older men and produce as many children as possible. Its attorneys argued that the culture put all the girls at risk and potentially turned the boys into future predators.
A witness for the parents who was presented by defense lawyers as an expert on the FLDS disputed that the girls have no say in who they marry.
"I believe the girls are given a real choice," said W. John Walsh. "Girls have successfully said, 'No, this is not a good match for me,' and they remained in good standing."
But Dr. Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist who has studied children in cults, testified that the girls will not refuse marriages because they are indoctrinated to believe disobedience will lead to their damnation.
The renegade Mormon sect's belief system "is abusive. The culture is very authoritarian," he said.
Perry acknowledged that many adults at the ranch are loving parents and that the boys seemed emotionally healthy. When asked whether the belief system really endangered the older boys or young children, Perry said, "I have lost sleep over that question."
He also conceded that the children, taught from birth to believe that contact with the outside world will lead to eternal damnation, would suffer if placed in traditional foster care.
"If these children are kept in the custody of the state, there would have to be exceptional and innovative programmatic elements for these children and their families," he said. "The traditional foster care system would be destructive for these children."
Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said the department believes the children will now be safe.
It's not clear how quickly they might be moved from the coliseum and fairgrounds, where they are staying on cots, and into foster homes or other temporary housing. But they could be placed with family members if the department determines the children will be safe, Meisner said.
Four women testified Friday, and all said they were free to make their own choices. They also said they would do whatever it took to get their children returned to them.
"We're a peaceful people," Lucille Nielson said. Life on their 1,700-acre gated ranch "is very peaceful. You can feel the peace when you are there. Very loving. We raise our children in a loving environment."
But the women also acknowledged that girls get married at ages younger than the state allows.
Some of the women bowed their heads when the judge issued her order to keep the children in state custody. They left the columned courthouse stoically, ignoring questions shouted by reporters.
They'll face more hearings, and some could be required to take steps to prove to Child Protective Services that they should be allowed to regain custody.
Tim Edwards, a lawyer for four mothers, said the women would follow the judge's ruling.
"We are going to comply with the orders of the court; we're going to cooperate with CPS and their requirements and do everything within our power to turn the situation around," he said.
Texas Rangers also are investigating a Colorado woman as a "person of interest" related to calls made to a family crisis center. Police arrested Rozita Swinton, 33, on Wednesday in Colorado Springs on a misdemeanor charge of false reporting to authorities for a call she made in late February.
Authorities did not say whether a call by Swinton might be the one that triggered the raid.
But officers who searched her home found items suggesting a possible connection between Swinton and calls regarding a compound owned by FLDS in Arizona and one in Eldorado, the Texas Department of Public Safety said late Friday. The items weren't identified.
"The information, evidence and a statement obtained from Swinton by the Texas Rangers while they were in Colorado will be forwarded to state and federal prosecutors for their review and determination as to whether Swinton will be charged with a criminal offense," the statement said.
Swinton's whereabouts were unknown, and it wasn't known whether she had an attorney. A phone number for her in Colorado Springs was disconnected.
Authorities in Colorado confirmed Swinton has a history of making false reports.

Wire service

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