Posted on 11/05/2009 7:49:20 PM PST by Colofornian
The first polygamist sect member to face criminal trial following last year's raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in West Texas was convicted Thursday of sexually assaulting an underage girl with whom he had a so-called "spiritual marriage."
Raymond Jessop, 38, didn't visibly react when the verdict was read after just more than two hours of jury deliberations. Free on bond during trial, he was immediately handcuffed and led to jail. Jurors were expected to return to court Monday to begin deciding his sentence on the child sexual assault conviction. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Lawyers in the case declined to comment on the verdict Thursday.
Jessop allegedly has nine wives. He also faces a bigamy charge, but that case is to be tried later. The girl in the assault case, now 21, was previously in a spiritual marriage with Jessop's brother before being "reassigned" to Jessop when she was 15, according to documents seized at the ranch. She became pregnant at age 16.
During closing arguments, Assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols stood before photos of the young mother and toddler in prairie dresses.
"There is a sound foundation based not just in documents _ based in DNA evidence for which the documents serve as corroboration ... that Raymond Merril Jessop behind those gates, behind that guard house, behind those walls, sexually assaulted" the then-teen, he said.
Forensic experts who testified during the trial, which began with the largest jury pool in the small county's history on Oct. 26, said there was a nearly 100 percent probability Jessop was the father of the woman's daughter, who is now 4.
Jessop's attorneys had argued that no witness placed Jessop in Schleicher County at the time of the alleged assault in November 2004. They said prosecutors instead relied on only small snippets of documents to place Jessop and the teen at the ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the time. Many of the documents were seized from enormous cement vaults inside the temple and temple annex at the ranch.
"It's dangerous when we start trying to convict people based on documents and we're not sure where the documents came from," said Stevens, noting there was no evidence Jessop ever had seen the documents prosecutors used to place him at the ranch in 2004 and 2005.
But the defense offered no witnesses at trial and provided no evidence Jessop was elsewhere.
Nichols used a photo album, family records and dictations by jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs to establish a time line that put Jessop and the teen at the ranch when she became pregnant. The records covered parts of 2004 and 2005, but not specifically the time of the alleged assault.
The woman was on the prosecution's witness list, but did not testify.
Generally, under Texas law, no one under 17 can consent to sex with adult.
"Any act of sexual assault is a horrendous crime, but an act of a sexual assault of a child is of such an extreme nature we don't even consider whether the victim was able _ much less did _ consent," Nichols said.
Documents given to the jury were heavily redacted to minimize any references to plural marriages. The jury was told Jessop was legally married to another woman before entering the spiritual marriage, but only as proof Jessop could not have been legally married to the teen.
In all, 12 FLDS men have been indicted on charges ranging from failure to report child abuse to sexual assault since authorities raided the ranch last year. The 439 children taken from the property and placed in foster care following the raid all have been returned to their parents or other relatives.
Jeffs, revered by the FLDS as the group's prophet, was convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape. He awaits trial in Arizona on charges related to underage marriages there. He'll then face separate sexual assault and bigamy charges in Texas.
The FLDS is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago and does not recognize the FLDS.
Historically based around the Arizona-Utah state line, the FLDS bought a ranch about 150 miles northwest of San Antonio, in Eldorado, six years ago, and began building massive log homes and a towering temple.
The raid of the insular group made national headlines as women in prairie dresses and braids were moved off the ranch, and child welfare officials took custody of their children in one of the largest custody cases in U.S. history.
Throw the key away.
Disgusting perverts.
One down...many more to go.
Now in this case, put the perp UNDER the prison.
Sounds like a true Joseph Smith Disciple to me. Doing exactly the same things Smith did.
Polygamy and abuse go hand in hand. No sale.
So do monogamy and abuse.
Pthththththththth....
L
That should be the staring sentence, right after someone operates on his offending member with a rusty knife.
Yea that whole Freedom of Religion thing is so whacky....
ROFLOL
I don’t care if it’s your religion if you are breaking the law... what’s your position on Sharia law?
When is the civil rights lawsuit trial that should come outta this?
Sure, the constitution was written to create polygamy and gay marriage, I don’t think so.
What happened to post #1 ?
I'll give you a thousand dollars if you can find the word "marriage" anywhere in the Constitution.
I figure lawyers will sue, but that’s like saying fish will swim.
The civil rights trial *should* come when someone figures out how removing children from the control of convicted child abusers is a violation of their civil rights.
Agreed.
I guess I should have used Bill of Rights, but the Constitution is included, there is no “right” to polygamy and gay “marriage” in America from our founding documents as you stated going down that freedom of religion path.
I am glad to see that the real criminals are finally beginning to reap the rewards of their treachery. The more the merrier...
Yeah...
What DID your comments say?
Interesting...
Yours are gone too Elsie...
Perhaps the use of three initials without the “F” is not allowed? Or the name of the parent organization ....but really, what do I know?
I guess the SALT LAKE CITY ‘mormons’ don’t want to associate with the TRUE BELIEVERS!
How do YOU know they were MINE???
HMMMmmm...?
The Flds folks follow the TEACHINGS of THIS document:
|
THE
DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS SECTION 132 |
History:
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) is one of over one hundred different churches and organizations that trace their beginnings to Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, first published in 1830.
By far the largest of these organizations is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), commonly called the Mormon Church. The FLDS is one of numerous splinter groups that broke away over the controversial doctrine of “plural wives” or polygamy. In the early years of his movement, the Prophet Joseph Smith introduced the controversial practice of Mormon men receiving multiple wives. The practice was later adopted as a doctrine of the Church. After Smith’s death in 1844, his prophetic revelation concerning plural wives was eventually canonized in LDS Scripture as an “everlasting covenant” in Doctrine & Covenants (D&C) section 132.Most LDS followed Brigham Young to the Utah Territory following Smith’s death. By the late 1800s, Mormon dominated Utah was vigorously pursuing statehood – a move that was strongly opposed by Congress largely based on the Church’s well-publicized and highly criticized practice of polygamy. In a move to pave the way to statehood, the fourth LDS Prophet, Wilfred Woodruff, issued an official declaration published with the Doctrine & Covenants since 1908. This Manifesto was widely regarded as ending the practice of polygamy.
The eventual rejection of the decades-long practice created a backlash among small groups of “fundamentalist” Mormons. Steven Shields explains:Although the Mormon Church’s official public sanction of polygamy was repealed with the Manifesto of 1890, many faithful to that doctrine continued on in its practice. These people, who today are generally excommunicated from the Mormon Church, number several thousand and are located in many areas, mainly in the western United States and Mexico…. These faithful believe they have been chosen as a select group to carry on the practice of plural marriage and some other doctrines, namely the Adam-God doctrine and exclusion of blacks from the priesthood, all of which have been publicly renounced by the LDS church leadership in Salt Lake City.
In 1935 the LDS Church excommunicated a number of polygamist leaders in the Utah border town of Short Creek, Arizona, who refused to sign an oath renouncing the practice. These dissidents formed the basis of the FLDS, which became the largest sect of polygamist Mormons, led by John Y. Barlow and Joseph White Musser.
Gone in 4...3...2...?
We don’t care about history if it tarnishes the one true restoration!
#1 From the article: Jessop allegedly has nine wives. He also faces a bigamy charge, but that case is to be tried later. The girl in the assault case, now 21, was previously in a spiritual marriage with Jessop's brother before being "reassigned" to Jessop when she was 15, according to documents seized at the ranch. She became pregnant at age 16...Forensic experts who testified during the trial, which began with the largest jury pool in the small county's history on Oct. 26, said there was a nearly 100 percent probability Jessop was the father of the woman's daughter, who is now 4..."Any act of sexual assault is a horrendous crime, but an act of a sexual assault of a child is of such an extreme nature we don't even consider whether the victim was able _ much less did _ consent," Nichols said.
#2: From the article: Generally, under Texas law, no one under 17 can consent to sex with adult.
#3: From the article: In all, 12 FLDS men have been indicted on charges ranging from failure to report child abuse to sexual assault since authorities raided the ranch last year. The 439 children taken from the property and placed in foster care following the raid all have been returned to their parents or other relatives.
#4 I also highlighted a phrase from the article & also highlighted: From the article: The FLDS is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago and does not recognize the FLDS.
#5: Then, in light of the above journalist's editorial nature of that line, I commented that I didn't think the fLDS was a "breakaway" from the church; but rather it was more true to original polygamist teachings. I finished with a one-line comment as to how far polygamy had been renounced.
I guess you're completely unfamiliar with Amendment the 10th, then.
Irony...
All the hay they make out of “divisions” in the True Body of Christ...
You don’t really say anything do you? It will take more to sell the founders on the idea that they created a polygamous country and homosexual marriage.
[I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you can find the word “marriage” anywhere in the Constitution. ]
And I’ll give you a million dollars if you find polygamy in the Constitution, and a billion dollars if you find child predator and a trillion if you find beastiality.
So, what is your point?
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